​Bloomberg: market makers Jane Street and Jump Crypto will refuse to trade cryptocurrencies in the US

What’s new? Leading market makers Jane Street Group and Jump Crypto will pull back from trading digital assets in the United States amid regulatory pressure, Bloomberg reports, citing its own sources. Jane Street is winding down its cryptocurrency plans, including globally, because “regulatory uncertainty has made it difficult for the firm to operate the business in a way that meets internal standards.” In turn, Jump Crypto, the digital assets unit of Jump Trading, is leaving the US market for the same reason. However, both market makers are not abandoning cryptocurrencies entirely.

Bloomberg’s material

What else is known? The attention of US regulators on the digital asset industry has increased following the collapse of major projects, including Do Kwon’s blockchain ecosystem Terra and Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX crypto exchange. Authorities have targeted various areas, including exchanges, stablecoin issuers, and brokers. In February, fintech company Paxos was ordered by the New York regulator to stop issuing BUSD stablecoins, the same month the Kraken exchange curtailed its staking program by the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) decision. In March, the SEC notified Coinbase of possible legal violations, and the exchange responded by filing a lawsuit demanding public disclosure of rules for crypto companies in the States.

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Jane Street and Jump Trading were among the companies whose representatives were questioned by US prosecutors as part of the Terra collapse investigation. Jump Crypto has been a major contributor to the project since 2019. Jane Street was also among three trading firms anonymously cited by the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) in a lawsuit against Binance as an example of how customers in the States were able to access the platform despite its ban.

A number of former Jane Street employees have moved on to cryptocurrency companies. Some joined FTX and its affiliated hedge fund Alameda Research before their bankruptcy. Bankman-Fried worked at Jane Street before leaving and founding Alameda in 2017. Caroline Ellison followed a year later and became CEO of Alameda.

Earlier, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said the exchange has no plans to move its operations outside the United States. He said the company is “100% committed” to the US market in the long run, despite regulatory uncertainty in the country.