Nik Storonsky is the founder and CEO of Revolut. Piaras Ó Mídheach—Sportsfile for Web Summit Rio/Getty Images
Yet another company is exiting the U.S. crypto market because of regulations—or the lack thereof.
On Friday, Revolut, a U.K.-based fintech firm valued at $33 billion in its last funding round, told U.S.-based customers in an email it will no longer be able to place buy orders for digital assets as of Sept. 2, a spokesperson for the firm confirmed to Fortune.
On Oct. 3, all access to Revolut’s crypto platform will be disabled, and any remaining tokens held by users will be liquidated at market prices. Bakkt, the publicly traded digital assets firm that Revolut partnered with in the U.S., will also close users’ accounts, according to an email sent to customers. The change in service will affect only U.S. users and not those outside the country, impacting less than 1% of Revolut’s worldwide customer base.
“As a result of the evolving regulatory environment and the uncertainties around the crypto market in the U.S., we’ve taken the difficult decision, together with our U.S. banking partner, to suspend access to cryptocurrencies through Revolut in the U.S.,” the spokesperson said in a statement.
Revolut’s decision to fully exit the U.S. crypto market comes a month after the firm limited U.S. customers’ access to native cryptocurrencies for the Solana, Polygon, and Cardano blockchains (SOL, MATIC, and ADA, respectively). The Securities and Exchange Commission alleged that the three tokens, some of the largest by market capitalization, were unregistered securities in its two blockbuster lawsuits against Binance and Coinbase.
Revolut’s exit also mirrors larger corporations’ increasing caution toward Web3 and crypto amid a fraught battle between U.S. regulators and some of the industry’s largest players.
On Tuesday, GameStop, the ailing games retailer famous for its centrality in the 2021 meme-stock craze, also told customers that it was discontinuing its crypto wallet amid “regulatory uncertainty.”
Robinhood, the online stock brokerage that also sells cryptocurrencies, delisted SOL, MATIC, and ADA following suits the SEC filed in June against Binance and Coinbase, two of the world’s largest crypto exchanges.
And Jane Street as well as Jump Crypto, two of the largest market makers for cryptocurrencies worldwide, were reported to be pulling back in the U.S. amid the federal government’s crackdown on crypto firms following the collapse of the now-bankrupt exchange FTX.
Credit: Source link