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by Scott_Sanderson 940 days ago
Kraken has been trading crypto coins since 2011. Why did it take the SEC so long to bring this suit?
5 comments

The SEC seems to bring about 2 or 3 crypto enforcement actions per month.[1] They're still working down the ICO backlog. Mostly they've been going after issuers and out and out theft.

After FTX, political support for crypto deregulation dropped to near zero. FTX, remember, was lobbying for a bill that would allow all the things for which Kraken is now in trouble. That is going absolutely nowhere now.

Also, the SEC, CFTC, and Main Justice now have their act together on cooperating to deal with crypto scams. There used to be jurisdictional issues. Now, it's just treated as crime.

[1] https://www.sec.gov/spotlight/cybersecurity-enforcement-acti...

Fun fact! Stoner Cats 2, from the list of enforcement actions, paid a settlement that was about 10-20% of what they made from their sales!

NFTs as an investment offering are still a good way to make money it seems!

And legal fees?
I have been waiting for them to go after the YouTuber Tech Lead. It will probably take a while.
They created a new enforcement division and doubled the number of positions working on crypto enforcement last year.

https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2022-78

The regime changed, so now they're punishing everyone who played ball with disruptive elements of the previous regime's economic plan.
You're not wrong (and I upvoted you because your comment doesn't deserve to be so negative), but I don't think the previous regime was all that friendly toward crypto either...

Remember the IRS crackdowns all started under n-1

Not really.

Kraken has… expanded enough to reach optics.

And the FTX case is done

Because the of political agenda of Elizabeth Warren and other Democrats who want to protect Wall Street establishment. Prior to this political agenda, the SEC did not care. Now is good time, because the SEC has the required political backing.
I guess they just never knew of them before now.