A top Binance executive reportedly says that the United States’ crackdown on digital assets has created a “very difficult” business climate in the country for the crypto industry.
According to the Financial Times (FT), Patrick Hillmann, the chief strategy officer for the world’s largest crypto exchange, says that US regulators have created a lot of confusion in the digital asset sector through their enforcement actions.
Hillmann’s remarks were reportedly made during the Financial Times’ crypto and digital assets summit, which took place May 9th and 10th.
Says Hillmann,
“[The US] has been very confusing over the past six months.”
FT says Hillmann cited the recent move by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to send a Wells Notice to Coinbase warning of a potential enforcement action against the company for allegedly violating securities laws.
According to FT, Hillmann spoke more positively about doing business in the United Kingdom compared to the United States.
“In contrast with his comments that it was now a ‘very difficult time’ to do business in the US, Hillmann said Binance would do ‘everything we possibly can’ to be regulated in the UK.”
In March, the US Commodities Future Trading Commission (CFTC) charged Binance and its CEO Changpeng Zhao (CZ) with a long list of alleged regulatory violations.
At the time, Zhao called the complaint “unexpected and disappointing.”
Hillmann says that while there has been a “broader regulatory pivot” in the US against crypto, he is optimistic that the US will start to warm up to crypto as other jurisdictions make progress in passing sensible regulations on digital assets such as the Markets in Crypto Assets Regulation (MiCA) in Europe.
Says Hillmann,
“I expect at some point the US is going to want to pivot and play catch-up to Europe, which just passed Mica [the EU’s crypto asset regulation], which is a huge step forward.”
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