
Sep 9, 2026
Law and Order
Secret Service Freezes $52.8 Million in Crypto Tied to Telegram Bazaar Behind Global Scams
The U.S. Secret Service froze $52.8 million in cryptocurrency linked to Xinbi Guarantee on September 8, a Chinese-language marketplace that runs on Telegram and sells the tools scammers need to defraud people worldwide. The government agents worked with Blockchain analytics firm Elliptic to identify and freeze the funds. “Elliptic has been tracking Xinbi and its wallet infrastructure for several years, and our intelligence directly enabled the freezing action, as well as the sanctions imposed on...
Sep 2, 2026
Law and Order
Tether Sued Over Alleged Unlawful Freeze of $42.4 Million in USDT
Two Thai businessmen sued Tether on Monday, claiming the stablecoin issuer froze roughly $42.4 million worth of USDT without legal authority. Nutthawat Rukthammachalern and Natthawat Kasamvilas filed the complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. It names four Tether entities and concerns USDT held across ten Ethereum addresses. Myriad: Ethereum price this week? Click to make your prediction. According to the complaint, Tether blacklisted the addresses last Octob...
Aug 26, 2026
Business
Tokenized Deposits Could Drain $700 Billion From Bank Lending, Dallas Fed Warns
Tokenized deposits could enable faster payments but make banks’ funding less stable, according to a report by the Dallas Federal Reserve. The report, published on Tuesday, examines how widespread adoption could affect bank liquidity and maturity transformation—the use of deposits available on demand to finance longer-term loans. Myriad: Crude oil's next move? Click to make your prediction. “Increasing adoption of distributed ledger technology—blockchain is the best known—has opened up digital pa...
Aug 20, 2026
Business
Banking Regulator Races to Finalize GENIUS Act Stablecoin Rules
The top U.S. banking regulator says it will finalize its rules for stablecoin issuers by November, moving to beat a fast-approaching deadline for the country's landmark digital-dollar law. Jonathan Gould, head of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, laid out the timeline Wednesday at the Wyoming Blockchain Symposium, an event hosted by SALT in Jackson. He said the agency is working at a rapid pace and expects to publish a final rule by November as it weighs feedback gathered from the c...
Aug 17, 2026
Law and Order
Treasury Proposes Rules Defining Who Can Legally Sell Stablecoins in US
The U.S. Department of the Treasury proposed rules Monday defining which stablecoins can be issued or sold in the United States under the GENIUS Act. The proposal implements Section 3 of the GENIUS Act, signed into law last summer. According to the proposal, beginning January 18, 2027, stablecoin issuers generally must obtain a federal or state license. Platforms can also sell foreign-issued stablecoins, but only if the foreign issuer complies with U.S. legal orders and agreements between the U....
Aug 13, 2026
Business
Tether Claims 'Largest Inaugural Financial Audit' as KPMG Signs Off on 2025 Statements
Tether said Thursday that Big Four accounting firm KPMG issued an unqualified audit opinion—industry jargon for the best possible result—-on the 2025 financial statements of Tether International, the company behind the world’s largest stablecoin USDT. In a post announcing the audit, Tether called the review the “largest inaugural financial audit in history,” saying KPMG examined Tether’s assets, liabilities, income, cash flows, internal systems, records, counterparties, and supporting documentat...
Aug 3, 2026
Law and Order
Former FBI Agent Charged With Stealing Nearly $1 Million in Crypto and Using ChatGPT for Investment Advice
A former FBI supervisory special agent has been charged with stealing nearly $1 million in cryptocurrency from wallets tied to FBI counterintelligence investigations, according to court documents that also detail how he later asked ChatGPT for advice on investing the money and relocating overseas. On Friday, Patrick Steven Yaroch was charged with interstate transportation of stolen goods and receipt of stolen goods. Prosecutors allege the thefts occurred between early 2025 and July 2026 while Ya...
Jul 31, 2026
Business
Tether Reports $1.5B Q2 Profit as USDT Supply Grows, Gold Holdings Rise
Tether reported $1.5 billion in net operating profit for the second quarter, a nearly 50% increase against Q1 2026, as the stablecoin issuer increased USDT in circulation, expanded its reserve surplus to more than $4 billion, and added to its gold holdings despite a weaker stablecoin market. The company reported the results Friday in its latest quarterly attestation. Tether said that as of June 30 it held about $187.75 billion in assets against approximately $183.64 billion in liabilities, leavi...
Jul 15, 2026
Law and Order
US Treasury Freezes $131 Million in Iran-Linked Crypto Wallets
The U.S. Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned multiple cryptocurrency wallets tied to Iran's Central Bank and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps on Tuesday, with stablecoin issuer Tether freezing over $131 million across four addresses on the Tron blockchain. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent confirmed the move in a post on X, vowing the U.S. would "aggressively follow the money and deny the Iranian regime access" to illicit funds. Separately, the Treasury sanctioned seven in...
Jul 13, 2026
Markets
Bolivia Is Considering Adding Tether's USDT Stablecoin to National Payments System: Report
Bolivia’s economy is stabilizing, and now it is investigating the potential inclusion of Tether’s dollar-backed stablecoin USDT as a form of payment in the nation, according to a local news report from La Razón. The report stems from a Friday briefing from Bolivia’s Minister of Economy, José Gabriel Espinoza Yáñez, who highlighted the care that must be taken as part of the assessment. “Remember that Bolivia is on the [Financial Action Task Force] gray list, yet another consequence of the proble...
Jun 18, 2026
Law and Order
Jerome Powell Supports Fed's New Stablecoin Policies—But Chair Kevin Warsh Abstains
The Federal Reserve on Thursday issued a proposed rulemaking dictating how American crypto firms will have to evaluate customers and discourage money laundering now that stablecoins have been formally legalized. The rulemaking, proposed jointly with President Donald Trump’s administration agencies including the Treasury Department and the FDIC, interprets how to implement provisions of the GENIUS Act pertaining to customer identification requirements. The GENIUS Act, enacted last summer, formal...
Jun 17, 2026
Business
CoinFund, Coinbase Back Stablecoin Payments Startup Trace Finance in $32 Million Raise
Trace Finance, a financial infrastructure company that links banks in Brazil and the United States to stablecoin settlement networks, said Wednesday that it has raised $32 million in a Series A funding round led by CoinFund, with backing from Coinbase Ventures, Haun Ventures, Jump Capital and several other crypto-focused investors. The raise comes as Brazilian regulators reclassify cross-border crypto transfers as foreign-exchange operations, a shift that is pushing institutional money away fro...
Jun 2, 2026
Law and Order
US Treasury Sanctions Iranian Crypto Exchanges Including Nobitex for Terrorist Financing
The U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control designated Nobitex, Iran's largest digital asset exchange, along with three other Iranian cryptocurrency platforms for allegedly facilitating terrorist financing and sanctions evasion. The Treasury Department alleges Nobitex processed more than 50% of all Iranian digital asset inflows in 2025 and facilitated payments tied to Iran's terrorist activities, sanctions evasion efforts, and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-linked transac...
Jun 2, 2026
Law and Order
New York’s Crypto Watchdog Teams With EU to Police Stablecoins
New York’s preeminent crypto regulator has charted a transatlantic path toward comprehensive stablecoin rules, aligning regulatory efforts on Tuesday with the European Union. In a 22-page memorandum of understanding, the New York Department of Financial Services and European Banking Authority detailed procedures intended to facilitate the exchange of supervisory and confidential information as it relates to the $314 billion sector. In a statement, the NYDFS described the measure as an effort to...
May 25, 2026
Business
With Central Bank’s Blessing, Georgia Taps Tether for 'Official' Stablecoin
Tether said on Monday that it plans to issue a stablecoin in Georgia with support from the country’s government, underscoring the nation’s aggressive push to establish itself as a crypto hub that’s uniquely aligned with U.S. regulations. The stablecoin, dubbed GELT, will serve as a digital representation of the Georgian lari, Tether said in an announcement. It described the move as among “the first joint efforts to place a national currency directly onto digital asset rails” under a purpose-buil...
May 13, 2026
Business
Bank of England Treating Stablecoins as 'New Form of Money', Says Exec
With the Bank of England gearing up to accept applications from would-be stablecoin issuers, its executive director of financial market infrastructure explained that the central bank is treating stablecoins as “a new form of money.” Speaking in a panel discussion at the Financial Times Digital Asset Summit, Sasha Mills noted that, “By the end of the year, we will be open and welcoming applications” from those looking to launch “a systemic stablecoin for widely used payments in the U.K.” Ahead o...
May 7, 2026
Artificial Intelligence
Tether's Medical AI Runs on Your Phone and Outperforms Models 16x Its Size
Tether, the stablecoin company best known for USDT, just released a medical AI model that fits in your pocket and may outperform rivals more than a dozen times its size. QVAC MedPsy launched today from Tether's AI Research Group as a new class of medical language models designed to run on smartphones, wearables, and edge devices—no cloud required. The headline number: a tiny 1.7 billion-parameter model capable of beating Google's MedGemma-4B on medical benchmarks despite being less than half i...
May 5, 2026
DeFi
How Solana Exchange Drift Plans to Repay Users After $295 Million Crypto Hack
A month after North Korean-affiliated hackers drained $295 million in user funds from decentralized crypto exchange Drift Protocol, the Solana-based platform has released a detailed recovery plan outlining how it intends to compensate affected users and relaunch as a rebuilt, security-focused exchange. The April 1 attack was attributed to a North Korea state-affiliated threat actor, as confirmed by forensic firm Mandiant. Following the exploit, Drift temporarily suspended all core protocol func...
May 1, 2026
Business
Tether Reports Billion-Dollar Q1 Profit Amid Crypto Slump—And Says Audit Has Begun
Tether reported more than $1 billion in profit for the first quarter of 2026, against a backdrop of broader crypto market volatility, the company announced Friday. The world’s top stablecoin issuer said net profit reached approximately $1.04 billion for the quarter. The company also reported that its buffer between the total value of its stablecoins in circulation, and the amount of reserves it has on hand to back those assets, has grown to an all-time high of $8.23 billion. Tether’s Q1 figures...
Apr 29, 2026
Law and Order
Tether Stakeholder Gave Farage Undisclosed $6.7M Gift Amid Reform UK Crypto Funding Scrutiny
Christopher Harborne, a billionaire with a 12% stake in USDT stablecoin issuer Tether, gave Nigel Farage a previously undisclosed $6.7 million (£5 million) gift in 2024. The donation, first reported in The Guardian, was to pay for his personal security, Farage later told The Daily Telegraph. The payment was reportedly structured as a personal gift and was never officially disclosed under UK campaign finance laws. At the time Farage received the gift, he had not announced plans to run as a Membe...
