Europol shuts down another crypto mixer, while Coinbase reports a new all-time high in law enforcement information requests.
While the Trump administration continues to lean into the idea of making the U.S. the “crypto capital of the world,” Europe appears to be taking the opposite approach, continuing to crack down on the industry.
Just a week after the European Central Bank (ECB) called stablecoins a risk to financial stability, Europol – the European Union’s law enforcement agency – announced the shutdown of Cryptomixer, a decentralized finance (DeFi) mixing protocol.
Europol claims that Cryptomixer is “suspected of facilitating cybercrime and money laundering” in a move reminiscent of the Tornado Cash shutdown. In August, Tornado Cash developer Roman Storm was found guilty of felonious money laundering, even though Storm simply built Tornado Cash and did not launder any money himself.
The news comes on the same day as Coinbase’s 2025 transparency report, which noted 12,716 information requests from law enforcement, a 19% increase from 2024.
Nearly half of these came out of Europe, with France and the United Kingdom recording 111% and 16% increases in year over year law enforcement requests.
A majority of the requests were from federal-level criminal investigation units, indicating a rising number of government investigations into cybercrimes and money laundering.
Further, the UK confirmed new tax reporting rules beginning Jan. 1 for the country’s crypto users. Under the new rules, crypto traders are forced to report all transactions and personal details to trading platforms and His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC).
According to a release in July, the move is expected to raise more than $300 million in tax revenue for the UK by 2030.
