eToro Reaches Settlement with SEC - Will Cease Trading Nearly All Assets

[NotATether]

https://www.sec.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2024-125

eToro publicly announced that, going forward and subject to the provisions of the SEC’s order in this matter, the only crypto assets that U.S. customers can trade on the company’s platform will be Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, and Ether. eToro publicly announced that it will provide its customers with functionality to sell all other crypto assets for only 180 days after the issuance of the SEC’s order.

So our old friend the SEC strikes again, and this time they have charged eToro with "unlicensed money transmitting". I remember this company was trying to reach a partnership with Twitter after Elon bought it to let users buy cryptocurrencies through the social media app (??). That sounded pretty weird, and you might be interested to know that that plan never went through.

I guess we should expect to keep seeing this knd of news.

[Zed0X]

Basically, SEC will only allow trading of cryptos they don't deem as securities. I think eToro buckled too quickly but, hey, they would only have to pay $1.5 million and their headache (SEC) will go away. I guess part of the reason they agreed is that they're not going to lose much because the coins with the highest trading volume in their platform are probably BTC and ETH.

[NotATether]

Basically, SEC will only allow trading of cryptos they don't deem as securities. I think eToro buckled too quickly but, hey, they would only have to pay $1.5 million and their headache (SEC) will go away. I guess part of the reason they agreed is that they're not going to lose much because the coins with the highest trading volume in their platform are probably BTC and ETH.

Now they have like 3 pairs left on the entire platform because of what the SEC did. For all users too, not just Americans.

There are way more pairs being traded on other exchanges besides eToro, look at Coinbase for example. I'm pretty sure that they are fully compliant with the SEC rules and yet they have all sorts of pairs, even memecoin pairs, so it doesn't make much sense to me for the SEC to make an exchange take down the majority of their pairs.

[Zed0X]

~
Now they have like 3 pairs left on the entire platform because of what the SEC did. For all users too, not just Americans.

Really? I thought this only applies to their US branch since it's eToro USA LLC only.

I went to their website to check where the main company is based but got confused because they are regulated by different agencies (EU, UK, AUS, and others). I doubt the US SEC has power over the other regulators and that makes me question how eToro would be so afraid. Perhaps that is part of the agreement and why they only have to pay $1.5 million?

[Bobcrypto]

It seems that SEC is deliberately hunting some crypto exchanges with law suit that look politically motivated. How would an exchange trade only 3 pairs of crypto coins? I doubt if this kind of treatment is given to other exchanges in the US like Coinbase, Bitrex, Kraken. For sure, Coinbase has multiple coin/tokens pairs on its exchange, even others too.
However, if this news is confirmed real, it will definitely send a negative signal to other crypto exchanges willing to register their exchanges on the US area.

[MrSpasybo]

So our old friend the SEC strikes again, and this time they have charged SEC with "unlicensed money transmitting". I remember this company was trying to reach a partnership with Twitter after Elon bought it to let users buy cryptocurrencies through the social media app (??). That sounded pretty weird, and you might be interested to know that that plan never went through.

I guess we should expect to keep seeing this knd of news.

Can we consider this a surrender from eToro to the SEC allegations? Can the SEC use this win to say they have been successful in accusing many tokens on eToro of being securities? There are many issues surrounding this hasty outcome. eToro doesn't dare to fight against the SEC even though they are a large enterprise with strong financial potential???

The SEC continues to enforce many actions that are harmful to the development of the crypto market. I hope that official regulations on crypto will soon be issued to prevent the SEC abuse of power. At the same time, the crypto community should also unite more to resist the hand of the SEC. Coinbase, Binance, and Kraken have fought against the SEC instead of accepting fines and giving up profits from this market.

[Stompix]

The SEC continues to enforce many actions that are harmful to the development of the crypto market. I hope that official regulations on crypto will soon be issued to prevent the SEC abuse of power.

What abuse and what harm?
You want to sell tokens that you present to the public as being backed by the company, a utility for them, a road map and a team, then do it like every other company does register them as a security! If you want to sell tokens to investors and not have one thing you can be held accountable for afterward, then I don't see how one could cheer for something like this!

What happened to all that love for open source completely decentralized no premine no ico projects?
That was development, what we see now is a cashgrab!

[TomPluz]

The SEC continues to enforce many actions that are harmful to the development of the crypto market. I hope that official regulations on crypto will soon be issued to prevent the SEC abuse of power. At the same time, the crypto community should also unite more to resist the hand of the SEC. Coinbase, Binance, and Kraken have fought against the SEC instead of accepting fines and giving up profits from this market.

There are now some politicians in power who are calling for the curtailment of SEC's seeming abuse of power or what many call as a lawfare kind of regulation where you ambush the industry players and bring them to court instead of working with them by laying down a clear, concise and acceptable guideline everybody should follow. I am not against regulation per se especially with centralized crypto-based platforms but I am sure SEC is using its power to decapitate the industry and not just to weed out bad actors. We are seeing that eToro is the latest victim of SEC's crusade to purge the cryptocurrency industry from doing business in USA.

[MrSpasybo]

There are now some politicians in power who are calling for the curtailment of SEC's seeming abuse of power or what many call as a lawfare kind of regulation where you ambush the industry players and bring them to court instead of working with them by laying down a clear, concise and acceptable guideline everybody should follow. I am not against regulation per se especially with centralized crypto-based platforms but I am sure SEC is using its power to decapitate the industry and not just to weed out bad actors. We are seeing that eToro is the latest victim of SEC's crusade to purge the cryptocurrency industry from doing business in USA.

Yeah, I don't think the SEC is acting like this to protect investors, since many investors have suffered losses from the SEC lawsuits against Ripple, Kraken, or UniSwap Labs. I can't guess the SEC real goal, maybe Gensler has been ordered to do this to stifle the development of crypto in order to give traditional companies more time to enter the market and take market share from big companies like Coinbase and Binance.

We've seen that the SEC doesn't have any guidelines or documents for CEXs to follow, or they don't even have enough evidence to conclude that a token is a security. I've stopped expecting anything from the SEC. Congress should have specific laws about crypto and prevent the SEC hand from reaching into the development of this market.

[Captain Corporate]

We need to remember that there are places such as coinbase that are allowed to do something like this, there is nothing wrong with exchanges using this type of thing and they are dealing with a lot of coins as well, so that is why I think we should be looking at it in eToro situation individually. We need to see this as a deal where eToro must have done something wrong if they are not allowed and others are allowed. I know many will think that SEC did something wrong but the reality is that we are dealing with nothing wrong with SEC since they allowed others but not eToro, so that is why I think it should be something personal about it.

[MrSpasybo]

We need to remember that there are places such as coinbase that are allowed to do something like this, there is nothing wrong with exchanges using this type of thing and they are dealing with a lot of coins as well, so that is why I think we should be looking at it in eToro situation individually. We need to see this as a deal where eToro must have done something wrong if they are not allowed and others are allowed. I know many will think that SEC did something wrong but the reality is that we are dealing with nothing wrong with SEC since they allowed others but not eToro, so that is why I think it should be something personal about it.

Well, the SEC once wanted to sue Coinbase, Binance, and Kraken, but these CEXs were willing to go to court with the SEC because they have enough economic power to hire lawyers for many years, similar to how Ripple spent hundreds of millions of dollars to win against the SEC and protect XRP. Maybe eToro doesn't have as much money as the big CEXs, so they'd rather compromise with the SEC to continue operating than spend too much money on legal services.

I'm not a lawyer, but I don't think the tokens delisted on eToro are securities. I don't want the SEC to use their small victory against eToro as a basis for future unfounded accusations and continue attacking crypto. eToro's surrender could be a common failure for the crypto community because we weren't united enough to provide eToro with the necessary help to fight the SEC.

[bitterguy28]

Basically, SEC will only allow trading of cryptos they don't deem as securities. I think eToro buckled too quickly but, hey, they would only have to pay $1.5 million and their headache (SEC) will go away. I guess part of the reason they agreed is that they're not going to lose much because the coins with the highest trading volume in their platform are probably BTC and ETH.

i guess it is not worth it to fight for other crypto projects that may not even be bring them a lot of profit compared to bitcoin and ethereum they might just give themselves larger headaches by trying to fight for it and paying more than what they are only paying now if they were still to push it is a shame tho because even if bitcoin and ethereum are the main coins to trade/hold, it would still give them an edge to offer other coins

[ZAINmalik75]

Another good site is going to limit its functions for USA which is not good for them even before they did not list all of the tokens but only allowed trading of a few hundreds of crypto tokens and now the investors can only trade in BTC and ETH because they are accepted by the SEC but why they allowed BCH?

I don't remember the Twitter related news but Elon did right because he must have plans to make his Twitter a all one platform there was news stating that he has plan to make this platform all in one where we can trade and do analysis even maybe that's why he did not agree to integrate them.

[yhiaali3]

Does this mean that users have 180 days to sell all their assets except Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash and Ether and then all other pairs will disappear?

How is it possible for an exchange to only have three pairs? Can it continue to operate this way? Will these rules also be imposed on all exchanges operating in the US?

I see that Coinbase has hundreds of pairs and no one is asking them to remove them!!

[Faisal2202]

Yes we should expect such news because the SEC and other regulatory platforms are taking strict actions toward cryptocurrency platforms so they comply with the SEC's rules and regulations. This is good in a way that it will reduce fraud and it will increase the trust in people for crypto they will trust more. But eToro was a popular site and had a good reputation, AFAIK.

We might see more restrictions in Kamala's reign or maybe more in Trump's. I might be wrong because different people have different views for them and I think Kamala as a member of Biden's administration, might follow his steps.