World’s Top Market Makers Drop US Crypto Trading Plans Amid Regulatory Crackdown (Report)

Jane Street Group and Jump Crypto are pulling back from their crypto trading ambitions as U.S. regulators up their efforts to quash the industry.

Furthermore, global trading firm Jane Street is scaling back crypto plans globally due to regulatory uncertainty. The clouded regulatory waters have “made it difficult for the firm to operate the business in a way that meets internal standards,” according to Bloomberg, citing a person familiar with the matter.

Jump Crypto, the digital assets unit of Jump Trading, is ditching the U.S. market for similar reasons, it added.

American Crypto Exodus

However, Jump Crypto is expanding internationally, it was confirmed. Several U.S. crypto firms are also moving overseas, such as Coinbase, Gemini, and Galaxy Digital.

Jane Street and Jump Trading were caught up in some of last year’s crypto market turmoil. They were targeted by U.S. prosecutors in an investigation into the failed Terra/Luna ecosystem. Additionally, Jump Crypto had been a major backer of the TerraUSD stablecoin project since 2019.

Jane Street has not escaped regulatory wrath either. According to the report, the company was cited anonymously by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) in its lawsuit against Binance.

Furthermore, former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried worked at Jane Street in New York before leaving to start Alameda in 2017.

The world’s leading crypto asset manager Grayscale is still pushing ahead with its crypto exchange-traded fund (ETF) ambitions despite being stonewalled by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

On May 9, Grayscale announced the creation of the Grayscale Funds Trust, which it described as:

“A new Series Trust that will allow Grayscale to independently manage and bring to market new and innovative products, as we continue to build out our ETF franchise and broader product family.”

It also filed a registration with the SEC for a Grayscale Ethereum Futures ETF, a Grayscale Global Bitcoin Composite ETF, and a Grayscale Privacy ETF.

Crypto Market Outlook

Crypto markets have remained flat over the past 24 hours. As a result, total capitalization remains at $1.19 trillion, following a 4.6% decline over the past week.

BTC prices were unmoved on the day at $27,694, while Ethereum remained unchanged at $1,845 at the time of writing.