The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) charged crypto exchange Kraken yesterday (Monday) for illegally operating an unregistered securities exchange, broker, dealer, and clearing agency. Further, the exchange has been blamed for the comingling of customers’ money and crypto assets with its own.
According to the regulator, San Francisco-based Kraken allegedly intertwines the traditional services of an exchange, broker, dealer, and clearing agency without obtaining any mandatory registration. These charges were similar to the ones brought against Cinbase earlier this year.
The regulator added that the lack of registration has deprived the customers of Kraken of “significant protections,” including regulatory inspection, recordkeeping requirements, and safeguards against conflicts of interest. The lawsuit further charged the crypto exchange for having deficient internal controls and poor recordkeeping practices.
kraken may be the next FTX apparently pic.twitter.com/Ayk0nh2vd4
— Napgone (@napgener) November 20, 2023
“We allege that Kraken made a business decision to reap hundreds of millions of dollars from investors rather than coming into compliance with the securities laws,” said Gurbir Grewal, Director of the SEC’s Division of Enforcement. “That decision resulted in a business model rife with conflicts of interest that placed investors’ funds at risk.”
The SEC highlighted that Kraken violated the registration provisions of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and is now seeking “injunctive relief, conduct-based injunctions, disgorgement of ill-gotten gains plus interest, and penalties.”
The charges against Kraken are very similar to the ones brought against Binance and Coinbase. The SEC brought charges against those two crypto exchanges earlier this year. However, Coinbase was not blamed for the comingling of customer funds.
The SEC cannot continue ruling by enforcement. My statement on the Kraken lawsuit below: pic.twitter.com/J3qhzU624N
— Senator Cynthia Lummis (@SenLummis) November 21, 2023
Kraken’s Response
In a blog post published the same day, Kraken swiftly responded to the allegations against it and intends “to vigorously defend our position in court.”
“The complaint against Kraken alleges no fraud, no market manipulation, no customer losses due to hacking or compromised security, and no breaches of fiduciary duty. It includes big dollar amounts but does not allege a single one of those dollars is…
