'Trust Won't Be a Competitive Advantage': MEXC's New Compliance Chief on Crypto's Next Phase

Robert MacDonald joins MEXC from Bybit, where he served as Chief Legal & Compliance Officer, directing the exchange's global licensing strategy, corporate legal operations, and the implementation of international AML and KYC frameworks. Before Bybit, MacDonald held senior positions at Standard Chartered and Binance focused on regulatory strategy, compliance transformation and governance, and was named among Asian Legal Business' Top 15 Chief Compliance Officers in 2025.

The appointment comes as MEXC expands beyond crypto trading into equities-related products, IPO access and other asset classes across global markets, categories that typically sit under securities regulators rather than crypto-specific ones.

Vugar Usi, CEO of MEXC, said the expansion is precisely why the compliance hire matters now: 'Robert's deep experience across traditional finance, fintech, and digital assets will help us strengthen the regulatory and governance foundation needed to scale responsibly.'

His immediate priorities include strengthening transaction monitoring, expanding licensing efforts across priority jurisdictions, embedding automated compliance controls, and improving governance frameworks as MEXC prepares for increasingly prescriptive regulation globally.

Compliance Comes Before Licensing

'As the industry matures, trust won't be a competitive advantage, but the price of entry, and compliance takes on a bigger role,' MacDonald said, announcing the appointment. 'It is the gateway to trust and sustainable growth at scale. In the world's most complex and volatile markets, the platforms that endure are not the fastest movers, but those resilient enough to protect their users. That philosophy will anchor MEXC's compliance agenda going forward.'

Asked whether closing those specific gaps is part of his brief, and whether his track record at Binance and Bybit, both of which secured licences in major markets after periods of friction, amounts to a repeatable playbook for MEXC, MacDonald said: 'I'd resist the word "playbook," since it suggests a template you can stamp onto every market, and no such thing exists,' he told IBTimes UK.

'Licensing gets earned jurisdiction by jurisdiction, with the requirements in one place looking nothing like the next. This industry grew up faster than the rules were being written for it, so a great many firms built their platforms first and formalised the governance around them afterwards,' MacDonald further added.

'Anyone handing you a firm date is promising something outside their control,' MacDonald said. 'The foundational work is immediate and already moving, and it falls squarely within my remit. Authorisation in any given market belongs to the regulator there, and it tends to run across years. I can commit to a clear strategy for each market we prioritise, along with candour about where we actually stand in every one of them.'

On the Bybit hack specifically, MacDonald drew a firm line between compliance and cybersecurity as disciplines, while arguing the two cannot be run in isolation. 'A compliance framework is designed to address financial crime, sanctions, conduct and regulatory obligations. It is not a substitute for strong cybersecurity or operational controls,' he said.

He was in that dual role on 21 February 2025 when Bybit suffered a roughly $1.5 billion theft in Ethereum, attributed to North Korea's Lazarus Group, the largest crypto exchange hack on record.

'What matters is how compliance, security, engineering, treasury and operations work together. Firms need shared risk assessments, clear decision-making responsibilities and regular testing of how they would respond when something goes wrong,' MacDonald said.