Could Poloniex Exchange be regulated out of business.... Its not looking good

If you haven't heard the news about Poloniex exchange and their struggles trying to stay in line with regulatory requirements, you probably haven't been keeping up with cryptocurrency news. The latest of their victim is SBD with Steem currently under review. Several other altcoins have been delisted for various reasons ranging from regulatory uncertainty to poor trading volume. This certainly does not stand well given the fact trading volume haven't been the best for both assets, in fact, trading volumes put it in lines to get kick out the door. The problem many projects face especially in the USA is the regulatory uncertainty, probably it shouldn't be term uncertainty as the regulators want to group 'crypto assets' as securities. Groups have been formed to lobby against such a move but thus far it hasn't produce any fruit. Exchanges like Poloniex that hasn't internationalized their operation or better put domiciled in a crypto friendly jurisdiction are at the mercy of US regulators. As the market heats up, especially the altcoin market I can see regulators from time to time throwing the term 'securities' to cool the market off.

As for Steem on Poloniex, it really on the edge as the volume there is disappointing and currently at the mercy of the stakeholders at Poloniex. Its one of the places where volumes needs to pick up, nonetheless, Poloniex hasn't been favorite among Steemians with the wallets on and off maintenance especially during times volatility. With Bithumb wallet down and Upbit volumes disappointing, Bittrex becomes the main exchange. There has been other exchanges popping up but they haven't shown anything noteworthy to talk about. Bittrex definitely has more leverage as it has internationalized its operation and can always take the route of preventing US customers trading certain assets. From what I see, its going to be a lobbying affair with those with the money to spend on lawyers to sit with regulators to hammer out something workable. Some of these delisting from Poloniex has been surprising, for example, Decred, which is probably one of the most technically gifted and astute team also found itself kick outside the door. Its a solid project tackling on-chain governance along with scalability and privacy fostering hybrid of POW/POS consensus. It already has a working and scalable product and interesting did not even take the typical ICO route, so its interesting to see what project Poloniex would kick next.

I am not to worried about Poloniex exchange, they have good backing and lobbying should not be a problem. The real problem for them after the dust is settle with the abundance of competition within the exchange space, they could find themselves reminiscing on the days when they had traders in the thousands as folks dive into other exchanges offering more of their appetite. Probably its all a plan, to regulate some US exchanges out of business and dawn the new breed of as they put it "CFTC/ SEC regulated exchanges", after all if you think about it, the exchanges would be one of the biggest winners in the space. If you have the money and know it/ know people, you can easily dance your way around regulators and government by offering part of the pie.