Canadian securities regulators in February gave a 30-day deadline for unregistered crypto trading platforms operating in the country to commit to a so-called pre-registration undertaking. Firms are required to follow tougher regulations on segregating customer assets and prohibited from offering margin or leverage to users in Canada.

The new rules are prompting companies in the industry to make some hard choices about whether to comply and stay in the country or pull out. Some firms — including Coinbase Global Inc. and Binance — have signaled they intend to pursue registrations. But others, such as stablecoin issuer Paxos and decentralized exchange dYdX, have decided instead to wind up their Canadian operations.

The Canadian Securities Administrators previewed the guidance in December following the collapse of FTX, saying it illustrated the need for stronger oversight of the industry. Crypto platforms that are "unable or unwilling" to follow the new process should stop Canadian users from accessing their services, the regulators said.

"It's a reaction to recent events and lessons learned from those events," said Matthew Burgoyne, a Calgary-based attorney for the law firm Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP.

The move comes amid a separate US crackdown on the industry, in particular through increased enforcement by the Securities and Exchange Commission and other bodies. The SEC altered a proposed rule Friday to make it more explicit that digital-asset exchanges and decentralized-finance platforms must register with the regulator. And it has proposed rules that would make it harder for crypto platforms to hold digital assets owned by clients of hedge funds and private equity firms.