Crypto exchange MEXC will be cut off from US financial system: ban will also affect crypto transfers

U.S. financial institutions will be prohibited from sending and receiving funds involving MEXC Global. The U.S. Treasury said at least $16 billion in transactions related to sanctions evasion, cybercrime and other illegal activity flowed through the crypto exchange.

The order was announced on November 6 by FinCEN, the Treasury's financial crimes enforcement network. The measure was taken under a U.S. law aimed at countering money laundering of Russian funds.

The Treasury ranks MEXC among the world's twenty largest crypto exchange platforms and reports that as of September 2026 its daily turnover exceeded $1 billion.

The ban will take effect 30 days after the publication of the order in the Federal Register, the official registry of U.S. federal documents. The countdown is tied specifically to that publication, not to the date of the press release. In the version of the document posted by FinCEN, the final expiration date of the restrictions is not set.

In the text of the order, transfers are defined as sending and receiving funds, including cryptocurrency. Therefore, the restrictions cover not only ordinary bank payments: U.S. organizations subject to the document will be prohibited from conducting corresponding crypto transfers with MEXC.

For clients, the route of a specific transfer matters. It follows from the mechanism of the ban that after it enters into force, a transaction involving a U.S. financial organization may turn out to be unavailable, even if the user themselves is located outside the U.S.

At the same time, the order does not call for a global shutdown of the exchange or an automatic freeze of funds of all its clients. The availability of individual deposit and withdrawal methods will depend on the organizations involved and the decisions of payment partners.

The U.S. Treasury estimates that at least $16 billion in transactions related to illegal activity passed through the platform from May 2021 to May 2026. This is the volume of transactions cited by U.S. authorities, not the amount of client losses. Nearly $1.5 billion is linked by the agency to sanctions evasion against Russia. This sum includes $232 million in direct transactions with entities sanctioned by the U.S., EU and UK.

The agency also claims that MEXC continued to conduct operations with the Russian crypto exchange Garantex and its successor Grinex at least as of June 2026. The Treasury's materials also mention operations related to sanctions evasion against Iran and North Korea. This information represents the assessment of U.S. authorities.

Based on materials from: FinCEN, order on transfers involving MEXC Global, U.S. Department of the Treasury.

Illustrative photo: Ajay Suresh / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0 license. Archive photo dated April 29, 2026.