Poloniex is a cryptocurrency exchange that started in 2013.
In the coming years, it would become one of the major centralized cryptocurrency (CEX) exchanges in the world.
In 2018, the exchange was purchased by Circle, a digital asset and financial services company, for USD $440 million.
Circle had hoped that through the acquisition, it could become the U.S.’s first regulated cryptocurrency exchange.
However, in 2019, Circle decided to spin off Poloniex into its own company.
Justin Sun, founder of Tron, led the acquisition of Poloniex by an outside investment group based in Asia. It was reported at the time that the investment group would invest up to USD $100 million into Poloniex.
With the acquisition, Poloniex stopped offering all services to U.S. customers.
Poloniex has had numerous run-ins with various regulatory agencies in the U.S. and Canada.
In 2021, the SEC charged Poloniex for operating an unregistered digital asset exchange in the U.S. from 207 to 2019. Poloniex agreed to pay a $10m fine to settle the charges.