US Seizes More Than $25M in Crypto Tied to Investment and Romance Scams

U.S. prosecutors have seized more than $25 million in cryptocurrency tied to international scams that defrauded thousands of victims across the United States and Canada, the Justice Department said Tuesday. The U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia, working with the Secret Service's Washington Field Office, filed five civil forfeiture complaints on Tuesday, each tied to a separate investigation into fraudulent crypto investment platforms and online romance schemes. Agents said they...

U.S. prosecutors have seized more than $25 million in cryptocurrency tied to international scams that defrauded thousands of victims across the United States and Canada, the Justice Department said Tuesday. The U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia, working with the Secret Service's Washington Field Office, filed five civil forfeiture complaints on Tuesday, each tied to a separate investigation into fraudulent crypto investment platforms and online romance schemes. Agents said they...

Centralized Elements 'Frequently Persist' in DeFi and Should Be Regulated: FATF

Much of decentralized finance is not as decentralized as it looks, and the platforms behind it should be regulated like other financial businesses, the world's main anti-money-laundering body said in a new report. In a report published Tuesday, the Financial Action Task Force said its rules already apply to any DeFi arrangement where an identifiable person keeps "control or sufficient influence," regardless of how decentralized a project claims to be. The Paris-based body, whose standards are us...

Much of decentralized finance is not as decentralized as it looks, and the platforms behind it should be regulated like other financial businesses, the world's main anti-money-laundering body said in a new report. In a report published Tuesday, the Financial Action Task Force said its rules already apply to any DeFi arrangement where an identifiable person keeps "control or sufficient influence," regardless of how decentralized a project claims to be. The Paris-based body, whose standards are us...

Justin Sun's HTX 'Rotating' On-Chain Wallets Amid UK Sanctions: TRM Labs

Crypto exchange HTX has rebuilt its underlying wallet infrastructure in the weeks since the UK sanctioned it, rotating deposit and hot wallets on a rapid cycle, blockchain intelligence firm TRM Labs said in a report Tuesday. The exchange has “rebuilt its on-chain plumbing,” TRM Labs said, with the result that address-list screening “cannot keep pace” The Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation designated Huobi Global S.A., the entity behind HTX, on May 26, the first time the UK applied the...

Crypto exchange HTX has rebuilt its underlying wallet infrastructure in the weeks since the UK sanctioned it, rotating deposit and hot wallets on a rapid cycle, blockchain intelligence firm TRM Labs said in a report Tuesday. The exchange has “rebuilt its on-chain plumbing,” TRM Labs said, with the result that address-list screening “cannot keep pace” The Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation designated Huobi Global S.A., the entity behind HTX, on May 26, the first time the UK applied the...

Morning Minute: OpenAI Model Escapes Containment, Hacks Hugging Face

Morning Minute is a daily newsletter written by Tyler Warner. The analysis and opinions expressed are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Decrypt. GM! Today’s top news: Crypto majors mostly flat, HYPE falls 6%; BTC even at $66k BTC ETFs see another $203M in net inflows, $930M over past 6 sessions Jack Mallers steps down from Twenty One Capital with stock down 90% Telegram announces new non-custodial wallet, calls it largest rollout in history Senate Democrats balk at latest Clarity...

Morning Minute is a daily newsletter written by Tyler Warner. The analysis and opinions expressed are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Decrypt. GM! Today’s top news: Crypto majors mostly flat, HYPE falls 6%; BTC even at $66k BTC ETFs see another $203M in net inflows, $930M over past 6 sessions Jack Mallers steps down from Twenty One Capital with stock down 90% Telegram announces new non-custodial wallet, calls it largest rollout in history Senate Democrats balk at latest Clarity...

Jack Dorsey's Block Launches Buzz, a Nostr-Based Slack and GitHub Rival for AI Agents

Jack Dorsey's Block has launched Buzz, a free, open source platform where employees and AI agents work side by side in a shared workspace, the company said Tuesday. "we're launching BUZZ," Dorsey tweeted, describing "a new groupchat platform for teams of people and agents of all sizes" built to reduce the company's dependency on Slack and GitHub. He called it "model-agnostic, decentralized, self-sovereign, and open source." we're launching BUZZ! a new groupchat platform for teams of people and...

Jack Dorsey's Block has launched Buzz, a free, open source platform where employees and AI agents work side by side in a shared workspace, the company said Tuesday. "we're launching BUZZ," Dorsey tweeted, describing "a new groupchat platform for teams of people and agents of all sizes" built to reduce the company's dependency on Slack and GitHub. He called it "model-agnostic, decentralized, self-sovereign, and open source." we're launching BUZZ! a new groupchat platform for teams of people and...

DAT Went Wrong: Satsuma to Unwind Bitcoin Treasury, Sell Off $43 Million in BTC

The shareholders of Satsuma Technology, a U.K.-based Bitcoin treasury company, have voted to liquidate the company's entire Bitcoin position and shut down the business, overruling four of its six board members. More than 90% of votes cast backed the dual resolutions to sell 668 BTC—worth roughly $43.5 million—and cancel the company's London Stock Exchange listing, per a Monday filing. The move unwinds the digital asset treasury, or DAT for short—the latest such company to call it a day after the...

The shareholders of Satsuma Technology, a U.K.-based Bitcoin treasury company, have voted to liquidate the company's entire Bitcoin position and shut down the business, overruling four of its six board members. More than 90% of votes cast backed the dual resolutions to sell 668 BTC—worth roughly $43.5 million—and cancel the company's London Stock Exchange listing, per a Monday filing. The move unwinds the digital asset treasury, or DAT for short—the latest such company to call it a day after the...

OpenAI Models Escaped Locked Test Environment, Hacked Hugging Face to Cheat on Benchmark

If you thought Chinese AI models were the ones you had to worry about, here's a fun update: OpenAI's own models just broke out of a locked testing environment, hacked Hugging Face's production servers, and had to be cleaned up by a Chinese AI—because American commercial models were too restricted to help investigate. According to OpenAI, GPT-5.6 Sol and an unnamed, “even more powerful pre-release model” were being internally evaluated on ExploitGym—a publicly available cybersecurity benchmark th...

If you thought Chinese AI models were the ones you had to worry about, here's a fun update: OpenAI's own models just broke out of a locked testing environment, hacked Hugging Face's production servers, and had to be cleaned up by a Chinese AI—because American commercial models were too restricted to help investigate. According to OpenAI, GPT-5.6 Sol and an unnamed, “even more powerful pre-release model” were being internally evaluated on ExploitGym—a publicly available cybersecurity benchmark th...

Pavel Durov Wants to Give a Billion Telegram Users a Crypto Wallet

Pavel Durov has a big promise to keep before summer ends. Telegram's founder announced on Tuesday that the messaging app—think WhatsApp but larger, with over 1 billion monthly active users—will roll out a native non-custodial cryptocurrency wallet across every version of the app, offering instant, zero-fee crypto transactions to all of them. The crypto wallet is being built to support Telegram’s native crypto, Gram—formerly known as Toncoin. A non-custodial wallet means users hold the keys to th...

Pavel Durov has a big promise to keep before summer ends. Telegram's founder announced on Tuesday that the messaging app—think WhatsApp but larger, with over 1 billion monthly active users—will roll out a native non-custodial cryptocurrency wallet across every version of the app, offering instant, zero-fee crypto transactions to all of them. The crypto wallet is being built to support Telegram’s native crypto, Gram—formerly known as Toncoin. A non-custodial wallet means users hold the keys to th...

Google Ships New Gemini Flash Models, But Pro Is Still Missing

Google launched three new AI models today: Gemini 3.6 Flash, 3.5 Flash-Lite, and 3.5 Flash Cyber. That wasn't what most people expected. After unveiling Gemini 3.5 Flash at Google I/O 2026 in May and promising a Pro version within a month, Google quietly missed its own deadline. Gemini 3.5 Pro was held back because it fell short of internal targets, per Bloomberg, particularly on coding tasks. A late-June attempt to fix it by updating the training data—the massive datasets a model learns from—pr...

Google launched three new AI models today: Gemini 3.6 Flash, 3.5 Flash-Lite, and 3.5 Flash Cyber. That wasn't what most people expected. After unveiling Gemini 3.5 Flash at Google I/O 2026 in May and promising a Pro version within a month, Google quietly missed its own deadline. Gemini 3.5 Pro was held back because it fell short of internal targets, per Bloomberg, particularly on coding tasks. A late-June attempt to fix it by updating the training data—the massive datasets a model learns from—pr...

Augustus Raises $180 Million to Build a Stablecoin-Ready 'Global Dollar Bank'

Augustus, a startup building a federally chartered clearing bank designed around stablecoins and programmable money, said Tuesday it raised $180 million in a Series B round that values the company at $1 billion. The round was led by Tiger Global, with participation from Hummingbird, QED, and the founders of Nubank, Ramp, Circle, and Deel. A roster of fintech and crypto figures also backed the deal, including Circle co-founder Sean Neville, former Coinbase Chief Technology Officer Balaji Srinivas...

Augustus, a startup building a federally chartered clearing bank designed around stablecoins and programmable money, said Tuesday it raised $180 million in a Series B round that values the company at $1 billion. The round was led by Tiger Global, with participation from Hummingbird, QED, and the founders of Nubank, Ramp, Circle, and Deel. A roster of fintech and crypto figures also backed the deal, including Circle co-founder Sean Neville, former Coinbase Chief Technology Officer Balaji Srinivas...

Google Is Building an AI Chip Just for Gemini—And Investors Already Moved On It

Google is building a chip designed for one job: running Gemini faster and cheaper. The chip, codenamed Frozen v2, was reported by The Information on Monday and gives Google a potential answer to a problem it can't spend its way out of fast enough: It is running out of capacity to serve the AI demand it has already generated.  In March, Google told Meta it couldn't fill the volume of Gemini compute Meta wanted to purchase. Meta had to instruct employees to ration their AI usage. Google—spending...

Google is building a chip designed for one job: running Gemini faster and cheaper. The chip, codenamed Frozen v2, was reported by The Information on Monday and gives Google a potential answer to a problem it can't spend its way out of fast enough: It is running out of capacity to serve the AI demand it has already generated.  In March, Google told Meta it couldn't fill the volume of Gemini compute Meta wanted to purchase. Meta had to instruct employees to ration their AI usage. Google—spending...

XRP Breaks Out on Clarity Act Hopes. The Charts Are Still Cautious

It was a good day to own some crypto. Reports emerged late Monday that President Donald Trump agreed to the ethics provision that had been holding the Clarity Act hostage in the Senate—a major sticking point in months of negotiations. Bitcoin climbed above $66,000 following the news, five-day spot ETF inflows surpassed $700 million, and a bounce in Asian AI and semiconductor stocks added to the risk-on tone that lifted nearly every digital asset.  XRP caught the wave harder than most. As Decryp...

It was a good day to own some crypto. Reports emerged late Monday that President Donald Trump agreed to the ethics provision that had been holding the Clarity Act hostage in the Senate—a major sticking point in months of negotiations. Bitcoin climbed above $66,000 following the news, five-day spot ETF inflows surpassed $700 million, and a bounce in Asian AI and semiconductor stocks added to the risk-on tone that lifted nearly every digital asset.  XRP caught the wave harder than most. As Decryp...

Jack Mallers Quits Twenty One Capital as Tether's Bitcoin Merger Collapses

Jack Mallers has stepped down as CEO of Twenty One Capital, and investors didn't take it well. Shares of the Bitcoin treasury company—a publicly traded firm that holds Bitcoin on its balance sheet, letting regular investors gain exposure to the cryptocurrency without buying it directly—dropped nearly 15% on Tuesday.  Mallers co-founded Twenty One alongside Tether—the issuer of USDT, the world's most widely used dollar-pegged stablecoin (a digital token that holds a fixed value of one dollar and...

Jack Mallers has stepped down as CEO of Twenty One Capital, and investors didn't take it well. Shares of the Bitcoin treasury company—a publicly traded firm that holds Bitcoin on its balance sheet, letting regular investors gain exposure to the cryptocurrency without buying it directly—dropped nearly 15% on Tuesday.  Mallers co-founded Twenty One alongside Tether—the issuer of USDT, the world's most widely used dollar-pegged stablecoin (a digital token that holds a fixed value of one dollar and...

Galaxy Commits Up to $5 Million to Prepare Bitcoin for Quantum Threat

Galaxy Digital on Tuesday launched a Bitcoin Quantum Readiness Initiative, pledging up to $5 million in developer grants, a research program, and a new advisory council to help harden the network against the eventual arrival of powerful quantum computers. The Nasdaq-listed firm said the multi-pillar effort will fund work on post-quantum cryptographic solutions, publish analysis through Galaxy Research, and convene a Quantum Advisory Council whose inaugural members include University of Calgary p...

Galaxy Digital on Tuesday launched a Bitcoin Quantum Readiness Initiative, pledging up to $5 million in developer grants, a research program, and a new advisory council to help harden the network against the eventual arrival of powerful quantum computers. The Nasdaq-listed firm said the multi-pillar effort will fund work on post-quantum cryptographic solutions, publish analysis through Galaxy Research, and convene a Quantum Advisory Council whose inaugural members include University of Calgary p...

Morning Minute: The Clarity Act Has New Life

Morning Minute is a daily newsletter written by Tyler Warner. The analysis and opinions expressed are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Decrypt. GM! Today’s top news: Crypto majors jump 2-3% as ETF flows increase; BTC at $66.2k BTC ETFs see $227M in net inflows, notch 5 straight green sessions White House has reportedly agreed on an ethics package for Clarity Act Saylor adds another $225M in cash by selling MSTR; no new BTC buys Robinhood Chain sees big green overnight, launchpad...

Morning Minute is a daily newsletter written by Tyler Warner. The analysis and opinions expressed are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Decrypt. GM! Today’s top news: Crypto majors jump 2-3% as ETF flows increase; BTC at $66.2k BTC ETFs see $227M in net inflows, notch 5 straight green sessions White House has reportedly agreed on an ethics package for Clarity Act Saylor adds another $225M in cash by selling MSTR; no new BTC buys Robinhood Chain sees big green overnight, launchpad...

Pakistan Launches Crypto Investigation Unit to Fight Money Laundering

Pakistan's top federal investigators have set up a dedicated unit to police crypto-linked crime, building out the enforcement side of a national drive to embrace digital assets. The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) has established a cryptocurrency investigation unit in its newly operational National Command and Control Centre (NC3), targeting money laundering and terrorism financing conducted through virtual currencies, the agency's counter-terrorism chief said. FIA Counter-Terrorism Wing Dire...

Pakistan's top federal investigators have set up a dedicated unit to police crypto-linked crime, building out the enforcement side of a national drive to embrace digital assets. The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) has established a cryptocurrency investigation unit in its newly operational National Command and Control Centre (NC3), targeting money laundering and terrorism financing conducted through virtual currencies, the agency's counter-terrorism chief said. FIA Counter-Terrorism Wing Dire...

Worldcoin’s WLD Jumps 8% on Grayscale ETF Filing

Worldcoin's WLD token jumped after asset manager Grayscale filed to launch the first US exchange-traded fund tied to the biometric crypto project, moving to bring Sam Altman's eye-scanning venture a step closer to Wall Street. WLD climbed about 8% over 24 hours following the filing to an intraday high of $0.387, trimming a rough week that still left it down around 5.5% over the past seven days, per CoinGecko data. On Monday, Grayscale filed an S-1 registration statement for the Grayscale Worldc...

Worldcoin's WLD token jumped after asset manager Grayscale filed to launch the first US exchange-traded fund tied to the biometric crypto project, moving to bring Sam Altman's eye-scanning venture a step closer to Wall Street. WLD climbed about 8% over 24 hours following the filing to an intraday high of $0.387, trimming a rough week that still left it down around 5.5% over the past seven days, per CoinGecko data. On Monday, Grayscale filed an S-1 registration statement for the Grayscale Worldc...

UK Lawmakers Launch Inquiry Into Crypto Banking Access

A cross-party group of UK lawmakers has launched a parliamentary inquiry into the banking problems dogging the country's crypto industry, probing why firms struggle to open accounts and why banks curb crypto-related payments. The Crypto and Digital Assets All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG)—co-chaired by Lord Vaizey of Didcot, a former digital economy minister, and Labour MP Gurinder Singh Josan—said the inquiry comes just weeks after the UK finalized its new crypto regulatory framework, and wi...

A cross-party group of UK lawmakers has launched a parliamentary inquiry into the banking problems dogging the country's crypto industry, probing why firms struggle to open accounts and why banks curb crypto-related payments. The Crypto and Digital Assets All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG)—co-chaired by Lord Vaizey of Didcot, a former digital economy minister, and Labour MP Gurinder Singh Josan—said the inquiry comes just weeks after the UK finalized its new crypto regulatory framework, and wi...

Bank of Korea Scales Up CBDC Pilot With Half a Million Users

South Korea's Bank of Korea ran a central bank digital currency, or CBDC, pilot for three months last year. Eighty-one thousand people opened wallets, but only 42% actually spent anything. The next phase of its CBDC push starts in September—with nine banks involved, up to 500,000 users spending the tokens, and real government money on the line this time. The central bank announced the expansion of Project Hangang—its CBDC (a government-issued, blockchain-based version of the paper won) initiativ...

South Korea's Bank of Korea ran a central bank digital currency, or CBDC, pilot for three months last year. Eighty-one thousand people opened wallets, but only 42% actually spent anything. The next phase of its CBDC push starts in September—with nine banks involved, up to 500,000 users spending the tokens, and real government money on the line this time. The central bank announced the expansion of Project Hangang—its CBDC (a government-issued, blockchain-based version of the paper won) initiativ...

Russia's First Comprehensive Crypto Law Is Two Votes Away From Passing

Russia's State Duma, the lower house of its legislative body, takes its final two votes on the country's first comprehensive cryptocurrency law on Tuesday. The bill—titled "On Digital Currency and Digital Rights"—still needs Senate approval and Russian President Vladimir Putin's signature after that, a process Anatoly Aksakov, chairman of the State Duma Committee on Financial Markets, expects to take another two weeks. The law would then take effect on September 1. The original target was July 1...

Russia's State Duma, the lower house of its legislative body, takes its final two votes on the country's first comprehensive cryptocurrency law on Tuesday. The bill—titled "On Digital Currency and Digital Rights"—still needs Senate approval and Russian President Vladimir Putin's signature after that, a process Anatoly Aksakov, chairman of the State Duma Committee on Financial Markets, expects to take another two weeks. The law would then take effect on September 1. The original target was July 1...