The Kraken cryptocurrency exchange settled the SEC charges by paying $30 million and closing all its US staking placement services.
This incident has raised a new wave of questions about the legality and freedom of operation of staking programs in the United States. In recent years, more and more attention has been paid to the proof-of-stake methodology, after the Ethereum network switched from PoW to PoS in 2022.
However, hints of a similar development of events with staking in the USA appeared a few months before the mentioned Kraken story. So in September last year, SEC Chairman Gary Gensler stated that staking programs may fall under the parameters of the Howie test. Also earlier, the head of the SEC noted that the implementation of staking partner staking services has some similarities with classical lending.
Speaking at a media briefing after the announcement of the agreement with Kraken, an SEC representative reported on the potential consideration of offers of staking services along with any other services that may violate US laws.
Time will show the seriousness of the SEC’s intentions to interact with other staking services, but it is already obvious that this topic will be raised regularly within the framework of the market’s not completely transparent understanding of the legal aspect of this issue.