Bittrex crypto exchange settles with SEC & agrees to pay a $24M fine 

72

Bittrex exchange finally reached a settlement level with the American securities regulatory body and agreed to pay $24 million as a fine.

Bittrex is a popular digital asset and cryptocurrency exchange platform that is based out of Seattle, Washington. In 2013, this platform was founded by Bill Shihara, Richie Lai, Rami Kawach, and Ryan Hentz. Later this exchange established its global subsidiary. 

In early of this year, the Bittrex team decided to exit the US Crypto market because of the unclear crypto regulatory policies but before the exit, the United States Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) sued Bittrex, Bittrex Global, & its CEO over providing unregistered securities offerings as well as running national stock exchange without legal authority.

On 11 Aug 2023, The US SEC announced that the Bittrex exchange decided to settle the case over the SEC’s charges. 

Few X (formerly Twitter) users noted that the Bittrex team took a very bad decision and they should go through a legal fight against the SEC’s charges. 

Some X users said that the SEC body is not a regulatory body, but instead a litigation firm.

These types of settlements with the US SEC by the crypto firms is showing that no one wants to fight with the US SEC, instead, they want tension-free business operations.

Earlier in the Feb of this year, Kraken crypto exchange agreed to settle the case with the US SEC and paid a $30 million fine. 

Kraken’s CEO confirmed that the financial position of the company was not better to stand against the SEC, so it was better to settle the case.

Read also: Solana Defi Protocol Cypher urges hacker to return stolen $1M funds