more or no less than other industries said paul grewal chief legal officer at coinbase global inc which runs the biggest us exchangegrewal added that coinbase meets bank standards on knowyourcustomer and antimoney laundering rules the tougher stance from regulators is trickling down to projects by banks that seek to use cryptos underlying technology one blockchain executive at a bank said that there has been a slowdown even for projects that use distributed ledger technologygenslers standcoinbase is among the crypto exchanges locked in an increasingly highstakes clash with the sec over the agencys jurisdictionsec chair gary gensler and his enforcement director gurbir grewal have stepped up their focus on the platforms gensler contends the platforms are rife with conflicts of interest and openly offer digital tokens that are really just unregistered securitiesthough cases take months or years to build a flurry of enforcement actions to start 2023 has rattled many in the industry wall streets main regulator has already brought cases involving four major crypto firms genesis global capital gemini trust co nexo capital inc and the exchange known as kraken the secs case against kraken may have widespread implications for the industry in the us the settlement resulted in a 30 million penalty and the firm agreeing to halt a program that let american clients generate yields in return for allowing their tokens to be used to facilitate transactions on a blockchaincoinbase and binance are other firms that offer similar programs which are commonly known as stakingafter the settlement coinbase said its staking services are not securities and that it will continue to offer them binanceus said its closely monitoring the regulatory environment and will continue to adhere to the rules governing our businessthe sec declined to comment but gensler did say on bloomberg television on february 10 that firms that dont comply with its rules should expect to face more enforcement actionsmany people in the industry see that the sec is circling the wagons said aaron kaplan cochief executive officer of prometheum inc which runs the trading platform prometheum ats the major players have to embrace regulation or die