ICIJ’s new Coin Laundry investigation confirms what FinTelegram has warned for years: the world’s largest crypto exchanges have been awash with funds tied to money launderers, scam cartels, drug syndicates, and North Korean hackers – even after guilty pleas in the U.S.
The crypto segment is in full swing. Coinbase has acquired Liquifi, the fast-growing token-management platform behind Uniswap and Optimism, in its fourth M&A strike of 2025. The move pushes Coinbase deeper into “back-office” token infrastructure—exactly where future SEC scrutiny will bite—while cementing its end-to-end launch stack for institutional clients.
The EU’s Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) was sold to legislators as the end of Europe’s regulatory patch-work. In theory, every crypto-asset service provider (CASP) will live under the same anti-money-laundering (AML), governance and disclosure standards from 30 December 2024. In practice, the first six months of “early bird” licensing suggest that member states are already competing to become the Cayman Islands of MiCA.
Cryptocurrency-based money laundering is escalating in scale and sophistication, with recent cases highlighting both the evolving tactics of criminal actors and the challenges facing compliance professionals and law enforcement worldwide. Over the last decade, crypto has developed into a powerful money laundering tool for cybercriminals.
Mastercard is positioning itself as a leader in bridging traditional finance with digital assets through a comprehensive stablecoin strategy. By developing end-to-end infrastructure and forging key partnerships, the company aims to make stablecoins as usable as fiat currency for consumers and merchants – a move with significant implications for global payments.
In an extraordinary turn of events, Binance, the world's leading crypto exchange, has demonstrated a formidable comeback following its legal settlement in the United States, solidifying its position as the top global crypto exchange. As of January 19, 2024, the Binance coin BNB has been trading at $312, up 38% since Nov 21, 2023. This is an impressive testament to the growing investor confidence in Binance's stability and potential.
In June 2022, spot trading volumes across all centralized crypto exchanges fell 27.5% to $1.41tn, the lowest figure recorded since December 2020. Binance’s market share rose to 49.7% in June from 45% in January, according to CryptoCompare. FTX boosted its market share to 8.95% in June from 6% in January, making it the second-largest spot market. Coinbase has seen its share of the spot-trading market fall to 7.39% in June from 10.8% in January. OKX, BeQuant, and Gemini also saw their market share slip.
OKX, part of the OK Group, is one of the most prominent crypto trading exchanges operated by Seychelles-based Aux Cayer FinTech Co. Ltd and Malta-based OKEX Malta Ltd. The Chinese Xu Mingxing founded the OK Group, which also owns the crypto exchange Okcoin, in 2017. The Spanish regulator CNMV has issued a warning against OKX, stating that the Group has no authorization to offer its regulated services in Spain. Most recently, the UK FCA has made several critical statements about the world's largest crypto exchange Binance.