On March 5, Dubai’s crypto regulator issued a cease-and-desist order against cryptocurrency exchange KuCoin, including its entities Peken Global Limited, Phoenixfin, MEK Global, and KuCoin Exchange EU GmbH.
The regulator warned that the company may be providing crypto services to Dubai residents without the necessary regulatory approvals and misrepresenting its licensing status.
Even a month hasn’t passed since then, and now a U.S. court has taken action against the KuCoin operator.
Related: Dubai issues cease-and-desist notice to crypto exchange
On March 30, the District Court for the Southern District of New York approved a Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) consent order that permanently bars Peken Global Limited from letting U.S. users use its platform unless it registers as a foreign board of trade.
The order also asked the company to pay a civil penalty of $500,000.
It was in March 2024 that the federal regulator sued Peken, along with three other KuCoin entities, MEK Global, PhoenixFin, and Flashdot, for running an unlicensed crypto derivatives exchange and not putting in place an effective customer identification program.
In January last year, Peken pleaded guilty to the count of operating an unlicensed money transmitting business and agreed to pay more than $297 million in penalties.
Peken then agreed that KuCoin will exit the U.S. market for at least the next two years.
However, the latest court order turns the 2-year withdrawal into a permanent ban. But it also dismissed remaining claims against MEK Global, PhoenixFin, and Flashdot.
Founded in 2017, KuCoin is a global crypto trading exchange that offers spot and derivatives trading, staking, and lending services.
Between September 2017 and March 2024, it served approximately 1.5 million registered users in the U.S. and earned approximately $184.5 million in fees from them, as per the DoJ.
TheStreet Roundtable reached out to KuCoin for a comment and had not received a response by the time of publication.
This story was originally published by TheStreet on Apr 2, 2026, where it first appeared in the MARKETS section. Add TheStreet as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
