St Felix was convicted on 25 June for his involvement in violent crimes aimed at physically distressing US citizens and parting them away from their crypto. Investigators proved he was the leader of a gang that was involved in such an operation in various regions of the US and abroad between September 2022 and July 2023. 13 other co-conspirators in the US were also convicted for their involvement in the crimes.
“Remy St Felix, 24, of West Palm Beach, was a leader of a robbery crew that targeted cryptocurrency owners through violent home invasions. Between September 2022 and July 2023, St Felix helped to plan and orchestrate a series of robberies in Durham, North Carolina; Florida; Texas; and New York,” the Department of Justice’s (DoJ’s) statement read.
These robberies occurred after St

Metallica’s X account was hacked on Wednesday, and the hackers promoted a token called $METAL to its 6.1 million followers. In a series of posts, the hackers claimed various things about the token, like it being a partnership with Ticketmaster, the American ticketing company, and MoonPay, a well-known fintech firm.
Other claims included token holders receiving discounted tickets to Metallica’s shows and merchandise—lucky airdrop winners would apparently receive free tickets and merchandise. A post even mentioned three $METAL holders even receiving Metallica-themed gaming consoles, of which only three were created. Metallica’s team has regained control over the X account and taken down all posts about $METAL.
One post read, “$METAL opens doors to executive discounts—imagine snagging 25%

Kanav Kariya, Jump Crypto – Jump Trading’s digital asset arm – has stepped down, announcing his resignation. His resignation comes during a CFTC (Commodities and Futures Trading Commission) investigation of Jump, looking into its problematic connections with industry villains – Terraform Labs and FTX.
Kariya wrote on X, “Today marks the end of an incredible personal journey for me. It’s my last day at Jump, a moment I’m receiving with both a heavy heart and great excitement about the road ahead.”
Regarding his next steps, he stated, “I plan to stay engaged with the portfolio companies I’ve been most involved with and hopefully take some time to process the unbelievably eventful few years we’ve had.”
The eventful years he mentioned saw some of the worst events the crypto ecosystem has

As bitcoin dropped below $60,000 on Tuesday, over $150 million of longs were liquidated due to the lack of sufficient margins. Longs, or futures, bet on the price increases any asset would witness, thus causing bitcoin’s long traders to register losses. Now, derivatives metrics show how a bullish sentiment has turned neutral among traders after five weeks.
Traders have thus begun moving away from the risks of bitcoin, especially in a time like this. It has been the case since at least June 7, when bitcoin fell over 16% from heights of around $72,000.
Investor enthusiasm in derivatives has been the least since bitcoin began performing well this year, as shown by the bitcoin futures premium. It measures the price difference between Bitcoin derivatives and spot products and reached its

Julian Assange, founder of WikiLeaks, has reached a deal with the US Department of Justice (DoJ), with the agency offering him time served as he pleaded guilty to a single count of espionage. Assange and WikiLeaks have a long relationship with bitcoin and other cryptocurrency.
WikiLeaks posted on X, “Julian Assange is free. He left Belmarsh maximum security prison on the morning of 24 June, after having spent 1901 days there. He was granted bail by the High Court in London and was released at Stansted airport during the afternoon, where he boarded a plane and departed the UK.”
The US sued him over eighteen offenses after his website facilitated the leak of confidential material from the country’s war in Iran and Afghanistan. The footage showed the military killing civilians.
He faced

The Bundeskriminalamt (BKA), or the Federal Criminal Police Office of Germany, moved 900 BTC on Tuesday, selling 400 of those to Coinbase and Kraken. Both exchanges received 200 BTC, respectively. On-chain analysis shows a wallet labeled German Government (BKA) moved the assets over three different transactions.
While two of those transactions sent assets to exchanges for liquidations, the third transferred 500 BTC to a wallet labeled ‘139Po.’ The reason for the transfer and the relationship the BKA has with it remains unknown. It is not the first time BKA has transacted value to it.
The BKA has sent bigger sums to it earlier, like 500 BTC on June 19 and 800 BTC the following day. It still has a lot left to move and sell, and we will know where these funds will get to in the coming days.

Hut 8 has secured $150 million from Coatue Management, causing its stock price to rise by at least 4%. Other Bitcoin miners who provide AI-related services also saw their stock values increase because of the news. Soluna Holdings (SLNH) jumped 17%, and Applied Digital (APLD) rose 10%.
The investment depicts Bitcoin miners expanding their computational capabilities to AI firms. Miners are trying to increase revenues, which have taken a hit across the board because of the Bitcoin halving.
Hut 8’s deal with Coatue will provide it with the financing needed to set up AI-related infrastructure. This deal will be funded via convertible notes, with an 8% interest rate and a conversion rate of $16.395 per share.
“We believe this partnership will allow us to unlock significant opportunities and

The increasing phishing attacks in the crypto ecosystem have found their next victim. This time, a governance participant in the MakerDAO ecosystem lost $11 million in Aave Ethereum Maker (aETHMKR) and USDe tokens to an attacker who mercilessly siphoned the funds away from their wallet.
They signed multiple transactions on a spoofed application, which was all that was needed for the hacker to make away with the $11 million. About 3,657 aETHMKR tokens got transferred in the process through a transaction that witnessed a confirmation in 11 seconds.
On-chain reveals that the transaction occurred between 0xfb94d3404c1d3d9d6f08f79e58041d5ea95accfa, the victim’s wallet, and 0x739772254924a57428272f429bd55f30eb36bb96, the scammer’s wallet, on June 23.
Scam Sniffer detected the scam and

In a constant downward trajectory over the past week, BTC dropped by another 3% on Monday, taking its value below $62,000 and wiping out any gains it recorded last week. The crypto market lost about 7% in value. ETH, ADA, and BNB recorded about the same losses as BTC at over 4%. SOL dropped by 7%, and memecoins collectively fell by 5%.
Analysts point to continuous miner selling activity as they continue liquidating their rewards after the Bitcoin halving. Whales and miners have sold over $1.2 billion worth of the asset within the past two weeks – that number will only go up as more wallets liquidate their reserves.
The steep price drops also liquidated about $150 million of longs on Monday. Long trades speculate on the price rises of BTC. They got liquidated as trader positions recorded

Mt. Gox will begin repaying users affected by its infamous failure to store assets safely starting the first week of July. The defunct exchange underwent one of the most talked-about hacks of all time in 2014, leading to it shutting its doors permanently. Multiple attacks aimed at Mt. Gox for over two years resulted in the loss of 809,000 bitcoins. The attacks went unnoticed until the end.
Users will finally receive their share starting early next month. Mt. Gox’s trustee, Nobuaki Kobayashi, mentioned that “the repayments will be made from the beginning of July 2024.” Kobayashi also stated they will occur in BTC and BCH (Bitcoin Cash).
Users have waited almost a decade to receive their stolen assets. Mt. Gox estate, handling its bankruptcy, revealed in 2023 that those who filed for claims

CoinStats suffered a security breach late into Saturday as iOS and Android users reported receiving questionable notifications about them being eligible for rewards. However, the notifications took them to a shady website asking them to download another application to receive the rewards.
CoinStats updated users about the same on X. “Some iOS users received a scam notification. We’re investigating it. Sorry for the inconvenience. We’ll update you ASAP. Thanks for your understanding.” Some Android users reported the same issue after CoinStat’s post went up.
It took to X a couple of hours later to confirm it was indeed “experiencing a security incident affecting wallets created directly within CoinStats; this does not impact externally connected wallets.” The post also asked users to move

The Nigerian Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has released new guidelines geared to Virtual Asset Service Providers (VASPs). An amendment of the Rules on Digital Assets Issuance, Offering Platforms, Exchange, and Custody, issued in May 2022, the SEC has now introduced the Accelerated Regulatory Incubation Program (ARIP). It comes with the appointment of the SEC’s new Director-General, Emomotimi Agama.
VAPS must comply with the framework by 21 July 2024. The SEC issued a press release regarding the same, stating, “The Securities and Exchange Commission [“the Commission”] hereby notifies the general public, that the Rules on Digital Assets Issuance, Offering Platforms, Exchange and Custody is going through an amendment process.”
About the reason for the amendment, the release read,

Institutions that applied for issuing ETH ETFs in the US submitted their S-1 applications to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on June 21. Many assume ETH ETFs are days away from launch and can come as soon as the first week of July before the US Independence Day celebrations.
Late last month, it approved the first round of applications, the 19b-4 filings submitted by the financial institutions. It then asked them to clarify its questions before submitting the S-1 applications. And that is what has transpired.
The SEC will now indulge in reviewing these applications. Once approved, the financial houses behind the applications can begin issuing their ETFs, and the instruments will finally launch on Wall Street exchanges. VanEck, Grayscale, BlackRock, Invesco Galaxy Digital,

US legislators Rep. French Hill (R-Ark.) and Rep. Chrissy Houlahan (D-Penn.)  visited Tigran Gambaryan in Kuje Prison when they visited Nigeria for talks on counterterrorism. Gambaryan was arrested in Nigeria in February on money laundering charges levied against Binance, which most agree is made up to extort money from the exchange.
Nigeria had also detained him on tax evasion charges, but the courts acquitted him of it on 14 June. He was detained alongside another Binance executive, Nadeem Anjarwalla, when they jointly visited Nigeria four months ago to settle issues the country reported with the exchange. Nigerian officials arrested them both. Anjarwalla managed to escape prison and flee the country.
In a video posted on X, Rep. Hill stated, “We’ve asked our embassy to advocate for a

BTC struggles to find pace and add gains. It slumped over 3% on 21 June, dropping below $64,000, and presently fluctuates just above $64,000. It has fallen by 8% over the past month. Despite hope and anticipation for price rises, BTC has failed to find its footing and perform like it did earlier this month when it surged past $70,000.
Whales and miners have liquidated over $1.2 billion of BTC within the past two weeks because of the price decreases. Factors like a strong dollar and investors preferring more stable markets have triggered such liquidations and can keep BTC much below $70,000 for some time. Some traders feel it may even hit $60,000 soon.
Santiment has been analyzing how the Bitcoin crowd has felt about its performance and revealed that the feeling has been negative for the

Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse’s statements from a 2017 interview have incited a securities investigation in California. California District Judge Phyllis Hamilton has stated that XRP, Ripple’s native token, is a security when offered to retail investors. According to her, Ripple created an expectation of profits for retail investors, which is a component in the Howey Test used to determine if investments are securities.
“The court declines to find as a matter of law that a reasonable investor would have derived any expectation of profit from general cryptocurrency market trends, as opposed to Ripple’s efforts to facilitate XRP’s use in cross-border payments, among other things,” she said.
While Ripple successfully won a case brought by the SEC for the same reasons in 2023, Judge Hamilton

Stablecoin issuers now hold over $120 billion in US Treasury notes, becoming the 18th largest holder of US Debt and overtaking numerous nations. Out of the $120 billion, Circle holds about $29 billion and Tether holds a whopping $91 billion. The former holds short-dated US Debt, like repos, and the latter holds Treasuries.
However, concerns begin to mount as demand for US Debt grows in the crypto industry and elsewhere, and the US needs to consider appropriate debt management measures. Rising debt levels can cause a sharp drop in the strength of the Dollar and even rile up political uncertainty, also called Liz-Truss-style market chaos. The US government has surpassed $34 trillion in debt this year, with interest payments expected to hit $892 billion by year-end. Analysts speculate the

CertiK, the Web3 cybersecurity firm, has exploited a vulnerability in Kraken’s software to siphon away $3 million. Kraken has accused CertiK of not returning the funds and trying to extort it for unreasonable amounts.
On June 9, CertiK siphoned away the $3 million despite making a minute transaction of just $4, which was enough to alert Kraken. So, the exchange felt there was no reason to drain its treasury of the millions. No user funds were affected during this fiasco.
Nick Percoco, Chief Security Officer at Kraken, posted online, “In the essence of transparency, we are disclosing this bug to the industry today. We are being accused of being unreasonable and unprofessional for requesting that “white-hat hackers” return what they stole from us. Unbelievable.”
He made numerous posts on

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Bitcoin traders are going in heavy on shorting BTC, expecting it to not cross $70,000 in the short-term. If it does, $1.6 billion in short contracts will be wiped out. The last time BTC hit that price was on June 8, after which it dropped to below $70,000 and went down even further to under $65,000.
Despite that, the market looks incredibly bullish for BTC. BTC Open Interest (OI) stands 82% higher than it did during the start of the year. OI refers to the outstanding futures contracts yet to be liquidated – the higher the OI the greater the belief in an asset rising in price often associated with bullish periods.
BTC OI has dropped by about 10.99% in the past two weeks. However, that does not justify expectations of the king of cryptos from plummeting in value, as some would

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Binance is yet again under legal fire – this time in India. The Indian Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) has issued a penalty of $2.25 million (Rupees 188.2 million) to Binance for failing to abide by the nation’s Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), 2002.
This financial watchdog previously banned it from providing services to Indian customers through a show cause notice. Numerous offshore exchanges servicing Indian clients also received such notices.
The FIU announced on 19 June 2024 that Binance, considered a Reporting Entity (RE), failed to maintain anti-money laundering (AML) protocols while operating as a Virtual Digital Asset Service Provider (VDA SP) in India.
Indian laws dictate that crypto service providers follow the jurisdiction’s stringent AML laws. However,

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Bitcoin whales and miners have liquidated $1.2 billion of collective holdings, indicating increased profit-taking. It has been so ever since the largest cryptocurrency by value crossed the $70,000 mark at the end of May.
They are most likely selling their reserves to brokers rather than on exchanges. CryptoQuant’s data suggests exactly that, as it reveals Bitcoin UTXO age band sizes decreasing – a phenomenon associated with increased BTC selling – without funds moving to exchanges.
UTXO refers to the unspent transaction output. It is part of every Bitcoin transaction, and a decrease in the UTXO’s age indicates increased activity tied to selling. On-chain analysis shows stablecoin liquidity decreasing, which indicates holders moving out of their BTC positions by trading for

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Consensys relayed via X that the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has stopped its investigations of Ether being a security and, thus, Ethereum offering securities illegally. The news comes as the SEC is in the final stages of approving spot Ether ETFs.
“Today we’re happy to announce a major win for Ethereum developers, technology providers, and industry participants: the Enforcement Division of the SEC has notified us that it is closing its investigation into Ethereum 2.0.,” Consensys conveyed in a post.
It continued, “This means that the SEC will not bring charges alleging that sales of ETH are securities transactions.” The SEC began looking into Ethereum for selling illegal securities since the network transitioned to the Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus mechanism. It

FTX victims expressed unhappiness with the defunct exchange’s bankruptcy proceedings, claiming the estate overseeing the proceedings is no different than “the enterprise run by SBF (Sam Bankman-Fried). Their concern arises from the compensation FTX’s bankruptcy estate owes, which it may not try to meet adequately according to what the investors feel they rightfully deserve.
In a court filing, they stated that digital assets have grown tremendously since FTX went bust in the 2022 bear market, and compensations are being calculated based on asset prices from that period. 98% of investors will expectedly receive 118% of the funds they left on FTX. Nevertheless, certain investors are anxious about never seeing their money back.
Attorneys representing this group of defrauded investors

The Bitcoin network is breaking records beyond its native asset, BTC, hitting prices unseen by other cryptos. It is now a top three NFT ecosystem by sales generated through all-time sales volumes, hitting $4,271,928,280 and pushing the Ronin chain down to the fourth spot.
As protocols like Ordinals and Rune bring new use cases to the legacy chain, Bitcoin has transformed into an established NFT ecosystem. Enthusiasts take to the first-ever blockchain in droves to get their hands on NFTs, letting it outperform its counterparts that offered NFTs long before Bitcoin.
Ethereum, the network where NFTs first saw light, leads every blockchain by sales volumes for this asset type, valued at $43,861,912,400. Solana takes the runner-up spot with $5,603,556,704. Ronin, the chain in third place until

Memecoin bulls braced for impact as the largest asset of this kind by market cap, Dogecoin, dropped by over 10%. $60 million in DOGE futures got wiped out as a result. Huobi accounted for more than $44 million of those liquidations.
Data revealed they were associated with longs – positions harnessed by users to speculate DOGE’s price rise. In contrast, only $600,000 worth of DOGE shorts, which users open to bet against the memecoin dropping in value, got liquidated in the past 24 hours.
This magnitude of long contract liquidations associated with DOGE has been unseen since 2021, leaving its legion of supporters and enthusiasts of the broader memecoin market concerned. BTC fared better, observing liquidations of $47 million despite its value dropping in the same ballpark as DOGE,

Deutsche Telekom, T-Mobile’s parent company, will jump into the Bitcoin mining space shortly to expand its revenue generation avenues. The telecommunications company has been active in the Web3 space for a while, already running a Bitcoin node, multiple nodes on the Lightning Network, a Bitcoin scalability solution, and validating on other networks.
Dirk Röder, head of Web3 infrastructure and solutions at Deutsche Telekom, said at BTC Prague, “Since 2023, we are running a Bitcoin node, and we are running Bitcoin Lightning nodes as well.” When asked if Deutsche Telekom would mine Bitcoin next, he said, “We will.”
Most recently, in February, Deutsche Telekom partnered with Fetch.ai, a decentralized AI platform that offers AI agents to bring efficiency to industries like automotive,

Stacks, a Bitcoin layer 2 network, experienced an outage for 9 hours last week, leaving user transactions and blocks unprocessed for that entire period. Stacks Status, the official X account for the network’s updates, mentioned the cause was due to block reorganization (reorgs) on the layer 1 Bitcoin network and its miners behaving unexpectedly.
“We are experiencing a delay in Stacks block production due to unexpected mining behavior and a Bitcoin reorg. Core developers in the ecosystem are investigating the issue and working to resolve it as quickly as possible. Thank you for your patience & understanding.” The account further posted, “Core developers in the ecosystem are investigating the issue and working to resolve it as quickly as possible.”
Bitcoin reorgs are an infrequent phenomenon

A Bank for International Settlements (BIS) survey found that 94% of central banks worldwide want to implement Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs). It surveyed eighty-six central banks between October 2023 and January 2024.
The survey depicts how close every nation is to hopping onto blockchain technology, with central banks implementing CBDCs for interbank settlement processes. The survey conducted revolved around wholesale CBDCs and not the retail kind. The difference lies in who uses the tokens.
Banking entities will use wholesale CBDCs for purposes such as daily settlements with each other. On the other hand, retail CBDCs are what individuals would use for their daily transactions. Full-scale retail CBDCs may be several years away, but their wholesale counterparts see usage already

Scammers on X are impersonating crypto founders, influencers, and well-known celebrities to prey on unknowing crypto users. In the latest events, scammers used Yi He’s likeness to set up fake accounts and lure crypto holders.
Most recently, the fake accounts spoke about giving users free Binance-backed memecoins. The posts contained links that would take users to pages where they could connect their wallets. Such tactics are a tale as old as time. Scammers access user wallets this way and steal their contents.
Concerned about her image used this way for such purposes and Elon Musk’s social media platform not doing much about it, she wrote on the platform, “I have not issued any new MEMEcoins. Clicking on the link will result in your money being stolen. Many people were tricked by this

The US Department of Justice (DoJ) has charged two men for operating the darknet marketplace Empire Market between 2018 and 2020. The indictment names Thomas Pavey, 38, and Raheim Hamilton, 28, as two men behind the marketplace.
Empire Market connected vendors and customers, facilitating the exchange of illegal products and services worth $430 million. Payments on the marketplace occurred through cryptocurrencies.
A press release issued by the DoJ read, “THOMAS PAVEY, also known as “Dopenugget,” 38, of Ormond Beach, Fla., and RAHEIM HAMILTON, also known as “Sydney” and “Zero Angel,” 28, of Suffolk, Va., owned and operated Empire Market from 2018 to 2020, during which time they facilitated approximately four million transactions between vendors and buyers valued at more than $430 million,