Sec Targets Kraken Again

The SEC and Kraken faced legal issues about nine months ago, if you recall.

The issues between the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the cryptocurrency exchange Kraken have resurfaced.

The SEC accused Kraken of operating as an unregistered securities exchange and broker. The regulator alleged that Kraken facilitated the illegal trading of crypto asset securities since September 2018 and earned hundreds of millions of dollars in the process.

Among the SEC's claims are that Kraken commingled customer funds and engaged in inappropriate financial practices, such as paying operational expenses from accounts holding customer assets. The SEC statement mentioned, "We allege that Kraken made a business decision to flout securities laws in favor of earning hundreds of millions of dollars from investors."

In the SEC's complaint, it is noted that specific tokens are classified as securities, targeting 16 cryptocurrencies in this context. This situation bears resemblance to the previous Coinbase case. Bloomberg analyst James Seyffart emphasized that the SEC's actions against Kraken follow a trajectory similar to the Coinbase case, focusing on specific tokens.

This complaint against Kraken feels like the same thing as the Coinbase suit to me. Notably, heres another list of digital assets that the SEC is claiming to be securities. There's 16 cryptos explicitly listed here including Solana, Cardano & Algorand. https://t.co/SUJ9eqkHtC pic.twitter.com/Qqq1y9BMWi

— James Seyffart (@JSeyff) November 20, 2023

Among the tokens classified as securities in the SEC's complaint are ADA, AXS, ALGI, ATOM, CHZ, COTI, DASH, FIL, FLOW, ICP, MANA, MATIC, NEAR, OMG, SAND, and SOL.