CoinEx settles with the New York Attorney General's Office, pays fines, and agrees to cease operations in the U.S.

In February this year, CoinEx was sued by the New York Attorney General's Office, which demanded blocking of New York State IP addresses, surrender of transaction fees. CoinEx eventually settled for $1.7 million, initiated a user refund program, and is no longer allowed to serve U.S. users.

Private Registration Open for New York Users

Earlier, the New York State Attorney General's Office (OAG) sued the cryptocurrency exchange CoinEx in February this year for not registering in accordance with state laws and offering tokens such as AMP, LBC, LUNA, RLY on the platform that were deemed unregistered securities.

In addition, CoinEx had not registered with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), or New York regulatory authorities. However, the Attorney General's Office was able to register and trade on the CoinEx platform through a computer with a New York IP address, which violated the Martin Act of New York State.

Note: The Martin Act was proposed by New York State Assemblyman Louis M. Martin in 1921, granting the New York Attorney General broad enforcement powers to investigate securities fraud.

CoinEx Asked to Block New York IP Addresses and Surrender Fee Revenue

At that time, Attorney General Letitia James requested CoinEx to block access to the CoinEx website, app, and related services for users from New York based on their IP addresses and GPS locations.

Other allegations included CoinEx teaching users how to earn passive income through its blog. The documents also required CoinEx to account for all transaction fees from New York users and surrender them in full.

CoinEx Settles for $1.7 Million

New York Attorney General Letitia James announced in a statement that CoinEx must refund $1.172 million to 4,691 New York users, who will receive refunds in the form of cryptocurrency on CoinEx within the next 90 days.

If it exceeds 90 days, users can also contact Email to receive the refund in U.S. dollars from the OAG. These refund amounts are equivalent to the value of cryptocurrencies held in the accounts as of April 25, 2023.

In other words, CoinEx paid a fine of approximately $600,000 to New York State. Afterward, CoinEx must block New York IP addresses, prohibit the registration of any new accounts for U.S. users, and allow existing U.S. users on CoinEx to only withdraw funds.