The Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) appears to be kicking off a new era of compliance for crypto exchanges operating in Canada, based on the specifics of OSC’s enforcement action against Poloniex.
Since the beginning of 2020, the Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA) had been signaling to exchanges that things were going to change. The CSA encompasses Canada’s various provincial and territorial securities authorities, the largest of which is the OSC, which regulates the Toronto Stock Exchange.
Like the U.S., Canadian authorities are comfortable treating decentralized crypto assets like bitcoin or ether as commodities rather than securities.
The Poloniex enforcement action documents indicate, however, that exchanges holding custody of their customers’ crypto assets would fall under the purview of securities regulations.
Here’s the relevant text:
“Investors do not have possession or control of crypto assets deposited or traded on the Poloniex Platform. Rather, they see
