KuCoin has assigned Sabina Liu, ex-London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG) official, to head its European business, assigning her with steering the exchange’s Markets in Crypto Assets Regulation (MiCA) expansion from Vienna after safeguarding a crypto asset service provider licence in Austria.
Liu, serving as managing director of KuCoin EU, formerly operated KuCoin’s institutional business and spent over a decade at the LSEG working with global investment banks and cross-border trading clients, as per the announcement.
Liu also mentioned that safeguarding a MiCA licence was a prominent cornerstone that gives a unified regulatory framework to work for a region having mature and diverse finance, growing crypto use and prominent room for further adoption of stablecoins, payments and wealth products.
Liu also highlighted that they offer guardrails that back long-term growth, mentioning KuCoin does not witness compliance as a trade-off against profitability but as the basis for sustainable business and consumer protection.
The US Criminal Case
In reality, Liu plans KuCoin EU’s competitive strategy as placing the platform as a regulated alternative in a market where bigger exchanges so far operate volumes. She mentioned that our objective is to provide users a bigger choice via differentiated services and a clear compliance-first placing.
The new appointment is done less than a year after KuCoin’s parent, Peken Global Limited, was claimed to be guilty in a US criminal case for operating an unlicensed money transmitting business and associated anti-money laundering (AML) failures, accepting to forfeit $184.5 million, paying a $112.9 million fine, and exiting the US market for two years.
Liu specified that settlement as a cornerstone that showed the historical context of the crypto industry’s initial development and the requirement for clear regulation and compliance, mentioning that KuCoin EU has rooted high compliance standards from the start and maintains regular contact with European regulators.
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