A rich Bitcoin investor is warning the crypto community that certain digital assets could soon be under assault by government regulators.
In a new series of tweets, the pseudonymous trader Joe007 highlights the news that the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission has charged three individuals who own and operate BitMEX – including co-founder and CEO Arthur Hayes – with violating multiple CFTC regulations, including anti-money laundering procedures.
The Department of Justice also filed criminal charges against the individuals.
Joe007, known for placing large BTC bets on Bitfinex, says he believes regulators won’t stop there, and crypto traders should prepare. He points to the new crypto asset UNI, which is the governance token of the decentralized exchange Uniswap, as the type of coin that will likely be scrutinized by US authorities.
While some argue that UNI should be subject to US securities regulations, Phil Liu, the chief legal officer at the digital asset management firm Arca, says he doesn’t think the asset will have that issue.
Liu says the tokens don’t meet the Securities and Exchange Commission’s test for securities since the network is no longer controlled by the Uniswap team. He also notes that the Uniswap team never raised money through a token offering to create the network and that only users, team members, investors and advisors were entitled to receive UNI initially.
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