ShapeShift leaves Washington due to Bill 5031

The crypto asset exchange ShapeShift announced in its blog that it’s no longer operating in the state of Washington, USA.

The decision is made due to increased restrictiveness in the legal framework of this state, namely the implementation of Bill 5031. In compliance with it, companies that operate with cryptocurrencies must get a special license from the financial regulators of the state of Washington.

“Under this interpretation of the law, we would now be required to ask permission from Washington before we buy and sell our own property for our own account. Moreover, we would be required to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to maintain a license, only to extract our users’ personal information and store that information for hackers to steal,” ShapeShift angrily notes.

The exchange platform considers this situation to be harmful for clients, disastrous for economic growth and makes the innovators’ lives harder. Unethical, wasteful and reckless – this is how they describe this new state policy. The finance sector will not thrive in places with such laws, conclude ShapeShift representatives.

They were not the only ones to leave. Bitfinex, Bitstamp, Kraken and Poloniex have too moved out of Washington, and this collective withdrawal will undoubtedly affect the economy of this American state.