Squatting is under investigation by US regulators. According to Bloomberg, the company is embroiled in an investigation over selling unregistered securities.
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is reportedly close to a settlement agreement. It is not yet clear whether Kraken is actually guilty. The case involves the sale of tokens or crypto that can qualify as a security.
Many exchanges in the industry offer a whole bunch of tokens that may fall under (local) securities laws. At the same time, these kinds of cases seem to mostly end in settlements. It does not have much to do with bitcoin, but with the industry as a whole.
Rumours
There are also persistent rumours about possible moves against the strike model. This has become quite a broad term, but it can also go badly wrong. Strikes cannot be found on bitcoin’s network itself. However, numerous other tokens do offer this on their networks. And service providers are taking advantage of them.
After the industry turmoil in 2022, 2023 seems like a year where top crypto exchange executives should be extra concerned about new rules/guidelines. Earlier, Coinbase was fined in the Netherlands.
1/ We're hearing rumors that the SEC would like to get rid of crypto staking in the U.S. for retail customers. I hope that's not the case as I believe it would be a terrible path for the U.S. if that was allowed to happen.
— Brian Armstrong (@brian_armstrong) February 8, 2023
Staking is a process in the cryptocurrency world where a user sets aside their crypto currency as collateral to help confirm transactions on a blockchain network. By doing so, they earn rewards in the form of new tokens or a share of transaction fees. Staking usually requires the user to hold onto their tokens for a certain period of time. The latter is exactly something regulators may fall over.
