One of the world’s largest market makers, Jane Street and Jump Trading, will withdraw from trading digital assets in the United States amid regulatory uncertainty. Bloomberg reports, citing people familiar with the matter.
Jane Street will scale back cryptocurrency operations globally, as regulatory uncertainty makes it difficult to run the business in line with internal standards.
Jump Crypto, a subsidiary of Jump Trading, will discontinue trading digital assets in the United States but expand it in other jurisdictions.
Bloomberg noted that representatives of Jane Street and Jump Crypto were questioned by the U.S. prosecutors in the framework of the investigation into the Terra ecosystem collapse. The latter market maker had been the primary venture investor in Terraform Labs. Investigators did not bring charges.
Jane Street was named among three U.S. companies mentioned by the CFTC in a list against Binance as U.S. clients who could access the international platform despite the pledge not to. The regulator also did not bring charges.
Founder Sam Bankman-Fried worked at Jane Street before founding the platform. The same line appeared on Caroline Ellison’s résumé, who led Alameda Research.
In May, Gemini and Coinbase launched overseas exchanges. Coinbase allowed the creation of an international hub in the UAE.
Earlier, Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire did not rule out the United States losing its leading position in the sector in favour of the EU, Hong Kong and the UAE.
Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse lamented that the United States lags significantly behind the UAE and the European Union in digital-asset regulation and advised not to open business in the states.
In 2023 the SEC pointed to violations in the operations of Bittrex, Coinbase, Kraken, Gemini and Genesis. The CFTC filed a lawsuit against Binance and its CEO Changpeng Zhao.
Earlier, SEC Chair Gary Gensler faced criticism regarding his agency’s stance on digital assets during hearings before the U.S. House of Representatives.
Subsequently, Congressman Warren Davidson announced a bill that calls for the removal of Gensler from the post of SEC chairman.