Author: NBTC

South Korean prosecutors have indicted seven individuals in connection with a cryptocurrency investment scam that allegedly defrauded 436 people of approximately 40.9 billion won (about $29.5 million). The group, which operated under the guise of a volunteer organization called the Brilliance Team, is accused of luring victims into fraudulent virtual asset investments between November 2024 and April 2025. Indictment and Charges The Anyang branch of the Suwon District Prosecutors’ Office on July 24 charged the seven suspects, including a Chinese national in his 50s identified by the surname Kim, who is believed to be the ringleader, along with six South…

Garrett Jin, the founder of cryptocurrency exchange BitForex, has opened a substantial Bitcoin long position valued at approximately $100 million, according to blockchain intelligence firm Arkham. The position was entered at an average price of $76,117 per Bitcoin and is currently facing an unrealized loss of around $16 million. Jin has also paid roughly $1.2 million in funding fees, underscoring the high cost of maintaining such a leveraged trade. Background: Insider Trading Accusations The move comes amid ongoing scrutiny of Jin’s involvement in trading activities linked to BitForex. Last October, the exchange experienced the largest forced liquidation event in its…

BIP-110 is approaching its first consequential activation boundary. The proposal enters mandatory signaling at block 961,632, currently projected around August 9, 2026. It locks in no later than block 963,648, roughly in late August, and activates its new transaction rules at block 965,664, currently projected for early September. BIP-110 uses a 55% signaling threshold and would enforce its restrictions for 52,416 blocks, approximately one year. Bitcoin resolves consensus changes through coordination among miners, users, and nodes (note that anyone can be any combination of these three things). Miners choose which valid chain to extend. Users decide which chain’s coins, deposits,…

Ether is trading near $2,375, up more than 20% over the past week, after a U.S. Treasury debt-buyback expansion and a new SEC crypto-token proposal. U.S. spot ether ETFs pulled in roughly $189 million on Aug. 19 alone, their strongest single day since October, snapping weeks of outflows. BitMine Immersion Technologies, which holds 4.8% of all ether, has cut its own weekly purchases to a fraction of its spring pace even as its chairman publicly cheered the rally. Ether climbed more than 20% over the past week to trade near $2,375 on Friday, after the U.S. Treasury Department moved to…

After warning the community a couple of weeks ago about potential issues around the $LAB token, popular blockchain investigator ZachXBT claimed now that wallets funded by its creators dumped millions of coins. This has only worsened the overall state of $LAB, which has plummeted to a new low by erasing 97% of its value in days. Recall that $LAB was once (and briefly) the rockstar of the ongoing bear cycle. It defied the overall market sluggishness and bearishness, posting some impressive gains. It even entered the top 20 alts by market cap after continuous double- and triple-digit increases. Its all-time…

A sweeping new regulatory landscape in the European Economic Area (EEA) has left most stablecoin issuers grappling with challenges, with Circle and Société Générale-Forge emerging as clear beneficiaries. According to data from the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), just nine out of approximately 23 electronic money token (EMT) issuers in the region have secured both EMT and crypto-asset services provider (CASP) authorization under the newly enforced Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulation. Custody restrictions hinder service offerings The majority of European stablecoin issuers lack permission to hold custody of their own tokens on behalf of clients, significantly narrowing the suite…

Citadel has unwound more than 80% of the risk it acquired from Situational Awareness. The fund’s latest filing showed nearly $1.99 billion in Bitcoin miner positions, including major stakes in Core Scientific, Riot Platforms and IREN. The end of this forced selling could give miner stocks more room to trade on Bitcoin prices, operating performance and their growing AI infrastructure opportunities. Bitcoin miners have spent weeks under pressure from forced selling linked to the collapse of AI-focused hedge fund Situational Awareness. Citadel founder Ken Griffin said the firm had unwound more than 80% of the risk it acquired. The June…

In brief Jim Cramer says he is selling his Bitcoin after IBM CEO Arvind Krishna told him to get “paranoid” about crypto’s cryptography within three or four years. The warning follows a July 30 IBM and University of Chicago demonstration of verified quantum advantage. Traders invoked the “Inverse Cramer” trade, a pattern so established that a fund once existed purely to bet against his picks. CNBC host and long-time crypto critic Jim Cramer is out on Bitcoin—again. This time it’s over fears of the coming quantum computing threat, and it sounds like he might be out for good. Which is…

Ethereum’s better.codes contest now measures a cryptographic proof gap that researchers can attack from both sides. At 15:44:47 UTC on Aug. 21, the live leaderboard showed a 63.99-bit lower certificate and a 116.13-bit upper certificate for koalaIRS12. The two results left 52.14 bits unresolved after nine promoted submissions from seven solvers. KoalaIRS12 is a fixed parameter profile for an interleaved Reed–Solomon reduction used in proof-system research. The challenge repository defines its score as a spot-check quantity and expressly excludes interpreting it as minus-log2 of whole-system soundness or as full-protocol security. Researchers now have a public, reproducible measure of the distance…

Russia’s central bank has compiled a proposed list of crypto assets that could be admitted to public trading on exchanges under new rules approved last week. The list includes Bitcoin, Ether and Tether’s stablecoin USDT, the Bank of Russia said Tuesday, adding that the assets meet criteria including market capitalization, average daily trading volume and at least five years of price history on overseas markets. The proposal follows a new law, signed by President Vladimir Putin on Aug. 4, that gives the Bank of Russia authority to determine which digital currencies can be admitted to organized trading and set related…