U.S. SEC targets crypto ‘staking’ with Kraken crackdown

By Hannah Lang (Reuters) -Crypto exchange Kraken agreed to shut down its cryptocurrency staking service and pay $30 million in penalties to settle U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission charges that it failed to register the program, the agency said on Thursday, in a move that could cause headaches for platforms with similar offerings. The settlement marks the SEC’s first crackdown on staking, a common service offered at both centralized and decentralized crypto exchanges, including most of the major exchanges in the United States such as Coinbase and Binance US. In a video message posted to …