Canada’s financial watchdog fined crypto platform Cryptomus $126 million last October after the company allegedly failed to flag suspicious transactions on 1,068 separate occasions in a single month.
A month before that, crypto exchange KuCoin was handed a $14 million penalty for operating in Canada without registering as a foreign money services business.
Those two cases now look like early warnings of what was coming.
In the months since, the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre — better known as FINTRAC — has revoked 50 money services business registrations in 2026 alone.
Forty-seven of those belonged to crypto-related firms. The latest round, announced Monday, cut 23 registrations in one move.
Finance Minister Signals More Actions On The Way
Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne called the pace of enforcement “significantly increased” and said the government has no plans to slow down.
“Our government will continue to monitor and pursue new measures to address risks posed by virtual currency businesses, such as cryptocurrency MSBs and crypto ATMs, which can be used to facilitate money laundering and fraud,” he said in a statement Tuesday.
FINTRAC canceled 23 MSB registrations on Monday, according to the agency.
Any business that loses its registration has 30 days to request a review. Some may get reinstated. But the scale of the sweep — nearly 50 revocations in under three months — signals a shift in how Canada is policing the crypto sector.
FINTRAC also said it is strengthening enforcement and increasing transparency around compliance actions, a move that suggests the agency wants its actions to serve as a public deterrent, not just a regulatory cleanup.
What The Numbers Say About Crypto And Crime
Canada’s crackdown comes at a time when the relationship between cryptocurrency and illicit finance is still hotly debated.
The Financial Action Task Force estimates that between 2% and 5% of global GDP moves through illegal channels each year — almost entirely through traditional banking systems.
Blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis puts the share of crypto transactions tied to illicit activity at under 1%.
Those figures don’t mean crypto is clean. But they do raise questions about whether the sector is being held to a stricter standard than older financial industries.
For now, Canada appears committed to its current direction. Officials have specifically called out crypto ATMs as a concern, suggesting future enforcement could extend beyond online platforms to physical kiosks scattered across the country.
Businesses that aren’t in full compliance with registration and reporting rules have reason to take that warning seriously.
Featured image from Unsplash, chart from TradingView
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