MEXC is operated by an offshore group headquartered in the Seychelles and is not licensed or registered to operate in the United States. It holds no US money-transmitter licenses, is not registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) or the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), and is not a FinCEN-registered money services business. Because of this, MEXC geo-restricts the United States: US IP addresses are blocked at sign-up, and the user agreement explicitly lists the US among restricted jurisdictions.
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Why MEXC blocks US users
US crypto regulation is fragmented and aggressive. Offering spot trading on tokens the SEC may classify as securities, or offering high-leverage derivatives to retail traders (the CFTC caps and licenses this heavily), exposes an unlicensed offshore exchange to enforcement risk. Rather than build out the costly state-by-state money-transmitter licensing and federal registration that a Coinbase or Kraken maintains, MEXC simply excludes the US market. This is the same approach taken by several other offshore exchanges.
What this means for you
If you are a US resident, you should not attempt to bypass the geo-block with a VPN. Doing so violates MEXC's terms of service, and any balance can be frozen if the account is later flagged during a withdrawal or security review — leaving you with little recourse because you are not a permitted user. There is also no US consumer protection, no deposit insurance, and no regulator you can escalate a dispute to. For US-based traders, regulated domestic platforms such as Coinbase, Kraken, or Gemini are the appropriate route.
You still owe US taxes on crypto gains
Critically, the fact that MEXC is unavailable in the US does not exempt US persons from tax. The IRS treats cryptocurrency as property, and US taxpayers owe capital-gains tax on any realized crypto profit and income tax on crypto earned — regardless of which exchange (US or offshore) the activity occurred on. MEXC will not issue you a US tax form, so the burden of tracking and reporting falls entirely on you. Export your transaction history and use crypto tax software to calculate what you owe.