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Crypto firms are tightening compliance standards. The pace at which this change is happening would have seemed extreme just a few years ago. A Chainalysis report suggests that nearly half of all crypto companies onboarded in 2026 are already using monitoring settings that would have ranked among the industry’s strictest back in 2020.
Compliance was often treated as something exchanges and crypto platforms dealt with when hacks or enforcement actions happened against them. As of now, it seems to be becoming a part from day one.
Crypto AML standards rise, blind spots remain
According to Chainalysis, around 47% of new crypto firms this year meet or exceed that can be said the “gold standard”. Back in 2020 and 2021, only around 10% of firms operated at that level. This number has climbed quite high after 2023. At that time, some stricter monitoring standards came up that started to set an industry norm.
The crypto market has spent the last few years trying to clean up its image after repeated scandals. The pressure implied by hacks, sanctions violations, and even the collapse of exchanges appears to be how the firms see risk.
Meanwhile, the indirect exposure monitoring still remains one major weakness. On the other side, direct checks have become much stricter across the industry. In this check, funds are linked straight to sanctioned wallets or known illicit actors. But if funds are moved through different wallets, then the monitoring standards seem to become looser.
The report highlighted that the traditional banks entering crypto still apply much tighter controls than crypto-native firms. It added that the banks flag such actions when transaction levels reach around $150. However, exchanges tend to allow thresholds closer to $950. The gap might be smaller, but it still exists.
It mentioned that a lot of this comes from traditional finance rules. As it has already forced banks to adopt stricter anti-money laundering systems years before crypto firms. Experts signal that the industry is improving but structural blind spots still exist.
MiCA pushes Europe ahead in Crypto compliance race
The Basel Institute on Governance has previously raised warnings. It’s stated that tracing funds through multi-hop transaction chains remains difficult even with more advanced blockchain analytics tools.
The Financial Action Task Force has argued that static filtering systems are not enough for crypto-linked compliance. Regulators want firms to use high monitoring systems that can adjust risk scoring in real time.
Chainalysis report estimates that North Korean-linked cyber groups were responsible for nearly $2 billion in crypto-related losses in 2025. However, TRM Labs hints that the illicit crypto volumes jumped 145% year-over-year to around $158 billion.
Europe, the Middle East and Africa made it to the top of the list in indirect exposure monitoring. Meanwhile, Asia-Pacific markets remain uneven and lenient. Europe has already rolled out Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA). It is pushing hard for the firms toward tighter standards.
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