More than five and a half billion dollars
That is the running total of all published fines and settlements against crypto exchanges worldwide: over $5.5 billion for the companies, plus more than a quarter of a billion for founders personally. Every line below comes from a published decision, link included.
One name dominates: four of every five dollars come from the Binance case of November 2023. But whoever looks only at that misses the real story — it is further down.
The Netherlands has its own chapter: five DNB fines and two fully forfeited penalty orders, € 22 million in total — that overview is here.
The big table — largest first
| Exchange | Where | When | Amount | For what |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Binance | US — DOJ, Treasury, CFTC | Nov 2023 | $4.3bn | Guilty plea: AML rules, sanctions, operating unlicensed. decision ↗ |
| OKX | US — DOJ | Feb 2025 | $504.7m | Guilty plea: served Americans without a licence. decision ↗ |
| KuCoin | US — DOJ | Jan 2025 | $297.4m | Guilty plea; US ban, permanent since Mar 2026. decision ↗ |
| CZ (Binance founder, personal) | US — DOJ + CFTC | 2023–2024 | $200m | Personally guilty; four months in prison; pardoned Oct 2025. decision ↗ |
| BitMEX | US — DOJ | Jan 2025 | $100m | Bank Secrecy Act; second round. decision ↗ |
| BitMEX | US — CFTC + FinCEN | Aug 2021 | $100m | Unlicensed derivatives exchange, no AML. decision ↗ |
| Gemini | US — NYDFS + NYAG | 2024 | $87m + $1.1bn returned | The Earn debacle; customers repaid in full. decision ↗ |
| BitMEX founders (personal) | US — CFTC + DOJ | 2022 | $60m | Hayes, Delo, Reed personally; pardoned Mar 2025. decision ↗ |
| Bitfinex + Tether | US — CFTC + NYAG | 2021 | $60m | Backing claims untrue; $850m loss concealed. decision ↗ |
| Coinbase | US — NYDFS | Jan 2023 | $50m + $50m investment | AML backlogs during explosive growth. decision ↗ |
| Kraken | US — SEC | Feb 2023 | $30m | Staking programme as an unregistered security. decision ↗ |
| Bittrex† | US — FinCEN + OFAC | Oct 2022 | $29.3m | Three years without a single report, plus sanctions violations. † The exchange has since been wound down. decision ↗ |
| Five exchanges | Netherlands — DNB | 2022–2025 | € 22m | Registration duty ignored; the full Netherlands overview. |
| Coinbase | Ireland — Central Bank | Nov 2025 | €21.46m | Over 30 million transactions never monitored; High Court confirmation still pending. decision ↗ |
| KuCoin | US — NYAG | Dec 2023 | $22m | Unregistered; exit from New York. decision ↗ |
| KuCoin | Canada — FINTRAC | Jul 2025 | C$19.55m (under appeal) | Unregistered, and large transactions never reported. decision ↗ |
| Binance Australia | Australia — ASIC | Mar 2026 | A$10m | 524 retail clients classed as professionals; A$13.1m already repaid to them. decision ↗ |
| Kraken | Australia — ASIC | Dec 2024 | A$8m | Credit product without the required target-market test. decision ↗ |
| Coinbase (CBPL) | UK — FCA | Jul 2024 | £3.5m | High-risk customers onboarded regardless. decision ↗ |
| Binance | Canada — FINTRAC | May 2024 | C$6m (under appeal) | Large-transaction reporting duty ignored. decision ↗ |
| Bybit | Canada — OSC | Jun 2022 | $2.47m (disgorgement) | Not a fine but a handover of profits, plus a reprimand. decision ↗ |
| Binance | India — FIU | Jun 2024 | $2.25m | Unregistered; registered properly afterwards. |
| KuCoin | Canada — OSC | Jun 2022 | C$2m | Unregistered; plus a permanent ban in Ontario. decision ↗ |
| OKX (Okcoin Europe) | Malta — FIAU | Apr 2025 | €1.1m | “Serious and systematic” AML failings. |
| Kraken | US — CFTC | Sep 2021 | $1.25m | Off-exchange margin trading without the required registration. decision ↗ |
| Bybit | India — FIU | Jan 2025 | $1.06m | Same pattern: first the fine, then the registration. |
Smaller decisions (Kraken OFAC $362,000; KuCoin CFTC $500,000 and India $41,000; Binance Turkey TRY 8m; Bitfinex CFTC 2016 $75,000) are left out of the table for readability, but count towards the total.
As of 1 August 2026. Every row links to the published decision. Nominal amounts in the Binance case partly overlap through crediting between authorities; we use the DOJ total of $4.3bn as the company total.
Half the story is called Binance
Binance did not just pay the largest amount ever — it also collected the widest spread: the US ($4.3bn, with a guilty plea), the Netherlands (€3.3m), Canada (C$6m, under appeal), India ($2.25m) and Turkey. Founder CZ paid $200 million personally, served four months, and was pardoned by President Trump in October 2025 — the pardon erased his conviction, not the company's settlement.
And the meter may still be running: Nigeria claims $81.5 billion in a case that resumes in September 2026, Belgium ordered services to stop, France is investigating. Those are not fines — so they do not count here. But they sketch the pattern.
The pattern: not the trading, but the gate
Read the “for what” column again. Almost no fine is about the trading itself — about prices, spreads or manipulation. Nearly everything is about the gate: who gets in, who checks, and who reports what flows through. AML rules, registration, KYC.
That makes the lesson for traders simple. The question is not whether an exchange has good technology — nearly all of them do. The question is whether it guards its gate. Whoever does not, pays sooner or later: OKX $504.7 million, KuCoin $297.4 million plús a permanent US ban. Both simply carried on afterwards — outside the US.
How heavily that gatekeeper role weighs differs enormously per country — which is exactly the story of our licence ladder.
Who is not on the list
Just as telling: Bitvavo, Finst, Bitstamp, Deribit, Bitget, MEXC and Hyperliquid have no known fine as of 1 August 2026. And Backpack, the youngest licence holder on the list, has a fully clean slate — born inside the rules rather than squeezed into them later.
One nuance: no fine is not the same as no signal. Japan issues warnings rather than fines — Bybit, Bitget and MEXC collected them — and the UK's FCA put Hyperliquid on its warning list in May 2026. Warnings do not count towards the total. But whoever collects them is drafting their own chapter above.
How we read the numbers
Three rules. One: only published decisions and settlements count — no rumours, no pending cases. Two: customer repayments (like Gemini's $1.1 billion) are restitution, not punishment — they are listed, but not counted. Three: where authorities credit each other, as in the Binance case, we use the highest official total and never double-count.
New decisions are added as soon as they are published. The meter has not stood still since January 2025.
Frequently asked questions
What is the largest crypto fine ever?
The Binance case of November 2023: $4.3 billion, with guilty pleas from the company and from founder CZ personally ($200 million, four months in prison). It is one of the largest corporate settlements in US history, in any industry.
Do Asian countries hand out fines too?
India does: Binance ($2.25m), Bybit ($1.06m) and KuCoin paid there, and then registered properly. Japan issues public warnings rather than fines to foreign exchanges — and in 2025 blocked the apps of Bybit, KuCoin, Bitget and MEXC, among others.
What happened to the executives personally?
CZ (Binance) paid $200 million and served four months; the BitMEX founders paid $60 million between them. Striking endnote: all were pardoned by President Trump in 2025. The pardons erased the personal convictions — the corporate fines stood.
Does Nigeria's $81.5 billion claim count?
No. That is a pending lawsuit, not a decision — the case was adjourned to September 2026 and settlement talks are running. As soon as there is a ruling or settlement, it enters the table.