Christmas came early for the US crypto industry on Friday evening, when Punchbowl News reported that Senators had struck a deal limiting the payment of interest or yield on stablecoins.

Reactions ran the gamut.

Crypto investor Nic Carter said, simply, “The banks won.” Attorney Scott Johnsson, general counsel at Van Buren Capital, was more optimistic.

“This is fine,” he wrote on X. “It may not feel like it, but it is.”

But there was only one that really mattered.

“Mark it up,” Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong wrote, seemingly signalling his support for a markup — a committee vote that could advance the bill.

The odds the Clarity Act passes in 2026 quickly jumped from 46% to 64% on Polymarket.

Recall that Armstrong single-handedly put the bill on ice back in January, when he pulled his support on the eve of a scheduled markup.

Armstrong said he was unhappy with the bill’s treatment of stablecoins, among other things. Senate Banking Committee Chair Tim Scott postponed the markup, and negotiators went back to the table.

Notably, other crypto executives appeared unhappy with the decision.

Last year’s stablecoin legislation, the GENIUS Act, banned stablecoin issuers from paying yield or interest on customers’ digital dollars. The ban was motivated by banks’ fear that customers would abandon traditional checking and savings accounts for stablecoins, which often pay substantially higher interest rates.

But it was unclear whether the law banned third-party crypto companies, such as exchanges, from paying interest, and banks have lobbied lawmakers to close the supposed loophole via the Clarity Act.

January’s compromise banned companies from paying passive yield on stablecoins — but it allowed them to offer rewards or incentives on activities such as transactions, payments, transfers, remittances, and providing liquidity in DeFi protocols.

According to copies of the latest draft circulating online, not much has changed since.

The Clarity Act would ban interest or yield “that is economically or functionally equivalent to the payment of interest or yield on an interest-bearing bank deposit,” the text reads. “Rewards or incentives” on “bona fide” activities or transactions, however, are allowed.

That, of course, is rather vague. The bill would give US financial regulators one year to publish rules clarifying when, exactly, companies can reward stablecoin users.

Still, the industry celebrates the detente.

“Resolving the stablecoin yield question clears the path to a Senate Banking Committee markup and brings us meaningfully closer to comprehensive market structure legislation becoming law,” Blockchain Association CEO Summer Mersinger said in a statement. “This agreement is a step in the right direction and we urge the Committee to move forward without delay.”

That could happen as soon as this month. But the clock’s ticking. The Senate’s draft will have to be reconciled with a version the House passed nearly one year ago, and legislative work is expected to grind to a halt as election season ramps up.

Scott sounded a positive note on Monday morning.

“We are making real progress on digital asset market legislation and restoring confidence in our economy,” he wrote on X. “@BankingGOP is nearing consensus, and is working toward a bipartisan markup in May to advance digital asset market structure.”

Aleks Gilbert is DL News’ New York-based DeFi Correspondent. Reach out to him with tips at aleks@dlnews.com.

The Senate joined several other organisations that have banned employees from trading on the platforms to avoid conflicts of interest. Last week, Illinois Governor JB Pritzker banned state employees from using insider information to bet on prediction markets. A day earlier, National Public Radio issued a similar directive to its editorial employees.

"Serving in Congress is an honor, not a side hustle," Senator Bernie Moreno, a Republican from Ohio and the bill's sponsor, said in a statement on X. "Americans deserve to know that their leaders are here for the right reason!"

The resolution approved by senators on Thursday changes the chamber's rules, and violations are policed by its members. It does not have the force of law, and it does not need to be approved by the House of Representatives or signed by the president.

The resolution comes as bills to regulate prediction markets flood Congress.

Ritchie Torres, a New York Representative, presented the Public Integrity in Financial Prediction Markets Act of 2026 in January to block federal officials from trading on prediction markets. In March, Democratic senators Jeff Merkley and Amy Klobuchar filed a bill to formally prohibit senior members of the executive branch from trading on prediction markets.

A bipartisan bill from Representatives Blake Moore of Utah and Salud Carbajal of California aims to rein in insider trading involving sensitive military secrets and democratic processes.

Other bills seek to ban prediction markets' ability to offer sports betting or bets that reference terrorism, assassination, war or the death of an individual.

Lawmakers began to scrutinise prediction markets after anonymous bettors began making successful, lucrative trades just moments before major announcements, raising suspicion that insiders were profiting off nonpublic information.

Last week, the US Department of Justice charged someone with doing just that.

Prosecutors alleged US Army Special Forces Master Sergeant Gannon Ken Van Dyke used knowledge of the ouster of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro to profit from several markets on Polymarket.

Van Dyke, 38, was involved in planning and executing Maduro’s removal, known as Operation Absolute Resolve. He allegedly made more than $404,000 in illicit profits, according to a separate, civil complaint from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

Earlier this month, US Senator Richard Blumenthal accused Polymarket of letting users profit off of national security secrets and slammed it for opening a market that let users bet on the rescue of a US soldier stranded in Iran.

“Polymarket operates in full compliance with applicable law, and our insider trading rules are the exact lines that the CFTC and courts draw for derivatives markets,” Olivia Chalos, Polymarket’s deputy chief legal officer, wrote in response on X.

She added that the platform shares Blumenthal’s “commitment to national security and market integrity.”

Aleks Gilbert is DL News’ New York-based DeFi Correspondent. Reach out to him with tips at aleks@dlnews.com.

A trust benefitting Lutnick’s four children borrowed from Tether in October, just as Lutnick sold them his multibillion-dollar stake in finance giant Cantor Fitzgerald, Bloomberg reported last month.

Lutnick’s stake in Cantor Fitzgerald was reportedly sold to multiple trusts that benefit his children. But the trust that borrowed from Tether holds more than half the equity in Cantor, according to Bloomberg. Moreover, the loan was reportedly backed by “all assets” in the trust.

“If reports of this loan are accurate, it would raise serious questions about your relationship with Tether and the company’s influence on your policy decisions,” Senators Elizabeth Warren and Ron Wyden wrote in their letter, dated April 29.

“We want to ensure that Tether has not sought to bribe or otherwise exert control or influence over you.”

Tether and the Department of Commerce did not immediately respond to DL News’ requests for comment.

The letter is the latest example of Democrats using crypto as a cudgel against President Donald Trump and his allies, many of whom have ties to the industry. Democrats argue those ties pose conflicts of interest, and have raised the issue at virtually every hearing over crypto legislation since Trump began his second term as president.

Lutnick has a long history with Tether.

He was the longtime chairman and CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald, a New York financial services firm. Cantor manages the billions in US Treasury bonds that back USDT, Tether’s stablecoin.

The billionaire hasn’t just done business with Tether — he’s personally vouched for the firm, which has faced speculation that USDT isn’t fully backed by high-quality reserve assets.

“There’s a company that I like called Tether,” Lutnick said in a televised interview at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in 2024. “From what we’ve seen, and we did a lot of work, they have the money they say they have.”

When he became Commerce Secretary in February 2025, he agreed to divest from his stake in Cantor. He completed his divestiture in October of that year.

“This document raises questions about whether Tether may have helped provide your children with the capital needed to purchase your stake in Cantor Fitzgerald, and in return, secured an interest in your children’s assets,” Warren and Wyden wrote.

The senators asked Lutnick whether Tether’s loan financed his divestiture from Cantor, whether he had a role in "procuring, soliciting, and/or negotiating the loan," the loan's size and terms, and whether he had any contact with Tether or its executives since he became Commerce Secretary.

Tether and the Department of Commerce did not immediately respond to DL News’ requests for comment.

Aleks Gilbert is DL News’ New York-based DeFi Correspondent. Reach out to him with tips at aleks@dlnews.com.

The Democrat senator’s comments came after The Wall Street Journal reported that two men linked to AB were sanctioned by the Trump administration for their alleged ties to the Prince Group. The Prince Group is accused of running crypto scam compounds and human trafficking operations out of Cambodia.

The AB network has not been accused of criminality and has removed the men from the project. There is no suggestion that illicit funds flowed into the resort project the two men were involved with, per Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project and Guardian Australia's reporting from earlier in April. The two men have not been charged with any crime.

“As the Trump family puts themselves first, Congress needs to ensure that digital asset legislation protects our national security,” Warren said in a Thursday X post.

The Massachusetts senator’s comments highlight how US President Donald Trump’s political rivals are increasingly using crypto to attack him and his political allies ahead of the crucial midterm elections in November.

It comes as the crypto industry has spent over $319 million to influence the 2026 elections, according to Follow The Crypto.

For World Liberty Financial, The Wall Street Journal report marks another setback. Over the past few weeks, it has found itself embroiled in a legal battle with Justin Sun, a crypto mogul and one of the firm’s biggest supporters.

World Liberty Financial was launched in 2024 and co-founded by various members of Trump’s family, namely his three sons, as well as the sons of billionaire real estate developer Steve Witkoff, who serves as the White House’s special envoy to the Middle East.

The White House and World Liberty Financial have said that Trump and Witkoff have no role in the company’s decision-making.

What is AB?

In November, AB announced a collaboration with the Trump family’s project that would see World Liberty Financial’s stablecoin USD1 deployed on the AB Chain.

However, The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday that the controlling shareholder and general manager of one of its projects — a planned blockchain-themed resort in Timor-Leste — had been led by two men sanctioned by the US over their alleged links to the Prince Group.

In November, Prince Group said in a statement that the firm categorically rejects the notion that it engaged in any unlawful activity.

Prince Group told The Wall Street Journal that neither its founder nor the group has any connection with AB or Timor-Leste or any activity in the country.

A lawyer for World Liberty Financial told The Wall Street Journal that it has never had any association or relationship with the sanctioned individuals and that it had no knowledge of the planned resort when it announced its arrangement with AB.

The arrangement wasn’t a partnership but a “limited non-exclusive technology integration” and that the due diligence World Liberty Financial conducted was proportional with the nature of the arrangement, the lawyer told The Wall Street Journal. The Trump family’s crypto project didn’t identify any sanctioned individuals, he said.

"Claims attempting to link World Liberty Financial with sanctioned individuals are unfounded and untrue," World Liberty Financial lawyers told OCCRP and Guardian Australia earlier in April. "[World Liberty Financial] has no relationship or association with any of these sanctioned individuals or the Timor-Leste project.”

An AB spokesperson told The Wall Street Journal that the arrangement with World Liberty Financial wasn’t related to the sanctioned men as the planned resort was an independent entity. He said that AB terminated a preliminary agreement with the project after the US sanctions were announced.

The AB spokesperson told The Wall Street Journal that it informed World Liberty Financial about the men when the company approached AB about the matter.

The general manager of the planned resort told The Wall Street Journal that he had never had any business dealings with the Prince Group.

Lawyers of the controlling shareholder of the project, have previously said that he wasn’t affiliated with the Prince Group, The Wall Street Journal reported.

World Liberty Financial, AB and Prince Group didn’t immediately respond to DL News’ requests for comment. DL News could not immediately reach the two sanctioned men for comment.

Eric Johansson is DL News’ managing editor. Got a tip? Email at eric@dlnews.com.

On Tuesday, a federal judge said the claim was “baseless,” and denied the former billionaire’s request for a new trial.

It was a severe, if unsurprising blow to Bankman-Fried’s long-shot attempts to reverse a 2023 conviction on several counts of fraud and to escape a 25-year prison sentence.

In addition to his request for a new trial, Bankman-Fried has appealed his conviction and waged a desperate campaign to secure a presidential pardon. According to news reports, President Donald Trump is not expected to pardon the disgraced crypto entrepreneur. A decision in his appeal, meanwhile, is expected in the coming weeks.

Missed deadlines 

Earlier this month, Bankman-Fried missed two deadlines set by the court. One required a response to prosecutors’ nearly 50-page letter opposing his request for a new trial. Another required his avowal that he was, as he claimed, representing himself, a request the judge had made after prosecutors noted there were signs Bankman-Fried had received outside help.

In a letter to Judge Lewis Kaplan filed on April 22 — a week after both deadlines had passed — Bankman-Fried said he was the “ultimate author” of his letter requesting a new trial.

But he also asked for permission to withdraw the request “without prejudice,” a move that would allow him to request a new trial at a later date.

“I do not believe I will get a fair hearing on this topic in front of you,” he wrote the judge.

Kaplan presided over Bankman-Fried’s 2023 trial, and the former billionaire has complained that the judge was biased toward the prosecution.

That complaint was first raised in September 2024, when Bankman-Fried appealed his conviction and requested that any new trial go before a different judge. That appeal went before a three-judge panel last November.

“The trial of Sam Bankman-Fried was fundamentally unfair, because the jury only got to hear one side of the story — the prosecutors’ side,” his attorney, Alexandra Shapiro, told the panel.

“The prosecutors proclaimed that billions had been lost forever. This was false.”

The outcome of that appeal is still pending. In his April 22 letter, Bankman-Fried said he would consider filing another request for a new trial after the appellate judges make their decision.

A scathing order

That won’t be happening, Kaplan said in his scathing order on Tuesday.

In addition to rejecting Bankman-Fried’s request for a new trial, the judge rejected his request “with prejudice,” barring him from filing a similar request in the future.

If Bankman-Fried wanted to withdraw the request because the judge was biased, then he shouldn’t have made the request in the first place, Kaplan wrote.

Moreover, the judge wasn’t convinced by Bankman-Fried’s claim he had found new, exonerating evidence.

“Bankman-Fried’s motion is based on three supposedly ‘newly discovered’ witnesses whose predicted testimony, he contends, warrants a new trial,” Kaplan wrote.

Hogwash, the judge said.

“None of the witnesses, for example, is ‘newly discovered.’ Bankman-Fried well before trial knew all three of them.”

Those witnesses are Daniel Chapsky, the former head of data science at FTX; Ryan Salame, an FTX executive serving a seven-year prison sentence; and Nishad Singh, a former FTX executive who testified for the government at Bankman-Fried’s trial.

All three could testify that FTX was not insolvent when it filed for bankruptcy in 2022, but illiquid, according to Bankman-Fried.

Bankman-Fried has insisted he could have honoured a stampede of customer withdrawals if he’d been given enough time to sell illiquid assets, such as company stock.

Chapsky signed an affidavit on January 1 stating he had been willing to say as much at trial. But he was dissuaded by his attorneys, who cited potential “media attacks” and retaliation from prosecutors.

Salame said he would have testified for Bankman-Fried’s defence in 2023 if not for prosecutors’ aggressive tactics. And Singh initially claimed he was unaware of a “hole” in FTX’s balance sheet, according to court records.

The argument that FTX was merely illiquid has been met with overwhelming derision by attorneys, reporters, and crypto entrepreneurs who closely followed the exchange’s downfall.

Kaplan isn’t buying that argument either.

“A fatal flaw of that spin (and the present motion) is that Bankman-Fried’s so-called ‘facts’ have been seen before,” the judge wrote. “Many times.”

Before the trial, Bankman-Fried had conceded they were “irrelevant” and “speculative,” the judge noted.

“They in substance thus are the same ‘facts’ that this Court excluded at trial and that Bankman-Fried now argues on appeal to the Circuit should have been admitted,” Kaplan continued.

“In no way are these ‘facts’ never-before-seen, let alone newly discovered.”

The judge’s order leaves just one avenue for Bankman-Fried to reverse his conviction: his pending appeal.

The three-judge panel has an informal six-month deadline to issue their ruling, which means a decision could be imminent.

But Bankman-Fried’s odds of success are low — between 2011 and 2015, about 6% of federal criminal appeals succeeded, according to data from the US court system.

Aleks Gilbert is DL News’ New York-based DeFi Correspondent. Reach out to him with tips at aleks@dlnews.com.

The vote in the Senate Banking Committee puts Warsh on a glide path to confirmation. The entire Senate is expected to vote on Warsh’s nomination in the coming weeks.

Warsh was nominated by the president in January, but his confirmation stalled due to opposition from Senator Thom Tillis, a Republican from North Carolina.

Tillis, the swing vote on the Banking Committee, refused to support Warsh so long as federal prosecutors were investigating outgoing Fed Chair Jerome Powell. Powell, Tillis, and many Democrats said the investigation was a brazen attempt by the president’s allies to cow a member of the Fed’s board of governors into voting to lower interest rates.

“You have extraordinary credentials. They're impeccable,” Tillis told Warsh at a hearing last week. “Let's get rid of this investigation so I can support your confirmation.”

US Attorney Jeanine Pirro said on Friday she would drop the investigation, and Tillis promptly said he would support Warsh’s nomination.

But Pirro said she “wouldn’t hesitate” to reopen the case, a statement that Senator Elizabeth Warren, the top Democrat on the committee, highlighted on Wednesday.

“No one is fooled,” Warren said. “Trump is still going after control of the Fed, and he is keeping the threat of bogus charges alive until he gets what he wants.”

Warsh’s independence from the Fed — or lack thereof — was a central line of attack at last week’s hearing. During one heated exchange, Warsh declined to name any issue on which he disagreed with the president.

“Mr. Warsh is a Trump sock puppet who is so cowed by the president he could not even say that Donald Trump lost the 2020 election,” Warren said on Wednesday, referring to that exchange.

Tillis said Warren was trying to “score some political points.”

“I’ve got confidence that this investigation is over,” he said. “She is flatly wrong on every point she just tried to make.”

Warren also criticised Warsh over his sprawling investment empire, his “catastrophic” tenure as a Fed governor during the Bush and Obama Administrations.

Warsh’s financial disclosures show the nominee has an investment portfolio worth more than $130 million. That portfolio features over two dozen investments in crypto ventures, including DeFi lender Compound, derivatives trading platforms dYdX and Lighter, and four blockchains: Solana, Optimism, Blast, and Zero Gravity.

Last week, Warsh stressed his independence and his desire to begin a “policy regime change much more focused on interest rates” than on quantitative easing.

Since the Great Recession, the Fed has purchased trillions of dollars of US Treasury bills, flooding the economy with cash. That policy, known as quantitative easing, stimulated the economy, but it has also fuelled inflation, according to its critics.

Warsh is a lecturer at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. He served as a member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors from 2006 to 2011, and his nomination was viewed positively by many in the crypto industry.

Businessman and Bitcoin evangelist Michael Saylor, for example, predicted Warsh would be “the first pro-Bitcoin chairman of the Federal Reserve” if confirmed.

Polymarket punters now give Warsh a 95% chance of being confirmed by May 15, up from 27% on April 23.

Aleks Gilbert is DL News’ New York-based DeFi correspondent. You can reach him at aleks@dlnews.com.

The National Prosecutor’s Office organised crime-fighting unit, also known as Pnaco, called the cases a “phenomenon that is evolving rapidly.” Just three such cases were reported in 2023, with numbers ballooning to 18 in 2024 and skyrocketing 272% last year, Pnaco said.

“We’ve identified multiple individuals who are involved in several cases,” said Vanessa Perrée, the head of Pnaco, as reported by French newspaper Le Parisien. “We have revealed the existence of structured networks.”

So far this year, prosecutors say they have identified 47 cases. Among the most recent of these involved a family of five, who were reportedly held at gunpoint by robbers who made off with their car and a cold wallet containing $800,000 worth of crypto

Crackdowns continue

Pnaco said police and prosecutors’ crackdowns are bearing fruit.

So far, 88 people, including around a dozen minors, have been charged in 12 active crypto-related kidnapping cases. The vast majority of these 75 suspects remain in pre-trial detention, with the bulk of arrests coming in recent months, prosecutors said.

Pnaco said it had recently charged three men, aged between 25 and 30, in connection with a crypto-kidnapping reported in November in Challes-les-Eaux, in the Savoie Department.

Officers said two of the trio are also being charged with carrying out a “similar case” reported just weeks later in Charente-Maritime.

All of the suspects have prior criminal records, Pnaco added.

Meanwhile, police have arrested a 17-year-old boy on suspicion of kidnapping a woman and her 67-year-old mother in a violent attempt to extort crypto.

Officers say they found the boy “playing PlayStation games in his family home,” days after the attack, French newspaper Le Monde reported.

The boy and two alleged accomplices bundled the women into the trunk of their car. Police said they found traces of one of the alleged victims’ blood in the vehicle.

Detectives said the trio admitted they were “recruited” on Telegram by an individual who called himself “Hermano,” which means “brother” in Spanish.

Two of the suspects were arrested as they attempted to board a bus bound for Spain.

Tim Alper is a News Correspondent at DL News. Got a tip? Email him at tdalper@dlnews.com

Officers accuse a man in his sixties surnamed Ma, who resides in Henan Province, of being the “ringleader” of a macabre private Telegram community dedicated to cat torture. The community members typically paid the accused to make custom cat torture videos.

“In the early hours of April 19, our volunteers found a kitten with its eyes gouged out, and its throat cut in a rubbish bin in a building in a residential complex [near Ma’s house],” members of a cat rescue group told Chinese media outlet China Newsweek.

Telegram is banned in Mainland China, but scores of Chinese users have found workarounds and proxies that allow them to access the app. Tech startups last year showcased an array of tools that will let police monitor Chinese-language groups on Telegram.

Hunt for ringleader

The cat rescue group was spearheaded by a Henan Province resident surnamed Zhang. The group said it spent months trying to unmask the identity of the torture group ringleader.

Their efforts finally paid off last week, Zhang said.

“Ma told an elderly neighbour he would help find new homes for more than 20 stray cats the neighbour was caring for,” Zhang said, “On the morning of April 18, Ma then adopted a kitten. And on the same night at around 11 pm, he suddenly turned up the volume on his TV.”

The group said this suggests Ma was trying to cover up the sound of the cat’s cries of pain. The same kitten’s body was found in the aforementioned bin the following day.

The rescue group said it had monitored the Telegram group ringleader, who used the alias Mou Tian, for some time.

The group said it had evidence Mou Tian began posting cat torture videos on Telegram in 2022, and had made scores of custom videos for customers who provided crypto donations.

Late-night excursions

After examining clues in scores of photographs and videos, the group was able to gather evidence suggesting Ma and Mou Tian were the same person.

Before reporting their evidence to the police, the group watched Ma’s behaviour carefully, noticing that he would leave his house at around midnight most days, only returning home at 4 or 5 am.

“We suspect that he deliberately chose to go out during times when there were fewer people around, so he could catch and abuse stray cats,” Zhang said.

The group also found evidence Ma had adopted cats through pet shops, online platforms, and rescue organisations, but added that the “whereabouts of most of these cats remains unknown.”

“Mou Tian had previously posted in the Telegram group about going out late at night to abuse and kill cats and trick people into adopting kittens. These details correspond to Ma’s behaviour,” a group member using the alias Lin Feng told China Newsweek.

Online clues

The volunteers spent days trying to confirm their suspicions, using the online evidence as a guide.

Through on-site visits and interviews with residents, they were able to establish that one of Mou Tian’s filming sites appeared to be a parking lot near Ma’s house. Other videos appeared to confirm a torture location as the balcony of Ma’s home.

And a particularly stomach-churning torture video that involved Mou Tian inflicting burns on a cat tied to a frying pan over a gas hob, matched up with images of Ma’s kitchen.

The group compiled all the evidence it could find and reported the case to a police station in the city of Pingdingshan.

Officers responded by arresting Ma. They have placed him under administrative detention for 10 days.

But legal experts say prosecutors may struggle to build a strong case against him, describing the case as “complex.”

Chinese law essentially classifies stray cats as wild animals, and legal protection surrounding abuse of these animals is vague, a lawyer told the same media outlet.

“Stray cats cannot be considered private property and therefore cannot be subject to property-related penalties, unlike pets,” the lawyer said.

Instead, police have charged Ma with “disturbing public order on an especially large scale.”

Jiulishan Police Station refused to comment further on the matter, telling China Newsweek that “details of the case could not be disclosed at this time.”

The development comes as Chinese courts crack down on individuals and organisations who use crypto to launder money and commit other crimes.

Tim Alper is a News Correspondent at DL News. Got a tip? Email him at tdalper@dlnews.com

In February, Todd Snyder, the administrator overseeing Terraform Labs’ winding down, filed suit against the firm, its co-founder Robert Granieri, and two employees, Michael Huang and Bryce Pratt.

Snyder claims that Jane Street was able to profit from “trades that would have been impossible without inside information to which it had unique access.”

Jane Street, however, argues that it could not have traded on non-public information because it placed trades after that information became publicly available.

“The Complaint is self-defeating,” Jane Street said in the Thursday motion. “Plaintiff’s own pleading acknowledges that Jane Street’s single largest UST sale — 85 million UST — occurred ten minutes after the supposed material non-public information was visible to the market.”

Since Terraform Labs’ UST stablecoin lost its peg to the dollar and collapsed in May 2022, those involved have struggled to determine exactly what happened and which parties, beyond Terraform Labs, were to blame.

The incident cost investors some $40 billion and set off a chain reaction that culminated in the collapse of the crypto exchange FTX, along with other crypto firms exposed to UST and the Terra blockchain’s native cryptocurrency, LUNA.

Do Kwon, Terraform Labs’ cocksure founder, now serves a 15-year prison sentence for fraud.

Timing mismatch

In the February filing, Snyder accused Jane Street employee Bryce Pratt, who worked as an intern for Terraform Labs until September 2021, of using a backchannel to gain non-public information from his former employer.

“Using that insider information, Jane Street sold off its [REDACTED] UST at the opportune moment — on May 7, 2022 — to maximise its own profits and avoid substantial losses,” the suit reads.

Jane Street sees things differently. It argues that the 85 million UST it sold on May 7 was made in response to the stablecoin’s deteriorating peg and was not influenced by any insider information.

Then, between May 8 and 13, Jane Street opened short positions — bearish bets — on UST and LUNA.

While Snyder again alleges that the decision was predicated on insider information, Jane Street says it wasn’t. The firm said it began building the short position on May 8, before it allegedly received any insider information about a possible “rescue package.”

The so-called rescue package was a proposed emergency fundraising effort to support the collapsing UST stablecoin.

Jane Street isn’t the only trading firm Snyder has accused of foul play.

In December, he also filed a lawsuit against the Chicago-based firm Jump Trading, alleging the company also played an outsized role in the collapse of Terra.

He accused the firm, several of its subsidiaries, and two of its executives of market manipulation, defrauding investors, self-dealing and more.

In March, Jump responded to Snyder’s suit, calling it a “transparent attempt” to dodge a $4.4 billion fine levied by the Securities and Exchange Commission in 2024.

Jane Street’s motion to dismiss was filed in the Southern District of New York, where judges typically have 60 days from submission to make a decision.

Tim Craig is DL News’ Edinburgh-based DeFi Correspondent. Reach out with tips at tim@dlnews.com.

On Thursday, federal authorities charged 38-year-old Gannon Ken Van Dyke, a master sergeant with the US Army Special Forces, with using classified information in the capture of the Venezuelan president.

Van Dyke was involved in planning and executing Maduro’s removal, known as Operation Absolute Resolve.

He’s accused of using knowledge of the operation to profit from several markets on the prediction market Polymarket, earning him more than $404,000 in illicit profits, a civil complaint from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission said.

The CFTC is seeking penalties, disgorgement and a ban on Van Dyke from trading on regulated markets again.

He faces three counts of violating the Commodity Exchange Act, one count of wire fraud, and one count of an unlawful monetary transaction, according to the DOJ.

“The defendant allegedly violated the trust placed in him by the United States government by using classified information about a sensitive military operation to place bets on the timing and outcome of that very operation, all to turn a profit,” US Attorney Jay Clayton of the Southern District of New York said.

“That is clear insider trading and is illegal under federal law.”

Insider trading 

Polymarket, a popular prediction market that’s been under pressure over insider trading allegations, was quick to celebrate the action on social media.

“Insider trading has no place on Polymarket. Today's arrest is proof the system works,” the company said on Thursday.

Polymarket lets users bet on the outcome of a wide variety of events, including sports games, whether the Federal Reserve will slash interest rates, or what a Fortune 500 CEO might say during an earnings call.

From December, the platform also hosted four different so-called event contracts related to Venezuela and the defenestration of its president.

Under the handle “Burdensome-Mix,” Van Dyke allegedly bet approximately $33,000 across all four of these event contracts in December and January, leading up to the removal of Maduro on January 3.

CFTC Commissioner Michael Selig, whose agency oversees regulated commodities exchanges to which prediction markets fall, also commended the action.

He, too, has faced stiff criticism for failing to take a firm enough stance on alleged insider trading on prediction markets this year.

He has rejected this criticism publicly.

“I’ve been crystal clear: anyone who engages in insider trading in any of our markets will face the full force of the law,” he said on Friday morning.

Liam Kelly is DL News’ Berlin correspondent. Contact him at liam@dlnews.com.

In a lawsuit filed on Tuesday, Sun accused executives at World Liberty Financial of fraud, theft, and other crimes.

But the accusations aren’t couched in soporific legalese. Instead, the lawsuit goes out of its way to portray World Liberty as a struggling company facing “collapse and potential insolvency.”

And Sun saved the most damning details for one person: World Liberty co-founder Chase Herro, whom the lawsuit describes as an inveterate scammer and tax dodger.

Some of these details have been previously reported. Some, like World Liberty’s impending collapse, are pure speculation. Still, it will provide plenty of ammunition for the company’s critics, a coalition that ranges from angry investors to opposition lawmakers who smell blood in the water.

When reached for comment about the lawsuit on Wednesday, a World Liberty spokesperson pointed to social media statements from the company’s co-founders.

CEO Zach Witkoff described the lawsuit as a “desperate attempt to deflect attention from Sun’s own misconduct.”

Herro, meanwhile, did not address the lawsuit directly. Instead, he shared a motivational Rudyard Kipling poem and Witkoff’s statement and wrote, “Building is never easy and often riddled with triumphs and failures mixed into a giant maze you need to traverse.”

Here are the four most notable claims and details in the 52-page lawsuit.

Herro’s past

Profiles of Herro in the mainstream press have detailed a checkered past, including a jail stint, inflammatory comments, questionable business practices, and his involvement in a DeFi protocol that lost nearly all its crypto in a hack in 2024.

The lawsuit includes all of that. But it also appears to include fresh details.

“Mr. Herro’s business misconduct was so egregious that in or around 2010, spurned customers and partners started a website called ‘ChaseHeroScam.com,’” the lawsuit reads.

That website was inactive on Thursday, and DL News could not confirm that it contained certain posts referenced in Sun’s lawsuit.

Herro has also been subject to tax liens on four separate occasions and a tax deed on a Florida property, according to the lawsuit.

The lawsuit also claims that Herro has “publicly boasted” about visiting Little Saint James, the private island owned by disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein. But the lawsuit doesn’t provide any evidence of the purported boast, and DL News could not immediately confirm whether Herro had ever made such comments.

“Secret” upgrades 

From the get-go, owners of World Liberty’s governance token, WLFI, had relatively limited control.

They had no say in running World Liberty, according to company documents. But they could vote on upgrades to its underlying technology.

Sun alleges World Liberty executives broke that promise when they quietly pushed a pair of upgrades last year “unilaterally and without any governance vote or disclosure to $WLFI holders.”

Those upgrades allegedly gave World Liberty the power to freeze and seize WLFI tokens — a power they used against Sun. He painted the upgrade in apocalyptic terms.

“While the upgrade is technically visible on the public blockchain, World Liberty buried it in the code without alerting token holders to its existence or implications,” the lawsuit reads. “In the dark of night, the company thus created a ‘blacklisting’ function that it could wield at will.”

World Liberty has said that it only uses the freeze function to protect its users.

“He engaged in misconduct that required World Liberty to take action to protect itself and its users,” Witkoff said in his statement. “World Liberty will continue to take all necessary steps to protect its community.”

Trump’s memecoin

Publicly, World Liberty has been coy about Sun’s alleged misconduct. But Sun says company executives gave a more detailed explanation in private.

The justifications include executives’ belief that Sun caused a 40% drop in the price of WLFI by selling his tokens, that Sun had improperly bought some of his tokens on others’ behalf, and that he had otherwise violated a “Token Purchase Agreement.”

But they also cited another reason, according to the lawsuit: Trump’s memecoin.

“World Liberty also claimed that it had frozen Plaintiffs’ $WLFI tokens because World Liberty was upset that Mr. Sun had purchased $100 million in $TRUMP tokens (which were sold by a different Trump-backed project),” the lawsuit reads. Part of the next sentence is redacted, but it finishes by stating that something — most likely the purchase of TRUMP — “was pre-approved by a Trump family member who is a partner in both projects.”

The lawsuit does not state why World Liberty would be upset by the purchase of TRUMP memecoins.

Money transmitter law

Last year, two crypto developers were jailed for running an unlicensed money transmitting business. Another was convicted on the same charge, though he has yet to be sentenced.

The lawsuit alleges World Liberty broke that same law.

By giving itself the power to move tokens on others’ behalf, World Liberty became a money transmitter, according to the lawsuit.

“World Liberty’s sweeping centralized control over $WLFI tokens — besides being the antithesis of DeFi — makes it hard to deny that World Liberty is acting as an unregistered and unlicensed money transmitter in violation of various federal and state criminal laws,” the lawsuit reads.

[Redacted]

The most salacious details in the lawsuit may be hidden.

Some sections are heavily redacted, including one in which Sun alleges World Liberty attempted to extort him “into providing additional capital” after his initial $45 million investment.

Other heavily redacted passages appear to cover Sun’s “obligations to World Liberty” and specific details within the “Token Purchase Agreement” that the billionaire had to sign when he bought his WLFI.

Aleks Gilbert is DL News’ New York-based DeFi correspondent. You can reach him at aleks@dlnews.com.

The El Salvador-based firm said in a release that the crypto was tied to “unlawful conduct.” Tether did not respond to questions from DL News or reveal more details about the blacklisted crypto. The US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control did not immediately respond to questions from DL News.

“USDT is not a safe haven for illicit activity,” Paolo Ardoino, CEO of Tether, said in a statement. USDT is Tether’s dollar-pegged stablecoin.

Tether Supports Freeze of More Than $344 Million in USD₮ in Coordination with OFAC and U.S. Law Enforcement
Learn more: https://t.co/PFMCimX9hV

— Tether (@tether) April 23, 2026

“We combine blockchain transparency with real-time monitoring and direct coordination with law enforcement to stop funds before they can move,” he added.

Tether can freeze assets by activating a function on USDT’s smart contract to prevent specific wallet addresses from transferring or receiving tokens.

Stablecoin issuer Tether says it is stepping up its work at fighting bad actors. Earlier this month, the firm said it would donate $127.5 million to hacked decentralised exchange Drift Protocol to help the exchange make users whole again.

$4.4 billion frozen 

The latest operation with US law enforcement is nothing new: Tether has for years helped US feds shut down “pig butchering” operations in Asia by freezing funds held in criminal wallets.

In February, the company said it helped Turkish authorities with a money laundering investigation by freezing over half a billion dollars in crypto.

Tether said that it works with 340 law enforcement agencies across 65 countries and has helped freeze over $4.4 billion in assets since 2023.

Circle under fire 

Tether’s main competitor, USDC issuer Circle, has come under fire for not moving quick enough to freeze funds tied to illegal activity.

When hackers — believed to be from North Korea — drained nearly $300 million in USDC from Drift Protocol on April 1, blockchain sleuths were quick to point out that Circle did not act quick enough.

Pseudonymous crypto forensics expert ZachXBT this month published 15 examples of hacks in which Circle took “minimal action against illicit funds.”

A lawsuit filed by a former Drift user alleges that Circle “did nothing as the attackers worked to offload their spoils.”

Tether said in its Thursday announcement that its “approach is different” when helping authorities.

“We combine blockchain transparency with real-time monitoring and direct coordination with law enforcement to stop funds before they can move,” Ardoino added.

Mathew Di Salvo is a news correspondent with DL News. Got a tip? Email at mdisalvo@dlnews.com.

Lawyers and punters think time may be running out for the bill. Crypto industry insiders this week gave the bill a 50-50 chance of passing before the year is out. Users of the Polymarket prediction market are even more pessimistic: just 45% back the bill to pass this year, with chances sliding 19% on Wednesday.

“We hope this letter helps move market structure legislation from discussion to action in the Senate Banking Committee, with a clear path to markup,” Lindsay Fraser, Chief Policy Officer at the Blockchain Association, told DL News. “From there, the objective is straightforward: advance a durable bipartisan framework through Congress and to the President’s desk.”

Experts have previously said if the bill doesn’t hit the Senate floor by May, its chances of passing this year could vanish completely. But while legal experts say the cost of Clarity’s potential failure would be high, they think all isn’t yet lost.

Stablecoin roadblock

“Our industry recognises the importance of this moment,” the lobbying groups Crypto Council for Innovation and Blockchain Association told Senators in the letter.

Senators still have some room for manoeuvre, say legal experts, even if time is not on lawmakers’ side.

“Lobbyists think a Senate committee hearing in May could keep the legislation viable, provided it manages to pass a final vote of the full Senate by July,” Yuliya Barabash, founder and managing partner at the law firm SBSB Fintech Lawyers, told DL News.

The legal community says the Senate’s Banking Committee is “unlikely” to debate the bill in April, Barabash added.

Earlier this week, Senator Thom Tillis reportedly backed a postponement until May, adding that negotiators need more time to find a compromise between banks and crypto firms.

Future-proofing crypto

The bill proposes enshrining a range of existing crypto-related guidelines into US law. Advocates say this will future-proof the crypto sector against crypto-sceptic future administrations.

Experts have previously warned of dire consequences if the bill does not pass, as banks, lawmakers, and crypto service providers continue to disagree about whether stablecoin holdings should pay their owners interest.

“If the bill does not pass this year, the next phase will likely be a combination of narrower interim measures, continued agency enforcement, court-driven precedent, and renewed legislative attempts after the midterms,” Elisenda Fabrega, general counsel at the law firm Brickken, told DL News.

“But that’s the slower and more expensive route. Clear statutory rules remain the most efficient path — both for markets and regulators.”

The fate of the war in the Middle East is starving the bill of political oxygen, Fabrega said.

“The legislative bottleneck is less about opposition to the bill itself and more about competing national priorities,” Fabrega said.

“Escalating geopolitical tensions, particularly around Iran, naturally consume political capital, floor time, and media attention,” Fabrega said. “When that happens, even strategically important economic legislation can be delayed if it is not treated as urgent.”

Losing heart

Crypto industry insiders are beginning to lose heart and are dismayed by Tillis’ statement.

Any further delays “contract the timeline and marginally reduce the likelihood of eventual passage in 2026,” Alex Thorn, head of research at the asset manager Galaxy Digital, said in comments shared with DL News.

“It puts additional pressure on Senators to move a complicated bill inside a Senate schedule already loaded with competing priorities,” Thorn said. “Every week of delay compresses the window for the sequential steps required to reach the President’s desk.”

Thorn concluded that a committee debate in May would not be “fatal to the bill’s prospects,” provided the markup takes place early in the month.

Tim Alper is a News Correspondent at DL News. Got a tip? Email him at tdalper@dlnews.com.

The man, aged 20, also scattered defamatory leaflets alleging the victim was a recently released sex offender, South Korean newspaper Joongang Ilbo reported.

“The defendant acted on the instructions of a so-called revenge agency,” prosecutors told the court. “He broke into the apartment complex of a victim he had never met, vandalised the front door with red spray paint, and left leaflets containing obscene content and false allegations of criminality for [the victim’s neighbours to see].”

Police have made a series of arrests relating to Telegram-based revenge agencies, which offer to murder, maim, or publicly shame people on behalf of anonymous, USDT-paying “customers.”

But these criminal networks continue to operate, with masterminds commissioning an increasingly macabre array of vengeance-fuelled attacks.

Defamatory leaflets

Prosecutors explained that the man broke into the complex in Dongtan New Town, Gyeonggi Province, on February 22.

Once inside the building, he also vandalised the front door of the victim’s 15th-floor apartment with red spray paint.

“The leaflets had been designed to make it seem as if the victim was a person who had committed a sex crime and just been released from prison,” prosecutors said.

Under South Korean law, the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family must send paper notifications to residents when a convicted sex offender takes up residence in a new area.

These leaflets typically include the offender’s full name, a photograph, their address, and details of their crimes.

The man was tried at Suwon District Court, which withheld his name for legal reasons, South Korean broadcaster YTN reported.

The court heard that the man was a convicted youth offender who had previously received a suspended sentence for another offense.

The man told the court he had acted on behalf of a Telegram-based group calling itself the “Grudge Resolution Office.” This group had offered to pay him in crypto upon completion, the man said.

The victim was not named, and police have yet to determine who paid the “Grudge Resolution Office” to commission the crime.

Tim Alper is a News Correspondent at DL News. Got a tip? Email him at tdalper@dlnews.com.

But he’s still a fan of the president.

“Mr. Sun has long been (and remains) an ardent supporter of President Trump and the Trump family,” the lawsuit reads.

“But as Mr. Sun unfortunately has learned, World Liberty’s operators, including Chase Herro, see the project as a golden opportunity to leverage the Trump brand to profit through fraud.”

The lawsuit is the culmination of a months-long feud between the company and one of its biggest supporters.

Sun purchased 3 billion WLFI tokens in 2024 and 2025 for a combined $45 million, a vote of confidence that gave the struggling company new life. Still, World Liberty Financial executives wanted more, the lawsuit alleges.

World Liberty Financial executives quietly gave themselves the ability to freeze, transfer, and destroy the company’s tokens — power they threatened to use against Sun, according to the lawsuit.

“In the months preceding World Liberty’s power grab, its principals had been trying to pressure Mr. Sun to increase his investment in the company’s products,” the lawsuit said.

‘A desperate attempt’

The lawsuit comes amid mounting scrutiny over World Liberty Financial’s plan to unlock billions of tokens and a series of controversial transactions that prompted accusations of self-dealing.

It also provides another attack line for the president’s political opponents, who have used the Trump family’s crypto dealings to criticise the White House. The White House has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.

But it's a bold move from an entrepreneur who has also faced allegations of wrongdoing — allegations that company founders hinted at when they responded on Wednesday.

“Justin Sun’s recent lawsuit against [World Liberty Financial] is a desperate attempt to deflect attention from Sun’s own misconduct,” Zach Witkoff, World Liberty Financial co-founder and CEO, said on X.

“His claims are entirely meritless, and World Liberty looks forward to getting the case thrown out promptly.”

"The only thing more ridiculous than this lawsuit is spending $6 million on a banana duct-taped to a wall,” Eric Trump, the president’s son and a World Liberty co-founder, said on X. “We are incredibly proud of the [World Liberty Financial] team.”

Sun famously purchased Maurizio Cattelan’s artwork The Comedian in 2024 and then filmed himself eating it.

A World Liberty Financial spokesperson pointed to those statements when contacted by DL News.

Trump family company DT Marks DEFI LLC once held a 75% stake in World Liberty Financial. Today, the World Liberty Financial website states DT Marks holds a 38% stake in the company.

DT Marks and certain members of the Trump family received 22.5 billion WLFI tokens, and DT Marks gets 75% of the proceeds from the sale of WLFI tokens.

The investment  

Sun said he purchased WLFI tokens because of the company’s association with Trump and its promise to promote decentralised finance.

“No one’s ever going to tell you that your account is shut down,” the company said at the time, according to the lawsuit. "No one’s ever going to tell you who and why and what money you can send.”

The tokens were initially locked and marketed as a means of participating in the project’s development. Tokenholders were told they could vote on proposals to upgrade company technology, for example.

“Despite the boilerplate disclaimers, the reality was that users would not spend significant sums of money — World Liberty initially aimed to raise $300 million — to acquire digital assets that had no economic upside,” the lawsuit reads.

Still, the tokens were a dud. World Liberty Financial sold just $22 million in tokens in its first month, falling well short of its stated goal.

“That all changed when Mr. Sun came onto the scene,” the lawsuit reads.

He purchased 2 billion WLFI tokens in November 2024 for $30 million and was promptly named a company adviser, a title that came with an additional 1 billion tokens, according to the lawsuit. He purchased another billion in January 2025 for $15 million, bringing his total investment to $45 million.

After that, World Liberty Financial “took off,” according to the lawsuit, eventually raising $550 million.

Those purchases were subject to a “Token Purchase Agreement” that stated World Liberty “would have no centralised authority over $WLFI tokens,” the lawsuit alleged.

The company would break that promise in less than a year, according to Sun.

Lackluster stablecoin

In March 2025, World Liberty Financial said it would issue a stablecoin, USD1. But it faced “underwhelming retail demand,” according to the lawsuit.

Between April and July 2025, World Liberty leaders tried to convince Sun to mint 200 million USD1 tokens, according to the lawsuit. That would have meant handing World Liberty Financial $200 million, money it could invest in US Treasury bonds or other low-risk assets.

Company executives also asked Sun to invest in World Liberty’s holding company, according to the lawsuit.

“Mr. Sun’s polite and noncommittal responses at these social events were treated by World Liberty as binding commitments,” the lawsuit reads. By July, however, its executives realised he wouldn’t invest.

That month, tokenholders voted to unlock 20% of their tokens. As the September 1 unlock date approached, however, the company quietly upgraded the token’s smart contract, giving itself the power to block transfers, according to the lawsuit.

“Through a subsequent investigation, [Sun] learned that World Liberty had placed addresses holding $WLFI tokens into at least 19 categories subject to varying restrictions” the lawsuit reads. Sun’s was the only address in a category that included a total freeze.

Sun complained publicly that his tokens had been frozen. Without naming Sun, World Liberty Financial said in a statement that it had frozen tokens in 272 wallets, including one that it had flagged for “misappropriation of other holders’ funds.”

Witkoff appeared to confirm on Wednesday that the company had been referring to Sun.

“He engaged in misconduct that required World Liberty to take action to protect itself and its users,” Witkoff said in his statement. “World Liberty will continue to take all necessary steps to protect its community.”

In his lawsuit, Sun called the notion “false and defamatory.”

Extortion

On September 24, World Liberty Financial co-founder Chase Herro ratcheted up the pressure and demanded that Sun announce he was destroying all of his tokens, according to the lawsuit.

If Sun resisted, Herro said he would ask tokenholders to approve the destruction of those tokens — “a vote that would likely be approved, Mr. Herro claimed, given that, at the time, the World Liberty leadership team controlled a meaningful percentage of the outstanding $WLFI tokens in circulation, and would thus be able to effectively control the outcome of any such vote,” the lawsuit reads.

Herro also suggested there were issues with know-your-customer documents Sun had to submit when he first purchased the tokens, according to the lawsuit.

“Herro repeatedly threatened to report Mr. Sun to US criminal authorities over these unspecified KYC issues — which Mr. Herro and World Liberty have refused to explain in anything other than the broadest terms despite repeated requests from Plaintiffs for additional information,” the lawsuit reads.

Sun and World Liberty Financial leadership privately negotiated a potential end to their dispute, but those talks fell apart in February, according to the lawsuit.

Sun has accused the company of fraud, breach of contract, theft, and unjust enrichment, and he asked the court to bar the company from freezing or destroying his tokens.

Aleks Gilbert is DL News’ New York-based DeFi correspondent. You can reach him at aleks@dlnews.com.

The British government in a Tuesday statement announced a new range of measures to “help the UK remain at the cutting edge” with fintech — including by regulating stablecoins.

The measures would modernise payment services regulation by creating a single framework covering both traditional and tokenised payments, the Treasury said. The measures would also explore how regulation should adapt to AI agents making payments on behalf of consumers and businesses.

Stablecoins are not widely used in the UK currently, but the country's Financial Conduct Authority is drawing up a regulatory framework for cryptoassets — including stablecoins — that will come into force in October 2027.

“Fintech is a true British success story, and we are backing the industry to maintain its competitive edge and go even further and faster in driving growth,” Lucy Rigby, economic secretary to the Treasury, said.

The Treasury also said it had appointed Chris Woolard CBE as the government’s new wholesale digital markets champion to lead the government’s work to deliver “a more efficient and competitive financial sector by building a tokenised wholesale financial markets system.”

Woolard, currently a partner at Big Four accounting firm Ernst & Young, was previously a board member and interim chief executive at the FCA. He also worked as a civil servant and served briefly as a regulator at the Bank of England, according to his LinkedIn profile and a BoE profile page.

Stablecoin push 

The Treasury added that it was also bringing forward legislation to slash “administrative burdens” for companies wanting to issue stablecoins in a bid to cement the UK as “a world-leading destination for digital assets while maintaining safeguards” but did not provide additional details when contacted by DL News.

Stablecoins are largely issued by US companies, and dollar-backed tokens reign supreme. Pound sterling-backed stablecoins are a tiny market — worth just $30 million, according to DefiLlama data. Tether, the biggest stablecoin issuer, debuted a pound-backed token, but it never gained traction.

The Bank of England has called for international standards for the assets.

Dante Disparte, chief strategy officer and head of global policy and operations at stablecoin issuer Circle, warned in an op-ed this month that the UK was falling behind the US and EU with regulating the tokens.

Following the US and EU?

US lawmakers now are rushing to regulate the space. The Clarity Act, which would classify most tokens as securities or digital commodities, could see a vote in May, according to Punchbowl News.

The EU also has an extensive regulatory framework for crypto and tokenised assets, the Markets in Crypto-Assets regulation, or MiCA, which analysts have said will help drive adoption of the tokens.

The UK says it’s following suit. Woolard’s appointment will help “drive tokenisation in our markets” in order to help the “next digital big bang” for the UK, Rigby said.

Mathew Di Salvo is a news correspondent with DL News. Got a tip? Email at mdisalvo@dlnews.com.

Their target was reportedly a Finistère-based crypto industry professional who was not even in the house at the time. The thieves, officials said, appeared to know exactly what they were looking for.

“The children’s father, who works in the cryptocurrency sector, was not present at the time of the incident,” said Matthieu Thomas, Rennes’ deputy public prosecutor, Brittany, France-based media outlet Le Télégramme reported.

Almost 50 cases of attempted crypto-related robbery, kidnapping, and abduction have been reported in France since the start of the year. Earlier this week, a shot was fired as a crypto owner disarmed a handgun-toting assailant who broke into his house disguised as a delivery driver.

Three-hour nightmare

Police investigating the Finistère case said neighbours alerted authorities after hearing suspicious noises coming from the house.

Inside, they discovered the family — the crypto professional’s wife, their two children, and the children’s grandparents — tied up.

Police said the assailants were two hooded men, armed with handguns. The family explained that the duo burst into their house at 9 am on April 20.

The house is located in a small estate comprising around 30 homes, in the usually quiet commune of Ploudalmézeau in Brittany, northwestern France.

Officers said the family’s ordeal lasted for around three hours and that the assailants only left after they had located the digital wallet and obtained its private keys.

Police said they are yet to make arrests in connection with the case. Officers said the Rennes gendarmerie is conducting a full investigation.

Tim Alper is a News Correspondent at DL News. Got a tip? Email him at tdalper@dlnews.com.

The unnamed officer, a 49-year-old man, is accused of taking $98,000 in bribes from at least five individuals. These allegedly include a suspected cocaine smuggler, the spouse of a leading academic, and a black market clothing smuggler, South Korean media outlet NoCut News reported.

“If you give me cash, I will use the money to simply close the case, rather than report you to the prosecution service,” the officer reportedly told one suspected customs violator.

South Korean courts are dealing with a rise in cases involving public officials who abuse their power to raise funds for crypto investments.

In January, a court found a lawyer who deals with police forces guilty of embezzling money from serving police officers to pay for private crypto purchases.

Professor’s spouse threatened

Prosecutors say they are reviewing a slew of other cases handled by the customs officer during his tenure as team leader.

Investigators have also questioned the officer’s colleagues, all of whom have denied knowledge of the accused’s alleged crimes.

In a case involving a university professor’s spouse, the suspect allegedly used the academic’s reputation as leverage.

“[The suspect] exploited the financial status and social standing of the suspect and their family member to brazenly demand bribes in exchange for quashing the case,” a prosecution spokesperson told NoCut News.

The spokesperson said the investigation had also allowed the prosecution to identify and indict several of the alleged bribe-givers on drug trafficking and smuggling charges.

“Drug smuggling is a serious crime, subject to arrest,” the officer reportedly told one suspected criminal. “But if you pay me, I will make sure you are not arrested.”

Prosecutors did not reveal the nature of the suspect’s alleged crypto purchases or disclose whether they had seized any coins as part of their investigation.

In South Korea, special judicial police officers work with prosecutors to investigate tax evasion cases, environmental offenses, and customs violations.

Tim Alper is a News Correspondent at DL News. Got a tip? Email him at tdalper@dlnews.com.

“Monetary policy makers must act in the nation's interest,” Warsh said at a confirmation hearing before the Senate Banking Committee. “I'm committed to ensuring that the conduct of monetary policy remains strictly independent.”

Trump has led an unprecedented effort to influence Federal Reserve policy, repeatedly calling on its board of governors to lower interest rates and berating the outgoing chair, Jerome Powell. Attorneys at the Department of Justice have even opened a criminal investigation into Powell over false statements he allegedly made about cost overruns at the Fed’s Washington, DC headquarters.

Powell has said the probe is politically motivated, an attempt to frighten him into backing lower interest rates. Trump has said he did not order prosecutors to open the investigation.

Still, the row has cast a pall over Warsh’s nomination.

“[Trump] does not want an independent Fed, and in fact he has said, and I quote, ‘anybody that disagrees with me will never be Fed chairman,’” Senator Elizabeth Warren, the top Democrat on the Banking Committee, said Tuesday.

“And he's made clear that you are his sock puppet, saying last week that interest rates will drop ‘When Kevin gets in.’”

Trump’s crusade to oust Powell has even sparked a rare Republican defection.

Senator Thom Tillis, a Republican from North Carolina, has said he would not support Warsh’s nomination until prosecutors drop the Powell investigation. He doubled down on Tuesday.

“You have extraordinary credentials. They're impeccable,” Tillis told Warsh. “Let's get rid of this investigation so I can support your confirmation.”

Presidential pressure 

Senators from both parties pressed Warsh on his commitment to the Fed’s independence.

Their questions weren’t just motivated by Trump’s desire for a more pliable Fed chair, but by Warsh’s own statements over the past year calling for lower interest rates. Some senators said they wanted to know whether Trump had influenced Warsh’s stated opinion on the matter.

“The President never asked me to predetermine, commit, fix, decide on any interest rate decision in any of our discussions, nor would I ever agree to do so,” Warsh said.

He also reiterated his desire to begin a “policy regime change much more focused on interest rates” than on quantitative easing.

Since the Great Recession, the Fed has purchased trillions of dollars of US Treasury bills, flooding the economy with cash. That policy, known as quantitative easing, stimulated the economy, but it has also fuelled inflation, according to its critics.

Warsh has said he wants to dramatically reduce the Fed’s balance sheet, but assured senators that any reduction would be done carefully.

“That kind of regime change would have to be deliberate, well orchestrated, well choreographed, and well described, so that unnecessary upset are not done to financial markets,” he said.

Crypto investments 

Warsh’s financial disclosures show the nominee has an investment portfolio worth more than $130 million. That portfolio features over two dozen investments in crypto ventures, including DeFi lender Compound, derivatives trading platforms dYdX and Lighter, and four blockchains: Solana, Optimism, Blast, and Zero Gravity.

But it also includes investments in funds that invest in other businesses. During the hearing, Warren asked whether those funds have stakes in companies “affiliated with President Trump or his family, companies that have facilitated money laundering, Chinese-controlled companies, or financing vehicles established by Jeffrey Epstein.”

Warsh said only that he had struck a deal with the Office of Government Ethics and would divest from all his investments before taking office.

CBDCs 

In less contentious exchanges, Warsh was also asked to share his opinion on several topics, including crypto and artificial intelligence.

Outgoing Senator Cynthia Lummis, a Republican from Wyoming and one of the crypto industry’s top champions in Congress, asked whether crypto “should be incorporated into our financial industry.”

“Digital assets already part of the fabric of our financial services industry in the United States, yes,” he replied.

Warsh also reaffirmed his opposition to central bank digital currencies. The nominee said he would not consider issuing a central bank digital currency so long as the decision was “within the power of the Chairman of the Federal Reserve.”

Warsh is a lecturer at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. He served as a member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors from 2006 to 2011, and his nomination was viewed positively by many in the crypto industry.

Businessman and Bitcoin evangelist Michael Saylor, for example, predicted Warsh would be “the first pro-Bitcoin chairman of the Federal Reserve” if confirmed.

Aleks Gilbert is DL News’ New York-based DeFi correspondent. You can reach him at aleks@dlnews.com.

At a joint hearing by the Subcommittee on Border Security and Enforcement and the Subcommittee on Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Protection on Tuesday, witnesses told lawmakers that there has been a surge in cyber attacks because of AI.

“It’s easier to lie with AI, it’s easier to make convincing emails with malicious links, it’s easier to make these deep fakes,” Cynthia Kaiser, senior vice president at the Halcyon Ransomware Research Center, told lawmakers at the hearing.

Ari Redbord, global head of policy at TRM Labs, said that there has been a 500% increase in AI-enabled scam activity over the past year.

Security experts last month told DL News that cybercriminals were increasingly using AI to search for bugs in decentralised finance protocols and then take advantage of errors auditors may have missed.

Economic violence at industrial scale

Criminals using AI are making it harder for people to recognise online scams, the experts said.

Criminals  are using new technology to quickly scan data and learn a victim’s financial details, making a scam all the more convincing, according to Megan Stifel, chief strategy officer at the Institute for Security and Technology.

“They’re using that analysis capability to essentially have a response to every blockade that the victim tries to assert, making it harder for the victims to not make the payment,” she said.

Criminals were making a killing selling AI software to help scammers impersonate others in order to trick victims into making fraudulent investments, Jacqueline Burns Koven, Head of Cyber Threat Intelligence at Chainalysis, told DL News in February.

‘Threat is daunting’ 

There’s a “world of people who couldn’t do attacks yesterday but can today,” Kaiser said.

She added that security teams were going to be exhausted if they didn’t use the same technology as attackers.

Redbord concurred, and added that while the “threat is daunting,” US authorities were working to adopt the same advanced tools as criminals to combat the scams.

“Bad actors are always early adopters of transformative technology,” he said. “We need to move as fast as those bad actors, and the tools exist today.”

Changing laws?

Kaiser, who previously worked at the FBI, suggested changing laws in order to better combat the surge in cybercrime.

“First, the Departments of State, Justice and Treasury could formally evaluate whether terrorism designation authorities under existing law apply to ransomware actors knowingly and repeatedly targeting hospitals,” she said.

“I’m not asking for a designation today — what I’m saying is that we need honest legal analysis towards that, looking at the existing law and determining if departments believe it meets those thresholds.”

Mathew Di Salvo is a news correspondent with DL News. Got a tip? Email at mdisalvo@dlnews.com.

Pablo Hernández de Cos, the general manager of the Bank for International Settlements, voiced concerns about stablecoins, among other issues, during a speech at the Bank of Japan on Monday.

The former governor of the Bank of Spain added that emerging markets and developing economies are particularly vulnerable to the effects of “dollarisation.”

As citizens in these countries begin adopting dollar-pegged tokens at a large enough scale, it removes a local central bank’s monetary sovereignty to manage an economy.

The Nigerian central bank, which oversees a country that is adopting stablecoins at a rapid pace, has no influence over the Federal Reserve's policy in the US.

That’s a problem, says Cos.

“[Forex] stablecoins could further challenge monetary transmission and monetary sovereignty if transactions, prices and wages begin to be set increasingly in foreign currencies,” Cos said.

To be sure, the reasons for stablecoin adoption in emerging markets are the same as those that drove the adoption of the US dollar historically. As a relatively stable world reserve currency, the dollar has long attracted citizens in countries mired in double-digit inflation.

Stablecoin boom?

Over the last two years, the total market value of stablecoins denominated in all currencies has increased by more than 100% to over $320 billion, according to data from DefiLlama.

The vast majority of that — indeed, 99.6% — is denominated in dollars.

New legislation in the US under President Donald Trump, along with a red-hot bull market last year, have been key catalysts for this growth.

In July, Trump signed into law the Genius Act, the country’s first piece of legislation to define how stablecoins can be issued and who is eligible.

Much of that growth stalled as Bitcoin tumbled as low as $62,000 from a high of $126,000.

Stablecoins added over $100 billion from January 2025 to October 2025; this year, fiat tokens have attracted less than $12 billion.

Still, Cos, who monetary experts suggest should become the next chair of the European Central Bank in 2027, stablecoins still demand the attention of financiers.

“Ultimately, money is far more than a technology,” he said. “It is an institutional achievement that prospers with trust in domestic and international cooperation.”

As such, Cos suggested that stablecoins pose three new challenges for central banks.

Dollarisation risk

As anyone with an internet-connected device can access dollar-pegged stablecoins, these assets could become more popular in countries where traditional access to dollars is restricted, said Cos.

Second, as people sell local currencies for digital dollars, this can create a premium on digital dollars while exacerbating the local currency's devaluation.

Finally, Cos joins a growing chorus of regulators and authorities pointing out how much easier it can be to evade capital controls when using stablecoins. This could potentially make capital flows more volatile.

“I also want to emphasise the critical importance of international cooperation,” Cos concluded.

“Without it, divergent regulatory frameworks for stablecoins across jurisdictions could lead to severe market fragmentation or enable harmful regulatory arbitrage.”

The regulatory Financial Supervisory Service told the country’s five permit-holding crypto exchanges to submit the data by April 15, South Korean newspaper Seoul Shinmun reported. However, Bithumb and Upbit, the nation’s two biggest trading platforms, sent their reports on April 17.

The FSS has asked the firms to provide reasons for the delays.

“It all sounds very disorderly,” Kim, a Seoul-based crypto trader and a customer of both Korbit and Upbit, told DL News.

Kim asked DL News to withhold his given name to protect his anonymity.

The FSS issued its request in the wake of a Bithumb’s “fat finger” mishap, whereby an employee who intended to send $400 to users accidentally selected Bitcoin instead of Korean won as a unit — and sent out $40 billion worth of Bitcoin.

High spenders rewarded

The data shows that the five exchanges offered millions of dollars’ worth of benefits to a select group of high-spending customers.

Unnamed crypto industry officials told Seoul Shinmun the data shows evidence of “inconsistent standards.”

The FSS had asked the exchanges to send the data in accordance with protocols established by the Digital Asset Exchange Association. The association is the South Korean crypto exchange sector’s self-regulatory body.

But the companies do not appear to have coordinated their responses to the regulator.

Coinone, Korbit, and GOPAX disclosed data on benefits from the past five fiscal years. But Bithumb’s disclosure only reflected data from February and March. Upbit, meanwhile, only disclosed data on the benefits it offered to three VIP customers.

DAXA did not immediately respond to a DL News request for comment.

“It’s all disappointing, and it really isn’t a good look for exchanges that supposedly work together as part of a self-regulating body,” Kim told DL News.

Coinone’s report shows it offered commission fee discounts worth a combined $79 million over the past five years. Korbit and GOPAX handed out discounts worth $6.7 million and $2.6 million, respectively, in the same period.

Upbit, meanwhile, offered the aforementioned three VIP traders an eye-watering $4.5 million worth of discounts.

Gap in costs

The data shows exchanges use VIP tiers that offer their biggest-spending customers lower commission fees.

“If exchanges offer the majority of their benefits to users with high trading volumes, the fee burden for ordinary investors will likely remain quite high,” an unnamed crypto industry professional told Seoul Shinmun. “Ultimately, this creates a structure whereby traders on the same market experience a gap in transaction costs.”

“If there has been confusion about how [DAXA’s disclosure protocols] should work, it is important for [its members] to refine these standards,” Hwang Seok-jin, a professor at  Dongguk University’s Graduate School of International Information Security, told Seoul Shinmun.

The development comes weeks after Bithumb postponed plans to float on the New York Stock Exchange. Bithumb originally planned to go public before the end of June this year, but now says the initial public offering will not go ahead until 2027 at the earliest.

Upbit is also facing a regulatory delay ahead of its proposed merger with the e-pay arm of the tech giant Naver.

Tim Alper is a News Correspondent at DL News. Got a tip? Email him at tdalper@dlnews.com.

It’s a delivery driver who says he has a package to drop off.

But instead of dropping off a parcel after the door opens, the driver suddenly pulls a surgical mask over his face and brandishes a handgun — demanding that the father, a 40-year-old crypto industry worker, hand over the keys to his crypto wallet.

The attempted robbery is just the latest in a string of over 40 attempted crypto robbery and kidnapping attacks reported this year, according to French media outlets Actu and Midi Libre.

What’s more, overseas masterminds are commissioning the attacks after identifying crypto-owning individuals on social media, French detectives wrote in a leaked police memo earlier this year.

A loaded gun

Police haven't revealed the identity of the 40-year-old man, noting that their investigation is still ongoing. Sources told the media outlets the man works for a firm that provides services related to crypto transactions.

After gaining access to the house, the attacker, dressed in the uniform of a major delivery firm, forced the man, his wife, and their young children into the living room.

Pointing the gun at the man and his family, the attacker demanded that the man reveal his private keys.

However, the man’s answers confused the attacker, prompting the latter to begin a mobile phone conversation with a suspected acquaintance.

Noticing that the attacker had suffered a momentary lapse in attention, the man reportedly jumped on the suspect in an attempt to seize the gun.

A struggle ensued before a shot was fired, and the man managed to prise the weapon from the attacker’s grip.

No one was harmed, police said, but the attacker managed to flee the scene.

Three-day manhunt

The family and their neighbours called the police, with units from Montpellier, Castelnau-le-Lez, and Hérault rushing to the scene.

After a three-day manhunt, police found the suspect, an unnamed 25-year-old male from Hérault.

A Montpellier court has charged the man with attempted armed robbery and remanded him in custody in a prison in the Bouches-du-Rhône department.

Detectives and prosecutors said it was “possible” that the suspect had acted upon the orders of an unnamed kingpin.

Tim Alper is a News Correspondent at DL News. Got a tip? Email him at tdalper@dlnews.com.

The Clarity Act has reached a make-or break moment on Capitol Hill — and if it is not signed into law before the midterm elections in November, it may not pass for years, warns Alex Thorn, Galaxy Digital’s head of research.

“If the markup slips past mid-May, the probability of enactment in 2026 will drop sharply,” Thorn warned in a note shared with DL News. “In our view, the odds of Clarity being signed into law in 2026 are roughly 50-50, and possibly lower.”

He’s not alone. Polymarket punters give the Clarity Act a 47% chance of being passed this year, down from 82% in February.

Thorn’s warning comes as the Senate is juggling a debate over Iran military authorisation, unresolved Department of Homeland Security funding and a backlog of presidential nominations for top posts.

The Senate calendar between now and the August recess is packed. The chamber breaks in early August for five weeks, after which midterm campaigning intensifies. If the Democrats retake the House in the November election, then it’s likely that legislative work will grind to a halt.

Bipartisan support

Back in July 2025, the Clarity Act passed the House of Representatives in a 294–134 vote. Seventy-eight Democrats joined Republicans, reflecting rare bipartisan agreement that digital asset markets need a federal framework.

Thorn identified four factors that have driven the initial bipartisan support.

First, there’s Donald Trump. Since retaking the White House, the US president has backed the crypto industry through a series of executive orders, key government appointments, and events.

Second, Tim Scott, the Republican senator from Carolina, has been chairing the Senate Banking Committee, which enjoys jurisdiction over banking matters and has been instrumental in making crypto legislation a key priority.

Third, the Genius Act. Thorn argued that the passing of the landmark stablecoin bill last summer proved that Democrats and Republicans can collaborate on crypto policy.

Fourth, the crypto lobby. The industry ploughed $133 millions into pro-crypto candidates in 2024 — and continue to do so this election cycle — which has helped educate and win over sceptics, Thorn said.

“Those conditions may not persist,” Thorn said.

Pain points

In the Senate, negotiations have been more complicated. Markups were initially expected in January. They were postponed amid disputes over stablecoin rewards.

But while stablecoin rewards dominate headlines, they are not the only hurdle, according to Galaxy.

Another flashpoint is the Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act provision embedded in the Senate draft. It clarifies that non-custodial software developers — those who write code but do not control user funds — are not money transmitters under federal law.

Crypto advocates view this as essential to keeping open-source development onshore. Law enforcement groups argue it could create investigative blind spots.

Ethics provisions also remain live. Some Democrats are pushing to restrict senior government officials and their families from profiting from crypto holdings while in office.

"No one should be in elective office to profit off their position," Ro Khanna, the Democratic representative of California, said in October.

Such amendments may not derail committee passage, but they could complicate the Senate floor vote, where 60 votes are required.

Concerns about Securities and Exchange Commission authority, and vacant commissioner seats add another political layer. Some Democrats see SEC nominations as leverage in broader negotiations over the bill.

“A floor vote in July is theoretically possible but would require extraordinary political will and coordination given the proximity to the August recess and the midterm campaign season.”

Lance Datskoluo is DL News’ Europe-based markets correspondent. Got a tip? Email him at lance@dlnews.com

The suspect’s identity has not been released for legal reasons, but Argentine police said his initials are DZ and that he is a Chinese national, Argentine newspaper Clarín reported. The government says it will work to extradite him to Nigeria.

“[DZ] arrived from Paris with false documents,” said Alejandra Monteoliva, the Argentine Security Minister, on X. “He didn't even make it inside the country. The Airport Security Police, the Federal Police, and immigration officers acted immediately.”“Nigeria is asking for him, and we’re going to deport him. Foreign criminals aren’t allowed here.”

Crypto-related fraud continues to make headlines across the world, with the US Department of Justice wading into the notorious OneCoin scam.

In Brazil, meanwhile, police have arrested three crypto-keen influencers as part of an investigation into a suspected voice phishing and money laundering ring.

‘Profits guaranteed’

DZ arrived in Argentina on a flight from Paris, police at Ezeiza International Airport in Buenos Aires said.

Although he presented documents using an assumed name, claiming he was a naturalised Paraguayan citizen, police said they were able to identify him as an Interpol-listed suspect wanted for money laundering and fraud.

Unnamed official sources told Clarín DZ orchestrated a Nigeria-based scheme that left scores of investors out of pocket to the tune of an estimated $49.4 million.

The sources said DZ promised investors high returns if they put their money into his crypto platform.

However, victims said they soon found they were unable to access the platform or make withdrawals.

A Federal Court in the city of Lomas de Zamora told Clarín it was “proceeding with the extradition process.”

In February, a court in Lagos, Nigeria, sentenced two of the Chinese directors of a $2.5 million crypto fraud operator to 46 years in prison, Nigerian media outlet TVC News reported.

The Chinese men were arrested as part of a massive police operation launched in December 2024 that saw officers arrest almost 800 people.

Tim Alper is a News Correspondent at DL News. Got a tip? Email him at tdalper@dlnews.com.

Hey all, Liam here.

One of the largest crypto exchanges that handled Russia’s sanctioned stablecoin, A7A5, just shut up shop — poof — dishing another massive blow to the country’s weakening economy.

On Wednesday, Grinex announced on its Telegram channel that it would halt operations after allegedly suffering a cyberattack which robbed the platform of over 1 billion rubles, or $13 million.

The post’s authors claim the attack bears “signs of involvement by foreign intelligence services” due to “an unprecedented level of resources and technology available exclusively to agencies of hostile states.”

More importantly, the fall of Grinex, which facilitated nearly $100 billion in volume for A7A5 in 2025, is a serious setback to Russia’s sanctions-dodging infrastructure.

“Grinex going dark presents serious damage to that infrastructure, not just because of the hack itself, but because it removes the exchange Russian businesses relied on to convert rubles into usable international currency,” Nick Harris, CEO at crypto asset recovery firm CryptoCare, told DL News.

“The pressure on the Russian economy from sanctions just got a little harder to escape."

What is Grinex?

Grinex is the successor to Garantex, a previously sanctioned and shuttered crypto exchange.

The two platforms were spun up to provide a financial escape valve for the Russian economy, which has been under pressure from a slew of sanctions after President Vladimir Putin’s regime invaded Ukraine in 2022.

Grinex has also been critical for facilitating transactions denominated in A7A5. The stablecoin has provided a useful transaction mechanism for sanctioned firms to do business.

But in August 2025, US, European, and British authorities also sanctioned Grinex, along with the issuing company behind A7A5, Old Vector.

Western authorities at the time suggested that the exchange and stablecoin were set up as part of a “shadow financial system” designed to bypass the global banking network.

Two scenarios

US-led sanctions on Russia have dramatically slowed the economy, suggest experts.

Putin revealed that the country’s gross domestic product dropped by 1.8% in January and February, falling below his expectations. The dreary GDP figures are likely to remain unchanged for some time.

Local outlets report that Russia's seaborne oil exports, a major source of revenue for the country, may drop to their lowest levels since 2023 due to infrastructure damage, presumably incurred during the war.

Some European leaders, including Thomas Nilsson, the head of Sweden’s military intelligence and security service, suspect that these figures are actually much worse, given the current price of crude oil.

“The Russian economy can only enter one of two scenarios: long-term decline or shock. Either way, they will continue on a downslope to a financial disaster,” Nilsson told the Financial Times.

Liam Kelly is DL News’ Berlin correspondent. Contact him at liam@dlnews.com.

Would-be customers need only pay just over $200 worth of crypto for a graduation certificate that, to the untrained eye, looks identical to those issued by Yonsei University, South Korean media outlet Herald Kyungjae reported.

Yonsei is one of the country’s top universities, and placed fiftieth in the QS 2026 global rankings.

“I can send you a certificate of enrolment [at a top university] for $100,” a Telegram-based forger told a Herald Kyungjae reporter. “Just provide your information, and we will deliver it to you within two hours.”

The report comes as police in South Korea continue efforts to crack down on so-called “revenge agencies” that take USDT payments in exchange for violent crime.

Crypto payment tools

The forger told the reporter they prefer payment in crypto or digital gift certificates, as they believe these payment methods offer them anonymity.

“If you pay [for forged certificates] using a bank transfer, you, as the customer, could also become a target of a police investigation,” the forger told the newspaper.

When the reporter tried to break off the conversation, the forger got back in touch later, warning that many “competitor agencies” offering similar services are be run by scammers.

The forger also told the reporter a fake graduation certificate from a foreign university would cost $341.

“These certificates look 100% identical to the originals,” the forger said.

Police say the number of people arrested for forgery in South Korea almost doubled between 2021 and 2023, and said many cases of forgery go undetected.

The forgers reportedly offer “customers” a wide range of fake documents, including driving licenses, family relationship documents, criminal record certificates, and bank loan documents.

Crypto market movers

• Bitcoin is trading for $75,487 on Sunday, down 0.7% over the past day. 
• Ethereum prices are down over 1% in the past 24 hours, with the coin trading at $2,329.

What we’re reading

• SEC tackles crypto in first episode of new podcast — DL News
• ‘Mother, may I?’ UK regulator’s proposed crypto rules too broad, warns lawyer— DL News
• Hackers target DeFi protocol Kelp DAO in massive $300m exploit — DL News 
• Lighter vs. Hyperliquid: who wins? — Milk Road
• How a 233-year-old Wall Street institution went all in on crypto — Bloomberg

Tim Alper is a News Correspondent at DL News. Got a tip? Email him at tdalper@dlnews.com.

Private individuals who buying and selling coins without permission in Russia will also face criminal punishment under the government’s proposals.

“This bill proposed to introduce criminal liability for carrying out activities related to the organisation of digital currency circulation without registration or without a special permit,” the government wrote in a draft bill published on the State Duma’s website.

Crypto trading is still almost entirely unregulated in Russia. But the government wants to change all that in the weeks ahead, and is determined to bring the crypto sector, worth an estimated $648 million a day, under its legal umbrella as early as June.

No grey areas

The government plans to force most Russian crypto traders to buy and sell crypto via commercial bank apps, essentially doing away with the country’s grey-area crypto exchanges.

At the heart of the proposed bill is a clause stipulating that the “organised” selling of cryptocurrencies “without a central bank license” constitutes as criminal offence.

The government says this will help boost transparency in the crypto markets and “reduce the risk of financial crime.”

If adopted, the bill will oblige courts to hit “ordinary” offenders with a minimum fine worth $1,300, capping the size of fines at around $4,000.

Judges will also be able to punish these offenders with forced labour camp jail terms of up to four years.

But for the operators of larger crypto exchanges, the cap on fines will be $13,000, with courts instructed to jail executives for up to five or seven years.

The bill also contains clauses pertaining to crypto miners, including penalties for industrial miners who fail to declare their activities to the state.

Policing overseas trading

While the bill may seem draconian to some, it is a far crypto from an earlier government proposal unveiled in the State Duma on April 1, as reported by Russian media outlet Expert.

In addition to similar criminal penalties, the earlier proposal would have required all Russian residents to notify the Federal Tax Service if they opened or closed crypto wallets held in overseas locations within the space of a month.

The earlier bill also proposed forcing all Russia-based users of overseas crypto exchanges to report all of their transactions to the same tax body.

Both bills would require the approval of the State Duma and the offices of the President. If approved, they would come into effect on July 1, 2027.

Tim Alper is a News Correspondent at DL News. Got a tip? Email him at tdalper@dlnews.com.

But the wording from the financial watchdog should raise concerns about a possible expansive regulatory framework, one lawyer has said.

“It does appear that the FCA is dead set on doing this — on making crypto in the UK a ‘mother, may I’ industry where everything in it needs to get permission in order to operate in the UK,” Bill Hughes, senior counsel and director of global regulatory matters at Ethereum software company, Consensys, told DL News.

Cheerio chaps pic.twitter.com/53K1x11M1S

— Bill Hughes 🦊 (@BillHughesDC) April 15, 2026

The FCA’s proposal comes ahead of a sweeping crypto bill, which will come into force in the UK by October 2027.

The consultation is open to comments until June.

The wording 

The concern, said Hughes, a US lawyer, is over wording that would make a large number of entities have to register with the FCA.

The FCA’s proposal reads that “no person may carry on a regulated activity in the UK by way of business unless they are authorised or an exemption applies.”

The regulated activities, according to the document, include “dealing in qualifying cryptoassets as principal or agent, arranging deals in qualifying cryptoassets, safeguarding and arranging safeguarding of qualifying cryptoassets and relevant specified investment cryptoassets, issuing qualifying stablecoins in the UK and arranging qualifying cryptoasset staking.”

It isn’t clear what the FCA means by “arranging deals” in cryptocurrencies, and whether it would include simply custodying crypto in a digital wallet.

The FCA confirmed to DL News that provision of non-custodial wallet software by itself will not require FCA authorisation.

Hughes argued that this is broader than legislation approved in both the US and EU and if approved, could “would be the most expansive regulatory regime in terms of the entities that would need to register in order to operate with touch points.”

Difference with the US 

Hughes added: “The UK’s regime is going to be more burdensome and more and more industry capturing than either what the EU has in place under MiCA or what the US appears to be putting in place under the Trump administration.”

The lawyer argued in a post on X that while the US Securities and Exchange Commission had moved to allow non-custodial interfaces to facilitate token trading if done in a neutral fashion, the FCA was trying to push for the opposite with its wording.

“Interfaces through which a user may buy or sell crypto would be deemed as offering a service that must be approved by the FCA (and follow all the rules in the FCA handbook on a going forward basis) before it can be offered to/accessed by the UK public,” he wrote.

The US under Trump has taken a markedly different approach to watchdogging the space, putting pro-crypto people in high positions at regulatory bodies, signing executive orders aimed at fostering innovation and scrapping lawsuits against top digital asset companies.

Opposition lawmakers in the US have argued that while allowing for innovation in the crypto space to flourish, the Trump family has lined its pockets with numerous projects at the expense of would-be investors.

The UK’s economic and finance ministry, His Majesty’s Treasury of the UK Government, will have to approve of the FCA’s new rules.

DL News reached out to the Treasury for comment.

Update, April 21: This article has been updated to include information from the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority.

Mathew Di Salvo is a news correspondent with DL News. Got a tip? Email at mdisalvo@dlnews.com.

At the top of the 27-minute episode, Atkins pitched the podcast, Material Matters, as a way to demystify the work of the US’ top financial regulator.

“For many people the SEC itself remains something of a mystery. I believe that it’s time to change that,” he said.

Atkins’ guests were Mark Uyeda and Hester Peirce, commissioners who have often sided with the crypto industry.

Atkins’ conversation with Peirce, affectionately known as “crypto mom” for her opposition to lawsuits brought against software developers, became something of a primer on digital assets.

“Crypto solves the double spending problem,” Peirce explained. “You used to be able to send data over the internet, but you couldn’t send value, because I could send you value, and then I could send the same value to someone else and say, ‘Oh look, I paid you both.’”

Moments later, she said “disintermediation” was the “beauty of the technology.”

“And that’s really powerful in our markets, because intermediaries have sometimes been the source of problems,” she said. “Either they walk away with your money or they’re careless with your money.”

The interview was the latest evidence the agency’s approach to crypto has taken a 180-degree turn since Atkins’ predecessor, Gary Gensler, resigned in 2025.

Gensler, an alum of Goldman Sachs appointed by then-President Joe Biden, became the industry’s chief antagonist in the US after the collapse of FTX in 2022. He brought lawsuits against dozens of crypto companies, alleging they had failed to register as securities brokers.

The industry referred to Gensler’s approach as “regulation-by-enforcement,” and celebrated when he resigned.

Atkins, on the other hand, is a longtime industry ally. He founded Patomak Global Partners, a business consultancy in Washington that counted among its clients banks, credit unions, insurance companies, e-commerce platforms, private equity funds, venture capital funds, crypto firms, and more.

“One area now that is really top on our list to try to get right, with respect to regulation, is the whole digital asset area,” he said at the beginning of the podcast episode.

But the sharp turn hasn’t been without controversy.

Critics recently lamented the sharp decline in enforcement actions under Atkins’ leadership, with one calling it the “collapse of American securities regulation.”

Uyeda said that’s for the best.

While the commissioner didn’t discuss crypto during his podcast appearance, he did take the opportunity to criticise the agency’s behaviour under Gensler’s tenure.

“The last four years were a complete outlier to anything I’ve seen over three decades of time as a corporate securities lawyer. It was unfortunate,” he said.

Under Gensler, the agency became a “business conduct regulator,” he continued. “All of a sudden, we were going to somewhat micromanage whether you issued dividends, or engaged in share repurchases.”

Aleks Gilbert is DL News’ New York-based DeFi correspondent. You can reach him at aleks@dlnews.com.

On April 1, hackers drained over $295 million from Drift, a Solana-based trading platform. It was the largest hack of a decentralised finance protocol so far in 2026. Investigators have since attributed it to North Korean cybercriminals.

While Drift lost some $295 million in crypto, the hackers made off with just $230 million because other, smaller companies were able to freeze some of the stolen assets.

And the hackers couldn’t have pulled it off without Circle’s help, a former Drift Protocol trader alleged.

Circle “did nothing as the attackers worked to offload their spoils,” the lawsuit reads. “For hours, Circle knowingly permitted the attackers use of its technology and services, despite its ability to freeze the assets and stop the exodus into Ether.”

USDC is the world’s second-largest stablecoin. Circle mints USDC and has the power to freeze it, preventing specific wallet addresses from transferring or receiving the tokens.

The hackers converted various cryptocurrencies pilfered from Drift into USDC, according to the lawsuit. They then used Circle’s cross-chain transfer protocol, or CCTP, to move the stablecoins from the Solana blockchain to Ethereum.

There, they converted USDC into Ether, which cannot be frozen or seized by third parties.

Eight-hour getaway 

Within an hour, crypto influencers began tagging Circle in social media posts, alerting them to the ongoing exploit.

“Though the taking was swift, the getaway was not,” the lawsuit reads. “This offloading process, which relied on Circle’s stablecoin USDC and its blockchain bridge CCTP, took approximately eight hours.”

The lawsuit alleges Circle aided and abetted the hackers and was negligent in its behaviour.

“Circle itself had a duty to monitor suspicious activity on its CCTP, whose sole purpose is money transmission, under the Bank Secrecy Act,” it adds.

The lawsuit was filed "on behalf of Drift Protocol investors” earlier this week in federal court in Massachusetts by Missouri resident Joshua McCollum, who had crypto worth $23,500 in Drift.

The lawsuit said Circle has a long pattern of inaction, which may have emboldened hackers who would otherwise avoid freezable assets such as USDC.

To freeze, or not to freeze? 

Critics have assailed Circle for its reaction to the Drift exploit.

Pseudonymous crypto forensics expert ZachXBT collected 15 examples of hacks in which Circle took “minimal action against illicit funds.”

“The decisions they've made around compliance have had real consequences for real people,” he wrote. “They have every tool and resource available to do better. They just haven’t."

Circle did not immediately return DL News’ request for comment.

Earlier this week, however, Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire said the decision to freeze assets shouldn’t be made at the company’s discretion. Instead, it should be made after receiving a court order.

Lorenzo Valente, director of research at ARK Invest, said that was the right call.

“A stablecoin that freezes on Twitter pressure is a stablecoin where anyone loud enough can trigger action,” he wrote on X. “That’s worse, not better.”

But Taylor Monahan, the principal security researcher at crypto wallet MetaMask, said Circle’s chief rival, Tether, has successfully taken a more proactive approach.

Tether’s lifeline

The lawsuit came a day before Tether stepped in to offer Drift Protocol a $128 million lifeline to help the exchange reimburse its users.

But the recovery plan has one condition: Drift would have to use Tether’s USDT as its main stablecoin, rather than Circle’s USDC.

“The recovery plan presents a clear, revenue-driven model that prioritises Drift users from day one,” Tether said in a statement.

“Additionally, as part of the relaunch, Drift will transition its settlement asset from USDC to USDT, bringing more than 128,000 users and over 35 ecosystem teams onto USDT-based trading.”

Tether said it would give Drift $127.5 million as part of the recovery plan. Other unnamed partners will contribute $20 million, the statement said.

Mathew Di Salvo and Aleks Gilbert are correspondents with DL News. Got a tip? Email them at mdisalvo@dlnews.com and aleks@dlnews.com. 

Republican lawmakers on Thursday asked Michael Selig, the head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, for assistance crafting legislation to onshore certain crypto platforms and to combat insider trading on prediction markets.

Ever since President Donald Trump took office in January 2025, Democrats have used congressional hearings to attack the administration’s laissez-faire regulation of novel financial products. Their Republican colleagues have rarely joined in.

Thursday was different. Representative Austin Scott, a Republican from Georgia, said he was concerned by the rapid growth of Hyperliquid’s oil markets.

“These products are functionally identical to what is traded on Chicago Mercantile Exchange and the Intercontinental exchange, but they do not have segregated funds, market surveillance, or US oversight,” he said.

“Surging volumes in oil contracts are potentially impacting the price of a gallon of gas for US drivers.”

Addressing the issue would require bringing those markets to the US, Selig said, prompting Scott to ask for “specific recommendations” to “make sure that those markets have to meet the same standard.”

During another exchange, Representative Don Bacon, a Republican from Nebraska, said he was concerned by the appearance of insider trading on prediction markets.

“I've seen some of the uncomfortable stories related to prediction markets in recent months, including the markets on [Nicholas] Maduro’s ouster and the war in Iran,” he said.

“Markets settled just by words spoken on earnings calls, and a story about a journalist being threatened over his reporting. My question is, do you need more authorities?”

Democrats’ attacks

To be sure, Democrats were more aggressive in their questioning on Thursday, using Selig’s appearance as an opportunity to hammer oft-repeated talking points about the dangers of unregulated prediction markets, understaffing at the CFTC, and presidential corruption.

One Democrat noted that Robinhood will not list so-called mention contracts, which let users bet on whether someone says a particular word or phrase during a public appearance.

In October, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong concluded an earnings call by rattling off a slew of seemingly random crypto jargon, a move that delighted bettors who had wagered he would use those very words during the call.

“if Robinhood recognizes these contracts as susceptible to manipulation in trading, why doesn't the CFTC?” North Carolina’s Alma Adams asked.

Selig countered that he plans on formalising new rules for prediction markets and has requested feedback on mention contracts and other prediction market issues.

“I don't want to prejudge any of those issues,” he said.

‘Insulting’

Angie Craig, the top Democrat on the committee, asked Selig how many prediction market contracts the CFTC has rejected — something it can do if it determines a contract is unlawful.

Selig said he couldn’t provide an exact figure.

“We regularly reject contracts,” he said. “Under the prior administration, there was a lack of clarity on a lot of these contracts, and the flood gates really opened. And I inherited a lot of these contracts when I took office just over 100 days ago.”

Representative Jim McGovern, a Democrat from Massachusetts, noted that Donald Trump Jr, the president’s eldest son, was an advisor to both Kalshi and Polymarket. McGovern asked whether that was the reason the CFTC dropped an investigation into Polymarket last year.

“We do not pick winners and losers or engage in favoritism or bring politics into any of these matters,” Selig said. “We take them very seriously. And I think it's insulting that you’re insinuating that we would play political games.”

Aleks Gilbert is DL News’ New York-based DeFi correspondent. You can reach him at aleks@dlnews.com.

Brazilian courts have issued around 40 arrest warrants as part of a major police operation. Other arrestees include Raphael Sousa, the owner of the entertainment website Choquei.

Investigators say they found evidence the influencers and dozens of others helped launder funds from illegal betting networks and drug-trafficking rings stored in files on an accountant’s iCloud account, Brazilian newspaper O Globo reported.

“[We have launched] an operation with the aim of dismantling a criminal organisation dedicated to the illicit movement of funds through cryptocurrencies in Brazil and abroad,” Federal Police said in an official release.

The high-profile arrests come as crypto-powered money laundering cases continue to rise in Brazil, as police continue to crack down on offenders. Last year, a Brazilian court jailed 14 people who used Bitcoin to launder $95 million worth of drug money.

Boats, aircraft seized

The latest batch of arrests saw around 200 officers raid 24 addresses in the states of São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Pernambuco, Espírito Santo, Maranhão, Santa Catarina, Paraná, and Goiás on April 15.

During their raids, police seized weapons including automatic rifles, expensive cars, boats, aircraft, cash, jewelry, and electronic equipment.

Federal Police did not disclose whether they found any crypto during their raids and did not disclose any further details about the gang’s alleged crypto transactions.

The authorities say the case is still active, with dozens of individuals still under surveillance.

An iCloud ‘map’

Police said they want to charge the suspects with organised crime, money laundering, and tax evasion-related offenses.

The iCloud account acted as a “map” for detectives, said police, as they attempted to unpick a tangled web of shell companies and bogus bank accounts that finally led them to the suspects.

Courts have granted detectives access to the accountant’s electrical devices, as well as his Google Drive files.

The Federal Police say Ryan SP used music production and entertainment companies to mix “legitimate revenues” with funds laundered from illegal online casino platforms and scam networks.

The influencers and their aquaintances reinvested the laundered funds “in real estate, luxury cars, jewelry, and other high-value assets,” said police.

Tim Alper is a News Correspondent at DL News. Got a tip? Email him at tdalper@dlnews.com.

Officers say they have confiscated $400,000 of crypto, which the gang allegedly used to launder its stolen funds.

“The [gang] used cash and card mules, who provided the [gang with] personal information and bank account details,” said Irma Llano, a public prosecutor, per Paraguayan media outlet ABC. “After emptying their victims’ accounts, the [gang members] converted the money into cryptocurrencies.”

Criminals everywhere continue to use crypto as a money laundering tool, despite crackdowns from law enforcement agencies. In January, the US Department of Justice charged a Venezuelan national with using Tether’s USDT coin to launder around $1 billion for criminal networks.

Police raids

All of the suspects were arrested in the province of Itapúa, Llano said, but said the money mule network comprises “at least 400 people.”

The alleged masterminds had all recently graduated from the same high school, reported the Paraguayan media outlet Radio Universo 970AM.

The suspects allegedly hacked and drained scores of unsuspecting people’s bank accounts and e-pay wallets.

Officers seized motor vehicles, computer equipment, and mobile phones during raids conducted throughout the province.

The suspected ringleader is an 18-year-old male named Alex, say police. They did not disclose the suspect’s surname.

Courts have issued scores of arrest warrants, with police reportedly ready to launch another series of raids.

Raising suspicions

Some of the suspected mules have turned themselves in voluntarily at police stations, the prosecutor said.

After using the money mules’ accounts to launder the stolen money, Llano said the gang used over-the-counter trading platforms to convert their cash into crypto.

They allegedly offered to buy coins at more than double or even triple the market value to help close deals faster.

However, this strategy stoked the suspicion of a female crypto investor in the city of Encarnación, police said.

When the investor received a “strangely high” bid for her crypto holdings, she decided to report the bid to her local police station.

The mules, meanwhile, were paid a monthly “rental fee” for the use of their bank accounts, in addition to “commissions” for each transaction, Llano said.

The gang reportedly began stealing money in the first weeks of the year, but Llano said its activity “ballooned" in March.

Police said the suspects had “flaunted their money” by buying luxury cars and renting expensive apartments.

Tim Alper is a News Correspondent at DL News. Got a tip? Email him at tdalper@dlnews.com.

One of those buyers isn’t happy.

Crypto billionaire Justin Sun continued his scorched-earth campaign against World Liberty Financial on Wednesday, calling the proposal “one of the most absurd governance scams I have ever seen.”

The majority of World Liberty Financial tokens have been locked since the company first sold them to supporters in late 2024.

Wednesday’s proposal would unlock 62 billion tokens, valued at about $5 billion. But 72% of those tokens belong to insiders, a group that includes company executives, employees, adviseors, and founders, including US President Donald Trump and his sons Don Jr, Eric, and Barron.

The other 27% belong to those who purchased the token during public sales in 2024 and 2025.

That could create enormous selling pressure for a token that is already hovering near all-time lows.

Worse yet, token buyers have little say in the outcome, according to Sun.

Proposal 

Should the proposal pass, it would immediately “burn” 10% of the 45.2 billion tokens that belong to insiders. The remaining 90% would unlock over a period of three years that begins in 2028 — just as Trump’s second and final term in the White House comes to an end.

“The voluntary burn of up to 4,523,858,565 WLFI is a permanent, onchain signal of the conviction of the founders, team members, advisers, and partners who helped build this protocol,” the proposal reads.

"These tokens will not be recoverable under any future governance action. This is their public, onchain commitment to every token holder in this community.”

We’ve just posted a governance proposal to the forum for community discussion, and we believe it represents one of the strongest long-term governance alignment signals in DeFi.

Here's what it does 🧵

— WLFI (@worldlibertyfi) April 15, 2026

The other 17 billion, purchased by the public in 2024 and 2025, would unlock over a period of just two years beginning in 2028. They would not be subject to the same 10% burn facing insiders’ tokens.

“Holders who do not affirmatively accept the new schedule remain locked indefinitely under existing terms,” the proposal reads. If the proposal passes, tokenholders will be able to accept the schedule during a 10-day “acceptance window.”

Sun called this “coercion.”

“This is not a legitimate voting exercise, not even close,” he wrote on X.

Controversies 

Sun, one of the earliest and largest buyers of World Liberty Financial's token, first attacked the venture on Sunday. He said its executives implanted backdoor controls over user assets, froze tokens without disclosure or due process, and treated the crypto community like a “personal ATM.”

World Liberty Financial said the crypto mogul was making “baseless allegations to cover up his own misconduct” and threatened a lawsuit.

“See you in court pal,” World Liberty Financial wrote on X. “We have the evidence. We have the truth.”

World Liberty Financial has been embroiled in controversy ever since its 2024 launch. Democrats say the venture presents a clear conflict of interest for the first family — Trump has made deregulation of the crypto industry one of his top priorities — and some of its founders have chequered backgrounds.

The White House has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.

But World Liberty Financial's problems have mounted in recent weeks. In addition to its row with Sun, the project has been criticised for using five billion WLFI as collateral to borrow $75 million in stablecoins.

The project used a protocol called Dolomite, which was founded by Corey Caplan, a World Liberty Financial adviser. The series of transactions left Dolomite vulnerable to a sharp decrease in WLFI’s price and left some USD1 lenders unable to withdraw until World Liberty Financial closes its position, CoinDesk reported.

“World Liberty is proudly the anchor borrower on the platform because our first-party activities generate meaningful yield for stablecoin depositors,” a spokesperson for the project told DL News at the time.

“Since launching in January, there have been zero disruptions to the service, and depositors on WLFI Markets have been able to withdraw funds without interruption. Utilisation on major asset pools including USD1, USDC, and ETH, remains healthy.”

Aleks Gilbert is DL News’ New York-based DeFi correspondent. You can reach him at aleks@dlnews.com.

Her chief complaint was Musk’s controversial management of the social media platform. But Warren also pointed to rumours the feature, X Money, will include stablecoins and other crypto assets.

Musk has repeatedly said he wants X to become an “everything app,” like China’s WeChat.

“It’s possible [for X] to become the biggest financial institution in the world,” he said in 2023.

X has secured money transmitter licenses across more than three dozen US states, and Musk recently said X Money would make its debut in April.

Warren says she’s worried.

“If your track record operating X is any indication of how you’ll operate X Money, consumers, our national security, and the stability of the financial system may be at risk,” Warren wrote.

The senator cited the platform’s built-in AI chatbot, Grok, which has ben accused of generating child sexual abuse material at users’ request. She also noted X has faced “several data privacy related investigations,” as well as accusations that it took money from sanctioned entities and turned a blind eye to scammers.

X did not immediately return DL News’ request for comment. But the company on Tuesday responded to a report from NBC that found Grok continues to produce nonconsensual, sexualised images of real women despite an earlier pledge to end the practice.

“We strictly prohibit users from generating non-consensual explicit deepfakes and from using our tools to undress real people,” the company said.

“XAI has extensive safeguards in place to prevent such misuse, such as continuous monitoring of public usage, analysis of evasion attempts in real time, frequent model updates, prompt filters, and additional safeguards.”

Crypto concern

Warren also dedicated part of her letter to rumours that X Money would let users transact in crypto.

She singled out the possibility that it would integrate stablecoins, taking advantage of a “suspicious carveout” in last year’s stablecoin legislation, the Genius Act.

That carveout “enables private commercial companies, like X, to issue a stablecoin without some of the required approvals and guardrails that would apply to similarly situated public commercial companies,” Warren wrote.

Musk has yet to explicitly state that X Money will let users transact in crypto. But he has shared another user’s comment that included speculation X Money would feature “crypto integration.”

Warren demanded that Musk answer more than a dozen questions by April 21. Among other things, the senator wants to know whether X will issue a stablecoin and whether Musk had a hand in the Genius Act carveout for private companies.

Musk was a special government employee at the same time lawmakers and White House officials were debating the specifics of the Genius Act, Warren noted. In that role, he led the Department of Government Efficiency, the controversial cost-cutting organisation named after the world’s largest memecoin.

Aleks Gilbert is DL News’ New York-based DeFi correspondent. Have a tip? You can reach him at aleks@dlnews.com.

The DOJ announced Tuesday that it had begun the remission compensation process for OneCoin investors. OneCoin was a purported crypto project that pitched itself as a Bitcoin rival but was really a pyramid scheme that defrauded investors.

While it was marketed as a cryptocurrency, OneCoin had no blockchain and relied on industry jargon to lure investors.

“It’s going to be a big job, and I feel bad for small investors who are simply probably just not going to have the English language ability or the documentation, especially with a short timeline,” an attorney for victims in the case, Jonathan Levy, told DL News. 

OneCoin ran from 2014 to 2019 and was founded by Bulgarian tech entrepreneur Ruja Ignatova, also known as the CryptoQueen.

She disappeared in 2017 and rumours have since swirled that she’s dead. Others in the scam have been sentenced and had assets frozen.

Short timeline

The DOJ said on Tuesday that investors who bought OneCoin between 2014 and 2019 may be eligible for compensation, and pointed them to a webpage where they can make a claim. They have until June 30 to do so.

“Today’s announcement marks an important step toward returning funds to those harmed,” US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Jay Clayton, said in a statement.

“While no recovery can fully undo the damage, our office will continue working to seize criminal proceeds and prioritize getting money back into the hands of victims.”

But the money is being returned via a remission process, which is different from a restitution process, Levy said.

With a remission process, claimants have to present evidence in order to get money back.

With previous high-profile crypto scams such as BitConnect, courts have used a restitution process to reimburse victims.

Despite the size of the OneCoin fraud — over $4 billion was lost worldwide — Levy thinks a lot of cash won’t necessarily be distributed, as claimants won’t have the necessary evidence from years ago to present.

“While you can file it online, it’s very clear the burden of proof is going to be on the claimant,” Dr. Levy said.

“I think we’ll actually see very few claims percentage-wise.”

The ‘CryptoQueen’ 

OneCoin co-founders Ignatova and Karl Sebastian Greenwood conned investors into buying educational courses on crypto trading and investing. People were rewarded for bringing in more participants in a classic pyramid-style scheme.

While Greenwood was jailed for 20 years in 2023, Ignatova has been missing since 2017.

A 2024 BBC investigation, citing police informants, reported that a Bulgarian‑linked mafia figure may have ordered her death.

A group of OneCoin investors in 2023 obtained a freezing order on Ignatova and her companies. Ignatova remains on the FBI’s top 10 most-wanted fugitives list.

Mathew Di Salvo is a news correspondent with DL News. Got a tip? Email at mdisalvo@dlnews.com.

The Russian central bank wants to block citizens from withdrawing crypto from wallets operated by domestic firms unless they complete identity checks.

The bank wants to force domestic exchanges to use know-your-customer protocols to de-anonymise Russian crypto transactions as part of a package of crypto regulations set to come into force in July.

And the regulator also wants to keep tabs on its citizens’ offshore crypto holdings.

“No one is trying to stop Russian individuals and legal entities from continuing to hold cryptocurrency in foreign wallets, Vladimir Chistyukhin, the bank’s first deputy chair, told Russian media outlet RBC. “The only fundamental requirement we have is that they declare [these holdings] to the Federal Tax Service.”

The Kremlin is still reeling from poor economic results in the first few months of the year, but the bank will bid to reverse Russia’s financial fortunes in the months ahead when it launches its blockchain-powered digital ruble.

The proposed background checks risk running counter to many crypto traders’ ideals. Privacy has been a key tenet across the industry ever since early cypherpunks dreamed up the asset class.

Stemming capital outflows

Russia’s crypto exchange sector is still completely unregulated. But that is set to change this summer, with lawmakers currently working on broad-ranging crypto-related legislation.

The central bank is aware that most Russian crypto traders currently keep their coins in wallets based overseas. But Chistyukhin’s comments suggest the bank wants to stem — or at least monitor — Russian capital outflows.

He said the bank will not move to block crypto transfers from “permit-holding Russian intermediaries” to global exchanges such as Binance or Bybit.

However, Chistyukhin said the Kremlin wants to outlaw the transfer of crypto from Russian custodial crypto wallets “to non-custodial wallets abroad.”

Custodial wallets are managed by third parties, such as crypto exchanges, which manage private keys and secure assets on their customers’ behalf.

Non-custodial wallets, by contrast, hand control over private keys to their users. These do not allow anyone other than the coins’ owners to access the wallets.

The new rules, meanwhile, will ensure that crypto traders will not be allowed to move their crypto from overseas exchanges into a non-custodial wallet without first moving it to “official Russian cryptocurrency depositories and exchanges.”

These official channels will be legally obliged to verify the identities of all of their customers —  provided the central bank gets its way.

“From a compliance standpoint, we want [Russian crypto service providers] to be as transparent as possible,” Chistyukhin said. “This will help ensure Russian intermediaries do not put themselves at risk.”

Crypto industry’s plea

The bank said it was not interested in seizing Russians’ crypto.

“Nothing will happen to [Russian citizens’] coins,” the central bank executive said. “They belong to Russian residents, and that will remain to be the case. There will be no penalties for possession, and no restrictions on the use of these coins.”

Chistyukhin said crypto industry representatives had asked the central bank not to make any distinctions between custodial and non-custodial wallets for withdrawals.

However, he said the central bank “believes it is especially difficult to establish a control mechanism for non-custodial wallets” that could comply with anti-money laundering and KYC rules.

What Russians do with their crypto only becomes a concern if the funds move to wallets based in Russia, Chistyukhin said.

“If a Russian individual, with funds in a custodial wallet abroad, transfers those funds to a non-custodial wallet outside the Russian Federation, we won’t be involved,” the executive said. “That is the sole responsibility of foreign legislation and foreign regulators.”

Tim Alper is a News Correspondent at DL News. Got a tip? Email him at tdalper@dlnews.com.

That report “studied the wrong question” and reached a misleading conclusion, Sayee Srinivasan and Yikai Wang, respectively the chief economist and banking research VP at the American Banking Association, wrote in an essay published by the organisation’s in-house magazine, the ABA Banking Journal.

“The live policy concern is not whether prohibiting yield on payment stablecoins would impact bank lending,” the executives wrote. “It is whether allowing yield on payment stablecoins would encourage deposit flight — especially from community banks.”

Clarity Act quagmire 

It is the latest salvo in a long-running battle over stablecoin yield. That row has threatened to derail negotiations over the Clarity Act, a bill that would create a long-sought regulatory framework for cryptocurrencies in the US.

The stakes couldn’t be higher. Not only would the bill provide the crypto industry with some much needed clarity, the passing of the bill is also seen as a key trigger for Bitcoin’s next rally.

Bitcoin and other top cryptocurrencies are trading at roughly 40% below the record highs they hit last year.

Some stablecoin issuers have paid customers yield on their digital dollars. But last year’s stablecoin legislation, the Genius Act, banned the practice. Banks feared customers would abandon traditional checking and savings accounts for stablecoins, which often pay depositors substantially higher interest rates.

It was unclear, however, whether the law banned third-parties, such as crypto exchanges, from paying interest on customers’ stablecoin holdings.

Banks have lobbied lawmakers to include language in the Clarity Act that would close this supposed loophole. Crypto companies, in turn, have slammed banks for attempting to relitigate components of a bill months after it was signed into law.

As a result, the Clarity Act has been mired in legislative limbo for months. And the window to pass it is rapidly closing, with Democrats expected to reclaim the House in November and put crypto policy on the backburner.

White House economists’ report

The banking lobby’s latest missive comes just days after White House economists said that banks would only get a boost of $2.1 billion — or 0.02% — if lawmakers banned stablecoin rewards.

“In short, a yield prohibition would do very little to protect bank lending, while forgoing the consumer benefits of competitive returns on stablecoin holdings,” the report read.

It also found little impact on the smaller banks found outside major metro areas.

“Altogether, the empirical evidence suggests that our own model overstates an already small effect of stablecoin yield on community banks,” the report adds.

The industry quickly jumped on the news.

“We now know why stablecoin rewards critics wanted it suppressed," Paul Grewal, chief legal officer at Coinbase, said on X. "The most respected economists in the government found nothing that shows rewards cause deposit 'flight.' Facts are hard sometimes.”

But the bank lobby said the Council of Economic Advisers was asking the wrong question by focusing on the effect of a yield prohibition, rather than the consequences of allowing yield.

“By focusing on the effects of a prohibition, the CEA paper risks creating a misleading sense of safety by avoiding the much more consequential scenario: yield-paying payment stablecoins scaling quickly,” the ABA says.

And, contrary to the White House report, allowing yield-bearing stablecoins would indeed have a disproportionate impact on community banks, according to the ABA.

“This is not primarily a question of whether the system has enough reserves,” the executives wrote. “It is a question of whether smaller banks have the balance sheet flexibility to absorb outflows without cutting back credit.”

US President Donald Trump has previously sided with the crypto industry in the yield debate.

“Americans should earn more money on their money,” Trump wrote on his social media platform, Truth Social.

“The banks are hitting record profits, and we are not going to allow them to undermine our powerful crypto agenda that will end up going to China, and other countries if we don’t get the Clarity Act taken care of.”

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chair Mike Selig, Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Paul Atkins, and former White House Crypto Czar David sacks all called for the passing of the Clarity Act earlier in April.

Despite the banking lobby’s latest attack, White House crypto adviser Patrick Witt struck a bullish note when discussing the Clarity Act’s future this week.

He told CoinDesk on Monday that senators squabbling over the bill seem to have reached a compromise over key issues over stablecoin yields.

He also said the lawmakers have made “considerable progress” on other key issues.

Aleks Gilbert is DL News’ New York-based DeFi correspondent. Have a tip? You can reach him at aleks@dlnews.com. 

Irkutskenergosbyt, the state-run power provider in the Bitcoin mining hotspot of Irkutsk, has created a map of some 8,000 suspected illegal mining locations. These are approximate figures, the power firm told Russian media outlet SIA, adding that the “actual number of violators is significantly higher.”

“Crypto-mining residents try to blame their excess power consumption on electric car charging or heating chicken coops,” Irkutskenergosbyt director Andrey Kharitonov told SIA. “In one case, a resident claimed they were drying wood to build a house, even though the property was empty. They ended up ‘drying’ [$12,000].”

Illegal mining has become a scourge in many Russian regions, driving many parts of the country to shut down permit-holding industrial miners to keep power grids stable. The authorities say they are fighting back and will use artificial intelligence-powered tools to hunt illicit miners.

Unorthodox hiding places

Irkutskenergosbyt began prosecuting illegal miners in 2019 and has filed 2,170 lawsuits to date.

The firm has demanded that illegal miners hand over a combined total of $18.5 million in compensation for the electricity they have stolen or misused.

Courts have handed out fines worth around half that amount, but over 100 citizens have instead settled out of court.

“We are still working on over 300 cases,” Kharitonov said. “Court proceedings are slow. On average, a single lawsuit can take up to a year to complete.”

Illegal crypto miners have something of a track record when it comes to finding unexpected places to squirrel away their rigs in Russia.

Last year, power providers in Dagestan’s Levashinsky District found 69 rigs operating in a greenhouse that had been set aside for agricultural use.

The greenhouse’s owner used cut-price subsidised power, reserved for agricultural producers, to mine thousands of dollars' worth of crypto.

“Instead of growing vegetables, the farmer decided to engage in a completely different kind of business activity,” Arsen Gadzhiev, the acting head of the Dagestan power provider Dagenrego, told Russian media outlet Vesti. “Now he will have to answer to the law for the damage he has caused.”

In August, investigators in Krasnodar found crypto enthusiasts busily mining coins in a paper mill.

In September, meanwhile, police in Southern Siberia found 21 ASIC Bitcoin mining rigs hidden in bushes in the middle of a forest, housed in flimsy makeshift packing crates.

And as recently as this week, Siberian power officials say they found illegal miners running rigs in a disused petrol station. The pumps were all empty, but the operators had hired security guards to protect their network of 10 ASIC miners.

Tim Alper is a News Correspondent at DL News. Got a tip? Email him at tdalper@dlnews.com.