De Nederlandsche Bank (DNB), the central bank of The Netherlands, fined Crypto.com for operating for over two years without registration. The fine was imposed in October, but announced on March 13. It is unclear why the move was not made public at the time or why it was announced now.
On Oct. 23, the DNB imposed a fine on Foris DAX MT, commercially known as Crypto.com, of 2.85 million euros ($3 million at the time) for providing crypto services without registration from May 21, 2020, to at least Nov. 8, 2022. May 21, 2020, was the date the DBN introduced registration requirements.
Crypto service providers are required to register under the Dutch Anti-Money Laundering and Anti-Terrorist Financing Act. The base amount of the fine is 2 million euros, but that was increased due to the severity of the violation and the degree of culpability, the DNB said.
Crypto.com enjoyed an advantage over its competition by not paying supervisory fees and compliance costs. Crypto.com had a “significant number” of customers during that period, and “DAX MT was unable to report unusual transactions to the Financial Intelligence Unit-Netherlands during the period of non-compliance” due to its lack of registration.
Crypto.com filed an objection to the DNB decision on Oct. 9.
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Crypto.com received registration in The Netherlands in July 2023. A DNB spokesman told Cointelegraph at the time that Dutch users had been legally allowed to use the exchange, even though it was operating illegally. A spokesman for the exchange told Cointelegraph in a statement on March 13:
“The fine relates to a past and rectified incident, and does not impact our ongoing in-market operations or services. […] We have already addressed the concerns raised in a timely and transparent manner.”
The DNB instituted registration requirements for crypto service providers in April 2022; Binance was fined 3.3 million euros ($3.5 million at the time) for operating without registration, after the company received a warning from the DNB in August 2021. Binance announced it would cease operating in The Netherlands in June 2022 after an attempt at registration failed.
There are currently 41 registered crypto service providers in The Netherlands.
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