Robinhood Markets, the popular online brokerage, has announced the removal of three cryptocurrency tokens from its platform.
Robinhood delists crypto tokens deemed securities by U.S. SEC
Robinhood Markets, the popular online brokerage, has announced the removal of three cryptocurrency tokens from its platform. Effective June 27, customers will no longer be able to trade Solana, Cardano, or Polygon on Robinhood. This move comes shortly after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) initiated legal action against major crypto exchanges Binance and Coinbase for allegedly selling unregistered securities. The regulatory crackdown has resulted in ripple effects across the crypto industry, with Binance.US suspending U.S. dollar deposits, citing challenges posed by the SEC and freezing of assets.
Ex-SEC commissioner and Robinhood's Chief Legal Compliance and Corporate Affairs Officer, Dan Gallagher, stated that functioning as a registered broker-dealer in the US was equivalent to "crypto the hard way." He also mentioned that the SEC's roadmap for crypto companies was challenging to navigate, even when Robinhood attempted to follow it. Gallagher went on to state that Robinhood underwent a 16-month process to register a special purpose broker-dealer, and “were pretty summarily told in March that that process was over and we would not see any fruits of that effort."
These developments highlight the regulatory pressure faced by crypto companies and the consequential adjustments being made within the industry.
