The offshore exchange OKX has elevated its U.S. compliance staff to the highest echelon of the company.
A strategic change brought about by growing regulatory monitoring of Bitcoin exchanges for their anti-money laundering policies is that the department now commands priority over all other divisions.
The restructuring of OKX is in line with a larger industry trend in which regulatory agencies are raising the bar for compliance. Growing worries about the regulatory dangers offshore exchanges face prompted OKX to remove USDT from its European services and, in partnership with Tether, to implement an unprecedented freeze on USDT assets.
After barely six months on the job, the platform’s global chief compliance officer resigned. At OKX, Patrick Donegan oversaw a global team of 300 workers in anti-money laundering operations.
According to what is available on LinkedIn, Donegan worked at the exchange from August 2023 to January 2024. The U.S. is implementing a major crackdown on offshore exchanges because of worries about money laundering.
The U.S. DOJ filed criminal charges against KuCoin and its co-founders earlier this week for violating anti-money laundering laws. In addition, the DOJ filed one of the biggest criminal indictments against Binance in the history of the business last year, which resulted in a record $4 billion settlement.
