The Ontario Securities Commission (OSC), the country’s securities regulator, appears to have reported the tweets from two cryptocurrency exchange leaders, Kraken and Coinbase to law enforcement, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
In Brief:
- The CEOs of Coinbase and Kraken slammed Canada’s Emergencies Act that blacklisted crypto addresses associated with the protests.
- Crowdfunding platforms are supposed to report to FINTRAC after this amendment.
Brian Armstrong, CEO and co-founder of Coinbase, said that it is “concerning to see stuff like this happening in any country, especially such an economically free place like Canada.”
Kraken CEO Jesse Powell tweeted on the same lines saying not to fund from the custodial wallets and that freeze orders are predicted to be imposed.
Both CEOs were reacting to Canada invoking its Emergencies Act to try to control the Freedom Convoy, a group protesting COVID-19 restrictions by occupying Ottawa’s downtown core.
Due to these restrictions, the government was able to immediately freeze several bank accounts and prevent exchanges from working with specific cryptocurrency addresses by blacklisting them.
Taking to Twitter, Powell and Armstrong criticized the move recommending that users keep funds in and send funds from a non-custodial off-exchange wallet. Because regulators cannot prevent those wallets from moving cryptocurrency on-chain and thus, cannot blacklist those addresses.
The tweets clearly advise investors on how to evade regulations that lead to OSC reporting the above tweets to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP).
Kraken and Coinbase both provide services in Canada and are members of FINTRAC, Canada’s financial intelligence agency.
Though cryptocurrency exchanges were required to report to FINTRAC prior to the implementation of the Emergencies Act, the act’s activation means that crowdfunding platforms must now report to FINTRAC as well.
While Kraken has not confirmed whether it has applied for registration with Canadian securities regulators Coinbase confirmed that it is in talks with them.
A wry response came from Powell tweeting that Kraken will be “forced to comply” with requests from law enforcement to freeze customer assets. “We cannot protect you. Get your coins/cash out,” he said.
The Freedom Convoy has been the highlight of certain changes in the finance laws and regulations of Canada. Ethereum Co-founder was also reportedly criticizing the government saying that it should not use banks to suppress the protest also adding Vitalik said that the turmoil happening defines the existence of crypto.
