A major cryptocurrency exchange in Canada, Newton, will be delisting the XRP and USDT tokens while the tokens battle regulatory issues. The firm disclosed this in an article earlier today. The exchange disclosed that the delisting would go through stages.
Newton XRP And USDT Delisting Stages
The first stage would see the exchange disable transfers for the native Ripple token and Tether. Transfers for XRP and Tether will end on the 20th of December by 11:59 pm Eastern Time. The implication is that users can no longer send any of these tokens to their Newton wallets after the 20th of this month.
The second stage will prevent users from trading the tokens on the platform. It is slated for the very last day of this year. Finally, from the 15th of January next year, those who are yet to withdraw their holdings in USDT or XRP will no longer be able to. At this juncture, the delisting process would be complete.
Ripple and Tether Lawsuits And Regulatory Woes
The SEC in December last year, filed a case against the crypto payment solution provider Ripple. The regulatory body accused Ripple’s founders of raising money in 2013 to start the firm by selling unregistered security called XRP to investors within the United States and beyond. In addition, Ripple is accused of giving out billions of this unregistered security in exchange for various services.
The suit details that Ripple failed to register its XRP investment offerings or sales. The SEC added that the company had not met any metric to be exempted from registration. The regulator says that this contravenes federal laws on security registration.
Recent rulings by the court have pushed back the final verdict and hearing on the case till the beginning of next year. The judge presiding over Sarah Netburn has requested that both parties support their arguments with specific documents. The requested documents are expected to include documents that hold SEC conversations about certain cryptocurrencies, including XRP.
The SEC is not willing at the moment to hand these over to Ripple as part of the discovery of the fact as they claim that the information is privileged. The Judge is scheduled to review the documents and decide if Ripple should have access or not. The CEO of Ripple has said that the judge is coming to terms with the fact that the case is bigger than Ripple and is expecting a positive outcome.
Tether, on the other hand, has come under a lot of scrutiny for its lack of cash to back up its reserves. The criticism has come from both crypto enthusiasts and lawmakers. As stablecoins begin to attract the worried eyes of regulators and lawmakers, it doesn’t help that the firm minted over $3 billion in the last few months, minting a billion just days ago. Questions remain as to if the company can back up its supply.
The firm has recently been fined about $40 million for claiming that the stablecoins supply was fully backed by the United States dollar. Lawmakers have requested documents from stablecoin companies, and talks of a house hearing may be in the works. These issues have forced the hands of certain exchanges like Newton, who want to make sure that their businesses remain above board, to consider delisting them.