Several years ago, a well documented legal request to an exchange could sit unanswered for months with little recourse. That has changed meaningfully at most major regulated exchanges, driven by tightening regulatory expectations and dedicated compliance teams built specifically for this kind of request.
Not every platform has moved at the same pace
This does not mean every request succeeds, or that response times are uniform. Smaller and less regulated platforms still vary widely, and some remain effectively unreachable through a standard legal request. The improvement is concentrated at exchanges operating under established regulatory frameworks.
Why documentation quality still decides the outcome
Faster response times do not remove the need for a well prepared request. A compliance team can move quickly on a request that clearly documents the trace and the legal basis for asking, and slowly, or not at all, on one that does not.
This is one of the more encouraging shifts we have observed in the practical value of a completed investigation, even though it changes nothing about what an investigation itself can determine.
It also reinforces why the quality of the documentation matters as much as the underlying trace. A well prepared request is simply easier for a compliance team to act on quickly, which is often the difference between a case that resolves in weeks and one that stalls for months.