The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced on Thursday that crypto exchange Kraken will "immediately" end its crypto staking services to U.S. customers and will pay the SEC a $30 million fine for offering unregistered securities, CoinDesk reported. allegations. Kraken’s holding companies, Payward Ventures, Inc. and Payward Trading Ltd., will terminate the staking service and program, the SEC said. These projects have been offering staking services to the public since at least 2019. Kraken stated in a blog that it will automatically release other assets other than ether pledged by U.S. customers. The ether pledge will be released after the upgrade of the Ethereum network in Shanghai takes effect. US customers will not be able to stake new assets (including Ether), but non-US users will not be affected.