Abra, a cryptocurrency platform, and its CEO, William Barhydt, have reached a settlement with the Oregon Division of Financial Regulation. As part of the agreement, Abra will return assets held by Oregon users and stop offering unregistered securities in the state. This marks another step in the company’s withdrawal from the U.S. market.
Oregon is now the fifth state to take action against Abra and its ecosystem of companies. The state charged Abra with violating securities laws in relation to its interest-bearing crypto depository accounts, Abra Earn and Abra Boost. Abra has been instructed to inform all account holders in Oregon to withdraw their crypto assets from the platform. If the company successfully returns all assets to Oregon customers by April 25th, it will not face any monetary penalties.
Currently, there are 167 Abra customers in Oregon with a total of $32,387.14 on the platform. In February, Iowa settled with Abra, and the company agreed to return $6,426.90 to its 39 customers in that state. By fulfilling the conditions of the settlement by March 6th, Abra was able to avoid a penalty of $461,610.14.
In September 2023, Maryland also took action against Abra on behalf of 162 residents who had a combined balance of $700,000. Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown made an announcement regarding this.
Earlier this year, Abra reached a settlement with the Texas State Securities Board, agreeing to repay state residents their balances on the platform. This was the second action taken by Texas against Abra. In a previous enforcement action in June 2023, the Texas agency discovered that Abra had around 1,600 residents on its platform with a balance of $1.8 million. The agency also claimed that Abra had been insolvent since March of that year, which coincided with the banking crisis.
In April 2023, the California Commissioner of Financial Protection and Innovation issued a consent decree requiring Abra to close out Californians’ Earn accounts, which amounted to $19 million.
Abra announced in a blog post in July that it would be ending its retail operations in the United States.
As the Abra ecosystem faces legal challenges in multiple states, questions arise about the risks and rewards of using cryptocurrency as collateral for home loans.