Report: Crypto Lists Wither in SEC Spotlight

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Cryptocurrency firms face new levels of government scrutiny as they attempt to go public.

At least three companies Bullish Global, Circle Internet Financial and eToro Group failed to obtain Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) approval in their IPOs, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported. Tuesday (January 24). ).

Sources told the WSJ that the SEC has no intention of blocking the companies from going public. However, crypto firms believe that the pace of fee review has hampered the process, especially after the current crypto market crisis.

The report notes that when Coinbase went public in 2021, it received three letters from the SEC with questions. On the other hand, Bullish received more than 10 letters, sources said.

Anyone proposing a crypto deal to the SEC should realize that there will be a lot of friction, Scott Kimpel, a partner at law firm Hunter Andrews Kurth, told the WSJ.

Circle announced in December that it was postponing the merger of its Special Purpose Acquisition Company (SPAC) with Concord Acquisition Corp, PYMNTS wrote.

Circle co-founder and CEO Jeremy Allaires said at the time that going public was part of Circles’ core strategy to build trust and transparency, which has never been more important.

Bullish announced that it was ending its plan to go public a few weeks later, dropping a proposed SPAC merger with Far Peak Acquisition.

Our quest to become a public company is taking longer than expected, but we respect the SEC’s ongoing work to establish new digital asset frameworks and clarify industry-specific disclosure and accounting complexities, said then-bullish CEO Brendan Blumer.

As PYMNTS reported, the two companies have determined that they are not ready to meet the December 31 deadline for the Far Peaks board to vote on the merger.

Last year was a bad year for SPACs in the FinTech sector as a whole, PYMNTS data showed, with the pace of such transactions slowing to single digits.

Meanwhile, the cryptocurrency industry is facing calls for greater scrutiny in the United States and abroad. Last week, EU Commissioner Mairead McGuinness called on the rest of the world to follow the European Union’s lead in becoming the first major jurisdiction to regulate crypto.

If we fail to take this comprehensive approach, we will find that there are more and more problems, McGuinness told CoinDesk. Technology is borderless.

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