Launder $200 million and walk off into the sunset: how the eXch exchange worked and why it shut down

On May 1, 2025, an anonymous crypto exchange without KYC, eXch, ceased its work. Before that, it managed to conduct suspicious transactions and launder hundreds of millions of dollars for 11 years. GetBlock AML Research analyzed the activities of the exchange and explained how the platform managed to ignore international AML norms for more than a decade.

How it all started

The launch of eXch happened in 2014. The exchange immediately announced that it was focusing on the anonymity of its users. At the time, such stances among cryptocurrency trading platforms were considered the norm. Even major exchanges (such as Bitfinex) did not collect their customers’ personal data and did not comply with anti-money laundering laws. The legal entity that operated eXch (Private Project Facilitators LTD) was registered in Belize. The exchange was not distinguished by large trading volumes until 2022.

eXch generated a new disposable address to which cryptocurrency was credited after a successful exchange. The exchange allowed such manipulations with BTC, LTC, ETH, XMR, USDT, USDC, DAI, DASH, and BTCLN. The administrators of eXch have repeatedly stated that they do not use third-party sources of liquidity. The work of the exchange was provided by its own capital.

European footprint

Despite the registration of the legal entity in Belize (Central America), there is reason to believe that the creators of eXch, as well as the infrastructure of the exchange, were located in Europe. This is confirmed by the fact that the web hosting of exch.cx was based in France. CentralNic Ltd, which registered the exch.cx domain name, was based in the UK. The domain administrator contact is associated with the city of Roche in Switzerland.

Source: Grindinsoft

There is another indirect evidence that the eXch team was based in Europe. The contact page listed German, Spanish, and Ukrainian in addition to English as languages that could be used to communicate with eXch administrators.

Source: Grindinsoft

“While communication in English is preferred, we speak the following languages too: German, Spanish, Russian, Ukrainian,” the eXch website said.

Ignoring the rules

eXch attracted serious attention in 2022. Then the volume of trading and the number of transactions on the exchange increased significantly. The platform became popular with hackers and extortionists, so it quickly became a haven for “black” cryptocurrency.

In 2023, eXch representatives publicly announced that they ignored all international AML norms and law enforcement representatives. This came after the exchange helped launder $17,7 million stolen from the Parity Wallet project.

“None of the countless law enforcement requests addressed to us were satisfied since our platform launch, because we know what we are doing and why we are here,” eXch said.

This was followed by another statement. This time, eXch representatives reported that all data about their clients “was lost as a result of a boat crash while transporting our servers across the river just before receiving a subpoena from US law enforcement agencies.”

This was followed by another statement. This time, eXch representatives said that all of their customer data “was lost in the boating accident during transportation of our servers over a river just right before the receipt of that subpoena” from US law enforcement.

The eXch administrators did not stop at sarcasm. They started engaging various cryptocurrency mixers, which are used by hackers and scammers to launder dirty cryptocurrency. To keep the audience and divert their attention from clearly illegal activities, the exchange started raffling off special physical capsules for storing seed phrases among clients.

Branded physical capsule for seed-phrase storage

Retaliatory strike

On January 15, 2025 (about a month before the $1,5 billion Bybit hack), the eXch exchange openly demanded that US authorities remove it from the list of high-risk trading platforms. The eXch said it was a “discriminatory” designation and demanded a public apology. The exchange representatives cited “anti-monopoly market laws” as their argument.

First on the list of organizations allegedly “discriminating” against eXch was the Bybit exchange. In late 2024, it stopped accepting eXch-related transactions and began blocking cryptocurrency that went through the anonymous crypto exchange.

eXch’s open letter to the US authorities

Bybit hack and subsequent events

The theft of $1,5 billion from Bybit was a record high in the history of crypto exchange hacks. The crypto community has been closely monitoring the movement of the stolen assets. The eXch exchange received a new round of popularity as it was implicated in laundering $200 million that was withdrawn from Bybit. The situation was aggravated by the fact that eXch and Bybit already had a conflict because the latter started blocking funds that had passed through eXch.

The surge in eXch trading volume after the Bybit hack. Data: Elliptic

When Bybit representatives asked eXch for help in tracking and blocking the stolen funds, eXch admins recalled old grudges and refused to make contact.

The eXch team’s response to Bybit’s appeal

“Given the direct attacks on the reputation of our exchange by ByBit over the past year, it is difficult for us to understand the expectation of collaboration,” eXch representatives responded to Bybit’s request for cooperation in tracking and blocking stolen assets.

On March 31, eXch said it was aware of investigations being conducted by US law enforcement agencies. The exchange representatives claimed’s creators. At that time, eXch announced the sale of a 50% stake in the company, a merger with another legal entity, the creation of new mechanics that increase the confidentiality of transactions, as well as the refusal to use USDT and USDC, as they can be blocked unilaterally. These steps were explained by eXch as an attempt to reduce risks for its team.

Notification of changes to the exchange’s operation

The steps to mitigate risks were probably not successful, as two weeks later, eXch announced that it would cease operations as of May 1.

Notification of termination of operation

“Privacy is not a crime,” eXch representatives said.