Kraken Halts XRP Trading For US Users Following The SEC Charges
The San Francisco-based veteran crypto exchange Kraken is the latest platform announcing plans to halt Ripple (XRP) trading starting at the end of January. The decision will affect only US-based citizens, while all services will remain operating as intended for customers located outside of the country.
- Starting on January 29th at 5 pm PT (or January 30th at 1:00 UTC), Kraken will suspend XRP trading for users based in the United States. The near 10-year-old exchange said that residents need to close all positions until January 28th at 11:59 PT or “their positions will be liquidated.”
- However, Kraken also said that US users will still be able to deposit, hold, and withdraw XRP even after the exchange has halted the trading activities.
- Additionally, customers in other countries will not be affected in any way – the XRP markets will continue to operate uninterrupted.
- Somewhat expectedly, Kraken justified its decision with SEC charges brought on Ripple last year. CryptoPotato reported that the Commission alleged the payment processor of conducting a $1.3 billion unregistered security offering.
- Numerous crypto exchanges and businesses removed the XRP token in the following weeks, which harmed its price.
- Kraken’s announcement also seemed to have impacted XRP’s value as the asset dumped by 12% from $0.295 to $0.26 in a matter of minutes. Although Ripple’s native crypto has recovered some short-term losses and trades around $0.29, it’s still down by about 60% since the SEC made the charges official.
