Autor Cointelegraph By Andrew Fenton

Interpol operation exposes $122M crypto wallet tied to romance scam launderingA crypto wallet linked to a suspected romance-scam money launderer processed more than $122.5 million in 10 months, according to Interpol.Interpol said that Thai authorities arrested two suspects and uncovered a money-laundering network that funneled proceeds from romance scams into cryptocurrencies, using cross-chain token swaps to obscure the trail.The investigation was part of Operation First Light 2026, an Interpol-coordinated campaign targeting social engineering scams and the financial infrastructure used to launder their proceeds.The operation involved authorities in 97 countries and territories, resulting in 5,811 arrests and the seizure of $293 million in illicit assets tied to fraud and money laundering. Romance scams, also known as pig-butchering scams, often involve criminals building trust with victims through social media or online dating platforms before steering them toward fraudulent investment schemes.InterpolAuthorities carried out raids on scam centers. Source: InterpolHyundai completes USDT treasury settlement pilot between US and MexicoHyundai Motor’s US and Mexican units completed a pilot cross-border treasury transfer using Tether’s USDT stablecoin, settling a $20,000 payment in about seven minutes on the Avalanche blockchain.Hyundai Motor America converted the funds into USDT, transferred the stablecoin to Hyundai Motor Mexico and converted it back into US dollars. The transfer and verification process took about seven minutes, compared with three to four hours or more for a traditional cross-border bank transfer.Tether said the pilot used Axiym’s settlement infrastructure, while Hyundai Card designed the remittance structure and oversaw the regulatory, compliance, accounting and operational requirements needed to support the proof of concept.Japan’s SBI to launch yen stablecoin lending with 3% yieldTokyo-based SBI VC Trade will begin accepting applications Thursday for a Japanese yen-denominated stablecoin lending service offering an initial annualized rate of 3% on JPYSC lent for 12 weeks.Customers will lend JPYSC to the SBI Holdings subsidiary from Thursday and receive the tokens back with a lending fee at maturity, the company said in a Monday press release. At the advertised rate, the gross return over the 12-week term would be about 0.69%, before tax.The company said the product pays more than the 0.325% to 1% annual rate SBI cited for ordinary yen deposits. Still, it is not a bank deposit, is not covered by deposit insurance and generally cannot be canceled early.Japanese lender launches Bitcoin-backed loans of up to $6.2MJapanese lender CRYL has launched Bitcoin-backed loans of up to 1 billion yen ($6.2 million), allowing individuals and businesses to raise fiat currency without selling their BTC. On Thursday, the company announced that borrowers can access between $6,200 and $6.2 million at annual rates of 3.5% to 7%. The loans carry collateral ratios of 40% to 60%. They run for one year and can be used for expenses, including taxes, business funding and property purchases.The launch expands Japan’s small market for regulated crypto-backed financing. In 2020, Fintertech, a Daiwa Securities Group and Credit Saison joint venture, launched a similar service and currently lends up to $3 million against Bitcoin or Ether. However, CRYL’s service advertises a higher ceiling and a lower minimum, while limiting collateral to BTC. Metaplanet explores Bitcoin-backed digital credit with JPYC in JapanJapanese Bitcoin treasury company Metaplanet has teamed up with stablecoin issuer JPYC and tokenization infrastructure provider Progmat to study Bitcoin-backed digital credit products in Japan.The investigation will examine whether Bitcoin can be used as collateral or credit enhancement for digital corporate bonds and other credit instruments, with 24/7 accessibility, settlement and daily interest accrual for holders, issued on the blockchain ledger. No product has been launched yet as part of the experiment.The news suggests Metaplanet is looking beyond its role as a Bitcoin treasury company and testing how Bitcoin could be used as a productive balance sheet asset.Digital credit instruments have been an important part of Strategy’s playbook. The world’s largest corporate Bitcoin holder has relied on “digital credit” instruments such as the STRC preferred stock as a primary vehicle for raising capital to acquire more Bitcoin. MetaplanetJoint Study in the Digital Credit Domain Utilizing Bitcoin, JPYC, and Security Tokens. Source: Metaplanet Japan stablecoin payments advance with Lawson trial, Netstars launchJapanese convenience-store operator Lawson plans to test yen-denominated stablecoin payments at a Tokyo location in August, examining whether stablecoin payments can work inside a standard convenience store checkout flow.On Monday, blockchain company HashPort said it had signed an agreement to conduct the trial at the Lawson Takanawa Gateway City store. Participants will use HashPort’s non-custodial wallet, while the store will process payments through the company’s point-of-sale system without needing to open or manage crypto wallets. The pilot aims to explore how stablecoin payments can be integrated into Japan’s existing retail infrastructure while shielding merchants from much of the operational complexity associated with accepting digital assets.Bitdeer stock jumps 14% as company expands US mining hardware productionBitdeer shares rallied after the company announced a $36 million Nevada manufacturing facility that will produce its SEALMINER Bitcoin mining machines and expand its hardware business.The gains for the Singapore-based miner followed Bitdeer’s announcement that it will build a manufacturing facility in Sparks, Nevada. It will produce key mining hardware components, with commercial production expected to begin by the end of the year.BitdeerBitdeer Technologies Group (BTDR) stock. Source: Yahoo FinanceHong Kong regulator orders new anti-phishing measures for crypto platformsThe Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) on Thursday issued new requirements for phishing-resistant authentication methods for virtual asset trading platforms (VATPs) and online brokers in the special administrative region.The new standards require stronger phishing-resistant authentication methods and device binding while prohibiting the use of one-time passwords through SMS, email or app-based logins. Platforms must implement the changes within the next 12 months.Bank of Korea stands firm on bank-led stablecoin push as deposit token pilots advanceThe Bank of Korea (BOK) has doubled down on its stance that won-denominated stablecoins should first be issued through bank-led consortiums.According to local reports from Digital Asset and EDaily, the BOK also called for new safeguards including a statutory policy body involving relevant agencies to oversee the sector.The latest comments reinforce the BOK’s months-long push to keep won stablecoin issuance under bank-led structures. The central bank’s stance has divided policymakers and industry groups and contributed to delays in South Korea’s digital asset bill.Regulators invited Binance to seek new licenses after MiCA setback, co-CEO saysBinance co-CEO Richard Teng says some regulators have invited the exchange to apply for crypto licenses after it failed to secure permission to operate in Europe. Teng said the discussions are still “premature” and declined to identify the jurisdictions. MiCA created a single licensing framework for crypto firms across the European Union, with non licensed firms unable to operate in the block after July 1. Binance withdrew its application for a MiCA license in Greece on June 24, after report that Greek regulators were planning on knocking it back.“It caught us by surprise because we submitted a fully compliant application. The regulators told us as much,” Teng said.“We are not quite sure why the approval kept being delayed. We withdrew the application because otherwise our users would have faced a very short transition period,” he added.Richard TengRichard Teng. Source: BinanceAsia crypto news in briefTemasek says no to cryptoSingapore sovereign wealth fund Temasek is still smarting from having to write down $275 million on its FTX investment. Its Global Investment Head said this week that crypto remains “off the table” for now, though it’s still keeping an eye on developments in the blockchain sector.  HSBC’s blockchain noteHSBC and Marketnode teamed up to complete the private placement of a “digitally native” USD denominated note issued on blockchain in Hong Kong. Japan’s crypto ETFs and creditThe Japanese government remains on track to launch crypto ETFs in the country, following recent legislative amendments to the Financial Instruments and Exchanges ActSBI Solana GlobalJapanese asset manager SBI Holdings has teamed up with the Solana Foundation to launch a new division called SBI Solana Global, focused on stablecoins, international payments and RWAs. India crypto ban loomsThe Reserve Bank of India said it is “leaning” towards a total prohibition on crypto and has  recommended that legislators prevent banks and financial institutions from getting involved in the sector. Thailand stablecoin auditsThe Bank of Thailand and the Thai SEC are using blockchain analytics tools to investigate suspicious high-volume stablecoin transactions, with a particular focus on USDT.

Robinhood Chain surge boosts ETH priceThe successful launch of the layer-2 network Robinhood Chain has boosted investor sentiment around Ethereum. The newly launched blockchain uses ETH as its native gas token and around $141 million in ETH has already been bridged to the chain. More than half a million wallets holding ETH are now on the network, which surged past the Ethereum L1 and rival L2 Base over the past 24 hours, with DEX volumes of $877.56 million. The L2 is an offshoot of TradFi trading platform Robinhood, which offers tokenized stocks to customers in 120 countries, further strengthening the EVM-compatible ecosystem.L2s have been seen by many pundits as bearish for Ethereum as they take activity away from the L1 without returning much in the way of transaction fees. However even some former ETH bears are now reassessing that thesis. Influencer Ansem wrote: “lighter and robinhood L2s are sneakily best setup for an eth bull thesis in a very long time.”Mike Dudas from 6th Man Ventures added that “robinhood chain is the single most bullish thing i’ve seen in eth-land in years.”DeFi LLamaRobinhood surges in 24 hour DEX volume (DeFi Llama)Ethereum is also getting a boost from its 47% market share of Real World Assets, according to Rwa.xyz data. Leon Waidmann, head of Research at Lisk, noted the Total Value Locked (TVL) on Ethereum of $260 billion has surpassed the $210 billion market cap of Ether. Waidmann said this distortion signals that “ETH is underpriced,” as the current relative valuation is lower than in the 2022 bear market.UK politicians mull permanent crypto donation ban in wake of Nigel Farage scandalMembers of the UK’s ruling Labour party are considering a total ban on digital asset donations in response to Nigel Farage’s resignation from Parliament and the potential influence crypto billionaires had on his policies.The Guardian reported Thursday that Labour MPs have proposed that a moratorium on crypto donations enacted in March be made permanent after it was revealed that the Reform leader personally accepted millions of British pounds in what he called “gifts” from industry figures.Farage sensationally resigned from Parliament last week in an attempt to get ahead of an investigation into the donations by the UK’s parliamentary standards commissioner. “Let me be absolutely clear: I have done nothing wrong,” said Farage in an X livestream. “I have not broken the law in any way at all. I have not misused public money.” The major parties are refusing to field candidates against him in the upcoming by-election, with his most formidable political opponent the comedy character Count Binface, who has received support from Reform’s critics. Nigel FarageUS Bitcoin reserve hits snag as federal agencies debate for control: BloombergThe Trump administration’s push to establish a US Strategic Bitcoin Reserve has reportedly hit a roadblock, as the Commerce and Treasury departments are at odds over how the reserve should be structured and which agency should have primary oversight of the holdings.US President Donald Trump’s March 2025 executive order called for the SBR to be housed inside the Treasury Department, while other agencies would assist with asset seizures to build the reserve. However, concerns have emerged over whether the Treasury has the legal authority to manage the Bitcoin (BTC) holdings, partly because of its volatility, Bloomberg reported Monday, citing people familiar with the matter. The Commerce Department has emerged as a contender to oversee the reserve, the sources said. The Department of Justice is also reportedly working with the departments to determine legally available options, they added.Wyden urges Senate leaders to keep dev protections in crypto billUS Democratic Senator Ron Wyden has urged Senate leaders to ensure that crypto developer protections stay in the crypto market structure legislation.Wyden told Senate Minority Leader John Thune and Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer in a letter to preserve a section of the CLARITY Act known as the Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act (BRCA).“Developers who make and release software that allows people to manage their own digital assets — and, critically, where the developer does not control user assets — should not be treated as money transmitters solely because they create or publish software,” Wyden wrote.The letter comes after certain groups and lawmakers opposed the BRCA. A group of law enforcement organizations and a coalition of Catholic organizations last month argued it could create gaps in the oversight of illicit activity.Senate leaders are pushing for the bill to be passed this month.WydenTrump says he became ‘a big crypto guy’ partly for politicsUS President Donald Trump says he got involved in crypto “for politics” and became pro-crypto after seeing how much money the industry was making.At a press conference in the Oval Office on Monday to announce “Trump Accounts,” an investment account for children under 18, Trump was asked whether the accounts would allow for Bitcoin (BTC).“I’ve become a big crypto guy only for one reason: If we don’t have it, China’s going to have it,” Trump answered. “I’m a fan, I wasn’t initially, I didn’t know much about it, but, for some of my first term, I wasn’t much involved, and I watched it grow, and it’s a huge industry.”“I got involved in it a little bit for politics,” Trump added. “I realized there are a lot of people that love crypto.”In his first term, Trump said he was “not a fan” of crypto and called Bitcoin “a scam.” Since then, he and his family have built deep business interests in crypto, and Trump has faced criticism for his pro-crypto stance and for making more money out of crypto in 2025 than any of the listed exchanges or miners. Five senators have called for committee hearings to investigate Trump’s policies potentially being influenced by crypto funding from United Arab Emirates-linked and other entities.TrumpWinners and LosersAt the end of the week, Bitcoin (BTC) is at $63,762, Ether (ETH) at $1800 and XRP (XRP) is at $1.08. The total market cap is at $2.2 trillion according to CoinMarketCap.Among the biggest 100 cryptocurrencies, the top three altcoin winners of the week are DeXe (DEXE) with a 94% gain, Pyth Network (PYTH) at 19%%, and Arbitrum (ARB) at 15%.The top three altcoin losers of the week are Bonk (BONK) which lost 19%, Jupiter (JUP) on -18% and Pi (PI) at -16%.Top Prediction of the WeekBitcoin nearing late stages of bear market: Jamie Coutts, Real VisionBitcoin could be entering the latter stages of the bear market, with downside momentum beginning to slow down, according to Real Vision chief crypto analyst Jamie Coutts.“I think we’re getting through most of the bear market action. It’s still not over, clearly. But you know, I think we’re approaching at least the second half,” Coutts said during an interview on Cointelegraph’s Trade Secrets.He noted that Bitcoin’s volatility has declined by about 50% compared with the previous market cycle, suggesting the current downturn may be less severe than previous bear markets. Coutts added that he’s not comfortable making predictions for a $1 million Bitcoin price in 2030 due to too many variables. However he said:“I’m more comfortable with a forecast in the next sort of two to three years that Bitcoin should get to sort of $200,000 to 250,000.”Top FUD of the WeekStrategy’s Saylor needs clarity in BTC pivot message to convince investorsStandard Charter’s global head of digital assets research, Geoff Kendrick, believes recent Strategy sale of $216 million worth of Bitcoin to pay for STRC dividends — and Michael Saylor’s manner of communicating decisions — “are muddying the waters for BTC near-term.”“We think effective communication of MSTR’s new strategy (using BTC to back STRC) is key to reassuring markets that wholesale selling is unlikely; this should in turn support BTC prices,” Kendrick wrote in a note to clients on Friday. “Indeed, if this signalling proves effective, it should remove the need for MSTR to actually sell any BTC by supporting STRC’s price,” he said.Kendrick said that Strategy’s long-held “never sell” approach had limited what the company could with its industry-biggest digital asset treasury.“The problem with the ‘never sell’ approach is that it limits what MSTR’s BTC holdings can do — or, perhaps more importantly, what they are perceived to be doing,” the StanChart analyst said.Kalshi appeals NY court’s rejection of bid to block state gambling law enforcementKalshi is appealing a New York federal judge’s rejection of its bid to block officials at the New York State Gaming Commission from enforcing local laws against its sports-related event contracts. The appeal escalates a growing legal fight over whether sports prediction markets are federally regulated derivatives or state-regulated gambling products. This question has already split courts across the United States.Judge Analisa Torres rejected that argument and found that New York gambling laws, as applied to Kalshi’s sports-event contracts, were not preempted by the US Commodity Exchange Act. The court said Kalshi had not made a “clear or substantial showing” that it was likely to succeed on the merits.“Major loss for Kalshi in the nation’s financial capital, with likely knock-on effects in other cases (esp. Connecticut and other SDNY lawsuits),” wrote lawyer Daniel Wallach.Trader loses $1M after signing phishing token approvalA crypto user lost nearly $1 million on Wednesday after signing a phishing token approval on Ethereum, according to onchain data. A Scam Sniffer alert on Thursday revealed a victim lost 999,999 USDt (USDT) to an Ethereum phishing token approval scam. Scammers first tried draining a rounded $1 million via multicalls but failed due to insufficient funds, then succeeded seconds later by pulling the exact balance in follow-up transfers.“The script recalculated and pulled the exact remaining balance,” Scam Sniffer said.Social engineering via phishing token approvals has become a common crypto scam tactic. Phishing losses totaled $723 million across 248 incidents in 2025, according to CertiK. Scammers trick a victim into giving a malicious actor access to their wallet, taking the form of an innocuous-seeming transaction. The victim falsely believes that clicking “approve” will only initiate a minor task, but malicious links give the attacker approval to drain funds from the wallet. 

ZK STARKs are the best way to deal with the issues created with making Bitcoin quantum-safe — and to reach mass adoption at the same time — says StarkWare co-founder Eli Ben-Sasson.What’s more, he claims Blockstream founder Adam Back agrees.Ben-Sasson has been in the news this week for his controversial suggestion on X to increase Bitcoin inflation to 4% annually. Grok’s analysis of the replies found “zero clear support for the proposal.”But as the co-inventor of STARKs — quantum-secure, hash-based zero-knowledge proofs — he’s on much firmer ground, with some leading Bitcoin researchers supporting the concept.Ben-Sasson’s own project Starknet last week announced its own three phase project to become quantum secure.The problem of large PQ signatures on BitcoinAdding zero-knowledge proofs to Bitcoin does not make the blockchain quantum secure by itself. ZK proofs are a way to deal with the problems caused by adding much larger post-quantum (PQ) signature schemes to Bitcoin. The current crop of PQ signatures approved by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is 10 to 100 times larger than Bitcoin’s existing ECDSA and Schnorr signature schemes.Some argue this could slow the blockchain to fewer than 1 transaction per second. But all of the large transaction signatures for a block could be compressed into a tiny ZK STARK proof. Because the proof would be much smaller than even including the existing signatures, the blockchain may end up running faster. “If they don’t allow for ZK STARK aggregation, then definitely it will be a very unfortunate move because it won’t really solve the problem … where the problem is ‘can everyone actually use Bitcoin?’” Ben-Sasson said.“So for that you need massive scale. And for that, you need things like signature aggregation and just increasing the block size isn’t enough.”Related: StarkWare CEO suggests 4% annual Bitcoin inflation to replace 21M capEli on OP_CATSource: Eli Ben-SassonThe quantum alternative: Increase Bitcoin’s block sizeMarin Ivezic, author of PostQuantum.com and founder of Applied Quantum, told Cointelegraph that Bitcoin’s SegWit scheme reduced the impact of large signatures by up to 75%. But his modeling of NIST’s ML-DSA-44 scheme, which has 2,420 bytes per signature, “puts block capacity at roughly 500 to 700 transactions, down from 2,500 to 3,000 today. That is where the block-size debate comes in.”Increasing Bitcoin’s block size is a genuine alternative, but the community split over a proposal to double the block size back in 2017. Many of the arguments against remain relevant, as it’s a blunt fix that requires every node to carry, store and verify much more data. That’s more expensive and requires more equipment, which critics argue pushes the network toward centralization.Blockstream Research has been experimenting in recent months with compressing the size of hash-based post-quantum signature schemes for use with Bitcoin. It has come up with the promising SHRINCS and SHRIMPS schemes, which have everyday signatures around five times larger than Bitcoin’s current ones, but up to 40 times larger if you lose your wallet and need to resurrect it.While SHRINCS has been used to sign real transactions on the Liquid sidechain, its development is at an early stage and there are drawbacks in terms of complexity and usability. The much larger signatures would also slow the blockchain down, unless the block size was increased.“Raising capacity natively is the simple engineering answer and the hardest governance answer,” said Marin Ivezic, author of PostQuantum.com and founder of Applied Quantum, about a block size increase. “We just don’t have time for those debates.”Blockstream SHRINCSZK proof aggregation has advantagesncrease, but it would arguably be much better at preserving decentralization while also making Bitcoin more efficient. At their simplest, ZK proofs are a way to mathematically prove that something exists without needing to include all the details. For example, a ZK proof could demonstrate that you know the combination to a safe, without telling the other person what the combination is.  Generating a ZK proof for a single block technically only needs to be done once (although it’s safer to generate additional backups for redundancy), and the equipment required to do so looks like it would be much less expensive than a commercial mining setup. Lean Ethereum’s specs are for proving equipment that costs under $100,000 (and can be run from an ordinary home). Verifying a ZK proof, meanwhile, can be done on almost any equipment, including a Raspberry Pi.Ben-Sasson said that early Bitcoin devs like Greg Maxwell and Mike Hearn were “very bullish about ZK STARKs, which are post-quantum secure and have no trusted setup,” and that he believes Bitcoin Core developer Luke Dashjr and Blockstream founder Adam Back are coming around to the idea.“I heard this myself from them. They are bullish on things related to and using ZK STARKs. I think each of them has spoken well, definitely privately but also publicly, in favor. Adam Back and Luke Dashjr don’t exactly see everything eye to eye, but on this I think they actually agree that it’s a great technology that, under the right terms, could find its way to Bitcoin.”Cointelegraph contacted Back for comment, but did not receive a response.Ethereum researcher Justin Drake has spoken publicly about his desire for Bitcoin to adopt Lean Ethereum’s ZK proof aggregation technology so that it becomes standard across the industry. This may be unfeasible for political reasons.Ethereum’s strawmapEthereum aims to be post quantum by 2029. Source: Ethereum FoundationBitcoin specific ZK proposalsGiven Bitcoin’s conservative culture, the most politically pragmatic way to add ZK to Bitcoin would likely be to re-enable OP_CAT, which is nine lines of code written by Satoshi.“[He] even introduced and then he removed it,” said Ben-Sasson said. “And if you add that, you can get things like STARK proofs and then aggregation and post-quantum security.”“I think it’s the best and safest solution that will really, really just jump-start again this journey that Satoshi really started and wanted.”But despite a flurry of interest in OP_CAT about 12 to 24 months ago, it seems to have lost momentum more recently (although Bitcoin governance moves in mysterious ways).There are also more speculative proposals, including OP_STARK_VERIFY, that would add opcodes specifically designed to more efficiently verify STARKs on Bitcoin. And BIP-360 co-author Ethan Heilman proposed aggregating Bitcoin’s signatures and public keys into a single STARK proof under the name BitZip. Heilman told Cointelegraph earlier this year there are two main ways to achieve the desired result:“Either add a bunch of general purpose opcodes to Bitcoin and then build something like a ZKRollup in Bitcoin or support STARKs at the consensus layer of Bitcoin. Alternatively, other less powerful aggregation schemes, such as CISA [Cross Input Signature Aggregation] might help here as well.”  QuantumWhat are the chances though?Ivezic says Bitcoin governance, rather than technological capability, is the sticking point. “Eli’s cryptography is rock solid: pure hash assumptions, no trusted setup, thousands of signatures compressed into one small proof. The problem is everything around the cryptography,” he says. “Bitcoin Script cannot verify a STARK today, and a production verifier is a massive consensus surface compared with a narrow hash-signature opcode. Given that a tiny opcode like OP_CAT has spent years in debate, a base-layer STARK verifier is realistically a 2030s conversation.”Meanwhile, Ethereum is targeting 2029 for its transition to post-quantum, and Solana has also been experimenting with adding post-quantum signatures. StarkNet’s three-phase transition will benefit from account abstraction, which enables the underlying cryptography to be upgraded without making every user manually transfer to new accounts.As a result, Ben-Sasson said that Solana and Ethereum’s post-quantum roadmap will be “extremely hard.”  “On Starknet, we have this big advantage that we have already native account abstraction and smart wallets, which means that nothing is enshrined so its very easy to upgrade the wallets and the infrastructure to be post quantum.“Features: The biggest blockchain upgrades still to come in 2026