SEC sued Kraken crypto exchange

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has filed a lawsuit against the Kraken cryptocurrency exchange, accusing it of refusing to register as a securities exchange, clearing agency, broker or dealer since September 2018.

The SEC claims that most cryptocurrency tokens should be considered as securities requiring registration with the regulator.

In addition to this, the SEC accuses Kraken of using customer bank accounts to cover its operating expenses, which the independent auditor assessed as a «significant risk of loss» for customers. In 2023, the auditor revealed that the accounting of customer deposits on Kraken contained «significant errors», which was reflected in the financial statements of the exchange for 2020 and 2021.

«Kraken has made decisions aimed at extracting hundreds of millions of dollars from investors, ignoring securities legislation,» said Gurbir Grewal, director of the SEC's Enforcement Division. He stressed that such actions caused a conflict of interest in the exchange's business model and put investors' funds at risk. According to the SEC, at certain moments there were crypto assets of clients totaling more than $33 billion on the Kraken exchange.

In response to the SEC's accusations, Kraken's management disagreed with the lawsuit, emphasizing that securities are not traded on the exchange. «The SEC has repeatedly required cryptocurrency exchanges to register, despite the lack of a clear legislative requirement or a clear registration procedure. Despite the objections of lawmakers, the SEC continues to initiate lawsuits against cryptocurrency exchanges,» – Kraken said in a statement.