Poloniex disables market trades for 9 tokens – US affected only! Poloniex, a popular cryptocurrency exchange, announced that they would stop US Customers from trading for 9 tokens.
Poloniex revealed the tokens and the news via a blog post – Ardor (ARDR), GameCredits (GAME), ByteCoin (BCN), Decred (DCR), NXT, Augur (REP), Omni Layer (OMNI), Lisk (LSK), and GasToken (GAS).
Poloniex blamed current regulatory policies for cryptocurrencies as the reason for its far-reaching decision to disable trading for US Customers. The US Securities and Exchanges Commission (SEC) has indicated that many digital assets qualify as securities.
Poloniex writes:
“Specifically, it is not possible to be certain whether US regulators will consider these assets to be securities. We understand how frustrating this choice is for our customers, and for the crypto community more broadly. We believe in the power and potential of these assets, and will continue to focus time and energy on supporting positive policy and regulatory developments for crypto assets in the US and around the world.”
Not surprisingly, these delistings affected the price of these tokens. Lisk is down 13%, Omni Layer is down 20%, NXT is down 16.3%, while Bytecoin is down 22% – all from CoinMarketCap.
Circle recently acquired Poloniex in February of this year. Circle’s CEO Jeremy Allaire expressed his regret at the decision – he stated that his hand was forced by regulators. He stated –
“We are deeply frustrated that we needed to take these steps, which are the result of an increasingly limited environment in the US for crypto assets. Recent guidance from US regulators on what crypto assets would be deemed securities has let to these actions. We don’t agree that they should be considered securities but we need to ensure we are in compliance with US Law.”
What do you think? Could this be a reason why markets were slumped this morning? Let us know on our Facebook page!
