A gold pocket watch found inside the body of the richest passenger on the Titanic was purchased by Patrick Gruhn, the former chairman of FTX Europe, for about $1.5 million, “the largest sum ever spent at auction on a piece of Titanic memorabilia,” according to The Wall Street Journal. John Jacob Astor IV, an American

The Binance According to a spokesman for the family of imprisoned executive Tigran Gambaryan, Nigeria’s money laundering trial has been postponed until May 17. Although it was originally scheduled for today, the trial was postponed. Binance’s attorney reportedly protested in court, according to Reuters, that he had not received the further evidence he required to

The Department of Justice stated on Wednesday that Yaroslav Vasinskyi, the Ukrainian national who goes by Rabotnik, has been sentenced to 13 years and seven months in jail for his involvement in carrying out over 2,500 ransomware operations and requesting over $700 million in ransom payments. The sentence is a component of a larger offensive

After utilizing a record 200 million transactions to train an artificial intelligence (AI) model, the blockchain analytics company Elliptic claimed to have found possible money laundering tendencies on the Bitcoin blockchain.This work is an expansion of a program that was implemented in 2019 with a dataset consisting of just 200,000 transactions.Twelve2,000 tagged “subgraphs,” or collections of related nodes and transaction chains with ties to illegal activities, were used in the much larger “Elliptic2” dataset. The bigger the information that is available to train the machine-learning algorithms, the more perceptive AI gets, and cryptocurrencies like bitcoin provide an abundance of clear transaction data on the blockchain.Elliptic said in a paper co-authored with researchers from the MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab that it used the transactions to accurately categorize fresh criminal behavior and learn the collection of “shapes” that money laundering displays in cryptocurrencies. “The money laundering techniques identified by the model have been identified because they are prevalent in bitcoin,” Elliptic co-founder Tom Robinson said in an email. “Crypto laundering practices will evolve over time as they cease being effective, but an advantage of an AI/deep learning approach is that new money laundering patterns are identified

Bitvavo, a cryptocurrency exchange based in the Netherlands, plans to utilize Figment’s institutional-grade infrastructure for staking a range of tokens on behalf of its users.Figment declared that it would supply the staking infrastructure for the Dutch exchange in 2021, drawing large investments from companies like Galaxy Digital.Using several proof-of-stake protocols, such as Ethereum, Solana, and NEAR, Bitvavo will stake user assets. Mark Nuvelstijn, the CEO and co-founder of Bitvavo, emphasized in a statement the exchange’s efforts to evaluate and improve its offerings.The business further stated that Figment is an addition to and a more varied range of pool staking service providers, which already include Kiln, Coinbase, and Copper.According to Nuvelstijn, staking has grown to be a crucial component of the bitcoin market and is a necessary service for the more than 1.5 million consumers that the company serves in the Benelux area. According to the CEO of Bitvavo, collaborating with Figment would enable the exchange to increase staking security and safety and broaden its offering: “Figment is one of the staking infrastructure leaders in the market, and we continue to be impressed by their staking- and up-to-date market knowledge.” The goal of the two teams’ six-month collaboration, according to Figment EMEA CEO Eva Lawrence, is to lead the exchange’s staking services throughout Europe.Access to staking rewards on Bitvavo on recently deployed networks is expected to be made possible by the cooperation.In order to deliver excellent network performance and security for Bitvavo, Figment is also setting up specialized validator nodes. The Dutch exchange has persisted in taking a methodical approach to growing its presence throughout Europe.After successfully registering with France’s Autorité des Marchés Financiers (AMF) as a digital asset service provider, it announced the availability of services to French users in November 2023.After receiving regulatory authority to provide its services in Austria, Bitvavo expanded into France.In 2022, the exchange extended its service to Italy, and it has since submitted registration requests for more significant European markets. Previously, during the European Blockchain Convention in Barcelona in October 2023, Nuvelstijn gave an exclusive interview to Cointelegraph in which he expressed his confidence that cryptocurrency companies will be able to provide financial services to financial institutions and vice versa thanks to Europe’s Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCA) framework.

The total amount of bitcoin that was breached by hackers fell 67% in April to $60.2 million, indicating a major decrease in crypto attacks and the first dip of this kind since 2024. According to a May 1 X post by on-chain security company Peckshield, the drop of 67% is a dramatic decrease from the $187.6 million compromised in March, which is insignificant in contrast to the $360.8 million worth of compromised digital assets in April. A grand total of $60.2 million was pilfered each month from forty distinct hacking instances.One of the biggest problems affecting public adoption and confidence in cryptocurrencies has been the prevalence of exploits and hacks.The biggest occurrence of April was the $44.7 million attack on the token infrastructure platform Hedgey Finance.On April 19, the hackers took advantage of a weakness in Hedgey’s token claim contract on the Arbitrum Network. According to FixedFloat’s April 2 X post, a vulnerability with a third-party service provider employed by the exchange resulted in $3 million worth of cryptocurrency being stolen from the Fixed Float cryptocurrency exchange in the second-largest hacking incident. Cybercriminals gained $2.67 million in digital assets from the third-largest attack on Grand Base, and lost $1.6 million from the fourth-largest hack on Pike Finance.The $1.6 million attack was Pike Finance’s second hack in three days, following a $300,000 exploit on April 26. This added to investor fears.As per a May 1 X post by Pike Finance, the two assaults were caused by the same smart contract vulnerability that gave the attacker the ability to override the contract. According to a May 1 report by cryptocurrency bounty platform Immunefi, the year-to-date (YTD) total value of hacks and rug pulls in the crypto field was over $401 million. This is a 25.1% decline from the same period in the previous year, when there were over $536 million worth of hacked money.Based on data from Immunefi, there were 21 incidences of fraud and hacking in April that cost $53 million. This is a 46% decrease from April 2023, when attackers took over $98 million in digital assets. Hacks remained the main cause of losses, accounting for over 94.3% of the lost funds during the month.

Following a recent email announcement on Wednesday, investment bank Standard Chartered stated that Bitcoin’s (BTC) fall below the $60K technical level indicates that there may be further decline to the $50K–$52K region. The bank stated that a mix of macro effects and peculiarities unique to cryptocurrencies appears to be the cause of the decline. At

BlackRock (BLK), the largest asset management globally, led a $47 million fundraising round for Securitize, a company that tokenizes real-world assets (RWAs). Hamilton Lane (HLNE), ParaFi Capital, and Tradeweb Markets (TW) were among the other investors in the round, Securitize said on Wednesday. Securitize intends to utilise the money to intensify its attempts to digitise

The government’s financial arm released a report on Wednesday that stated that cryptocurrency companies, along with wealth management, retail and wholesale banking, and retail banking, presented the most danger of being used for money laundering between 2022 and 2023. The Financial Conduct Authority’s risk evaluations of 238 companies provided the report’s conclusion. As a financial

In a research report released on Monday, broker Canaccord Genuity stated that MicroStrategy (MSTR), which collected over $1.5 billion in the first quarter, utilized the money to purchase an extra 25,250 bitcoin (BTC). As a result, MSTR currently has 214,400 BTC, which is valued at approximately $13.6 billion.Purchasing and holding bitcoin is a component of MicroStrategy’s company strategy.The company owns about 1% of the 19.7 million tokens that are now in circulation for bitcoin. As it shifted its operations to the cloud, the software company saw double-digit revenue growth from subscription services in the first quarter, according to the article.The company claimed in a press release on Monday that after taking a $191.6 million charge for digital asset impairment, it still posted a net operational loss of $53.1 million. Due to the first quarter’s surge in bitcoin prices, the company had the option to report a sizable profit and implement the new digital asset fair value accounting standard. However, it chose not to do so.Canaccord kept its buy recommendation on MicroStrategy but lowered its price target from $1,810 to $1,590.In after-hours trading, the stock fell 2.5% to $1,261. “The main drivers are of our new price target are continued appreciation of BTC and some revaluation up for the software business,” analysts led by Joseph Vafi wrote, adding that “given MSTR’s current premium to its BTC holdings, we are not assuming this to be an upside driver from current levels.” “We

The ether (ETH) and bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in Hong Kong In the United States, overall trading volume reached $655 million on the first day.The price of bitcoin was close to $62,100, down more than 1%, according to data from CoinDesk Indices. far short of initial projections and were unable to gain traction during their trading debut.The combined volume of the six listed cryptocurrency exchange-traded funds (ETFs) was $11 million, with bitcoin ETFs generating $8.5 million and ether ETFs $2.5 million.Issuers anticipated the first volume to exceed $100 million, as reported by the local media. Since Chinese regulators are less concerned about ether being a security than their American counterparts, ether ETFs are permitted on the Hong Kong market.It will be some time before a U.S. ether ETF is listed because the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has not made it clear whether or not it views ether as a security.Issuers like Evolve and Purpose Investments list ether ETFs on the Toronto Stock Exchange. In the United States, overall trading volume reached $655 million on the first day.The price of bitcoin was close to $62,100, down more than 1%, according to data from CoinDesk Indices.

Six weeks after its launch, competitor Franklin Templeton’s tokenized asset fund, BUIDL, from asset management company BlackRock (BLK) surpassed it to become the biggest of its kind on Tuesday. Blockchain data from rwa.xyz indicates that the BlackRock USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund, which is represented by the BUIDL token on the Ethereum (ETH) network and

The quantity of assets under management is still very small in comparison to the billions of dollars that U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs drew in January. Upon their launch on April 30, Bitcoin and Ether ETFs in Hong Kong attracted a total of assets exceeding $200 million. The Bosera HashKey spot Bitcoin and Ether ETFs have

Tokenization is one of the most revolutionary ideas in the ever-changing financial sector. Fundamentally, tokenization is the process of transforming physical assets into digital tokens or tokenized physical assets. These tokens, which are often secured on a blockchain, stand for ownership or a portion of the underlying asset, which could be intellectual property, real estate,

Special counsel Rodrigo Seira of Paradigm has left the cryptocurrency-focused venture capital firm, citing his LinkedIn profile and an individual with knowledge of the matter, to re-join Cooley LLP, his former employer. Before coming to Paradigm, Seira, a graduate of Harvard Law School, worked at Cooley as outside counsel for cryptocurrency investors and entrepreneurs. Seira

Ava Labs, the network’s developer, announced on their blog on April 29 that the Avalanche C-Chain network has linked with payment company Stripe, enabling verified Stripe users to purchase Avalanche’s AVAX and send it to their wallets.Additionally, the platform has eight integrated Avalanche Web3 apps.According to the post, Avalanche app developers can now incorporate a widget that can be customized into their user interfaces, enabling customers to use Stripe’s infrastructure to convert cash to cryptocurrency. Eight apps—the Avalanche Core portfolio app, the GoGoPool staking protocol, the Avvy username service, the social media platform The Arena, the Halliday wallet, the nonfungible token (NFT) marketplace Zeroone, the web development platform Pakt, and the blockchain games DeFi Kingdoms and Shrapnel—have already declared their intention to integrate the widget. According to the post, the integration aims to address Web3’s “cold start problem,” which arises when “customers don’t have enough funds in their wallets to carry out transactions on the platform.”Stripe will take care of “all the KYC, payments, fraud, and compliance” in order to resolve this problem and free up the developer to concentrate on the app itself.Upon launch, the interface enables users of Core portfolio to finance Avalanche accounts with debit, credit, or bank transfers by using their Google or Apple IDs.Head of Ava Labs’ consumer products Akash Gupta expressed his belief that the integration will contribute to a global rise in the use of cryptocurrencies, pointing out. “Core’s integration with Stripe is just another step that underscores our dedication to providing users with intuitive and streamlined solutions. By further bridging the gap between crypto and fiat, Core continues to pave the way for seamless onboarding and broader consumer adoption of digital currencies in everyday transactions.” Additionally, on April 25, Stripe declared that it would be incorporating Circle’s USD Coin for stablecoin payments on Solana, Ethereum, and Polygon.

Over $200 million worth of stolen cryptocurrency was laundered between 2020 and 2023 by the notorious state-backed hackers from North Korea, known as the Lazarus Group. According to an anonymous on-chain researcher named ZachXBT’s X post dated April 29, the money was taken from more than 25 cryptocurrency hacks.When Lazarus initially appeared in 2009, it was already one of the most infamous groups of cryptocurrency hackers.Between the years of 2023 and 2023, the Lazarus Group pilfered cryptocurrency worth about $3 billion.The stolen digital assets were converted by the North Korean hackers using a mix of peer-to-peer (P2P) markets and crypto mixing services, ZachXBT claims. “Identified accounts at Noones and Paxful (P2P marketplaces) that received funds from the hacks and were used to convert crypto to fiat.” ZachXBT claims that the hacker group used the handles “EasyGoatfish351” and “FairJunco470” to launder at least $44 million worth of stolen cryptocurrency through the peer-to-peer Paxul and Noones markets.The deposits and trade volumes associated with these usernames match the funds that were pilfered. The investigation also shows that the stolen money was first swapped for cash and then transformed into the USDT stablecoin.In the past, the company has relied on over-the-counter traders headquartered in China to convert cryptocurrency to fiat money. Over $374,000 worth of stolen funds were blacklisted by Tether in November 2023, while three out of four stablecoin issuers have blacklisted an additional $3.4 million sitting in a

U.S. citizens and residents are not permitted to utilise the Wasabi Wallet platform, according to its developer, zkSNACKs, which prioritises privacy. Following recent declarations from US officials, zkSNACKs is now firmly forbidding US customers from utilising its services. Wasabiwallet.io, api.wasabiwallet.io, and zksnacks.com have effective IP address blocking for residents of the United States, the team

Avraham Eisenberg has been accused of possessing child pornography. Eisenberg was found guilty of fraud and market manipulation in connection with his $110 million theft from Mango Markets. According to court records dated April 3 but made public on April 26, some of the pictures he had contained prepubescent children under the age of twelve.

According to Bloomberg, which cited persons familiar with the situation, the first spot-Bitcoin {BTC} exchange-traded funds (ETFs) are anticipated to be approved by the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX), which controls 90% of Australia’s equity market, by the end of 2024. Local company DigitalX Ltd. submitted an application in February, according to the newspaper. VanEck said

Roman Semenov, a co-founder of Tornado Cash, is facing conspiracy and money laundering charges; the US Department of Justice (DOJ) has rejected this move. It contended that the defense’s petition, which presented contested facts for the jury to examine, was inappropriate for motions filed at an early stage. Prosecutors examined why the co-founder of Tornado

A pan-European industrial cluster is required, according to analysts at the London School of Economics and Political Science, for the EU to compete in Web 4. A new analysis from LSE Consulting, a company based at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), outlines a possible route for European leadership in the rapidly

The prospective alliance comes as both businesses are under more regulatory scrutiny. According to reports, Tools For Humanity’s Worldcoin, a cryptocurrency-based universal basic income and identity verification company also co-founded by Sam Altman, and OpenAI, an artificial intelligence company led by Altman, are in cooperation negotiations. The two companies are reportedly in talks to form

Following an attempt to allay doubts, anxiety, and terror, the creator of Io.net will present a webcast on April 28. Recently, there was a cybersecurity attack on Io.net, a decentralised physical infrastructure network (DePIN). The graphics processing unit (GPU) network experienced unauthorised changes to device metadata as a result of malicious users using exposed user