FinCEN
4 articles
Does Your Agentic-Payments Startup Need a Money Transmitter License?
When an AI agent moves money on a user's behalf, the licensing question turns on one thing regulators have asked for decades: do you control the funds? If your platform holds, pools, or controls customer money, you are likely a money transmitter — federally and in most states — no matter how autonomous the agent is.
Does Your AI Agent Need a Financial License? A Decision Guide
Whether an AI agent needs a financial license does not turn on the fact that it is AI. It turns on what the agent does with money or securities — and more than one regime can apply at once. An agent that executes securities trades answers to the SEC; one that trades futures, swaps, or leveraged retail crypto answers to the CFTC; one that moves customer money answers to FinCEN and the states. This is the decision guide that routes your agent to the right regulator — often more than one.
Do Crypto Companies Need a Money Transmitter License? (2026)
The honest answer is: it depends on your business model — and on two separate layers of law. A custodial exchange almost certainly needs one; a non-custodial wallet or a miner usually does not. This guide sorts the common crypto models into who registers federally, who needs a state license, and who is outside both.
Crypto ATM Compliance After FinCEN's 2025 Kiosk Notice: An Operator's Guide
Crypto ATM operators are now the center of a coordinated fraud crackdown—FinCEN's August 2025 kiosk notice, a wave of state caps and bans, and real enforcement. The federal baseline did not change; the scrutiny did. Here is what operators must do.
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