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FinCEN: Social Media Companies That Tokenize Must Follow the Law
Social networks with crypto aspirations must guard their systems against criminal exploitation, said FinCEN's deputy chief.
By Danny Nelson
Updated Sep 13, 2021, 12:16 p.m. Published Feb 7, 2020, 5:29 p.m.
Social media networks with crypto aspirations must guard their systems against criminal exploitation, the U.S Treasury Department's deputy fiscal crimes enforcer said at an anti-money laundering (AML) conference.
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In prepared remarks, Jamal El-Hindi, deputy director of the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), said these “new payment technologies” need to be held to the same AML standards as existing financial institutions, lest they give lawbreakers a monetary loophole.
Neither Facebook nor its Libra stablecoin were mentioned by name in the prepared remarks.
“Social media and messaging platforms and others now focusing on the establishment of cryptocurrencies cannot turn a blind eye to illicit transactions that they may be fostering,” he said.
El-Hindi said the financial sector is in an “evolutionary state” because of emerging alternatives such as virtual currencies. He said regulators, starting with his agency, as well as developers must on the watch for potential crypto-related crime.
“We will judge emerging financial institutions on whether and how they make their systems resilient to, and report on, money laundering, terrorist financing, sanctions evasion, human and narco-trafficking and other illicit activity,” he said.
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- As of October 2025, GoPlus has generated $4.7M in total revenue across its product lines. The GoPlus App is the primary revenue driver, contributing $2.5M (approx. 53%), followed by the SafeToken Protocol at $1.7M.
- GoPlus Intelligence's Token Security API averaged 717 million monthly calls year-to-date in 2025 , with a peak of nearly 1 billion calls in February 2025. Total blockchain-level requests, including transaction simulations, averaged an additional 350 million per month.
- Since its January 2025 launch , the $GPS token has registered over $5B in total spot volume and $10B in derivatives volume in 2025. Monthly spot volume peaked in March 2025 at over $1.1B , while derivatives volume peaked the same month at over $4B.
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