Cryptocurrency scams and fraud in 2023 contributed to an estimated $5.6 billion in losses, a report from one of the federal government’s top law enforcement agencies says.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Cryptocurrency Fraud Report for 2023 found that the vast majority of losses – about $3.9 million – were related to cryptocurrency investment scams.
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Whereas Donald Trump as the 2016 Republican presidential nominee battled the GOP establishment over changing the party’s direction and in 2020 faced substantive internal resistance during his reelection bid, he now appears as the 2024 nominee to have won control of a party apparatus willing to embrace his policy platform and earnestly support his efforts.
The Republican National Committee on Monday formally adopted Trump’s 2024 party platform, which focused heavily on economy and border security issues. While both issues have been topline issues for Trump throughout his political career, the platform’s inclusion of other provisions highlighted the extent to which his own agenda had inserted itself into the party.
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Big names in the cryptocurrency and venture capital worlds, some of whom are former Democratic donors, are throwing their support behind former President Donald Trump.
Venture capitalists David Sacks and Chamath Palihapitiya organized a high-dollar fundraiser for the former president Thursday night in San Francisco, raising $12 million for the Trump 47 Joint Fundraising Committee at a sold-out fundraiser where tickets cost up to $500,000 per couple. Coinbase Chief Legal Officer Paul Grewal, prolific tech investor Shervin Pishevar as well as Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, famous for their dispute with Mark Zuckerberg over the founding of Facebook, all attended the event, a source familiar with the fundraiser told the Daily Caller News Foundation
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Former President Donald Trump is vowing to fight any effort to create a central bank digital currency in the United States, saying the “right of self custody” is the key to the future of America’s cryptocurrency.
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Convicted cryptocurrency fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried on Thursday received a prison sentence of 25 years.
A jury found Bankman-Fried guilty on seven counts of fraud and conspiracy-related charges in November and the New York probation department’s sentence recommendation was 100 years in prison, according to a February court filing pleading for a lighter sentence. Bankman-Fried’s lawyer had asked for a 60-78 month sentence, citing the convicted fraudster’s philanthropic ventures and Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD).
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Sam Bankman-Fried’s arrest makes for a fitting final act to this chapter of cryptocurrency history. The internet prodigy-turned-supervillain had been at large for a whole month since the spectacular collapse of his crypto trading platform, FTX. But Sam is no Butch Cassidy. Rather than vanishing, he spent his time tweeting, giving interviews, and most stupefying of all, making appearances at high-powered New York Times business conferences alongside the likes of Mark Zuckerberg and Janet Yellen. Tucker Carlson speculated at the time that Bankman-Fried’s lavish donations to Democratic politicians had afforded him de facto immunity from prosecution. It seems that the goodwill has now run out.
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The Department of Justice announced on Monday that two Estonian citizens were arrested on Sunday in Tallinn, Estonia on an 18-count indictment for alleged involvement in a $575 million cryptocurrency fraud and money laundering conspiracy.
The two men, Sergei Potapenko and Ivan Turõgin, both 37 years old, allegedly defrauded hundreds of thousands of people out of money by convincing victims to enter into fraudulent equipment rental contracts with the defendants’ cryptocurrency mining service called HashFlare.
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The U.S. financial system is not working for too many Americans. We see it every day at the gas pump and grocery store with record-high inflation. We see it with empty store shelves and higher rents. We see it with high fees and slow transactions at the big banks – the same ones we taxpayers bailed out a little more than a decade ago.
There’s an alternative that can help these systemic problems: cryptocurrency.
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The United States Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Georgia announced on Thursday that Atlanta-based filmmaker Ryan Felton, 48, pleaded guilty to 12 counts of wire fraud, 10 counts of money laundering, and 2 counts of securities fraud that stemmed from two cryptocurrency-based investment scams.
“The defendant used 21st century technology to perpetrate an age-old fraud: lying to investors to steal their money and fund his own lavish lifestyle,” United States Attorney Ryan K. Buchanan said.
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Joe Biden is set to sign an executive order that will begin the process of regulating the trading of cryptocurrency, as crypto becomes a viable alternative for Russians seeking to avoid the impact of economic sanctions.
According to ABC News, at least two anonymous Biden Administration officials said that the order will be issued this week, and has allegedly been in the planning stage since before the Russian invasion of Ukraine in late February. The order will outline the various steps that government agencies, including the Treasury Department, are to take to begin the process of imposing regulations on the buying and selling of digital currencies.
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Now that it’s easier than ever to trade stocks and crypto thanks to apps like Robinhood and Etrade, it’s time to think about other options. People were quick to jump on the crypto bandwagon when Doge went to the moon in early to mid-2021, but the crypto crash later that year reminded everyone what an unsafe investment it really is. For those looking to diversify their investment portfolio, there are options beyond the new-school cryptocurrencies, or the traditional stocks and bonds. Keep reading to learn about exchange-traded funds or ETFs.
To put it as simply as possible, an exchange-traded fund is like taking a specific type of investment, say a commodity like gold, and collecting it together in a single group. Instead of buying gold on your own, you can invest in shares of a gold ETF. But why would you want to do that? Well, gold is expensive. To buy a meaningful amount you’d need to invest thousands of dollars. Not to mention you’d now have giant bars of gold lying around your house. You need far less capital to invest in an ETF. (And you don’t have a hoard of gold in your basement like some kind of dragon.)
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Chief Financial Officer of San Diego State University’s (SDSU) Campanile Foundation, David Fuhriman, spoke to Campus Reform about the school’s decision to accept Bitcoin and cryptocurrency donations.
Fuhriman noted the push to expand SDSU’s donor base, explained how the donated funds will be used, and expressed optimism for the asset class.
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President Joe Biden is set to announce guidelines for regulating cryptocurrencies in the coming weeks, Barron’s reported.
The initiative will involve the State Department, Treasury Department, National Economic Council, Council of Economic Advisers and White House National Security Council, according to Barron’s, and it will charge the agencies with developing a coherent regulatory framework for digital assets.
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The cryptocurrency market lost nearly $130 billion in value over the last 24 hours as major digital coins continue their extended sell-off, multiple sources reported.
Bitcoin dropped 4.81% to $33,693.63 over the last 24 hours while Ethereum slid 9.41% to $2,206.22, according to Coinbase. Both assets fell to their lowest level since July 2021, and each has lost roughly 50% of its highest value.
Cryptocurrencies have trended similarly to stocks, which have seen a sell-off since the start of 2022. Investors have dumped their assets, especially technology stocks, in preparation for tighter monetary policies from the Federal Reserve, including interest rate hikes and halting of the central bank’s asset purchasing stimulus program.
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The final $1.2 trillion INVEST in America Act passed the Democrat-led House in a late night vote on Friday. Tucked away inside the infrastructure bill are some controversial policies, including these five:
1. The cryptocurrency tax provision in the Senate version of the bill was the subject of scrutiny from Democrats and Republicans. The language was not amended in the final bill that passed the House. The legislation includes an IRS reporting requirement for brokers of cryptocurrency transactions.
2. Under the “national motor vehicle per-mile user fee pilot” section of the bill, there is a pilot program to create a vehicle miles traveled system for taxing drivers based on their annual vehicle mileage. During his confirmation process, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg floated the idea of taxing motorists based on the number of miles they travel each year as a way to partly fund the legislation. The Biden administration backed off of full-scale development of the controversial proposal, settling instead for a pilot program.
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When Jeff, a retired marketing consultant from Chicago, was closing on his home sale, he received a new set of instructions at the last minute on where to send several thousand dollars in closing expenses. At first blush, the email looked legit with an official-looking logo and professional language specifying the amount owed and itemized expenses. But one thing caught his eye: The email address looked strange. Just to be safe, he called his mortgage broker.
“Don’t do that!” his broker told him in an alarmed voice. It was a scam. If he hit “send,” his closing fees would go to a thief who had been monitoring his emails. “I was a keystroke away from losing thousands of dollars,” Jeff recalled.
As the housing market sizzles across the country – with nearly 6 million homes bought last year – scammers have been finding new ways to tap into this once-secure market. Real estate transactions still demand reams of paperwork and regulations involving lawyers, brokers, title insurance companies and banks, but the fact that much of this work now takes place online gives thieves countless opportunities to exploit vulnerable buyers. Last year, more than 11,000 homeowners were scammed out of more than $220 million in closing funds alone, according to the American Land and Title Association, a trade group that represents professionals who perform property transactions.
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China’s central bank announced Friday that all cryptocurrency transactions and mining activities are illegal, banning financial institutions from providing digital asset services.
“Financial institutions and non-bank payment institutions cannot offer services to activities and operations related to virtual currencies,” the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) said in a statement Friday, according to a translation by CNBC. These services include derivatives trading, order matching and token issuance.
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El Salvador became the first country to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender Tuesday, allowing Salvadorans to use the cryptocurrency to purchase goods and services.
President Nayib Bukele officially announced the adoption of Bitcoin as a national currency in a press release late Monday, tweeting that the country had bought its first 400 bitcoins.
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Hackers stole over $600 million in digital assets Tuesday from users of cryptocurrency platform Poly Network in one of the largest digital token heists ever.
Poly Network, a decentralized finance (DeFi) platform that allows users to trade digital currencies with one another, announced the hack Tuesday. Cybersecurity firm SlowMist, which investigated the hack, said the total value of assets stolen was $610 million.
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John Schnatter, the founder of Papa John’s pizza, headlined a unique event for cryptocurrency supporters and investors on Thursday, ahead of the Bitcoin 2021 conference in Miami.
Schnatter was selected as the featured speaker because the first physical purchase in history made with Bitcoin was the purchase of two Papa John’s pizzas in 2010 with 10,000 Bitcoins.
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