In today’s edition of The Daily, we feature a couple of stories that show how the U.S. is potentially stifling the development of the local cryptocurrency industry by burdening companies with costly compliance. We also cover a partnership between a computer chip manufacturer and a crypto studio.
Also Read: Banking Struggle Drives Bitcoin ATM Manufacturer Lamassu to Switzerland
US Authorities Issue Majority of Subpoenas to Kraken
The popular cryptocurrency exchange Kraken has released statistics about the volumes and global breakdown of its information requests from authorities during 2018. The data shows that the number of subpoenas has almost tripled from just 160 in 2017 to 475. The numbers also highlight how much of a burden complying with American demands actually is.
While the exchange reports that just about 20 percent of its clients come from the U.S., the country represented the absolute majority of requests for information it had to handle from all over the world. Following the United States’ 315 subpoenas in 2018 was the U.K. with just 61. In fact, the FBI alone issued more requests than all U.K. authorities, a total of 67. Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) was even more of a burden on the exchange with 91 information requests.
Jessie Powell, the outspoken CEO of Kraken, commented: “On the one hand, we are happy to assist to the extent legally possible in the capture and prosecution of violent criminals and thieves. On the other hand, nobody likes having a gun to their head, being forced to divert labor from one’s own objectives to somebody else’s.”
“Peek at our Compliance team’s 2018 Transparency Report. You can see why many businesses choose to block US users,” stated the Kraken team. “Cost of handling subpoenas (regardless of licenses)
