With growing liquidation and volatility, several firms left the market, but in recent developments, it has been reported that Garantex, now a closed exchange, is coming back with a new name after facing allegations and charges.
According to an X post of Global Ledger dated March 19, 2025, the founder of Garantex has launched a new platform named Grinex. Also, note that users’ funds have been transferred from Garantex to Grinex.
Are Garantex and Grinex directly connected?
In the same X post, Global Ledger also mentioned several points, such as the similarity in the UI of Grinex, which closely resembles Garantex; “ Team has flagged this as potential sanction evasion.”
“ Blocked A745 stablecoins were withdrawn, reissued, and were moved to the wallets linked with Grinex,” the post adds.
With the conclusion of the report, Global Ledger published astonishing facts like the on-chain and off-chain connections between Garantex and Grinex, the laundering of $60 million of stablecoins backed by rubble, and sent the suspected amount to the wallet linked with the newly formed entity.
While researching the alleged scam, the team came across people saying that they had been receiving the funds from Grinex rather than from Garantex; some accounts also got blocked from the older platform.
Experts argue that the move executed by Garantex reflects its intention to avoid being caught by the regulators and agencies.
Archives say that a few lawsuits against Garantex have already been filed. A release on the website of the Office of Public Affairs (U.S. Department of Justice) published on March 07, 2025, says that the Department of Justice, with Finland and Germany, has seized Garantex’s online infrastructure.
It is worth noting that since 2019, the accused exchange has processed around $96 billion in cryptocurrencies, and the two main persons operating this exchange are named as Aleksej Besciokov and Mira Serda.
Skyrocketing money laundering cases in crypto could hinder growth
With the growing adoption, popularity, and usage of cryptocurrencies, bad actors have made their way to victimize people and trouble investors. As per a report dated January 15, 2025, criminals have successfully laundered over $40.6 billion in cryptocurrencies in the year 2024.
As we all know, blockchain has eased the cross-border payments helping the traditional market to scale, but this convenient method has also helped the criminals to launder funds for illicit activities without being caught.
Market observers say that there is a need for enhanced regulatory oversight and a clear set of rules concerning cryptocurrencies, which might pull the illicit activities under agencies’ control.
Money laundering is the moving of funds using hawala businesses or other such companies to operate or support any illicit activity that could disturb humankind.
Market price summary
Until publishing, the crypto market cap was $2.81 trillion, with an increase of 3.09% in the past 24 hours; however, the cap has remained steady since the last few sessions and was seen below $2.50 trillion at a time.
Bitcoin is exchanging hands at $85,971 with an addition of 3.22%; despite this growth, the prices are below the 50 and 100-day exponential moving average.
The fear and greed index has shown a slight recovery, as it was recorded at 25 on March 19, 2025, but is currently at 31, mirroring the fading dominance of bears.
