KuCoin exchange accused of money laundering for more than $ 9 billion

The US authorities have accused the KuCoin crypto exchange and its founders Chun Gan (Michael) and Ke Tang (Eric) of criminal conspiracy. They are accused of violating the law on banking secrecy, intentional deception, and participation in asset laundering worth $ 9 billion.

In 2023, KuCoin faced similar accusations from the New York state authorities. The crypto exchange team spent $ 22 million to resolve the conflict. At the time, according to Chinese journalist Colin Wu, the KuCoin team was considering closing the platform and selling the business.

Amid the negative news about KuCoin, the trading platform’s reserves in ERC-20 stablecoins dropped by more than 20% in just a few hours, from $ 1.217 billion to $ 944 million. The total outflow of assets from KuCoin over the past 24 hours has approached $ 800 million. The trading platform’s token, KuCoin Token (KCS), has fallen by 16%.

The largest crypto exchange on the market, Binance, faced a similar outflow of funds amid disputes with US regulators in November 2023. The KuCoin team publishes optimistic messages on its resources that they continue to work on improving the trading platform. According to representatives of the crypto exchange, users' assets are not in danger.

KuCoin is one of the largest trading platforms in the digital asset market. At the time of writing, it ranks 7th in terms of trading volume on the spot market and 8th on the derivatives market. Therefore, KuCoin’s problems could negatively affect the entire crypto industry.

However, some members of the crypto community believe that the scale of KuCoin is not enough to seriously affect the market. This opinion is shared by popular analyst Michael van de Poppe. He noted that amid the negative news about KuCoin, bitcoin experienced only a small correction. In his opinion, the problems of the crypto exchange will not affect the market.