From the erratic ups and downs in bitcoin and ethereum value, to the explosion in initial coin offerings, and the unstoppable demand for mining-ready GPUs, cryptocurrency has become an inescapable story. It’s also become increasingly difficult to make sense of — as the industry expands, new currencies sprout up, and companies form overnight. Check here for the complete coverage of bitcoin, ethereum, litecoin, monero, Venezuela’s petro, cryptocurrencies at large, and the ways that ICOs and the underlying blockchain technology are helping shape a burgeoning industry and giving life to a new wave of startups and entrepreneurs.
Gutted watchdog agencies and unprecedented ‘influence peddling’ means unrestrained fraud.
This New York Times caper is super revealing, both about how crypto-hacker crime rings work, and how investigators traced a quarter-billion-dollar heist. (There’s a Netflix movie in here somewhere, for sure.) But also, PSA: doing a 90-minute livestream that includes every imaginable bit of incriminating evidence is probably not going to help you get away with something.
Attorney General Dan Rayfield alleges Coinbase “sold high risk investments without them being properly vetted to protect consumers.” Rayfield says it’s now up to states to fill the “enforcement vacuum being left by federal regulators who are abandoning these cases,” as the Securities and Exchange Commission dropped its lawsuit against Coinbase in February.
ICERAID claims to pay people in crypto for reporting undocumented immigrants. There’s no indication that actually happens.
From meme stocks to bank accounts, how Robinhood is expanding its turf.
Less than three months after the BitMEX crypto exchange was hit with a $100 million fine for money laundering – and hours after he pardoned ex-Nikola CEO Trevor Milton for defrauding investors in his EV company – Trump issued pardons to Arthur Hayes, Benjamin Dalo and Samuel Reed, CNBC reported Friday. The three men had previously pled guilty to several felony charges related to money laundering and failure to police the exchange.
The agency will no longer fight the 2023 ruling that was mostly a victory for Ripple Labs, as it determined it didn’t break the law by listing its XRP token on public exchanges. XRP is one of the tokens that will be included in the government’s crypto stockpile.
It’s not surprising that the government’s crypto reserve involves Bitcoin and Ethereum, but the other three coins seem kind of random — Cardano (have you heard of it???), XRP, and Solana.
Popular Information dug deeper and identified a few politically-connected entities involved. There’s Ripple, the company that created XRP, which donated tens of millions to Republican super PACs and candidates like Trump in the 2024 election. Then there’s Solana, which backs memecoins like $TRUMP and $MELANIA. And to nobody’s surprise, David Sacks is also all up in the mix.
[popular.info]
How do you say with a straight face that the government needs an XRP stockpile?
Director Cutter Hodierne’s new film, Cold Wallet, is a parable about how the house almost always wins.
A 60-day stay request made by Justin Sun and the SEC on Wednesday to “allow the Parties to explore a potential resolution” has been approved by a federal judge. The SEC lawsuit filed in 2023 accused Sun and three of his companies of illegally distributing crypto assets, market manipulation, and concealing payments to celebrity spokespersons.
Sun has since pumped $75 million into World Liberty Financial, a crypto project backed by the Trump family.
Javier Milei, president of Argentina who appeared with Elon Musk at CPAC, will be investigated for his involvement with $Libra, which collapsed just hours after its launch. His sister appears to be involved — the token co-creator says he bought the president’s endorsement through her. The US’s putative president, Donald Trump, has meme coins of his own.
Closely following similar news from Coinbase on Friday, Robinhood says:
On February 21, 2025, the SEC’s Enforcement Division advised RHC in a letter that it had concluded its investigation and did not intend to move forward with an enforcement action.
As we noted last week, the crypto industry donated heavily in the 2024 election cycle, and Robinhood lists the $TRUMP memecoin on its platform. Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev noted making a $2 million donation to Trump’s inaugural campaign fund in a Fox News interview, claiming the Biden administration engaged in “open warfare” with the crypto industry.
The Securties and Exchange Commission’s investigation was related to an almost two-year-old lawsuit against the struggling NFT marketplace, but has now been dropped as the agency backs off of its campaign against digital assets, reports Axios.
The news follows yesterday’s SEC announcement it was ending a similar lawsuit against Coinbase.
After FTX collapsed, Bybit CEO Ben Zhou told Bloomberg, “...we saw the opportunity.” Someone else saw an opportunity also, transferring nearly $1.5 billion in crypto out of a cold wallet. According to crypto researcher ZachXBT, that someone may be the Lazarus Group of hackers linked to North Korea, already blamed for $659 million in crypto thefts last year and the $625 million Axie Infinity breach.
Protos has a rundown of Bybit’s response to the breach, as Zhou claims Bybit is solvent and has secured funding to cover the loss.
[web3isgoinggreat.com]
The best of us can be swindled, but one banker’s particular enthrallment to an overseas cryptocurrency crime network was so dire that it almost devastated his entire community. Read this New York Times report about Shan Hanes embezzling more than $31 million into a suspicious crypto investment before the money disappeared.
“I’ll forever struggle understanding how I was duped,” Hanes said. “I should have caught it, but I didn’t.”
Alexander Vinnik co-founded BTC-e, a now-shuttered Bitcoin exchange that criminals used to launder funds from ransomware attacks, drug trafficking, and other crimes. Vinnik was arrested in 2017 and pleaded guilty to money laundering in 2024.
Now he’s set to return to Russia after President Trump agreed to release him in exchange for US teacher Marc Fogel, according to The New York Times.
Binance and the SEC asked a judge to pause their legal battle for 60 days, saying the Trump administration’s new crypto task force “may impact and facilitate the potential resolution of this case.” The SEC sued Binance in 2023 over claims it operated an illegal exchange.
FDIC Acting Chairman Travis Hill has released dozens of documents that he says show how banks were “almost universally met with resistance” when making crypto-related requests. He added that the FDIC’s response “sent the message to banks that it would be extraordinarily difficult — if not impossible — to move forward” in the crypto space.
Though Hollywood’s newfound obsession with making horror movies revolving around killer consumer tech is getting a little tired, Cold Wallet — director Cutter Hodierne’s new thriller about a group of armed Redditors looking for revenge after losing everything in a crypto scam — looks pretty legit. The movie hits theaters and digital platforms of February 28th.
Trump Media is launching Truth.Fi as part of its “financial services and financial technology strategy,” but there still aren’t many details about what it will actually do. The company also plans to invest $250 million into customized exchange-traded funds, along with Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.
This comes just one day after Elon Musk’s X announced that it’s partnering with Visa to launch its X Money service this year.
