Bittrex settled with SEC in the amount of $24 Million without admitting to or denying the charges.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission announced on 10 August that Bittrex Inc. and William Shihara its former CEO and co-founder, had agreed to pay $24 million to settle allegations they failed to register their digital asset exchange as a national security exchange.
And The SEC Rolls On…
In April 2023, the SEC filed a claim against the U.S. Bittrex, alleging that the exchange’s operations fell under the definition of “an unregistered broker, exchange, and clearing agency.”
As detailed in the agency’s complaint, these activities primarily involved providing services to U.S. investors concerning crypto assets that the SEC claims were offered and sold as securities.
Bittrex and its former CEO, William Shihara, were accused of directing issuers to remove specific “problematic statements” from public channels before seeking to list their crypto assets on the Bittrex platform. Shihara served as the company’s CEO from 2014 to 2019.
It was thought that the removal of crypto assets was an attempt to avoid SEC scrutiny, which could investigate if they were offered or not.
