As the U.S. SEC and Bittrex drama keep unfolding, the SEC filing noted rather a controversial statement from the Bittrex founder where the latter is claimed to have said “Go f*** yourself,” when an investor inquired about market removals.
Today, Bittrex was hit with SEC charges for operating an unregistered exchange. The SEC charged Bittrex, Inc. and its co-founder and former CEO William Shihara aka Bill Shihara for non-compliance.
In the filing, the SEC stated that, a crypto asset platform that fails to register with the agency will free from any obligation to follow rules that are designed to protect investors.
The regulator then cited a private conversation between a Bittrex staff and one of Bittrex’s three founders which illustrates the type of investor harm that can result from a crypto asset platform disregards or fails to acknowledge these obligations.
Reportedly, the staff complained to the founder: “I hate people bitching that we don’t email them about market removals…I LOST SO MUCH CAUSE I DIDn’T KNOW.”
The Bittrex co-founder then responded that his preferred response to those investors was “go f*** yourself” or at a minimum to tell them to “track your own damn investment or get a broker to do it for you.”
The SEC accused Shihara of leading Bittrex’s “problematic statement cleanup” campaign. The agency asserts that Bittrex was aware that a crypto asset would be more likely to pass the legal test for a security if it had been advertised as an investment.
“For example, in or around July 2017, Shihara instructed an issuer that it “should not market [its token] as any kind of investment. Stick to utility token so none of us get into trouble,” SEC noted in the filing.
“Congratz on the crowdsale,” wrote Shihara in an email to TKN coin developer team in May 2017, which was included in the SEC filing. Shihara then asked them if they had removed “investment related terms” from their documents.
The SEC accuses Bittrex of harming investors by not following established exchange laws and regulations.
Last month, Bittrex announced it will no longer operate in US due to “Regulatory Environment.” The customers outside the country are still able to access all of Bittrex services using Bittrex Global.
