$4B OneCoin scam co-founder pleads guilty, faces 60 years jail

Karl Sebastian Greenwood, the co-founder of the multi-billion dollar fraudulent cryptocurrency scheme OneCoin has pleaded guilty to multiple charges brought forward by the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) and faces a maximum of 60 years in prison. The DOJ announced on Dec. 16 that Greenwood submitted a guilty plea in a Manhattan federal court […]

Crypto Twitter explodes over the news of Sam Bankman-Fried’s arrest

Crypto Twitter has blown up over the shocking news of Sam Bankman-Fried’s arrest in The Bahamas — many of whom weren’t expecting it to happen so soon.  On Dec. 12, the disgraced FTX founder was arrested by the Royal Bahamas Police after receiving notification from the United States government that criminal charges has been filed […]

US regulator to seek feedback on DeFi’s impact on financial crime

A United States financial regulator is looking to gain feedback from the banking industry about how decentralized finance (DeFi) may affect the bureau’s efforts to stop financial crime. The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) said it is “looking carefully” at DeFi, while the agency’s acting director, Himamauli Das, said the digital asset ecosystem and virtual […]

Illicit cross-chain transfers expected to grow to $10B: Here’s how to prevent them

Improved blockchain analytics will become increasingly important to combat the use of cross-chain bridges for illicit means, which are estimated to surpass $10 billion in value by 2025. Blockchain analytics firm Elliptic forecasts a 60% rise in the value of illicit cryptocurrency laundered through cross-chain bridges from $4.1 billion in June 2022 to $6.5 billion […]

HashFlare founders arrested in ‘astounding’ $575M crypto fraud scheme

The two founders of the now-defunct Bitcoin cloud miner HashFlare have been arrested in Estonia over their alleged involvement in a $575 million crypto fraud conspiracy. HashFlare was a cloud mining company created in 2015, which purported to allow customers to lease the company’s hashing power in order to mine cryptocurrencies and gain an equivalent […]

Crypto adoption via regulation: Setting rules for centralized exchanges

Centralized cryptocurrency exchanges have become the backbone of the nascent crypto ecosystem, making way for retail and institutional traders to trade cryptocurrencies despite a constant fear of government crackdowns and lack of support from policymakers.  These crypto exchanges over the years have managed to put self-regulatory checks and implemented policies in line with the local […]

Institutional crypto adoption requires robust analytics for money laundering

Institutions have begun to take crypto seriously and have entered the space in numerous ways. As noted in a previous analysis, this has resulted in banks and fintechs looking at custody products and services for their clients.  However, as custodians of clients’ assets, banks must also ensure they are clean assets and stay compliant. This […]