Staci Warden, CEO of the Algorand Foundation, argues in favor of adopting blockchain technology to organize personal finances. According to Staci Warden, the centralized cryptocurrency exchange Kraken and its staking-as-a-service platform may have fallen within the regulatory agency’s jurisdiction had the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) established explicit criteria.
A $30 million settlement between the SEC and Kraken was struck last week, and the San Francisco-based exchange “immediately” shut down its staking-as-a-service platform for its American clients.
Managing Personal Finance
In 2019, Kraken started providing staking services. However, the staking services were pushing the sale of unregistered securities, according to the regulator’s news statement.
The government may have been content with Kraken’s protocol if it had been more of a “pass-through profit-taking from the underlying protocol,” according to Warden.
The SEC can contend that Kraken should still be subject to regulation along with other exchanges that come under the agency’s purview since it is an exchange that also happens to provide digital assets, she said.
- Staci Warden argues in favor of adopting blockchain technology to organize personal finances.
- Warden claims that the major issue is the absence of regulation.
- The issue is not with the regulation itself, but with how it is being applied.
According to Warden, the absence of regulation for cryptocurrency is the major issue. In addition, reports claim that the SEC plans to prosecute stablecoin issuer Paxos, a fintech business that offers cryptocurrency services, for allegedly marketing the unregistered security stablecoin token Binance USD (BUSD).
The manner the legislation is being implemented, not the regulation itself, according to Warden, is the problem. She continued by saying that it is challenging for cryptocurrency platforms to understand what the agency expects of them due to regulation by enforcement and the absence of regulatory clarity.
This might have a big impact on the use of cryptocurrencies, stablecoins, and staking, which Warden called “important primitives” for the whole sector.
They are attempting to do the right thing, Warden said of the industry, mentioning Kraken and Coinbase as two examples. Furthermore, according to Warden, “they would have likely done exactly what the SEC asked them to do” if there had been clearer regulatory clarity up front.
