Crypto Exchange Bittrex Denies Harboring North Korean Traders

[Magician]

Popular US-based cryptocurrency exchange Bittrex has recently denied it’s been harboring North Korean traders on its platform, after New York’s regulator flagged suspicious accounts on its platform.

According to a tweet the exchange published, Bittrex investigated the accounts flagged by the New York Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) back in October of 2017, and found that they belong to South Korean users who mistakenly selected North Korean in its dropdown menu.

https://twitter.com/BittrexExchange/status/1120386083961876482

To determine the accounts belonged to South Korean users who mistakenly selected another country, Bittrex claims to have used users’ physical and IP addresses. The US-based trading platform has concluded there are “no users from North Korea trading on our platform.”

As CryptoGlobe covered, the NYDFS has earlier this month denied Bittrex the coveted BitLicense, needed to operate in the state of New York. The regulator noted there were deficiencies with the exchange’s compliance with the program for Bank Secrecy Act, Anti-Money Laundering, and Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).

The NYDFS’ decision came after four weeks of onsite reviews at the exchange’s offices, and came shortly after a license was attributed to crypto exchange Bitstamp. Bittrex has revealed it’s appealing, although it has announced it’ll, for now, be leaving the state of New York.

It’s worth noting that other cryptocurrency-related firms, including Kraken, decided to leave the state of New York when the BitLicense was introduced back in 2014, claiming it was too restrictive and/or too expensive to apply for.

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