Jack Dorsey’s payments company Block has reached an agreement in principle to pay $764 million—more than its quarterly profit—in a U.S. investigation into its anti-money laundering controls.
According to a Nov. 3 SEC filing reviewed by CoinDesk, the agreement in principle reached in October between Block and the U.S. Department of Justice is based on allegations that the company failed to maintain an effective anti-money laundering program. The proposed settlement calls for a three-year deferral of the criminal charge related to the allegation under the Bank Secrecy Act.
The gross monetary amount of the agreement is approximately $964 million. After credits for previous regulatory settlements, the amount payable falls to $764 million. Block said it has set aside a provision for this amount.
Settlement amount exceeds quarterly profit
The proposed payment is higher than Block’s $566 million in net income reported for the third quarter. The company’s total gross profit for the same period rose 22% to $3.24 billion.
As we previously reported in Block’s earnings report, gross profit from the Bitcoin ecosystem fell 50% year over year to $52 million. The company attributed the decline to lowering the fees it charges for some Bitcoin transactions on Cash App. The newly announced settlement adds a significant legal payment burden to these financial results.
Bitcoin transfer controls had also drawn scrutiny
Block’s compliance systems had previously come under regulators’ scrutiny. New York’s financial regulator fined the company $40 million in April 2025 following a separate investigation.
The investigation found that suspicious transaction alerts awaiting review had risen from approximately 18,000 in 2018 to more than 169,000 in 2020. The regulator also said that one of the screening systems did not automatically block Bitcoin transfers to wallets linked to terrorist financing until they exceeded a certain risk threshold.
Investigation dates back to 2023
The Department of Justice and the SEC began examining Block’s compliance practices and related disclosures in 2023, following a report by short-seller Hindenburg Research. The report alleged that Cash App inflated its user numbers with duplicate and fake accounts, and that weak identity checks enabled illegal transactions. Block described the allegations as false and misleading.
The SEC closed its separate investigation in March without recommending enforcement action. The $764 million resolution announced with the Department of Justice is still at the agreement-in-principle stage.
Not investment advice.
