Exmo Exposed: Used for Russian Weapons while roleplaying as supporting Ukraine

May 9, 2025 initially published. Exmo reports this every time it is shared on social media. Share it to their dismay.

Exmo is an exchange that claims to have offboarded their Russian userbase after Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

This was a lie, and one that was possible to unravel in mere seconds with just a small transaction.

Yes: Exmo really thought the public would be too stupid to figure this out. And candidly, were they wrong? Nobody exposed this until now. Because nobody lifted a finger to transact. Because analysis firms and governments with billions of dollars failed to do so. Because people sitting in safe, air-conditioned offices, traveling to take selfies at conferences and high five each other over doing "such a good job", didn't have the time -- so the guy in Ukraine had to do it. (And then had to continue the work after...)

It took me 30 seconds and mere pennies in a transaction fee to evidence what a total lie that is. How did I do that? Simple -- I simply registered an account on Exmo.me, did a deposit and a withdrawal, and the withdrawal was processed from wallets I know were (and still are) Exmo.com. That is to say, on-chain, these are the same entity, and there was no split. Both Exmo.com and Exmo.me are operated by the same keyholders. This data is available to analysis firms I haven't provided it to, as well as government, and journalists that may be keen to verify this evidence, upon request. I ran transactions across numerous assets to be certain.

Anybody in any of the analysis firms could have taken the mere seconds and equivalent of pennies in fees to do this, at any time, in the last three years, and failed to do so. Ongoing attribution for exchanges is a primary task of the analysis firms in order to provide investigative endpoints for investigators tracing digital assets. This is their baseline duty.

How disgustingly brazen this facade of Exmo's should anger you (and ideally to a point of actually doing something tangible about this -- at minimum sharing this, but ideally, pressuring the gov and analysis firm side to do their jobs):

Know who else makes donations to Ukraine? Igor Burkin of the narcotics gang Khimprom. These aren't donations from a place of love for Ukraine, this is reputation laundering. Khimprom facilitates activity generating billions in profit; taking some comparatively minuscule portion of that revenue and shuttling it into donations to the Armed Forces of Ukraine is for no other reason than to whitewash a reputation that was tarnished after his illicit activity was exposed. Exmo making these donations was purely to save face if/when someone exposed them like I am now.

Here's the real kicker. What got Exmo.me on my radar? After all, Exmo.com was insignificant to me -- I ran some transactions on them around a few years ago so the big analysis firms would have their wallets labeled and effectively forgot they existed. In the course of my work on dual use wallets, a supplier of components (used to make weapons that kill Ukrainians every day) from China provided me not just wallet addresses to send cryptocurrency to, but ever-so-helpful instructions on what is perceived as some of the best places for a Russian engaged in sanctions evasion and dual use components acquisition to send funds from.

I was provided not only wallet addresses from this dual use components vendor in China, but provided instructions specifically generated for their (predominantly) Russian customer base. And what two exchanges are mentioned?

1. Exved, a project made by one of the Garantex owners to facilitate cross-border sanctions evasion payments. On that topic, zero analysis firms nor governments have put forth the effort to attribute Exved, which would be some of the most critical wallet data to have in order to actually enforce sanctions. But this won't happen until and unless I do it, yeah?
2. Exmo.me. You know, the firm that is supposedly separated from Exmo and yet somehow on the same wallet infrastructure. That is to say, cryptocurrency used to buy components that kill Ukrainians every day is handled by the keyholders of Exmo.com which supposedly supports Ukraine, yet knowingly facilitates this activity.

I absolutely hate the fact I need to expose this, too, but I must in order to be transparent and effectuate change. I've notified numerous governments, including the US government, Polish government, and Ukrainian government about this over three months ago. Nothing has happened. This evidence should result in an immediate shutdown of Exmo by any reasonable standard.

I also notified analysis firms; nothing, not even a change in risk score or re-categorization despite showing the (lack of) KYC. Evidence of this nature should prompt, at minimum, a default risk scoring of significantly higher than "exchange." But "it's just an exchange, bro". It's also just killing Ukrainians every day, bro.

Exmo could, at any time, reveal the data for the accounts to authorities in Ukraine and international partners, but don't hold your breath. That would be more meaningful then some modestly small donations to Ukraine that constitute a mere fraction of the revenue Exmo has generated facilitating sanctions evasion. The damage (which can be financially calculated, such as infrastructure -- let alone human lives) Exmo has caused to Ukraine far exceeds a single figure million amount they've donated.

The blockchain industry is lies on ice and enabled by people that know better. Take for example Exmo's alleged "Chief Compliance Officer", who (as I'm always doing before I go public with information of this nature) was contacted and ignored the contact:

You know, one thing I'd probably do if I was a Chief Compliance Officer for an exchange (especially one that supports Ukraine) is ensure some Russian exchange isn't using my exchange. The reality is that this individual is simply in on this; she absolutely knows what is going on as in order to work in compliance for an exchange, you're doing transaction monitoring; she sees the backend of Exmo. She's a hired mouthpiece of Exmo to virtue-signal no differently than VASPs like Binance hiring ex-law enforcement to lie about being the "most compliant exchange in the industry" mere months before an enforcement action. Of course -- I reached out to her in advance of going public with this and got no response, which is exactly what I predicted considering...

...where else can we find Ms. Lyubavskaya? TFC Compliance. Draw your own conclusion about the types of services they actually offer. This company and their website are a plain front for the real service offered, and I don't need to spell out what that is.

Blockchains do not lie, people lie. The fact that I'm working on a ton of things in Ukraine that nobody else is doing, and not a single soul across the entirety of the analysis firms and governments responsible for public safety lifted a finger to figure this out, over the course of years, is disgusting; the fact nobody lifted a finger after the information was handed to them on a silver platter is unforgivable. The blockchain industry should be ashamed of itself. This is not adoption. These are lies that kill people.

Stop allowing this. There is absolutely zero reason why, as someone on the ground in Ukraine doing primarily fieldwork, I should be running laps around the blockchain analysis industry and governments unveiling stuff like this -- and then months after notifying of same, still end up having to be the one to lift a finger about it.