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Poloniex, a cryptocurrency exchange, has agreed to pay $10.4 million to settle SEC charges in the United States.

Poloniex agreed to pay roughly USD 10.4 million to settle charges of operating as an unlicensed cryptocurrency exchange, according to the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

The US regulator said, Poloniex agreed to pay a settlement without admitting or contesting the claims.

Poloniex was founded in 2014 and acquired by Circle, a payments and digital currency company backed by Goldman Sachs Group Inc., in 2018.

Circle announced last month that it plans to go public later this year through a merger with special-purpose acquisition company Concord Acquisition Corp in a deal valued at USD 4.5 billion.

According to the SEC's order, Poloniex operated a Web-based global trading platform from July 2017 to November 2019 that "facilitated buying and selling digital assets, including digital assets that were investment contracts and thus securities," and that trading platform was also available to United States investors.

Poloniex did not register as a national securities exchange with regulators, according to the SEC, despite operating its trading platform.

"By adding digital asset securities on its unregistered exchange, Poloniex chose higher profits over compliance with federal securities laws," said Kristina Littman, chief of the SEC enforcement division's cyber unit.

The order came after SEC Commissioner Gary Gensler pledged to improve oversight of the bitcoin business. Last week, Gensler pushed Congress to grant the agency broader authority to supervise cryptocurrency trading, loans, and platforms, which he described as a "Wild West" rife with fraud and investor risk.