BREAKDOWN: Hamstringing an Industry With Compliance Costs | January 7th, 2020

The risk to the industry when crypto companies have to spend millions on compliance, plus new BTC mining in TX and the IMF on digital currencies

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In their annual transparency report, Kraken reported seeing a 50% increase in regulatory inquiries as compared to 2018, which CEO Jesse Powell later revealed cost the exchange more than $1m. Between this and stories like the $2m it cost Blockstack to raise $23m in an SEC compliant token sale (8.7% of the raise), it begs the question: will compliance costs fundamentally limit innovation by demanding big war chests to play? Will the most successful companies be those who (like Block One) simply raise enough to pay off the regulators on the back end?

We also look at new mining interests in Texas and what it means for American mining and bitcoin mining in the lead up to the halving more broadly, as well as dissect an op-ed from the IMF’s chief economist on the strength of the dollar over digital alternatives.

Topics discussed

Kraken annual transparency report shows off growing regulatory inquiries and increasing cost of compliance

New global interests in giant Texas-based bitcoin mining operation

The IMF’s chief economist on why digital currencies don’t threaten the dollar’s global reserve currency status

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CoinDesk

CoinDesk is the world leader in news, prices and information on bitcoin and other digital currencies.

We cover news and analysis on the trends, price movements, technologies, companies and people in the bitcoin and digital currency world.