Mark Alexander Hopkins, also known by the moniker ‘Doctor Bitcoin’ or their handle Rizzn, has claimed that “transacting Bitcoin p2p is a federal crime” after announcing the sentence in their case to social media followers. In a Sunday Twitter thread, Hopkins said that they were facing between 6 to 15 months at a federal correctional institution in Texas following a guilty plea for allegedly operating a crypto business without the necessary licensing. According to Rizzn, the U.S. Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or FinCEN, used a 2019 interpretation of a law — 18 U.S.C. 1960 — originally enacted in 1992 to …

After a race to be the next leader of the Conservative Party, Secretary of State for foreign, commonwealth and development affairs Liz Truss has defeated f ormer chancellor of the exchequer Rishi Sunak to become the next prime minister of the United Kingdom. Boris Johnson, who served as the U.K. prime minister since 2019, will be on his way out of office and leaving Truss as the party leader, after she won the election with 57.4% of the vote from members compared to Sunak’s 42.6%. Truss has been the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs in the …

The Bank of Russia, the country’s central bank, has reportedly admitted that cross-border payments in crypto are inevitable in the current geopolitical conditions. The Russian central bank has been rethinking the approach to regulating crypto and agreed with the finance ministry to legalize crypto for cross-border payments, the local news agency TASS reported on Sept. 5. Deputy finance minister Alexei Moiseev reportedly said that the Bank of Russia and the finance ministry expect to legitimize cross-border payments in crypto soon. Moiseev outlined the importance of enabling local crypto services in Russia, noting that many Russians rely on foreign platforms to …

Helping investigate a $265,000 hack on decentralized crypto exchange KyberSwap, crypto exchange Binance narrowed down two suspects that seem responsible for the attack. On Sept. 1, Kyber Network succumbed to a frontend exploit, allowing the attacker to make away with $265,000 worth of user funds from KyberSwap. While investigations were underway, KyberSwap offered a 10% bounty — of roughly $40,000 — to the hacker as means to remediate the situation. Parallelly, based on an independent investigation, Binance’s security team identified two suspects that may be responsible for orchestrating the virtual heist. Binance CEO Changpeng ‘CZ’ Zhao confirmed that the intel …

It took a few years, but government crackdowns on “insider trading” involving digital assets have finally arrived. It’s about time! Insider trading occurs often in our securities markets, so it was only a matter of time before crypto and other digital assets would be exploited improperly by miscreants for financial gain. On June 1, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York announced a criminal indictment against a former product manager of the OpenSea marketplace, Nathaniel Chastain. He is charged with using the confidential information about which nonfungible tokens were going to be featured on OpenSea’s homepage to …

USDT-issuer Tether wants law firm Roche Freedman “terminated” as counsel from the Bitfinex and Tether class action lawsuit following a motion from Kyle Roche to be removed as counsel in the case. In an Aug. 31 court order request by Elliot Greenfield of Debevoise & Plimpton LLP, the law firm representing Tether and Bitfinex requested that Roche’s law firm be removed from the case entirely and to certify that they’ve returned or destroyed all defendant-issued documents and have not shared them with any third-party, including Ava Labs. The request follows shortly after Roche submitted a Notice of Motion to Withdraw …

In the wake of allegations made by Crypto Leaks, high-profile crypto lawyer Kyle Roche has filed to withdraw as counsel on several crypto class-action lawsuits. According to a series of court records released on Aug.31, Roche is understood to be “no longer involved” in Roche Freedman’s class action practice. The law firm has also filed to withdraw Roche as counsel in class action lawsuits involving Tron and Global Trading. Wow. A few days after being the subject of a controversial undercover video, @KyleWRoche has withdrawn as counsel for the Tether/Bitfinex lawsuit. This filing says he's no longer part of his …

The bankrupt cryptocurrency lender Celsius is facing more legal issues as disgruntled clients are taking action to recover their funds after the platform froze withdrawals in June. An ad hoc group of 64 custodial account holders at Celsius on Wednesday filed a complaint with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York in order to recover their assets. According to court documents, the creditors are seeking to recover a total of more than $22.5 million worth of cryptocurrency assets collectively held in Celsius’ custody service. The ad hoc group is represented by bankruptcy-focused law firm Togut, Segal …

Lawmakers in California State Assembly 71-0 passed the Digital Financial Assets Law, also known as AB 2269, on Tuesday, Aug. 30. The bill is now in the hands of the state’s governor Gavin Newsom, who will either set it into motion or veto it completely. This bill requires digital asset exchanges and crypto companies to have an operating license given by the state of California's Department of Financial Protection and Innovation. Any operations outside of said license will be prohibited. It would come into effect on and after Jan. 1, 2025. If not followed, perpetrators could receive a civil penalty …

Authorities with South Korea’s customs service have reportedly arrested 16 people involved in illegal foreign exchange transactions connected to crypto assets worth roughly $2 billion. According to a Tuesday report from South Korean news agency Newsis, the country’s customs authorities plan to prosecute 2 unnamed individuals linked to the illicit transactions, impose fines on 7 people related to negligence, and continue investigating the remaining seven. Since February, the Korea Customs Service’s investigation reportedly discovered more than 2.7 trillion won — roughly $2 billion at the time of publication — tied to transactions with domestic and foreign crypto exchanges. More than …

Karl Racine, Attorney General for the District of Columbia in the United States, has announced that his office will be suing business intelligence firm MicroStrategy and its co-founder Michael Saylor for charges related to tax evasion. In a Wednesday Twitter thread, Racine announced a lawsuit against MicroStrategy and its previous CEO Michael Saylor, claiming that he “never paid any DC income taxes” and the company “conspired” to assist him in evading paying for taxes. According to the attorney general, Saylor owes back taxes for “hundreds of millions of dollars” worth of income during his time as a DC resident. “With …

Studies show that most people who attempt to wash trade nonfungible tokens (NFTs) are unprofitable. But that doesn’t stop them from trying, which makes it a glaring regulatory and enforcement issue for the industry. In wash trading, manipulators buy and sell an asset between themselves to create the appearance that the asset is in higher demand and, therefore, worth more than it would be otherwise. With NFTs, wash trading is fairly straightforward: Imagine an investor holds $1 million in Ether (ETH). The investor mints an NFT and proceeds to sell it to themself for all the ETH they own. The …