Following Grayscale’s contribution, Kraken donates $100K to Coin Center

The crypto exchange cited Coin Center’s work in challenging the proposed FinCEN self-hosted wallet rule as well as the STABLE Act from the U.S. government.

Kraken has pledged $100,000 to Coin Center, a cryptocurrency advocacy group based in Washington D.C.

In a blog from the crypto exchange today, Kraken said it had donated the funds to promote Coin Center’s work in educating regulators about digital assets an advancing the rights of crypto users. The exchange said that the advocacy group “has been a vanguard for challenging policies such as the proposed STABLE act as well as recent rushed Financial Crimes Enforcement Network rulemaking.”

“At a time when misinformation about this new technology remains high, we call on all industry leaders to join us in funding this essential work,” said Kraken’s editor-at-large, Pete Rizzo.

Grayscale Investments donated $1 million to Coin Center last week as well, stating its intention to match donations up to an additional $1 million through the end of February. The digital asset manager said at the time that it supported Coin Center’s efforts in “correcting issues in proposed rulemaking” by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or FinCEN.

Last month, U.S. lawmakers introduced the STABLE Act to Congress — a bill that could effectively require blanket regulation on all stablecoins. FinCEN later released a proposal to restrict money services businesses, including crypto exchanges registered in the United States, from dealing with self-hosted wallets. Both moves have received criticism from many in the crypto community.

A research and advocacy group focused on advancing public policy issues surrounding crypto and blockchain, Coin Center says its mission is to “promote a regulatory climate that preserves the freedom to innovate using permissionless blockchain technologies.” The think tank has already filed two comments in response to FinCEN’s proposed wallet rule.

Neeraj Agrawal, Coin Center’s director of communications, told Cointelegraph last week that the group planned to focus on advancing financial privacy and “more sensible tax policy” in 2021.