The Guardian - Cryptocurrency News Sites

Zhimin Qian cheated 128,000 victims in China through a Ponzi scheme before going on the run for six yearsThe trail had been cold for five years – ever since Zhimin Qian narrowly escaped the police days after they raided her six-bedroom house in London. Then, in February 2024, detectives noticed a long-dormant bitcoin wallet flicker to life, and a manhunt began.For over a month, police tracked the mastermind of one of the UK’s largest money-laundering cases – from a lonely bungalow on the shores of Loch Tay to a red-tiled house outside Glasgow, and finally to a quiet Airbnb in suburban York, where the 46-year-old was arrested in late April alongside four Malaysian nationals working illegally as her domestic staff. Continue reading...

Billionaire Changpeng Zhao pleaded guilty to enabling money laundering before president freed him last monthDonald Trump has said that he doesn’t know who Changpeng Zhao is despite pardoning the billionaire founder of cryptocurrency exchange Binance in October.The US president was asked in a 60 Minutes interview that aired on Sunday why he pardoned Zhao, who is also known as “CZ”, for enabling money laundering despite him causing “significant harm to … national security” according to federal prosecutors. Continue reading...

The Reform UK leader is courting the crypto community in the hope it could become a campaign funding baseIt is a grey morning in Shadwell, east London. But inside the old shell of Tobacco Dock, the gloom gives way to pulsating neon lights, flashy cars and cryptocurrency chatter.Evangelists for Web3, a vision for the next era of the internet, have descended on the old trading dock to network for two days. For many, the main event is one man: Nigel Farage. Continue reading...

Banking industry data shows £629m was stolen in six months from fraud that included gold, wine and property The amount of money lost to investment scams by UK consumers has leapt 55% in a year as cryptocurrency fraudsters intensify their efforts to cheat people out of their savings, data shows.Official UK banking industry data shows that while the total amount stolen by fraudsters increased 3% to £629m in the first six months of this year compared with last year, investment scam losses surged, reaching £97.7m during the period – more than £500,000 a day. Continue reading...

Changpeng Zhao pleaded guilty to failing to stop money laundering in 2023 and was sentenced to four monthsDonald Trump issued a pardon for the founder of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange on Thursday.“President Trump exercised his constitutional authority by issuing a pardon for Mr Zhao, who was prosecuted by the Biden administration in their war on cryptocurrency,” a White House statement said. “The war on crypto is over.” Continue reading...

First lady not named in suit in which investors allege Meteora executives created coin they knew would plummetThe designers of a cryptocurrency launched by the US first lady, Melania Trump, in January were accused in court filings on Tuesday of orchestrating a pump-and-dump scheme.The $MELANIA coins were released for just a few cents each on 19 January, the day before Donald Trump was inaugurated as US president. In addition to $MELANIA, Donald Trump launched $TRUMP a few hours before his inauguration. Continue reading...

Work under way to demolish entire East Wing as president upped cost of new structure from $200m to $300mThe White House has revealed that major companies in the tech, defense and crypto industries are helping Donald Trump fund his $300m ballroom at the White House, where work is under way to demolish the entire East Wing.The list of donors includes tech companies Apple, Amazon, Meta, Microsoft and Google; the defense contractors Booz Allen Hamilton, Lockheed Martin and Palantir; and the communication companies T-Mobile and Comcast, according to CNN. Continue reading...

Lovable prankster-satirist Oobah Butler takes on hustle culture by trying to get rich quick. His tour of crypto-CEOs exposes the bleakness of their world – but it sure makes for comedy goldNear the start of this hilarious and ambiently horrifying documentary, presenter Oobah Butler informs the viewer what exactly is riding on the success of his latest stunt. Emerging from a meeting at Channel 4’s headquarters, he floats a contract in front of the camera. In signing this, Butler claims, he is “guaranteeing that I am going to make a million pounds in 90 days”. If he succeeds, he’ll be a rich man. If he fails, “I suppose I won’t be working with Channel 4 again.”If Butler is yet to make it on to your radar, those stakes may sound negligible – does it really matter whether this man ever makes another TV programme? To that I say: yes, it absolutely does. Over the past decade, Butler has established himself as one of the most enjoyably idiosyncratic prankster-satirists of the modern age. He gained global attention with a 2017 project for Vice magazine, in which he managed to get a completely fictional establishment – “The Shed at Dulwich” – listed as London’s top restaurant on TripAdvisor, questioning the effectiveness of the algorithm (when TripAdvisor became aware that it was a fake, they took it down). Continue reading...

SEC filings show Bitmain gave firm partially owned by Eric Trump unusually generous terms on equipmentA private Chinese company is giving preferential access to its technology and providing unusually beneficial payment terms on hundreds of millions of dollars worth of specialized equipment to a firm partially owned by Eric Trump, according to industry sources and Securities and Exchange Commission records.The company, Bitmain, has faced concerns over the potential national security risks of its technology, with one Republican congressman asking the treasury department to review some of its business dealings in the United States. Continue reading...