MIAMI, FLORIDA – APRIL 7: The logo of Binance US is seen at its stand in the exhibition hall during … [+]
Binance.US, the U.S.-based arm of the world’s largest crypto exchange, is delisting the Amp token, one of nine cryptocurrencies the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission last month classified as unregistered securities.
It was the first major crypto exchange in the United States to halt the trading of one of the assets cited by the SEC, but Binance’s global trading platform, which offers Amp as well as Powerledger, another of the nine tokens, has not delisted either.
“We operate in a rapidly evolving industry, and our listing and delisting processes are designed to be responsive to market and regulatory developments,” Binance.US wrote in a blog post on Monday. The company said it was removing the asset “out of an abundance of caution” effective Aug. 15 and won’t resume trading “until more clarity exists around the classification of AMP.”
Binance did not respond to a Forbes request for comment.
The SEC identified the cryptocurrencies as securities in an insider-trading case brought against a former employee of Coinbase, a Binance rival. The civil suit also named a friend and a brother of the employee, and the Department of Justice filed a parallel criminal suit against the trio.
The other cryptocurrencies cited by the SEC are the Rally RLY (RLY), DerivaDao (DDX), XYO (XYO), Rari (RGT GT ), LCX (LCX), DFX Finance (DFX), and Kromatika (KROM) tokens. Amp is the only coin from the list offered on the Binance.US platform.
Forbes reported last week that the knock-on effects of the Coinbase suit would likely strike other exchanges, prompting them to delist assets deemed securities by the SEC, but the biggest crypto marketplaces that offer those tokens have yet to take action.
Kraken, a San Francisco-based exchange that lists Powerledger, wrote in a statement to Forbes that it “takes its role as the facilitator of a secure and compliant global trading platform very seriously. We do not list securities. For every asset we list, our teams conduct thorough risk and security evaluations, which include a comprehensive legal and compliance process.”
Echoing Caroline Pham, a Commodities Futures Trading Commission member who called the SEC case a “striking example of regulation by enforcement”, Coinbase’s chief legal officer Paul Grewal responded to the allegations in a blog post last month, “We agree with Commissioner Pham and, respectfully, 100% disagree with the SEC’s decision to file these securities fraud charges and the substance of the charges themselves.”
“Coinbase does not list securities on its platform. Period,” he wrote.
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