On Tuesday April 18th 2023,CEO of Coinbase Global inc, A major U.S Crypto Exchange, Brian Armstrong specified that the crypto exchange would consider moving away from the U.S. if the regulatory environment for the industry does not become transparent and comprehensible, at a fintech conference in London.
“I think the U.S. has the potential to be an important market for crypto, but right now we are not seeing that regulatory clarity that we need, I think in a number of years if we don’t see that regulatory clarity emerge in the U.S. we may have to consider investing more elsewhere in the world.” warned Brain Armstrong
Armstrong’s noteworthy pronouncement came weeks after a seattle based rival exchange Bittrex announced its plan to exit the U.S. by the end of April, pointing to “the current U.S. regulatory and economic environment, which is unfriendly to crypto industry.
In March 2023 Bittrex, a seattle based crypto exchange received a Wells Notice – a statement issued by U.S. The Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) Enforcement Division citing evidence of legal violations against the firm . Recently The SEC filed a lawsuit against the exchange on Monday April 17th.
Armstrong compared the situation with that of the U.K., where there is only one regulator – the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) – responsible for both commodities and securities.However in U.S., there are two separate bodies: the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and the SEC for commodities and securities respectively.
He added “We actually have contradictory statements from the heads of the CFTC and the SEC coming out almost every few weeks. How’s a business going to operate in that environment? We just want a clear rulebook.”
Such assertion from the CEO of leading Us based crypto exchange Coinbase, highlights the need of the United States for a realistic blueprint to ensure regulatory clarity for centralized actors, and a level playing field across exchanges, while preserving the decentralized crypto innovations that will bring enormous benefits to the world.