Key takeaways:
- By settling with the Oregon Division of Financial Regulation, Abra will refund Oregon customers’ funds on the site and stop selling unregistered securities in the state.
- Abra was forced to notify every account holder in the state to take their cryptocurrency holdings off the platform.
By the terms of their settlement with the Oregon Division of Financial Regulation, cryptocurrency platform Abra and its CEO, William Barhydt, will refund any funds that Oregon customers have on the site and stop selling unregistered securities in the state.
This is the most recent phase of the US-based company’s exit from the US market. Oregon is at least the fifth state to pursue legal action against the businesses that support the Abra ecosystem. Oregon accused Abra of breaking state securities laws in relation to its interest-bearing Abra Earn and Abra Boost cryptocurrency depository accounts.
Abra was forced to notify every account holder in the state to take their cryptocurrency holdings off the platform. It will not be penalized financially if, by April 25, it can return all assets to Oregon customers.
167 Abra users in Oregon have $32,387.14 available on the platform. In February, Abra and its CEO reached a settlement with the state of Iowa, and Abra promised to reimburse its roughly 39 customers in that state for $6,426.90. If the settlement’s requirements were met by March 6, it would be spared $461,610.14 in penalties.
In September 2023, Maryland filed a lawsuit against Abra on behalf of 162 Maryland residents who owed a combined $700,000. Anthony Brown, the attorney general for Maryland, said in the statement:
“Maryland has been participating in a working group of state securities regulators focused on interest-bearing crypto asset accounts.”
Abra agreed to pay back state residents’ funds on the platform in a deal with the Texas State Securities Board this past January, which constituted Texas’s second move against Abra.
The Texas agency discovered in a June 2023 enforcement action that Abra had almost 1,600 state residents on its platform and a $1.8 million balance. Furthermore, it stated that Abra has been unable to pay its debts since March of that year, during the height of the financial crisis.
Abra is required under a consent agreement imposed by the California Commissioner of Financial Protection and Innovation in April 2023 to cancel Californians’ $19 million Earn accounts. In July, Abra announced in a blog post that it was discontinuing its retail activities in the US.
