Fast on the heels of Binance’s announcement to open a separate, curated platform for U.S. users, U.S.-based Bittrex yesterday, June 14, delisted, or “geofenced,” another rash of tokens that will be excluded from trading on BittrexUS.

A total of 42 tokens will be delisted from trading starting on June 28. This is the second tranche of tokens to be delisted on BittrexUS within the month, with an almost identical announcement having come on June 7, delisting 32 tokens at that time.

In total then, BittrexUS will delist a total of 74 cryptos during June. Users will still be able to withdraw their tokens if they miss the deadline, but trading will be closed.

American Wall

Although no explicit explanation for the removals is given, the spirit of these delistings is clearly regulatory, as all tokens will still be available to trade on Bittrex’s International platform. Almost all of the tokens listed are ERC-20 tokens.

The isolation of the U.S. crypto markets seems to be the theme of the moment, with Binance causing a huge stir in past days by announcing their exclusion of all U.S. customers within 90 days from their main platform. Like Bittrex, Binance will proceed with a completely separate domain for U.S. customers – with a vastly reduced list of tradable tokens.

The issue in the U.S. is a lack of regulatory clarity, specifically regarding determining which digital assets are to be considered securities. Securities are highly regulated financial products, and U.S. financial regulatory agencies and legislators have not succeeded in clarifying the law in this regard.

What’s more, the SEC has shown its willingness to bare its fangs and issue indictments to certain projects – the most notable recent example of which is probably the indictment of Zach Coburn, founder of the now inactive (but forked!) EtherDelta decentralized ERC-20 exchange. Coburn was obliged to pay $400,000 in penalties.