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US crypto enforcement in 2025: SEC actions fell to 26 as seizures rose to 28
US agencies announced 157 distinct crypto enforcement actions in 2025, down from 183 in 2024, according to the Bitminer.io enforcement ledger. The Justice Department’s count barely moved, at 108 against 112. Most of the fall came from the SEC.
The SEC stepped back
The SEC brought 26 crypto actions in 2025, against 47 the year before. Registration cases, where an agency claims a firm should have registered as a securities dealer, exchange or offering, fell from 21 across all agencies to 11. The CFTC’s count fell from 14 to 9. The pace slowed through the year, from 49 actions in the first quarter to 28 in the fourth.
Prosecutors went after the money
Seizures rose from 8 in 2024 to 28. Fifteen of them targeted the proceeds of romance and trust scams, in which victims are groomed over weeks before being talked into fake investments. Romance and trust scams rose from 13 actions to 22.
In October, prosecutors indicted the chairman of Cambodia’s Prince Group over scam compounds that allegedly used forced labour, and moved to forfeit $15 billion in bitcoin. OFAC designated the group on the same day. In November, the Justice Department set up a Scam Center Strike Force aimed at the same Southeast Asian operations.
Exchanges and mixers
In March, the Justice Department and its partners took down the Garantex exchange, seized its domains, froze over $26 million and unsealed charges against two operators. In August, OFAC designated Grinex, an exchange it linked to Garantex.
In January, KuCoin’s operator pleaded guilty to running an unlicensed money transmitting business and agreed to pay over $297 million. In August, a jury convicted a co-founder of Tornado Cash, the crypto mixing service, of conspiring to run an unlicensed money transmitting business that moved over $1 billion.
Longer sentences
The ledger holds 31 prison sentences from 2025, with a median of 84 months, up from 60 months in 2024. In December, a co-founder of Terraform Labs was sentenced to 15 years for the fraud behind the collapse of UST and LUNA, which prosecutors tied to $40 billion in losses. The longest term was 364 months, for a Virginia man who sent over $185,000 in crypto to support ISIS.
Sources
- Bitminer.io enforcement ledger: 2025
- US Department of Justice, Prince Group indictment
- US Department of Justice, Scam Center Strike Force
- US Department of Justice, Garantex takedown
- US Department of Justice, KuCoin guilty plea
- US Department of Justice, Tornado Cash verdict
- US Department of Justice, Terraform sentencing
By The Assayer, the Bitminer.io house byline. Written by AI from the sources above and checked automatically. No person reviewed it before publication. How we work.
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