Another licensed crypto firm surrendered its MFSA license. Mint Exchange Limited, a Malta-based company with an MFSA license under the Virtual Financial Assets Act has called it a day from Malta and voluntarily surrendered its license. Mint Exchange was set up in 2018 and is the operator of the website www.mintexchange.io. According to its website, Mint Exchange would be the world’s first cryptocurrency clearinghouse designed for institutions to access all major exchanges through a single gateway. However, the venture obviously never came into gear!
Key data
| Trading name | MintExchange |
| Domain | https://mintexchange.io/ |
| Legal entities | Mint Exchange Ltd (Malta) Mint Holdings Ltd (Malta) Mint Exchange Inc (Delaware) |
| Related individuals | Masato Kikuchi, Harpal Singh Sandhu James Henry McNeill Raj Patel |
| Regulator | MFSA (license surrendered) |
The narrative
Evidently, MintExchange never came to life since its inception. Since their incorporation, both the Maltese companies failed to file audited financial statements. The truth is, that an auditor was never appointed. The news section of Mint Exchange’s website has not been updated since 2019. With effect from 8 April 2022, the company ceased to be registered by the MFSA.
The MintExchange holding company is Mint Holdings Ltd, registered in Malta, which is owned by Mint Exchange Inc, a United States entity based in Delaware.
The present directors are Masato Kikuchi, Harpal Singh Sandhu, and James Henry McNeill. They also
act as legal representatives of the company. Raj Patel resigned from director just a few weeks ago.
The reasons behind his resignation are not known.
The Maltese blockchain disaster
In the 2017 crypto hype, Malta declared itself as the EU blockchain hub and offered respective crypto licenses. The MFSA official responsible for promoting Malta as a blockchain island, Christopher Buttigieg, was lambasted by the Maltese media for spending public money on what the Maltese Finance Minister described as a buzzword. However, despite the blockchain disaster, Buttigieg is still a high-ranking MFSA official.
Malta has been under the limelight of FATF over the past months and was grey-listed in June 2021. Since then, more than 100 licensed firms have surrendered their license. Despite the grey-listing and the consequent exodus of companies, none of the top officials at MFSA resigned.
