FATF Grey List: What It Means for Crypto Users and Why It Matters

When you send or receive crypto, your bank might block the transaction—not because you broke the law, but because the FATF grey list, a global watchlist of countries with weak anti-money laundering controls. Also known as the list of jurisdictions under increased monitoring, it’s the reason your USDT deposit got flagged, your exchange account got restricted, or your bank called to ask why you’re trading Bitcoin. This isn’t about suspicion—it’s about geography. If you’re in a country on this list, or you interact with someone who is, the system treats your activity as high-risk by default.

The FATF, the Financial Action Task Force, an intergovernmental body that sets global standards to fight money laundering and terrorist financing doesn’t make crypto rules itself. Instead, it pressures countries to adopt rules like the FATF travel rule, a requirement for crypto exchanges to share sender and receiver info on transactions over $1,000. Countries that ignore these rules end up on the grey list. Right now, that includes places like Myanmar, Mali, and Iran—countries where crypto is often used to bypass broken banking systems. But the fallout hits everyone: a Nigerian trader sending crypto to a friend in Iran? Risky. A German investor buying tokens from a project based in a grey-listed country? Risky. Even if you’re in the U.S. or Canada, your exchange might freeze your account just because your transaction touched a high-risk address.

This isn’t theoretical. Posts in this collection show real cases: banks in Bangladesh freezing accounts over crypto activity, Myanmar closing accounts for trading USDT, and Iranians moving billions out of the country using crypto just to survive. These aren’t criminals—they’re people using crypto because their own systems failed. But under FATF rules, their actions look the same as money laundering. And exchanges, terrified of fines, play it safe by cutting off anyone even remotely connected to these regions. The result? A global crypto system that punishes the vulnerable while letting the well-connected slip through.

What you’ll find here aren’t theory pieces or policy deep dives. These are real stories from users who got caught in the crossfire—exchanges that froze funds, airdrops that vanished because of compliance fears, and crypto projects that died not because they were scams, but because they were tied to a country on the grey list. You’ll learn how to spot when your activity is at risk, how to protect your accounts, and why the rules meant to stop crime often end up hurting ordinary people the most. This is the hidden layer of crypto regulation—and it’s already changing how you use digital money.