US clampdown has crypto kings looking abroad

economictimes.indiatimes.com:

Earlier this month, Wall Street's regulator, the Securities and Exchange Commission, pressed a raft of charges against Binance, the world's biggest cryptocurrency exchange, and US-based Coinbase. Both companies, along with the now defunct FTX, were key brands in the crypto industry, helping grow what began as a secretive playground for tech geeks into a new way to invest embraced by Wall Street. The SEC has been slowly tightening the screws on crypto since 2020.

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But the blows against Binance and Coinbase hit the industry with an accusation that stung: some crypto currencies are securities that must be traded under strict rules and not an alternative to dollars, yen or euros and outside the reach of regulators. Defenders of digital currencies have argued that regulators are stuck in the past and applying rules unfit for the likes of bitcoin or ethereum. «Cases lodged by regulators are likely to ramp up uncertainty and confusion about crypto as they drag through US courts,» lamented Scott Freeman, co-founder and partner at JST Capital, which specializes in crypto. «We wish to see from regulators a bit more proactive guidance and legislation rather than regulation by enforcement,» said Paolo Ardoino, chief technology officer at Bitfinex, a cryptocurrency trading company that was fined by another US regulator, the CFTC, in 2021. Crypto companies are also «caught in the middle of a turf war» between US