MEXC Global founder Vugar Usi says the crypto exchange is prepared to fight the blacklisting it now faces in the United States, and has opened a direct line to US authorities ahead of a one-month deadline.

The countdown to the US cutoff began when the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) issued a November 6 order under Section 9714 of the Combating Russian Money Laundering Act. The 30-day timer formally starts on the date the order appears in the Federal Register, the publication that will pin down exactly when MEXC's window closes. Once that window closes, US institutions will be barred from sending or receiving funds involving the exchange.

How MEXC is responding to the FinCEN order

Usi is treating the 30-day runway as a window to open a negotiating channel with the US agency. In a post on X, he said MEXC had established a line to FinCEN “through the support of top-tier U.S. law firms,” and that the agency confirmed it received MEXC's written request yesterday morning, US time.

“We are ready to fully cooperate,” Usi wrote, adding that the platform “continues to operate normally.”

MEXC's corporate account struck the same note days earlier, saying it was reviewing the November 6 order with its legal and compliance teams and that user assets remained secure. The exchange has also launched an independent review of its anti-money-laundering and sanctions controls.

What is the Section 9714 order?

Section 9714 is an authority FinCEN can use to specifically target foreign firms it deems a “primary money laundering concern in connection with Russian illicit finance.” By invoking the order, the agency can block such firms from sending or receiving funds from US institutions.

FinCEN rarely invokes Section 9714. Before MEXC, only two firms had received the designation: Bitzlato in January 2023 and PM2BTC in September 2024. Neither of those targets was anywhere near the scale of MEXC, making it by far the largest firm to face the designation to date.

The FinCEN order noted that the exchange processed more than $1 billion in daily transaction volumes and held about $5 billion in reserves as of June 2026. Over the last 24 hours, the exchange recorded nearly $810 million in volume, per CoinMarketCap data.

Why FinCEN is targeting MEXC

FinCEN's action covers conduct spanning May 2021 to May 2026, as Cryptopolitan reported. The agency alleges that MEXC processed roughly $1.5 billion linked to Russian sanctions evasion, part of a five-year period in which it handled around $16.7 billion in illicit-activity transactions.

The exchange was also implicated over its ties to A7, a Russian state-backed payments network that also issues the A7A5 ruble-pegged stablecoin. Cryptopolitan reported in early October that the US Treasury hit A7 with a significant transnational criminal organization designation.

The FinCEN order prohibits US institutions from sending or receiving funds from MEXC. It does not apply to firms registered outside the US, and the exchange's non-US business is not expected to be affected.

The impact is already visible at other platforms. OKX founder Star Xu has warned users not to send funds directly from MEXC to OKX after user complaints that USDT deposits were being flagged and frozen. Binance has also announced that it will stop processing transfers involving the exchange. Whether more platforms impose their own curbs, and how FinCEN responds to MEXC's written request, will shape how the cutoff plays out as the 30-day window runs down.