Poloniex to Spin Out of Circle

[vlom]

That was a short marriage.
Does anybody have any background information?

E-Mail:

Hello Poloniex Customer,

Today we are very excited to announce that Poloniex will be spinning out from Circle into a new company called Polo Digital Assets, Ltd. This new company will have the full backing of a major Asian investment group, who plans to spend more than $100M to develop and introduce new features, assets, and services for their global customer base.

We are incredibly excited to continue working with you and the rest of the global Poloniex community. We have a wide range of exciting new features and capabilities planned for the exchange starting with 0% spot trading fees until the end of the year, starting on October 21, 2019!

As part of the spinout, Circle will cease all trading operations for US customers on November 1, 2019. As a non-US customer, there is no action you need to take at this time.

The full announcement can be found here and our Customer Support team is available to answer any questions you may have. Simply reply to this message and we will get back to you quickly.

Team Poloniex

Blogpost:
https://medium.com/circle-trader/poloniex-spins-out-from-circle-with-new-backing-global-focus-5a19357bdaee

[squatter]

Great job, Circle! They bought Poloniex at the top of the 2017 bubble, ran it into the ground -- including this margin lending disaster -- and now they've sold it off.

Maybe this is a good sign. Circle obviously has a penchant for bad timing. Remember when they pulled out of the Bitcoin exchange business in December 2016, right before the market exploded? Maybe this is one of those times...

[gentlemand]

What is the definition of 'spinning out'?

Is this a de facto letting go of it to completely new operators or just recasting it with a new arrangement in a new jurisdiction?

Circle are slowly becoming almost as good a contrarian indicator as CNBC so I guess this means alt season isn't far away. They got rid of their BTC retailing just before the opportunity to make hundreds of millions of dollars arrived. They bought this just as alts flew down the toilet in early 2018.

[Pearls Before Swine]

Does anybody have any background information?

I don't have any of that but I did get the e-mail.  Fortunately I have no funds on polo and haven't used them for a while.  I had not realized they were bought by circle and I'd previously thought that had *just* happened.  I guess the asian company that bought them doesn't want anything to do with the U.S., but oh well. 

Makes me wonder how many other exchanges are going to stop offering services to the states, and I do wonder why this is occuring. 

What is the definition of 'spinning out'?

I think they made up that phrase, because I've certainly never heard it used in a context like this one.  They actually sound like idiots for using it.

[gentlemand]

Makes me wonder how many other exchanges are going to stop offering services to the states, and I do wonder why this is occuring.  

No way will the places that have gone to the trouble of legitimising themselves in the US let go now. Circle have been whining about US compliance for quite some time - https://cryptoslate.com/circle-poloniex-us-bermuda-regulatory-uncertainty/  - so I presume they hadn't put the time or money in unlike places such as Gemini and Coinbase.

Since this was only 3 months ago I guess something went wrong.

According to this - https://finance.yahoo.com/news/circle-insiders-justin-sun-leading-192808377.html

The wholly credible Justin Sun is playing a part in its takeover.

Um...

awesome.

[The Sceptical Chymist]

<snip>

Appreciate the info and the link.  This is quite interesting:

According to data provided by crypto researcher Larry Cermak, Poloniex had a 58 percent market share in April 2017. This is a far cry from the 1 percent share it has in the crypto market it has now.

Interesting and laughable at the same time.  How da fuq can an exchange fall so far so fast?

One thing that irritates me about that article is that it alludes to some vague "regulatory pressure" without saying what exactly is going on.  I realize FB's Libra is getting a hard time, but is there something else going on in the US as far as laws being passed regarding crypto?  What's the pressure and where is it coming from?  I want to know these things.

[squatter]

What is the definition of 'spinning out'?

Is this a de facto letting go of it to completely new operators or just recasting it with a new arrangement in a new jurisdiction?

This reads to me like they're selling it off entirely:

This new company will have the full backing of a major Asian investment group

Circle are slowly becoming almost as good a contrarian indicator as CNBC so I guess this means alt season isn't far away. They got rid of their BTC retailing just before the opportunity to make hundreds of millions of dollars arrived. They bought this just as alts flew down the toilet in early 2018.

They're 2 for 2! This move gives me hope that the market might pick up in the coming months.

[countryfree]

I've received the email, and as an old Poloniex customer, I have the suggestion to make to the new owners: they should pay what they've stolen to their customers!

I'm not totally sure Poloniex has a new owner, though. Could be the same guy. He couldn't find any investor in the US, but he found one in Asia? I'm waiting for more information.

One thing for sure: nobody will miss Circle.

[gentlemand]

One thing that irritates me about that article is that it alludes to some vague "regulatory pressure" without saying what exactly is going on. 

Presumably because they're so much more shitcoin heavy than somewhere like Gemini. There's the securities issue and there might be retrospective hassle from all the junk they've listed over the years. They may not have done anything wrong but they might be getting requests to cooperate with things.

[gentlemand]

Someone linked to this on Reddit - https://www.nmlsconsumeraccess.org/EntityDetails.aspx/COMPANY/1486722

If you hit the view all details in the State Licenses/Registrations section you'll see they only have one active money transmitter licence for the 9 states listed. The others are listed as 'voluntary surrender'.

I wonder what that means.

[Artemis3]

I wonder if this will be the end of the USDC tab, and if Polo will launch their own token, because that's the trend nowdays...

[squatter]

One thing that irritates me about that article is that it alludes to some vague "regulatory pressure" without saying what exactly is going on. 

Presumably because they're so much more shitcoin heavy than somewhere like Gemini. There's the securities issue and there might be retrospective hassle from all the junk they've listed over the years. They may not have done anything wrong but they might be getting requests to cooperate with things.

When Circle bought Poloniex, the SEC was involved and they indicated they wouldn't pursue enforcement actions for past behavior. But now they seem to be pressuring them to de-list tokens left and right -- Bittrex and Poloniex have both been removing lots of US markets, and Binance booted US traders entirely. That's obviously part of what's going on.

They were hoping to be a licensed ATS, fully registered as a broker dealer. The fact that they are now exiting the US market instead spells out that the SEC made it completely impossible.

I wonder if this will be the end of the USDC tab

Could be. That's Circle's (and Coinbase's) product, not Poloniex's.

[figmentofmyass]

According to this - https://finance.yahoo.com/news/circle-insiders-justin-sun-leading-192808377.html

The wholly credible Justin Sun is playing a part in its takeover.

Um...

awesome.

lol, thanks for sharing. this actually makes a lot more sense now. i was wondering why anyone would buy poloniex since there's no saving its brand at this point.

i guess poloniex 2.0 will be heavily promoting tron and bittorrent token. TRX base pairs, most likely. if roger ver can do it, why not justin sun?

[PrimeNumber7]

What is the definition of 'spinning out'?

The term "spinning off" is:

A spinoff is the creation of an independent company through the sale or distribution of new shares of an existing business or division of a parent company. A spinoff is a type of divestiture. The spun-off companies are expected to be worth more as independent entities than as parts of a larger business. A spinoff is also known as a spin out or starbust.

The company will presumably be independent of Circle, and will probably be owned by a separate group of investors.

My suspicion is that poloniex is being sold so Circle can rid its possible liability from margin lenders' losses resulting from over leverage from clam margin positions.

[gentlemand]

My suspicion is that poloniex is being sold so Circle can rid its possible liability from margin lenders' losses resulting from over leverage from clam margin positions.

From what I can glean about that incident it's pure tough titty for those lenders. No one else cares and no way would Circle get rid of their $400 million balls up just to duck those peons.

[magneto]

Didn't make sense the amount of hype that was put into circle's acquisition of poloniex in the first place. People somehow saw it as an opportunity for poloniex to really expand their horizons, when in reality they pretty much did nothing after the acquisition.

The damage had already been done with the incompetence of their support as well as the constantly pending withdrawals, etc. beforehand and never have really been fixed.

It's really a non-issue. Poloniex will most likely continue their current business model and not change anything drastic regardless of what happens to ownership.

[gentlemand]

Didn't make sense the amount of hype that was put into circle's acquisition of poloniex in the first place. People somehow saw it as an opportunity for poloniex to really expand their horizons, when in reality they pretty much did nothing after the acquisition.

They well and truly soiled their rep with this one. Any one of us lot could've done a vastly better job with a few mates and 1/100th of the money.

If I were a heavyweight investor no way would I put any money into them after this performance, however investmentland seems to operate in a parallel universe where miserable failure and no effort whatsoever appears to be zero hindrance to gaining funding for even more future squanderage.

In the decades to come people will look back at the internet VC stuff and wonder what on Earth was going on. How was competence, graft, honesty and the actual delivery of results taken out of the equation for so long?

[figmentofmyass]

It's really a non-issue. Poloniex will most likely continue their current business model and not change anything drastic regardless of what happens to ownership.

except they're pulling outta the USA completely. that's a total 180 right there. now they can relax listing standards or maybe even KYC standards.

and also.......justin sun. if he's heading the asian investment group, poloniex will undoubtedly be used to pump TRX and BTT.

poloniex : tron
bitcoin.com : bcash

i could see them launching a BNB-style token too. so many options.....

[countryfree]

and also.......justin sun. if he's heading the asian investment group, poloniex will undoubtedly be used to pump TRX and BTT.

No, not him. He denied the whole thing.

https://cointelegraph.com/news/im-not-buying-anything-says-tron-ceo-amid-reports-of-poloniex-acquisition

So, who else?

[figmentofmyass]

and also.......justin sun. if he's heading the asian investment group, poloniex will undoubtedly be used to pump TRX and BTT.

No, not him. He denied the whole thing.

https://cointelegraph.com/news/im-not-buying-anything-says-tron-ceo-amid-reports-of-poloniex-acquisition

So, who else?

back to square one eh?

without the altcoin pump angle, the deal doesn't make sense to me. we know why circle wants out, but why would anyone pay $100m for a dying exchange in a saturated market? at 1800 BTC volume per day it's a skeleton of its former self.