Poloniex will pay the SEC more $10 million for trading in securities without registration – Bits Media

According to the SEC, Poloniex exchange violated securities law. Poloniex agreed with the submission to terminate the illegal actions and the payment of the fine.

The order of the Securities and Exchange Commission approves, that since July 2017 years to November 2019 years of Poloniex I used a trading platform, which was not registered and performed operations of the exchange of digital assets, Including digital assets, which can be considered "investment contracts" and, hence, Securities.

The criterion of digital assets, which may relate to "investment contracts", Confirmed by the Haui test (Howey test). Since the test gave a positive result and transactions on the Poloniex exchange fall under the requirements of the Law “On Securities” from 1933 year and the law "On the exchange of securities" from 1934 of the year, They are considered securities, and operations should be carried out in compliance with certain requirements for disclosing information and registration.

SEC pays attention, that possessing the fullness of information about illegal activity, Poloniex ignored the warnings of the commission. The Poloniex exchange on the contrary “strengthened its aggressive activity” in the promotion of new “investment digital assets” on the trading platform.

“Poloniex preferred an increase in profit to comply with federal laws on securities, By including digital assets securities to your unregistered exchange ", - said Christina Littman (Kristina Littman), Head of the Cybersecurity Department SEC. - “Poloniex tried to circumvent the regulation of the securities and exchanges commission regulations, which applies to any market for combining buyers and sellers of securities, Regardless of the technology used ".

Without recognizing or refuting the conclusions of SEC, Poloniex agreed with the order to terminate illegal actions and pay compensation in the amount $8.48 million, interest on making a court decision in the amount $404 thousands and a civil fine in the amount $1.5 million, Only about $10.4 million.

In May of this year, the securities commission of the Canadian province of Ontario (OSC) Also accused
Poloniex cryptocurrency exchange in violation of the securities law.