SoFi Shuts Down Crypto Trading: What You Need To Know

SoFi Technologies Inc. (NYSE: SOFI) customers will have two options to choose from as the company plans to shut down its crypto services by Dec. 19.

The default option is to liquidate and close your account. Customers who select this option will have all of their crypto assets sold and transferred into their brokerage accounts within 60 days.

You must opt in to the alternative option of migrating your account to Blockchain.com. Once your account has migrated, you can take advantage of some of Blockchain.com's offerings, such as self-custody, more tokens and advanced trading features. The downside is that you won't have your crypto on the same platform you bank with, which was a major selling point for SoFi crypto.

If you live in Virginia, Hawaii, Louisiana, New Jersey, Nevada, Tennessee or Texas, you can transfer your account with Bakkt Crypto Solutions to Blockchain.com.

For these accounts, certain tokens will be automatically sold: Aave (AAVE), Avalanche (AVAX), Bancor (BNT), Basic Attention Token (BAT), Chainlink (LINK), Compound (COMP), Enjin Coin (ENJ), Maker (MKR), Polkadot (DOT), Stellar (XLM), SushiSwap (SUSHI), Synthetix (SNX), Tezos (XTZ), The Graph (GRT), Uniswap (UNI) and Yearn.finance (YFI).

Accounts in New York will not be able to migrate, but they will remain open until Jan. 28. Between Dec. 19 and Jan. 28th, New York accounts will only be able to sell crypto. Afterward, the accounts will be closed and liquidated.

The move to get rid of crypto services comes after a rocky 2023 for crypto trading platforms. This year has seen the downfall of FTX Trading Ltd. and Alameda Research as well as a recent ruling and fine of $4.3 billion against Binance.

Prominent asset manager ARK Invest saw this as a great opportunity to buy SoFi stock. On Nov. 29, the Ark Fintech Innovation ETF sold $5 million worth of Coinbase (NASDAQ: COIN) to buy $2 million of Robinhood (NASDAQ: HOOD) and $1.5 million of SoFi stock (SOFI).

SoFi stock was up over 14% last week after the news.

The move for SoFi to get out of crypto has been in the works for nearly two years. When SoFi received approval to become a bank holding company in January 2022, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency required that it stop engaging in crypto services. The company had a two-year grace period to meet this requirement.

If you are looking for a new crypto trading platform to use after SoFi shuts down crypto trading, Kraken is an option. It offers over 200 cryptocurrencies, has low fees and is among the most popular exchanges in the crypto space. It also offers trading features for both beginners and advanced traders.