Author: NBTC

The co-founders of privacy-focused Bitcoin wallet Samourai Wallet were sentenced to four and five years in prison Wednesday, setting an important precedent as privacy development makes a comeback in crypto. Keonne Rodriguez and William Lonergan Hill were sentenced on Wednesday for conspiring to operate an unlicensed money-transmitting business and for facilitating transactions involving criminal proceeds, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) said. Prosecutors argued that Samourai’s CoinJoin mixing service helped conceal the movement of illicit funds, even though the wallet was fully non-custodial. “The sentences the defendants received send a clear message that laundering known criminal proceeds—regardless of the technology…

LeverageShares, a European issuer known for single-stock and leveraged exchange-traded products, has filed to launch a 2x long ETF tracking the daily performance of the cryptocurrency exchange Kraken. According to Bloomberg senior ETF analyst Eric Balchunas, the submission is the first attempt to create a leveraged product tied directly to a private cryptocurrency exchange. The proposed ETF could provide investors with twice the daily price movement of Kraken, which recently filed for a US IPO confidentially. “LeverageShares just filed for a 2x Long Kraken ETF… which I believe isn’t even IPO-ing until next year. What a country,” Balchunas posted on…

A report from The Guardian has detailed how Christopher Harborne, a shareholder in DigFinex, the parent company of Bitfinex and Tether, and a large donor to Boris Johnson, traveled with Johnson on a trip to Ukraine. This report was based on the “Boris Files,” a collection of files purportedly hacked from Johnson’s office and shared by Distributed Denial of Secrets. Harborne, who also uses the Thai name Chakrit Sakunkrit, has become an increasingly important political donor in the UK over the last several years, supporting Brexit, Johnson, Nigel Farage, and the Reform party. Read more: Scoop: Bitfinex, Tether shareholder Harborne…

The UK’s Serious Fraud Office (SFO) made its first major arrests in a cryptocurrency case, detaining two men in London and Bradford over an alleged $28 million fraud linked to the collapse of the Basis Markets scheme. The November 20, 2025, operation marks a pivotal shift in UK crypto enforcement. Authorities are expanding efforts to counter sophisticated digital asset crime. UK SFO Launches Landmark Crypto Investigation The Serious Fraud Office announced the arrests of one man in his thirties in Herne Hill, London, and another in his forties near Bradford. Raids, conducted in collaboration with the Metropolitan and West Yorkshire…

KuCoin Pay has integrated with Pix, Brazil’s central bank-run instant payments network, allowing users to convert and spend cryptocurrencies at any merchant that accepts Pix QR codes. The launch taps into one of the world’s largest crypto user bases, with roughly 26 million Brazilians, about 12% of the population, now using digital assets, according to a Friday announcement from the exchange. The integration supports instant crypto-to-Brazilian currency conversions (Brazil’s currency is the real), enabling users to transfer funds from KuCoin accounts to any Brazilian bank or pay merchants directly through Pix. It also features multi-functional wallet tools for managing both…

The United States has finalized a $20 billion currency swap agreement with Argentina in one of the Trump administration’s most direct interventions to stabilize a foreign economy since he returned to the Oval Office. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced the deal on Thursday after four days of close discussions in Buenos Aires. “The US Treasury is prepared, immediately, to take whatever exceptional measures are warranted to provide stability to markets,” Bessent said in a statement on X. He added that the Treasury had “directly purchased Argentine pesos” as part of the program. Washington steps in to stabilize Argentina’s collapsing currency…

Consulting company Cornerstone Research reported a significant drop in the number of enforcement actions implemented by the current leadership of the US Securities and Exchange Commission, compared to that under the previous administration. In a report released on Wednesday, Cornerstone reported that, under SEC Chair Paul Atkins, the number of enforcement actions against public companies and their subsidiaries decreased by about 30% in fiscal year 2025 compared to those in fiscal year 2024. The company said the data was “consistent with the general pattern for other fiscal years when the SEC administration changed,” referring to former Chair Gary Gensler. SEC…

Key Takeaways Hyperliquid whale who neared $100 million in profit now sits at $38.4 million after ETH and XRP reversal. Both assets have declined more than 18% in 10 days, erasing $61 million in profit and reversing the trader’s previous gains. A prominent Hyperliquid trader has seen profits fall to $38.4 million today, down from nearly $100 million ten days ago, as long positions in Ethereum and XRP came under pressure during the recent market downturn, according to a post on X from on-chain tracker Lookonchain. The decline coincides with a pullback in major digital assets. Ethereum has dropped from…

COTI Foundation, a programmable privacy layer for Web3 and decentralized finance (DeFi) payments, has excitedly declared its strategic partnership with Houdini Swap, a DeFi platform that enables users to privately send and swap cryptocurrencies across various blockchains. The mission behind this groundbreaking partnership is to secure the crypto assets’ private transactions and seamless swaps directly into the COTI network. New Partnership: COTI × @HoudiniSwap COTI partners with Houdini Swap for private and compliant cross-chain swaps.🔁It’s never been easier to swap native $BTC, $Zcash, $SOL & more directly into $COTI on the COTI Network, without exposing wallet history.👉Try it today:… pic.twitter.com/ATWzf7Z887…

The government of India may consider stablecoin regulations in its Economic Survey 2025-2026, while the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) takes a “cautious” approach to crypto and pushes for a central bank digital currency (CBDC), revealing a divergence in policy recommendations. The government will “present its case” for stablecoins in the annual report published by India’s Ministry of Finance, which outlines key policy recommendations and the state of the economy, business publication MoneyControl reported, citing an official familiar with the matter. However, the central bank continues to urge a “cautious” approach to stablecoins, according to RBI Governor ​Sanjay Malhotra. Speaking…