Law Enforcement Requests to Kraken Hit All Time High in 2019

Cryptocurrency exchange Kraken reports that law enforcement requests for user information jumped 49% in 2019 compared to previous year.

In a tweet from January 6 the Kraken exchange presented a snapshot of their Compliance team’s 2019 Transparency Report, which indicates that in 2019 amount of requests from global law enforcement agencies reached 710, while in 2018 there were only 475.

American, British and Danish agencies leading the way in 2019

As Kraken’s chart shows, the amount of information requests started to surge in 2017 with 160 requests through 475 in 2018 and finally to 710 in 2019.

The largest portion of these requests — 61% — was issued by United States agencies, a bit lower than 66% in 2018. In the tweet the Kraken exchange noted that despite United States leading the pack, ”other geos gaining fast”.

”Trend is obvious.” the exchange team adds. ”[Compliance] costs are increasing [for crypto exchanges] even in a relatively flat market.”

With U.S being in top during 2019, second and third positions in the race belong to the United Kingdom and Denmark. Agencies of these countries left behind all the other global jurisdictions.

Within the U.S most requests came from FBI (116), followed by the Drug Enforcement Administration (73) and Homeland Security Investigations together with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (65).

The Securities and Exchange Commission and the Internal Revenue Service — two agencies constantly monitored by the crypto community — issued 20 and 29 requests respectively.

Overall, 1222 accounts were impacted, and 62% of all requests resulted in data handover to agencies. 28% left were deemed invalid by Kraken, as they did not meet local legal requirements or exchange’s Law Enforcement production policy.

Steady rise of requests

Kraken’s report from 2018 showed that the amount of requests from law enforcement agencies almost tripled compared to 2017. It also showed that the U.S and the U.K agencies were the most interventionist globally.

In January one more cryptocurrency exchange ShapeShift based in Switzerland also released a Transparency Report, which also revealed the significant rising of law enforcement requests, with 175% jump in the second half of 2018.

At the same time ShapeShift indicated that it was requested to provide such information as personal data (names, emails, IP addresses), crypto addresses (in or out of exchange’s system), transaction IDs and information regarding cryptocurrencies or crypto-related assets.