American multinational digital currency trading platform Kraken has seen a jump in its trading volume despite having fallen into the crosshairs with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). According to data from CoinMarketCap, Kraken's trading volume was pegged at $762.67 million, up by 20.01% over the past 24 hours.
The SEC brought on a lawsuit against Kraken for offering Staking as a Service to U.S. customers without duly registering it as such. According to chairman of the commission Gary Gensler:
Today's action should make clear to the marketplace that staking-as-a-service providers must register and provide full, fair, and truthful disclosure and investor protection.
Ideally, such enforcement actions typically create panic for the crypto ecosystem and for digital currencies, and prices tend to fall drastically. A similar bearish posture was expected in terms of Kraken's trading volume, but the opposite is what is being observed. Kraken is now ranked as the 3rd largest digital currency trading platform after Binance and Coinbase Global Inc.
The observed growth in trading volume is best described as the community's way of showing solidarity with the digital currency exchange in defiance of the SEC.
Desperate times and desperate measures
The move by the SEC to crack down on the crypto industry was first hinted at yesterday when, as reported by U.Today, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said he heard the rumor of the onslaught. Speaking about events that have happened thus far, Armstrong took to Twitter to share that the exchange would have to take steps to protect itself from government overreach.
The onslaught of the SEC was not approved by many industry stakeholders, including its own Commissioner Hester Peirce, popularly known as Crypto Mom.
In a bid not to enter a long legal war with a regulator like Ripple Labs Inc, Kraken has agreed to end the staking program and also pay a $30 million fine.
Tomiwabold Olajide
Alex Dovbnya
Vladislav Sopov