MEXC is using its 30-day window to try to avoid a US blacklisting. Founder Vugar Usi said the exchange has opened talks with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network after the agency issued a November 6 order under Section 9714 of the Combating Russian Money Laundering Act. The countdown begins when the order is published in the Federal Register, so the clock is tied to that date rather than the signing date.
Lawyers and a written request
Usi said on X that MEXC made contact through top-tier US law firms. He added that FinCEN confirmed receipt of the exchange’s written request yesterday morning, US time. His message was simple: MEXC is ready to cooperate fully, and the platform continues to operate normally. That is the public line, at least. The corporate account had already said days earlier that legal and compliance teams were reviewing the order and that user assets remained secure. MEXC also started an independent review of its anti-money-laundering and sanctions controls.
What Section 9714 does
Section 9714 lets FinCEN target foreign firms it considers a primary money laundering concern linked to Russian illicit finance. If invoked, it can stop those firms from sending or receiving funds through US institutions. FinCEN has not used this power often. Before MEXC, it had applied the designation to Bitzlato in January 2023 and PM2BTC in September 2024. Neither target was close to MEXC’s size.
The order noted that MEXC processed more than $1 billion in daily volume and held about $5 billion in reserves as of June 2026. CoinMarketCap data showed near $810 million over the last 24 hours. FinCEN’s case covers May 2021 to May 2026. The agency alleges that MEXC processed roughly $1.5 billion tied to Russian sanctions evasion and about $16.7 billion in illicit activity over that five-year period.
Exchange fallout
The order also follows scrutiny of MEXC’s ties to A7, a Russian state-backed payments network that issues the A7A5 ruble-pegged stablecoin. In early October, Cryptopolitan reported that the US Treasury hit A7 with a transnational criminal organization designation.
For now, the FinCEN order bars US institutions from sending or receiving funds from MEXC. It does not apply to firms registered outside the US, and MEXC’s non-US business is not expected to be affected. Still, other exchanges are reacting. OKX founder Star Xu warned users not to send funds directly from MEXC to OKX after complaints that USDT deposits were flagged and frozen. Binance has said it will stop processing transfers involving MEXC. The next few weeks will show whether lawyers can change the outcome, or whether the cutoff holds.
