eToro Will Only Offer Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Bitcoin Cash in US After Settling SEC Charges

Financial trading platform eToro has settled charges from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the regulator announced Thursday, with the firm agreeing to pay a penalty and stop offering all but three crypto assets for trade in the United States.

According to the SEC announcement, eToro will only offer Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Bitcoin Cash trading going forward to U.S. customers. The regulator said that eToro settled charges related to operating "an unregistered broker and unregistered clearing agency in connection with its trading platform that facilitated buying and selling certain crypto assets as securities."

The platform will offer U.S. customers 180 days to sell other crypto assets before increasingly restricting trading access. eToro will pay a $1.5 million penalty in relation to the settled charges.

eToro once offered many popular cryptocurrencies on its U.S. platform, including Dogecoin and Avalanche. In total, U.S. users had access to 74 different digital assets, meaning that 95% of the cryptocurrencies on eToro’s platform will have been delisted after the changes are made.

“The terms of the settlement will have a minimal impact on our global business,” Yoni Assia, eToro’s co-founder and CEO, told Decrypt in a statement. “Outside of the United States, eToro users will continue to enjoy access to over 100 crypto assets.”

The company said that U.S.-based users have six months to sell positions in cryptocurrencies other than Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Bitcoin Cash. Users can also transfer supported assets to eToro Wallet, a digital wallet launched alongside eToro’s crypto trading platform in 2019.

After selling is restricted in most digital assets, eToro said that any remaining position will be liquidated and that users will be credited with the proceeds.

As of this writing, U.S. users still have the ability to buy Cartesi (CTSI) and Universal Market Access (UMA) on eToro, in addition to Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Bitcoin Cash. Every other asset on eToro’s website has the “buy” or “trade” button disabled, as of this writing.

In a press release, the SEC’s Director of the Division of Enforcement Gurbir Grewal said that eToro “had chosen to come into compliance” with its regulatory framework. The company agreed to the terms of the settlement without admitting to or denying the SEC’s findings.

The SEC’s enforcement action somewhat mirrors a Wells notice sent to Robinhood months ago, which signaled that the agency is preparing to sue the firm. While the SEC has levied high-profile allegations against pure crypto exchanges before, Robinhood and eToro both offer trading for stocks.

The SEC cited eToro’s cooperation as a factor in the settlement agreement. That included terminating customers’ ability to purchase digital assets on multiple occasions as part of eToro’s “ongoing compliance monitoring.”

Following lawsuits brought against crypto exchanges Coinbase and Binance last year, eToro said it “remains a supporter of digital assets.” Shortly after, the company said U.S. users could no longer trade Algorand (ALGO), Decentraland (MANA), Dash (DASH), and Polygon (MATIC), which were all labeled as securities in SEC’s lawsuits against the popular crypto exchanges.

Describing eToro as an early adopter of digital assets, Assia said that the global company has long valued compliance with regulators around the world while offering securities trading.

“We now have a clear regulatory framework for crypto assets in our home markets of the UK and Europe, and we believe we will see [something] similar in the U.S. in the near future,” Assia said. “Once this is in place, we will look to enable trading in the crypto assets that meet this framework.”

Editor's note: This story is breaking and will be updated with additional details.

Edited by Andrew Hayward