US SEC Charges Bittrex With Operating Unregistered Securities Exchange

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday charged cryptocurrency exchange Bittrex and its former CEO William Shihara with operating an unregistered national securities exchange, broker and clearing agency. From a report: The SEC alleged in its complaint, which was filed in a U.S. district court in Washington, that Shihara coordinated with crypto asset issuers seeking to make their tokens available for trading on Bittrex's platform to delete public statements that Shihara believed would lead regulators to investigate those token offerings as securities. The SEC also charged Bittrex's foreign affiliate, Bittrex Global GmbH, for failing to register as a national securities exchange in connection with its operation of a single shared order book along with Bittrex. Seattle-based Bittrex had previously announced it would shutter its U.S. operations effective April 30 due to "continued regulatory uncertainty." The company's non-U.S. operations are based in Liechtenstein.

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