Massive $297M Blow to KuCoin: U.S. Crackdown Forces Leadership Exit

Key Takeaways:

• KuCoin agrees to a $297 million penalty and a two-year exit from the U.S. market.
• Founders Chun Gan and Ke Tang resign amidst legal repercussions.
• Billions of suspicious transactions are traced to KuCoin’s lax compliance measures.

KuCoin, one of the world’s largest crypto exchanges, has settled charges that it operated an unlicensed money-transmitting business in the United States, said U.S. authorities. Under the settlement, Peken Global Limited-the Seychelles-based entity operating KuCoin-agreed to pay over $297 million in penalties.

As per the agreement, it also will cease operations in the United States for a minimum period of two years, and co-founders Chun Gan and Ke Tang will remove themselves from all positions at the company. The U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, Danielle Sassoon, mentioned KuCoin’s repeated involvement in AML and KYC violations.

She noted that, in fact, billions of dollars of suspicious transactions had been processed via the platform in question, funneling the proceeds from ransomware attacks, darknet markets, and fraud. According to Sassoon, this non-compliance allowed that unlawful activity to continue unabated and was ultimately the precursor to significant penalties against the exchange.

KuCoin’s Expansion Amid Compliance Failures

Launched in 2017, the exchange quickly reached the top of the cryptocurrency world’s most dominant firms, with over 30 million customers and billions of dollars in daily trading volume. It also desperately sought to dominate the U.S. market, serving 1.5 million registered users here and earning approximately $184.5 million in fees from them. However, it failed to register with FinCEN.

Up until mid-2023, KuCoin did not impose KYC on its users; it thus allowed for anonymous accounts active in cryptocurrency trading. Even with the introduction of the KYC in August 2023, such protocols had not been extended to already existing customers, thus creating significant regulatory loopholes.

The said non-compliances made KuCoin a key route through which criminal proceeds that have the potential to undermine the financial system were laundered. Documents filed in court showed that employees of KuCoin openly told customers, even those based in the U.S., on social media that KYC was not required. This brazen disregard for regulatory norms finally caught up with the company when it was indicted in March 2024 along with its founders.

Industry Impact and Regulatory Implications

In the case of KuCoin, the fines and limitations to exercise reveal how the non-compliance is the risk faced by cryptocurrency exchanges operating in a regulated market to any nation law and regulations. The condition the U.S. Department of Justice puts forward is that the co-founders are not prosecuted if they follow all the rules during two years under a deferral agreement.

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