Quick Summary: A Los Angeles man faces federal wire fraud and money laundering charges after allegedly using $2 million in COVID relief loans to buy cryptocurrency. Bruce Choi, a 34-year-old Koreatown resident and rideshare driver, was arrested Tuesday at San Francisco International Airport on federal charges of wire fraud and money laundering. Prosecutors allege he fraudulently obtained more than $2 million in pandemic business relief loans and converted the funds into cryptocurrency.According to the indictment, Choi posed as the CEO of a company called Premier Republic, which prosecutors describe as a fictional entity with no operations or employees. He allegedly…
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Quick Summary: OP_NET launches a protocol embedding smart contract interactions directly into Bitcoin transactions, bypassing bridges and wrapped assets. OP_NET is launching a protocol designed to bring decentralized finance natively to Bitcoin, enabling trading and token issuance through standard Bitcoin transactions. Co-founder Chad Master says existing solutions are largely extractive, routing liquidity away from Bitcoin through sidechains or synthetic assets like Wrapped BTC.The protocol embeds smart contract data inside ordinary Bitcoin transactions confirmed by miners. A network of nodes scans Bitcoin blocks for contract-related data and executes associated logic through a virtual machine, comparing results across nodes to maintain consensus.Co-founder…
Quick Summary: Bitcoin fell over 4% to $69,537 after the Federal Reserve held rates steady, triggering $511 million in market liquidations. Crypto and equity markets declined sharply after the U.S. Federal Reserve opted to hold interest rates steady at 3.50% to 3.75%. Bitcoin dropped more than 4% to an intraday low of $69,537, according to CoinGecko, while the Nikkei, gold, and the S&P 500 fell roughly 3.2%, 3%, and 1%, respectively.Two Bitcoin whales sold 650 and 5,000 BTC on Wednesday, totaling over $117 million, according to on-chain platform Arkham. Bitcoin’s slide from $75,000 to below $70,000 triggered more than $511…
Quick Summary: The Fed held rates steady at 3.50-3.75% while hotter-than-expected PPI data and Iran conflict escalation pushed Bitcoin and gold lower overnight. The Federal Reserve held interest rates at 3.50-3.75% on Wednesday, but markets moved before the decision landed. February PPI came in at +0.7% month-over-month against a 0.3% forecast, driven partly by rising oil prices amid escalating conflict involving Iran. Bitcoin dropped from $74,000 to roughly $70,000, gold fell 5% to $4,700, and the Nasdaq closed down 1.5%.S&P 500 perpetual futures are now live on Hyperliquid after Trade[XYZ] secured a licensing deal with S&P Dow Jones Indices. Contracts…
Quick Summary: Crypto.com is laying off around 180 employees, roughly 12% of its workforce, as CEO Kris Marszalek pivots the firm toward enterprise-wide AI. Crypto.com is eliminating approximately 180 positions, representing 12% of its staff, in what CEO Kris Marszalek describes as a move toward enterprise-wide AI adoption. Marszalek warned on social media that companies failing to make this transition immediately will fall behind. This marks the third round of layoffs in four years for the Singapore-based exchange.The cuts are part of a broader restructuring trend across the crypto sector. The Algorand Foundation reduced its staff by 25% on Wednesday,…
Quick Summary: South Korea’s People Power Party proposes abolishing a planned 20% crypto gains tax set for 2027, citing fairness, double taxation, and enforcement issues. South Korea’s main opposition party, the People Power Party (PPP), has introduced a bill to remove digital asset income provisions from the country’s Income Tax Act, seeking to eliminate a planned crypto tax before its scheduled 2027 implementation. The measure has already been delayed three times since it was first introduced.Under current rules, crypto gains exceeding 2.5 million Korean won would be subject to a 20% income tax plus a 2% local tax starting January…
Quick Summary: US spot Bitcoin ETFs snapped a seven-day inflow streak with $163.5 million in outflows as Bitcoin fell below $71,000 on Wednesday. US spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded $163.5 million in outflows on Wednesday, ending seven consecutive days of inflows that had totalled $1.2 billion, according to Farside data. The Fidelity Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund led redemptions at roughly $104 million, followed by BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF at $34 million.The outflows coincided with Bitcoin slipping below $71,000 after trading above $75,000 earlier in the week. The Crypto Fear & Greed Index briefly recovered to 26, or “Fear,” before falling…
Quick Summary: Crypto.com plans to lay off roughly 180 employees, about 12% of its workforce, as it integrates AI across its operations. Crypto.com is set to reduce its workforce by up to 12%, affecting approximately 180 of its roughly 1,500 employees. Kris Marszalek, the Singapore-headquartered exchange’s founder and CEO, announced the cuts on Thursday, warning that companies failing to adopt AI will not survive. The layoffs are described as part of plans to prioritize resources around key growth areas.The exchange recently launched AI agent platform ai.com on February 9 and became the first crypto platform to receive the ISO/IEC 42001:2023…
Quick Summary: A new Immunefi report finds five incidents alone accounted for 62% of $4.67 billion in crypto hack losses recorded in 2024 and 2025. A security report from Immunefi analyzing 425 publicly known incidents between 2021 and 2025 estimates the average hack now results in roughly $25 million in stolen funds. In 2024 and 2025, 191 hacks produced $4.67 billion in total losses, with just five incidents responsible for 62% of that figure.Centralized exchange breaches drove the majority of losses despite representing fewer incidents. Twenty exchange hacks accounted for approximately $2.55 billion, or 55% of the total, reflecting how…
Quick Summary: Tokeny has partnered with Polygon Labs to launch T-REX Ledger, a shared compliance blockchain targeting $100 billion in tokenized assets by 2027. Tokeny, part of Apex Group, has partnered with Polygon Labs to launch T-REX Ledger, a dedicated blockchain designed to serve as a shared compliance layer for tokenized real-world assets. The system allows investor eligibility checks and transfer restrictions to be stored centrally, so other networks can query them without repeating the process on each chain.The project addresses a gap in the ERC-3643 token standard, which supports compliant issuance of tokenized assets on Ethereum but does not…
