Kraken CEO calls on Congress to protect U.S. crypto industry following agreement with SEC on staking program

Crypto-currency exchange Kraken CEO Jesse Powell has called on Congress to pass legislation to protect the U.S. crypto industry after the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) took action against his trading platform over its crypto-currency staking service.

Kraken CEO responds to the SEC’s action

Kraken CEO Jesse Powell urged Congress to pass legislation to protect the nation’s crypto-currency industry on Thursday after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) charged its crypto-currency exchange platform for its staking service.

Kraken’s boss tweeted:

Congress must act to protect the domestic crypto industry and American consumers who will now have to go overseas for services that will no longer be available in the U.S.

As part of the settlement with the securities regulator, Kraken agreed to end its crypto-currency staking program for U.S. customers and pay $30 million in disgorgement, prejudgment interest and civil penalties.

Kraken clarified in a blog post published Thursday:

Staking services for non-US customers will continue without interruption. Non-U.S. customers can continue to stake and unstake assets, as well as automatically earn and stake rewards, as usual.

Following the securities regulator’s enforcement action regarding Kraken’s staking program, SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce issued a press release stating that Kraken’s staking program had been implemented. statement disagreeing and dissenting from her agency’s action. “A paternalistic and lazy regulator is content with a solution like the one in this regulation: not initiating a public process to develop a viable registration process that provides valuable information to investors, but closing it“, she wrote.

In response to Commissioner Peirce’s statement, Jerome Powell tweeted, “Advice would be appreciated“. He added that the SEC’s approach of saying “It’s wrong but I won&t tell you how to do it right. Want to know if X works? Try it and see what happens“does not help the crypto industry or consumers. “We are not anti-regulation, but we need a clear path to operate“he stressed.

In a follow-up tweet, the Kraken leader opined:

I’sincerely hope that someone will prove, in court, that there is a legal, user-friendly version of custody staking that can be offered to American consumers. It will be a brutal, time-consuming, expensive, and massively distracting fight, but the industry and the United States will be extremely grateful.