Aphelion is a P2P trading platform (DEX) built on the NEO blockchain that brings a wallet based peer-to-peer trading experience to cryptocurrency traders worldwide.
The Aphelion CEO, Ian Holtz, announced that the team had made the business decision to disable mainnet trading. All market pairs in the Aphelion DEX were be disabled on November 21. Users are urged to cancel their orders and withdraw any contract/DEX balances back to their wallet. If you don’t cancel your orders or withdraw your funds the Aphelion team will process those automatically starting on Friday November 23.
CEO writes that to date since release on October 10th, the DEX has collected just under 3500 APH (the Aphelion token) in fees — 80% of which have been or will be redistributed to the community. This leaves roughly 700 APH in organization collected fees (around $20 at current rates).
“They will stay on the contract until the DEX is reinstated or we’ll burn them; meaning no profits have been made from Aphelion DEX trading”, – he adds.
According to Ian Holtz, the exchange is pausing due to recent SEC action against EtherDelta. The SEC ruled that non-custodial cryptocurrency exchanges allowing users to trade are firmly within their scope.
“Previously, we’d been advised that we were not in their regulatory purview. Since that action, and based on expert advice from multiple leading attorney firms specializing in compliance, we fully expect the SEC to continue to target all crypto exchanges (decentralized or not). And so, we have been advised to cease trading activities immediately and identify a path towards compliance,” – he writes, adding:
“The decision is not related to any specific SEC action towards us, nor is it related to any recent listings on the Aphelion DEX; it is a solely a direct consequence of the EtherDelta action.”
Aphelion is trying to find a path towards compliance. One option is obtaining a broker-dealer license through registering as a national exchange or partnering with an organization that has one. Another option is to enable full KYC-AML.
CEO writes they will continue to analyze and monitor all paths towards compliance, adding they have several options.
CEO adds that Aphelion wallet stays live across desktop, Android, iOS and web. The team also plans to keep the DEX fully functional on testnet and release mobile DEX on testnet so users can continue to see and interact with the DEX while Aphelion is trying to find a path towards compliance.
