Kraken Donates $1 million to Coin Center, Backing Blockchain Research

Cryptocurrency exchange Kraken donated $1 million to Coin Center and pledged they will match donations made up to $1 million. After slamming a fact-finding inquest into crypto-exchanges, this shows their support for research designed to help regulators.

Kraken Backs Blockchain Think Tank

Executive Director of Coin Center, Jerry Brito, made the surprise announcement at the Coin Center Annual Dinner on May 14. He announced the donation and said that Kraken will match any donations made within May up to a tune of $1 million. This shows Kraken wants to create informed regulation of the industry and comes after the SEC said it will target fraudulent ICOs.

Kraken said:

“The great work that Coin Center does is extremely important and referenced by governments around the world. They’ve been ardent defenders of blockchain technology, cryptocurrency and innovation. Their work benefits the community, the industry and people who have yet to hear about Bitcoin. We are very proud to be able to support their continued effort.”

We are very proud to announce our $1m donation to @coincenter, the Night’s Watch of crypto. Additionally, we’ll be matching 1:1 all other gifts, up to $1m, during May. We hope that you will join us in supporting their amazing and important work.https://t.co/2QGWwhunK3

— Kraken Exchange (@krakenfx) May 15, 2018

Coin Center is a non-profit think tank targeted at public policy for blockchain technology. Their aim is to educate the public and the regulators in order to promote innovation and growth in the industry. They produce and publish research from academics and experts which provide governments with accurate data to base their policy decisions on.

Coin Center said:

“These contributions will go a long way to helping us gear up for the increased attention to cryptocurrencies here in DC. So, if you’ve been thinking about donating to Coin Center, now is the time. Your money will go twice as far.”

Coin Center: Ether is Not a Security

Cryptocurrency investors have been concerned over the threat of regulation in the blockchain industry. SEC chairman Jay Clayton has said that all ICOs are securities but the SEC has not committed itself to imposing this as yet and instead have focused on scams within the space. They created a fake ICO for ‘Howeycoins’ and even wrote a fake whitepaper to educate the public about how they can be scammed for their money if they do not do their research. This was a reference to the infamous ‘Howey Test’ to determine if something is a security or not.

Coin Center’s Director of Research, Peter Van Valkenburgh, said that ether is not a security in a blog post in April and emphasized the difference between an ICO and the token itself. He said: “The value of ether and the functionality of the Ethereum network is not reliant on the Foundation, rather it flows from the efforts of thousands of unaffiliated developers, miners, and users.” He argued that the token cannot be called a security because there is no contract or expectation of future value in general use.

Kraken is currently the #15 cryptocurrency exchange ranked by market cap with a 24-hour volume of $124,048,838. They were the first Bitcoin exchange to have their trading price and volume shown on the Bloomberg Terminal. They have previously predicted a $1 trillion market for cryptocurrencies in 2018. More recently, they condemned the New York Attorney General for leading a fact-finding exhibition into cryptocurrency exchanges.

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