Coinbase will curtail staking in 4 US states
Date: 2023-07-16 Author: Karina Ziganova Categories: BUSINESS
Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase reported claims from several states and froze staking services for new users.
The American exchange Coinbase will close the cryptocurrency staking service for new customers in California, New Jersey, South Carolina and Wisconsin. The platform announced this in its blog. The changes will affect only new users: those who placed tokens for staking on Coinbase before the announcement will continue to use it, but will not be able to increase the balance of delegated coins.
Coinbase admitted that restrictions in the future may affect other states: Maryland, Vermont, Kentucky, Illinois, Alabama and Washington. At the time of writing, the staking service in these states is available without restrictions.
The decision to freeze staking was a response to investigations by ten US states regarding the exchange. U.S. regulators believe that this service violates the law on securities, Coinbase said. Representatives of the crypto exchange do not share this opinion and note that the technology is not a form of investment, but a means "to participate in the cryptocurrency ecosystem."
Earlier, Coinbase has already curtailed the staking of individual altcoins - for example, Algo, due to claims from local regulators. The head of the Algorand Foundation, Stacey Warden, noted that the exchange closed the service unilaterally without prior notice. Later, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) publicly classified the token as a securities.
