Anti-Money Laundering Challenges in Digital Asset Markets of Uzbekistan

The Digital Asset Markets has new opportunities, but these come with unique challenges for the anti-money laundering (AML) framework. While there has been progress on blockchain analytics and regulatory directions, country-level evidence on the practitioner experience of, and responses to, virtual-asset risks remains scant. This paper attempts to bridge this gap through the use of a qualitative, survey-based design, to document challenges related to AML/CFT in Uzbekistan’s emerging digital-asset ecosystem. We carried out semi-structured online semi-structured survey with 25–40 purposively sampled relevant stakeholders: compliance officers at VASPs and banks, FIU analysts, regulators, legal experts and academics, and coded and analyzed responses thematically. The results indicate a risk perception of anonymity-enhancing technologies (mixers, privacy coins), peer-to-peer trading, cross-chain bridges, and DeFi primitives as the main AML risks; and a limit of blockchain traceability where regulatory implementation parameter, supervisory capacity and international information exchange parameter are weak. Travel Rule compliance and cross-border data exchange were always awarded low scores, whilst KYC/CDD and blockchain analytics were deemed only moderately effective. The Uzbekistan-specific results show a moderately strong legal framework and partial coordination with the FATF, along with some institutional weaknesses to conduct investigations and enforcement. The paper concludes that a risk-based, comprehensive response is required for effective AML in digital-asset markets: improve FIU and developmental supervisory technical capabilities, ensure interoperable Travel-Rule solutions are mandated and rolled out, commit to cross-border cooperation and calibrate regulation to foster innovation while avoiding arbitrage. These insights, informed by practitioners, provide an empirical basis for policy reform and for future longitudinal research.