Binance, Bitfinex and More: NY Launches Inquiry Into Crypto Exchanges

New York's Attorney General is taking a closer look at some of the world's most popular cryptocurrency exchanges.

Attorney General Eric Schneiderman announced the "Virtual Markets Integrity Initiative" on Tuesday, saying it was "a fact-finding inquiry into the policies and practices" of cryptocurrency trading platforms. Letters were sent to 13 exchanges, seeking information about their "operations, use of bots, conflicts of interests, outages, and other key issues," according to a press release published on Tuesday.

"With cryptocurrency on the rise, consumers in New York and across the country have a right to transparency and accountability when they invest their money. Yet too often, consumers don't have the basic facts they need to assess the fairness, integrity, and security of these trading platforms," Schneiderman was quoted as saying.

Letters were sent to the companies that operate GDAX, Gemini, bitFlyer, Binance, itBit, Gate.io, Huobi.Pro, Bitfinex, Bitstamp, Bittrex, Kraken, Tidex and Poloniex (the latter of which was recently acquired by Circle).

According to Schneiderman, the inquiry is focused on key issues such as "internal controls and safeguards to protect consumer assets." In statements, Schneiderman's office said that the effort would, in part, look into the exchanges that explicitly do not operate in New York because of regulatory concerns.

"We are aware that certain trading platforms have formal rules barring access in New York and may not have a license to engage in virtual currency business activity in New York. Among other topics, we are asking platforms to describe their measures for restricting trading from prohibited jurisdictions," the announcement stated.