The US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control announced on Tuesday that it has reached an agreement with cryptocurrency exchange Bittrex, under which it will pay a $53 million fine.
Under the agreement, Bittrex will pay two fines of $24 million and $29 million for violating U.S. anti-corruption and money laundering laws.
According to the US authorities, the exchange, in particular, “failed to prevent the use of its platform by people who appeared to be in Crimea, Cuba, Iran, Sudan and Syria.
In addition, Bittrex created “an inappropriate and inefficient system for monitoring transactions on its platform, resulting in a significant vulnerability to illegal financial transactions.”
“OFAC will continue to hold accountable virtual currency companies and other industries whose failure to comply with appropriate controls resulted in sanctions violations,” said Andrea Jackie, Director of OFAC.
Bittrex is an experiential-focused exchange headquartered in Las Vegas.
Bittrex does not allow you to buy cryptocurrencies directly using fiat currencies such as the US dollar and Euro, instead it focuses on two-way exchange between cryptocurrencies and provides a structured user interface with fast processing.
It also has its own API which is used for automated trading.
Its security is one of its most important strengths as it has never been hacked.
Source: agencies