Poloniex Agrees to Pay Over $10M in Fines to the SEC For Running Unregistered Crypto Exchange

According to a recent press release, the popular cryptocurrency exchange, Poloniex, has agreed to pay a fine upwards of $10 million to the United States Securities and Exchange Commission.

• The release reads that the company has agreed to pay the fine for operating an unregistered digital asset exchange.
• According to the order of the SEC, from July 2017 to November 2019, when Poloniex sold out the platform, it was operating a web-based trading platform that wasn’t registered, despite meeting the criteria of an “exchange,” as stipulated by the securities laws.
• Moreover, the Commission also found that employees of Poloniex had stated that they wanted the exchange wanted to be “aggressive” in making new digital assets available on the platform.
• Speaking on the matter was Kristina Littman, Chief of the SE Enforcement Division’s Cyber Unit:

Poloniex chose increased profits over compliance with the federal securities laws by including digital asset securities on its unregistered exchange. […] Poloniex attempted to circumvent the SEC’s regulatory regime, which applies to any marketplace for bringing together buyers and sellers of securities regardless of the applied technology.