cryptocurrency

According to the U.S. Department of Justice, 22-year-old Evan Tangeman from Newport Beach, California, was sentenced to 70 months in prison and 3 years of supervised release by a federal court in Washington, D.C. for his involvement in an interstate social engineering crime group that assisted in laundering at least $3.5 million.The crime group has been operating since October 2023, stealing over $263 million in cryptocurrency through hacking, social engineering, and other means. Most members are unemployed youths, either minors or under 20 years old, originating from online gaming platforms. Tangeman was responsible for converting the stolen cryptocurrency into fiat currency and leasing luxury homes for group members in places like Los Angeles and Miami, and he also received luxury cars such as Bentleys and Lamborghinis as payment. After the incident, Tangeman instructed his accomplices to destroy digital devices to eliminate evidence. The case is being jointly investigated by the FBI's Washington, Los Angeles, and Miami field offices along with the IRS Criminal Investigation Division, and so far, 9 individuals involved have pleaded guilty.

The U.S. Department of State's Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs announced a reward of up to $4 million under the Transnational Organized Crime Rewards Program for information leading to the arrest of Daren Li, who assisted various scam centers in Southeast Asia in laundering their proceeds.According to court documents, Daren Li laundered funds obtained from victims through cryptocurrency scams and related fraudulent means, instructing accomplices to open U.S. bank accounts in the name of shell companies, and monitored the interstate and international wire transfers of victim funds. At least $73.6 million of victim funds were directly deposited into bank accounts associated with him and his accomplices, including at least $59.8 million from U.S. shell companies involved in laundering the proceeds obtained from defrauded victims.

According to CNN, the United States has frozen approximately $344 million in cryptocurrency assets, stating that the related funds are linked to Iran, and has implemented freezes on two addresses with the assistance of Tether; the U.S. indicated that these funds are associated with on-chain transactions involving Iranian entities, including interactions with wallets related to Iranian exchanges and the Central Bank of Iran. This action is part of the U.S. efforts to further increase economic pressure on Iran.

According to Cointelegraph, local police in Spain seized two cryptocurrency cold wallets containing approximately 400,000 euros (about 467,000 dollars) in assets during an operation against illegal comic distribution platforms.The operation was carried out by the Almería police in Spain, who have arrested three suspects and dismantled what is known as the country's largest Spanish-language piracy comic website. It is reported that the platform has been providing free pirated content since 2014, primarily profiting through advertisements, with total revenue exceeding 4 million euros over the past decade. Notably, the cold wallets involved were hidden inside a thermometer in the wall. The police have not yet disclosed whether they have obtained the relevant private keys or access to the funds.

According to Jinshi, the U.S. Treasury announced on April 24 a new round of financial sanctions against Iran, updating the "Specially Designated Nationals List," and imposing sanctions on several "wallets" related to Iran, freezing approximately $344 million in cryptocurrency assets. U.S. Treasury Secretary Yellen stated that this move is one of the financial sanctions measures against Iran.

Tennessee Governor Bill Lee has signed a bill that bans the operation of cryptocurrency ATMs statewide, becoming the second state after Indiana to implement a comprehensive ban. The bill (HB 2505) has officially taken effect and will be enforced starting July 1.According to the regulations, installing or operating "virtual currency kiosks" (i.e., Bitcoin ATMs) will be classified as a Class A misdemeanor, with a maximum penalty of one year in jail and a $2,500 fine. At the same time, merchants that allow the installation of such devices will also bear legal responsibility. Currently, most states in the U.S. have strengthened regulation through measures such as establishing licensing systems and transaction limits, but comprehensive bans remain rare. Data shows that since 2026, 30 states have proposed related legislation, with 20 states having passed laws, indicating a continued tightening of regulations against the risks of cryptocurrency ATM scams.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent stated that the Treasury is sanctioning multiple wallets related to Iran and will track and combat all financial lifelines associated with the regime.Tether previously announced that it had assisted the U.S. government in freezing $344 million worth of cryptocurrency in two addresses. Chainalysis data shows that the activity patterns of these wallets are consistent with the on-chain fund flow characteristics of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps wallets.U.S. officials stated that blockchain analysis revealed that the relevant funds were traded through intermediary addresses linked to the Iranian central bank's wallets to evade sanctions and facilitate international trade.By 2025, Iran's cryptocurrency holdings are expected to reach $7.8 billion, with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps holding approximately 50% of that in the fourth quarter of last year.

The DeFi Education Fund, along with several other crypto advocacy organizations, has officially sent a joint letter to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), requesting the initiation of a formal DeFi rule-making process based on recent statements.Previously, the SEC's Division of Trading and Markets had clearly stated that certain software user interfaces used for trading cryptocurrencies do not need to register as broker-dealers, giving a green light to such activities. The joint letter calls on the SEC to solidify the above principles into an objective and clear framework through announcements or comment-based rule-making, clarifying which activities fall under the definition of "broker," while excluding infrastructure service providers such as validators, API and RPC providers, oracles, and cloud services. This would provide developers with long-term legal certainty and avoid reliance on temporary guidance. Under the leadership of current Chairman Paul Atkins, the SEC has taken a positive and open attitude towards digital asset innovation, contrasting sharply with the repressive stance of the previous administration, and the industry has also played an important role in the rule-making process.

The South African Treasury has released the "Draft Regulations on Capital Flow Management for 2026" and is seeking public comments. The draft aims to restructure the current foreign exchange control framework based on the "Currency and Exchange Act," focusing on: aligning with the OECD and FATF recommendations on anti-money laundering, counter-terrorism financing, and curbing illegal capital flows; including crypto-assets in the foreign exchange control scope for enhanced risk management and regulation for the first time; further clarifying exemptions, licenses, and applicable conditions; and introducing an administrative penalty mechanism for violations of the regulations. Comments must be submitted via email to the address designated by the National Treasury within 30 days of the announcement.

Web3 asset data platform RootData released the seventh issue of the "Cryptocurrency Exchange Transparency Ranking (Stock Category)", continuing to focus on the growth trend of stock assets in cryptocurrency exchanges. In this issue, Binance, OKX, Bybit, Bitget, and Gate ranked in the top five.Among them, Bybit's ranking improved by 2 places, re-entering the top three, mainly due to Bybit listing 49 new stock contracts during the statistical period, making it the exchange with the most supported stocks currently. Bitget's ranking dropped by 2 places, with traffic decreasing by over 40%, which may be related to the rapid decline in traffic following the end of the SPAX subscription activity.As the market prices of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin rise, the trading volume of exchanges generally increased by over 10% in this issue, with Kraken rising by over 20%, boosting its ranking to 6th place. Hotcoin, on the other hand, fell to 10th place due to a decrease in its transparency score.It is reported that RootData adheres to the principle of "transparency first" and has taken the lead in establishing a dual evaluation system of "transparency + liquidity" in the field of stock cryptocurrency exchanges, providing investors with more effective data references, and will continue to enhance and publish this ranking in the future.

According to an official announcement from the U.S. Department of Justice, the "Fraud Center Strike Force" announced today a series of coordinated actions against Southeast Asian criminal organizations: two Chinese managers, Huang Xingshan and Jiang Wenjie, working at the "Shun Da Fraud Center" in Myanmar, have been indicted for allegedly forcing trafficked laborers to engage in cryptocurrency investment fraud and have been arrested in Thailand; a Telegram channel with over 6,000 followers, used to lure individuals to Cambodia's fraud centers for forced labor, has been shut down; and 503 fraudulent domain names disguised as legitimate investment platforms have been seized.On the financial side, the task force has frozen over $701 million in cryptocurrency suspected of being related to fraud and money laundering, and through "Operation Level Up," notified 8,935 victims, estimating the recovery of potential losses at approximately $563 million. Additionally, the U.S. State Department announced a reward of up to $10 million for information related to the "

According to a research report by cybersecurity company Expel, it is tracking a highly assessed APT organization supported by North Korea (DPRK) called "HexagonalRodent," which primarily targets Web3 developers and specializes in stealing high-value digital assets such as cryptocurrencies and NFTs.The organization mainly conducts attacks by forging job postings—posting high-paying positions on LinkedIn and Web3 recruitment platforms to lure job seekers into completing "skills tests" embedded with malicious code, using the tasks.json feature of VSCode to automatically execute malicious programs when victims open project folders. The malware used includes BeaverTail, OtterCookie, and InvisibleFerret, which have capabilities for password theft, remote control, and reverse shell.It is noteworthy that the organization heavily utilizes generative AI tools such as ChatGPT and Cursor to develop malware, build fake company websites, and create AI-generated executive teams, even registering shell companies in Mexico to enhance the credibility of their attacks

The cryptocurrency trading platform SuperEx announced that it will soon launch Canton (CANTON) in the innovation zone and open the CANTON/USDT spot trading pair. Trading will officially start on April 24, 2026, at 11:00 Beijing time (03:00 UTC), and the deposit and withdrawal channels will soon be opened.The official stated that with the launch of spot trading, CANTON will also be included in the margin support range for all-currency contracts, allowing users to use it directly as margin assets for contract trading.It is reported that the Canton Network is a public, permissionless blockchain network designed specifically for institutional finance, aiming to integrate privacy, compliance, and scalability. The network is managed by the Canton Foundation and supported by several leading global financial institutions, enabling instant, secure synchronization and settlement of various asset classes on its shared infrastructure powered by its native token, Canton Coin.

According to SoSoValue data, the cryptocurrency market sectors are mixed, with the Meme sector rising 1.23% in 24 hours. Within this sector, Binance Life rose 8.68%, ORDI (ORDI) rose 7.03%, and FLOKI rose 3.82%. Additionally, Bitcoin (BTC) fell 0.12%, fluctuating narrowly around $78,000; Ethereum (ETH) fell 1.65%, retreating to around $2,300.In other sectors, the PayFi sector rose 0.99% in 24 hours, with Telcoin (TEL) rising 4.98%; the DeFi sector rose 0.97%, with Ethena (ENA) rising 3.75%; the AI sector rose 0.70%, with SkyAI (SKYAI) rising 27.57%; the Layer2 sector rose 0.60%, with Arbitrum (ARB) rising 2.52%; the Layer1 sector rose 0.27%, with Zcash (ZEC) rising 7.54%; the CeFi sector fell 0.01%, with FTX (FTT) relatively strong, rising 1.33%.The cryptocurrency sector indices reflecting historical market trends show that the ssiRWA, ssiDeFi, and ssiPayFi indices rose 3.27%, 0.58%, and 0.52%, respectively.

According to the Belarusian National News Agency BELTA, Alexander Yegorov, the First Deputy Chairman of the National Bank of Belarus, revealed at the "Digital Banking - 2026" conference that Belarus has signed Decree No. 19, officially establishing a regulatory framework for crypto banking.According to the relevant regulations, crypto banks will support 26 types of cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), TON (Toncoin), Solana (SOL), and various stablecoins; at the same time, they will open 11 types of operations, including crypto deposits, crypto loans, crypto staking, crypto collateral, crypto transfers, issuing their own tokens, and crypto storage and exchange, among others. Yegorov stated that the list of currencies and operations mentioned above is not yet closed and will continue to be updated and improved as investor demand and new ideas emerge.

The U.S. Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) announced sanctions against Cambodian Senator Kok An, accusing him of controlling "fraud parks" across the country, defrauding American victims through cryptocurrency investment scams.According to a statement released by OFAC on Thursday, in addition to Kok An, 28 other individuals and entities have been added to the sanctions list, all believed to be connected to his fraud network. This network is accused of luring victims into sending cryptocurrency assets under the guise of "high return investments." This action follows a raid by Cambodian police on two scam centers in the border city of Poipet. Previously, Kok An had been accused of operating scam bases in the area. OFAC stated that scammers typically gain victims' trust by establishing "friendships" or "romantic relationships," then guide them to participate in so-called cryptocurrency investment platforms, thereby defrauding them of funds, with the total amount involved reaching millions of dollars.It is noteworthy that some individuals involved in the scam activities are themselves victims of human trafficking, forced to engage in illegal activities under threats of violence. OFAC pointed out that these scam centers are often located in casinos or repurposed office parks, used not only for money laundering but also as bases for defrauding American citizens and committing human rights violations. Additionally, regulators have simultaneously shut down over 500 fraudulent website domains used for cryptocurrency investment scams, indicating that the U.S. crackdown on related criminal activities is intensifying.

According to Iranian media Fars News: Reports about Iran collecting tolls for the Strait of Hormuz in cryptocurrency are inaccurate.

The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) released a report indicating that cryptocurrency exchanges are gradually providing bank-like services, such as lending and earn products, but lack the regulation and deposit protection found in traditional financial systems, posing systemic risks.The report states that these high-yield products are essentially closer to "unsecured loans," where user assets are often used by the platform for high-risk operations such as lending, trading, or market making, and users only hold a creditor position against the platform. If the platform encounters problems, users will be directly exposed to repayment risks. The BIS also noted that leading cryptocurrency platforms have evolved from single exchanges into "multi-functional intermediaries," integrating the functions of banks, brokerages, and exchanges, but lacking transparency and risk isolation mechanisms. The previous collapses of Celsius Network and FTX are typical cases of such structural risks. Additionally, the report mentioned that the flash crash in the cryptocurrency market in October 2025 triggered approximately $19 billion in forced liquidations, highlighting the chain reaction risks under high leverage and opaque structures.