On December 9, 2025, FinCEN assessed a $3,500,000 civil money penalty against Paxful, Inc. and Paxful USA, Inc. for willful violations of the BSA. Paxful is a convertible virtual currency (CVC), peer-to-peer (P2P) trading platform.
According to FinCEN, Paxful facilitated more than $500 million in suspicious activity involving a host of illicit actors. The company enabled transactions with countries including Iran, North Korea, and Venezuela, along with Backpage.com, a website seized by the Department of Justice in 2018 for facilitating prostitution and sex trafficking. Paxful admitted that it willfully violated the BSA, including failing to:
Register with FinCEN as a money services business (MSB);
Develop, implement, and maintain an effective AML program; and
File suspicious activity reports (SARs).
Under the consent order, Paxful agreed to terminate its relationship with leadership who oversaw Paxful’s operations at the time the willful violations took place. The company will also undertake remediation efforts, including conducting a review to identify and report previously unreported suspicious activity that Paxful processed during the relevant time period.
Read FinCEN’s press release here.
The full consent order can be found here.