1Broker, a BTC futures trading firm, announced that it would be reopening withdrawals as of Thursday. The announcement comes several weeks after the firm was accused of acting as an unregistered security-based swap dealer, as well as for allegedly violating money-laundering and wire fraud laws.
1Broker started having issues when the U. S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) filed charges in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia against its CEO, Patrick Brunner, and its parent company, 1Pool, for not complying with the law. According to reports, an agent went undercover and made a few transactions on the platform, in violation with established regulations, including proper Know Your Customer processes as stated by the law.
1Broker reopened its platform in a read-only mode earlier this month. During this time, the platform announced that they are seeking legal counsel to help them work out the issues and to resume operations.
Many of its clients are happy with the latest announcement from 1Broker. Initially, when the domain was seized, the trading platform claimed to have enough funds to cover all withdrawals request by the customers and claimed it was waiting on approval from the authorities in order to process the transactions. Customers were allowed to start withdrawing at 12:00 UTC on Oct. 11.
We will start processing withdrawals tomorrow at 12:00 (UTC). Thanks for your patience in the past days!
— 1Broker (@1Brokerio) October 10, 2018
Authorities are still seeking a permanent injunction against Brunner and 1Pool. They are also seeking to have the two pay monetary penalties.
1Broker, in its announcement, did not state if and when they will reactivate their operations and it is unclear when the authorities will allow the company to resume them. According to 1Pool, the platform has been running smooth and has created a respected working relationship with its customers. It stated that the company has been complying with established laws and hopes to clear the misunderstanding soon.
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