Courtesy of Charles Hoskinson’s Twitter
- eToro has announced that it will be delisting Cardano and TRON for U.S users, blaming regulatory concerns for its decision.
- Hoskinson, in his response, has claimed he was blindsided by the move and is not satisfied with how the Cardano Foundation communicated with him.
eToro, a stock trading platform-cum-cryptocurrency exchange has delisted Cardano’s ADA and TRON’s TRX cryptocurrencies. In its announcement, the exchange revealed that U.S users will no longer be able to open new positions or stake the two tokens starting in a month’s time. This comes at the same time that Bitstamp, a much bigger exchange, listed ADA. And as expected, Charles Hoskinson had quite a bit to say about the ban, which he claims blindsided him.
“Users will not be able to open new ADA or TRX positions starting on December 26, 2021. Additionally, staking for those assets will end on December 31, 2021,” eToro stated in its announcement. The move is due to business-related considerations in an evolving regulatory environment, the exchange said.
U.S users will be able to hold their existing TRX and ADA positions and can close positions at any time and receive USD. Staking rewards will end as well, with the last rewards being paid on January 15 next year.
The exchange is also working on its eToro Money cryptocurrency wallet that’s compatible with these two tokens and it should launch in early 2022. This wallet will allow users to hold their ADA and TRX even when they can no longer sell them for USD.
eToro refrained from disclosing the specific regulatory concerns that forced it to drop support of the two tokens. There has been no regulatory action towards either Cardano or TRON in the U.S, making the move all the more mysterious.
Hoskinson: eToro blindsided us, but liquidity is still very high
Charles Hoskinson, the founder of Cardano and the leader of Input Output Global (IOG), was quick to respond to the latest move. About 20 minutes after eToro made the announcement, he made a video from his home in Colorado, addressing the drop by eToro and why it was insignificant in the bigger picture.
And we didn’t even get delisted. Ada is still on etoro and non-US customers can freely trade https://t.co/FAcUgv9ERj
— Charles Hoskinson (@IOHK_Charles) November 23, 2021
Hoskinson first sought to make it clear that IOG doesn’t handle listing and liquidity for ADA. This is the responsibility of the Cardano Foundation, which is an independent entity.
To him, the eToro move is just a manifestation of a much bigger problem – the systemic lack of regulatory clarity for crypto. In the U.S, which is supposed to be a world leader, this lack of clarity is adversely affecting cryptocurrency projects and businesses.
However, despite the drop, ADA is doing just fine, Hoskinson assured the community. He noted that Bitstamp, a European cryptocurrency exchange that’s among the oldest in the world, just picked up ADA.
Everything’s fine. Cardano is fine. Liquidity is improving – don’t allow people to spread fear, uncertainty, and disinformation. It’s just an example of thousands of independent businesses making decisions for their businesses, and some of those decisions are great for Cardano and some of those decisions aren’t.
While he respects eToro’s right to make business decisions as it deems fit, he felt that he had been blindsided by the company. He revealed that most exchanges are in constant communication with IOG and the Foundation and usually notify them of any changes or issues. IOG even gives some exchanges access to internal Slack so that they can interact with developers and get issues solved quickly.
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