KuCoin settles for $22M fine & decides to shut down services for New York customers

KuCoin crypto exchange decided to settle its case with the New York regulator and also announced services closer for the people belonging to New York.

KuCoin is a Seychelles-based popular crypto exchange which was launched in 2017 and grabbed huge attention following the introduction of crypto-fiat service on the platform in 2018. In March of this year, KuCoin was sued by Attorney General Letitia James over providing crypto services without registering with the New York regulatory bodies. 

Finally, the  KuCoin exchange decided to settle the case for a $22 million fine and also closed its crypto services for the NewYork customers as a part of the settlement.

Following this settlement, James said that all the crypto companies should follow the rules as other financial institutions are following. 

In the settlement fine, there is a $5.3 million payment to the state regulator for the law violation and the rest of the funds will go to 177,800 New York-based Crypto investors.

It is worth it to note that 2023 brought huge regulatory uncertainty for the crypto companies and this year the majority of the sued companies were innocent. 

Notebely Coinbase crypto exchange was sued by the US SEC for providing unregistered securities offerings and running an unregistered national securities exchange. In response, the Coinbase leaders confirmed that they tried to meet the SEC body 30 times before 2023 but they failed to get any response related to the nature & regulatory rules linked with cryptocurrencies. 

This year, a hostile crypto regulatory environment forced the crypto companies to either leave the US jurisdiction or diversify their business outside the US, to survive under a critical situation. 

Also, Kraken crypto exchange was sued by the SEC body for providing crypto staking services and in response Kraken settled the case with a $30 million fine & also shut down staking services for the US based customers permanently. Now again the SEC body sued Kraken for providing unregistered securities offerings and running an unregistered national securities exchange.

All these things are showing a clear picture of the unregulated crypto environment of the US. 

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