Tornado Cash co-founders Roman Storm and Roman Semenov have been charged with multiple offenses by United States officials. The charges include conspiracy to commit money laundering, conspiracy to commit sanctions violations, and conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money-transmitting business. Storm was arrested and released on bail, while Semenov was added to the US list of Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons. The charges come as part of a US government crackdown on Tornado Cash, which is accused of laundering funds for the Lazarus Group, a North Korean-linked hacking collective. It is estimated that Tornado Cash has laundered over $1 billion in ill-gotten gains.
FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, who is currently in prison, is reportedly facing difficulties behind bars. His lawyers have requested better treatment for him as he is allegedly living on a diet of bread with peanut butter, due to his vegan preferences, and is running out of prescription medication. Bankman-Fried has pleaded not guilty to seven fraud-related charges and is set to go on trial in October.
The identity of a mysterious Bitcoin wallet that rapidly became the third-largest holder of Bitcoin in just over three months has been revealed. The wallet, labeled as Robinhood: Jump Trading Custody by blockchain intelligence platform Arkham Intelligence, received its first Bitcoin on March 8 and has since accumulated 118,000 BTC worth $3.08 billion. The current largest Bitcoin wallets are reportedly owned by Binance and Bitfinex.
Crypto custodian Prime Trust’s parent company has reported losses of around $8 million through investments in TerraUSD, which collapsed in May 2022. The parent company, currently involved in Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings, attributed the losses to the investment as well as increased spending during the collapse of FTX. Prime Trust owes over $85 million in fiat and $69.5 million in crypto to its clients. The collapse of the Terra ecosystem affected several firms, including FTX, BlockFi, Celsius Network, and Voyager Digital.
A buyer known as a “Pepe whale” purchased 640 billion Pepe tokens for $529,000 after the memecoin’s price dropped by approximately 15%. The purchase was made following recent changes to a multisig wallet and concerns about potential developer manipulation. The buyer acquired PEPE at an average price of $0.000001163. The value of PEPE plummeted after changes related to the number of signatures required to sign transactions raised fears of a “rug pull,” which was later confirmed by one of the project’s co-founders.
In the cryptocurrency market, Bitcoin is currently priced at $26,040, Ether at $1,653, and XRP at $0.52. The total market cap is $1.05 trillion. The top altcoin gainers of the week are Bone ShibaSwap, Sui, and Toncoin, while the top altcoin losers are Pepe, XDC Network, and ApeCoin.
Pantera Capital predicts that if history repeats itself, Bitcoin could rise to $35,000 before its next halving and $148,000 after. Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of NVIDIA, believes a new computing era has begun with the transition to accelerated computing and generative AI. Mike Kanovitz, CEO of Jurat, argues that those who oppose effective law enforcement on the blockchain may change their tune if they experience hacking, fraud, or loss of private keys. John Deaton, a pro-XRP lawyer, claims that Ripple and XRP have suffered due to the SEC’s lawsuit. Neal Mohan, CEO of YouTube, asserts that AI will never replace human creativity. Aydin Kilic, CEO of Hive Digital Technologies, believes that blockchain and AI can coexist and are both pillars of Web3.
In terms of predictions, a popular analyst known as CryptoCon suggests that Bitcoin needs to reclaim the 20-week exponential moving average to regain its bullish status. He explains that the BTC price support at $26,000 may not hold and that reclaiming the 20-week EMA at $27,750 is crucial for the uptrend to be secure.
A Chinese government official has been sentenced to life imprisonment for operating an illegal Bitcoin mining business and corruption charges. Prosecutors accused Xiao Yi of covering up the mining operation by fabricating statistical reports and manipulating electricity consumption records. Xiao Yi’s facility accounted for 10% of the city of Fuzhou’s total electricity consumption between 2017 and 2020.
The United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has identified six Bitcoin wallets linked to the North Korean hacking group Lazarus. The wallets contain approximately 1,580 BTC worth $40 million, believed to have been obtained from various cryptocurrency hacks. Lazarus Group has been involved in multiple crypto-related exploits and is estimated to have stolen nearly $2 billion in crypto since 2018.
Former OpenSea product manager Nathaniel Chastain has been sentenced to three months in prison for wire fraud and money laundering related to insider trading on the platform. Chastain used insider information to profit from trading NFTs by purchasing them before they were featured on OpenSea and then reselling them.
Some experts believe that advancements in technology, such as Ordinals and recursive inscriptions, could enhance the Bitcoin network and enable BTC DeFi applications. These developments could potentially revolutionize the capabilities of the Bitcoin network.
