AML, or anti-money laundering, is a catch-all phrase for the laws and rules implemented to stop criminals from earning money unlawfully or transferring illicit monies. AML rules target a variety of illicit acts, but some of the most significant include tax evasion, public corruption, and market manipulation using techniques like wash trading. AML regulations are established by a variety of governmental organizations and laws. For broker-dealers and futures commission merchants to set AML standards, organizations in the US including the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) give broad information and tools. The Bank Secrecy Act of 1970, the Money Laundering Control Act of 1986, and the USA PATRIOT Act of 2001 are among the laws that have influenced the anti-money laundering regulations in the United States. Because the underlying laws are complicated, many financial institutions utilize AML software to look for suspicious conduct. These software solutions carry out tasks ranging from comparing client identities to lists of forbidden users maintained by the government to creating records required for maintaining compliance. Know Your Customer (KYC) rules, which essentially include confirming clients' identities and the sources of their income, are closely related to AML. Financial organizations must continuously monitor the activity of their users as part of KYC. Similar to AML, modern KYC procedures are highly automated, and many banks take advantage of the client onboarding process to ask for valid identity from new clients. AML policies are applicable to the cryptocurrency industry as well. As regulators began to pay greater attention to the cryptocurrency sector, many exchanges have taken aggressive steps to comply with anti-money laundering legislation. However, there is some opposition to KYC and AML standards in the crypto community. These opponents contend that compliance with these regulations reduces individual privacy and negates the advantages of decentralization by storing sensitive personal information in centralized databases. However, proponents contend that it is possible to come up with solutions that would satisfy legal requirements while also protecting user privacy. One intriguing development in the cryptocurrency ecosystem's AML and KYC compliance is how many exchanges are ready to self-regulate, even when doing so would violate preexisting legal requirements. In certain instances, businesses have even joined together to create industry bodies with the goal of developing frameworks for self-regulation. This form of voluntary compliance increases the probability that cryptocurrencies will be used more widely while also reducing potential legal risks for enterprises associated to the cryptocurrency industry.