Chainalysis

The FBI’s Virtual Asset Technical Exchange has become a quiet meeting point for investigators, law enforcement agencies, compliance specialists and crypto-security firms. This year’s San Antonio event focused on digital-asset crime ranging from terrorism financing and trafficking to North Korean hacks and cyber-enabled fraud.

B2C2 has appointed Jason Lai, former chairman of Schroders Wealth Management Asia, as a senior adviser in Singapore. The move underscores the institutional crypto liquidity provider’s push to serve family offices, funds and asset managers across Asia-Pacific.

Bybit has filed a civil lawsuit in a U.S. federal court against North Korea, its Reconnaissance General Bureau and the Lazarus Group over an alleged $1.5 billion Ethereum theft. The exchange also secured a preliminary injunction freezing certain identified stolen assets while the case continues.

The European Union has widened its Russia sanctions to include crypto-linked payment infrastructure, unnamed service platforms and the A7A5 stablecoin. The package also introduces a tool that could allow Brussels to block transactions between EU operators and crypto providers used by Russia.

AI tools are making impersonation scams cheaper, more personalized and more convincing across digital asset workflows. For advisors, the strongest defense is not better fake detection, but stricter verification, dual authorization and independent reconciliation.

Major financial institutions are moving deeper into stablecoin services as demand grows for regulated payment, custody, treasury and settlement rails. Standard Chartered and BNY are expanding USDC access while European lenders push euro-denominated alternatives to keep tokenized finance anchored in local currency.

The U.S. Treasury has sanctioned 134 cryptocurrency addresses linked to ISIS-K, including 131 on Tron and three on Monero. Tether later froze funds in the Tron wallets as authorities widened pressure on terror finance and crypto laundering networks.