legitimate

According to a report by Xinhua News Agency cited by Jinshi, the situation in Iran has escalated again. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps issued an urgent warning that the oil facilities of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar have become legitimate targets for strikes, which will occur in the next few hours, urging the local population in the relevant areas to evacuate.

The U.S. Treasury submitted a 32-page report to Congress stating that cryptocurrency mixers can be used for legitimate financial privacy purposes, allowing users to protect sensitive information such as personal wealth, business payments, or charitable donations. This stance marks a shift from its attitude when sanctioning Tornado Cash in 2022.The report reveals that North Korean cybercriminals stole at least $2.8 billion in digital assets between January 2024 and September 2025, including $1.5 billion stolen from Bybit, and regularly used mixers for multi-step money laundering. Since May 2020, over $1.6 billion in mixer deposits have flowed into cross-chain bridges, with more than $900 million concentrated in a bridging protocol related to North Korean money laundering activities.The report distinguishes between custodial and non-custodial mixers, noting that compliant custodial mixers can provide customer identity and off-chain transaction data, but it did not recommend imposing new restrictions on non-custodial mixers. In terms of legislative recommendations, the report urges Congress to create a digital asset-specific "freezing law" to provide safe harbor protection for financial institutions to temporarily freeze suspicious assets during short-term investigations, and suggests that Congress clarify which DeFi participants should bear anti-money laundering obligations.The report also proposes adding a "sixth special measure" to Section 311 of the USA PATRIOT Act, authorizing the Treasury to impose bans or restrictions on specific digital asset transfers that do not involve agency banking relationships. This report was prepared based on Section 9 of the GENIUS Act signed in July 2025.

Huobi HTX has released a statement regarding the unilateral asset transfer by the Flow (FLOW) project team.Huobi HTX stated that on December 27, 2025, a protocol layer vulnerability in the Flow network led to a large amount of FLOW being illegally minted. After the incident, the platform proactively verified the situation with the project team to confirm whether there were any anomalies, and actively cooperated with risk management and on-chain tracking efforts. At the same time, the risk control and monitoring systems continuously tracked suspicious fund flows and took restrictive measures on identifiable hacker-related assets, making every effort to prevent further inflow into the market and protect the overall interests of token holders.However, the Flow project team unilaterally initiated the "Isolated Recovery" plan without fully communicating with the exchange and users, forcibly transferring FLOW assets from centralized exchange addresses, including Huobi HTX, through protocol layer permissions, and plans to destroy them on January 30, 2026.Huobi HTX emphasizes that the forcibly transferred and intended-to-be-destroyed assets include a large amount of FLOW obtained by ordinary users through legitimate market transactions. The actions of the Flow project team seriously deviate from the principles of decentralization and clear property rights, setting a bad precedent for the security boundaries of industry assets, and severely damaging the legitimate asset rights and interests of the platform and its users. Huobi HTX calls on the Flow project team to adhere to the spirit of decentralization, respect the legitimate rights and interests of users and exchanges, clearly distinguish between illegal minting and legal holdings, publish a complete and auditable post-event analysis, and resolve outstanding issues through active negotiation rather than unilateral technical means.

According to Hongxing News, Chen Zhi, the founder and chairman of Prince Group, was arrested in Cambodia and has been deported back to the country. Currently, the "legitimate" business sectors under Prince Group, such as Prince Bank and Prince Real Estate, are still operating normally. However, after lawsuits were filed against Prince Group and Chen Zhi in the United States, Singapore, and other countries, and assets were frozen, the operations of these businesses have also faced difficulties.In October 2025, the U.S. Department of Justice froze 127,000 bitcoins belonging to Prince Group, valued at approximately $15 billion at the time. The U.S. Department of Justice stated that the workforce at Prince Group's park ranges from 5,000 to 10,000 employees, with over 700,000 registered fraudulent accounts. During the same period, the Singapore government froze a significant amount of assets belonging to Chen Zhi's family, including luxury cars such as Bentleys and Rolls-Royces, as well as high-value properties and bank accounts, totaling 150 million Singapore dollars (approximately 800 million RMB).

ChainCatcher news, Federal Reserve Chairman Powell stated that we do not want to hinder banks from providing services to legitimate customers using cryptocurrency. It is appropriate to ensure that we understand the associated risks when banks engage in cryptocurrency activities on their own. (Jin Shi)

ChainCatcher news, according to Tech Crunch, the Reserve Bank of India will launch exclusive .bank.in domain names for banks starting in April to curb digital payment fraud. At the same time, it plans to introduce a separate fin.in domain for non-banking financial institutions. The Reserve Bank of India stated that it will issue detailed guidelines to banks regarding the new initiative, aimed at helping users distinguish between legitimate bank websites and fraudulent ones.

ChainCatcher message, Mechanism Capital partner Andrew Kang posted on X: "Since the launch of DOGE, TRUMP has become its first legitimate competitor.Trump is the only person in the world who has more mindshare than DOGE's main supporter Elon Musk.TRUMP $6 billion market cap vs DOGE $60 billion market cap."

ChainCatcher news, according to Cointelegraph, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink admitted that he was once skeptical about Bitcoin, but he was wrong. He now states, "I believe Bitcoin is a legitimate financial tool."

ChainCatcher news, Chainalysis pointed out in a blog post that there have been many seemingly positive developments in the cryptocurrency ecosystem this year.It noted that with the approval of spot Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs in the U.S. and the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) revising fair accounting rules, cryptocurrencies continue to gain mainstream recognition in many ways.Chainalysis also mentioned that the funds flowing into "legitimate" services so far this year are at the "highest level" since 2021 (the last peak of the bull market). It pointed out that illegal activity funds have decreased by "19.6%, from $20.9 billion to $16.7 billion, indicating that the growth rate of legitimate activities is outpacing on-chain illegal activities."These signs suggest that cryptocurrencies will continue to be "adopted globally," which is also reflected in Japan's crypto ecosystem. Overall, Japan's services have a "generally lower exposure to global illegal entities, such as sanctioned entities, dark web markets (DNM), and ransomware services, as most Japanese services primarily target Japanese users."However, the report clarifies that this does not mean Japan is "completely immune to crypto-related crime," with public reports including Japan's Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) JAFIC emphasizing that cryptocurrencies pose a "significant money laundering risk." Chainalysis further pointed out that although Japan's contact with international illegal entities may be limited, the country "is not without its own local challenges. Off-chain criminal entities utilizing cryptocurrencies are common but often remain unknown." (Crowdfund Insider)

ChainCatcher news, Telegram founder Pavel Durov stated in a post on his personal TG channel that the Telegram search function helps users find public channels and bots, but it has also been abused, with some users using this feature to sell illegal goods.In the past few weeks, Telegram's dedicated team has significantly enhanced the safety of the search function using AI technology, and all identified violations are no longer accessible. Durov also mentioned that Telegram has updated its terms of service and privacy policy, clarifying that the IP addresses and phone numbers of violators may be provided to relevant law enforcement agencies upon legitimate request to combat illegal activities and ensure the safety and proper use of the platform.

ChainCatcher news, according to the security agency Scam Sniffer's monitoring, attackers are using legitimate contracts like Multicall from Uniswap V3 to bypass wallet security alerts and carry out phishing attacks.It is reported that 5 days ago, a victim lost 85 Lido ETH due to this strategy.

ChainCatcher news, according to Decrypt, Legitimate has completed a $4.3 million seed round financing, led by Lemniscap, with participation from Draper Associates and Sfermion Factor VC.According to the RootData page, Legitimate is an on-chain framework designed to keep physical assets in sync with their digital counterparts. The protocol connects physical products to customizable digital experiences powered by NFTs and Web3.

ChainCatcher news, according to Cointelegraph, Coinbase Canada Director Lucas Matheson stated that Canadians are starting to no longer view digital assets as speculative investments, but rather as legitimate assets for everyday transactions.Lucas Matheson expressed that everyone in the industry is excited about this. "In Canada, we are ready to move beyond viewing digital assets as speculative retail investments. This is a belief in the democratization of finance."Previously, Coinbase announced its expansion plans in Canada, launching a range of new products and offering Interac e-Transfers services to Canadian Coinbase users in partnership with Peoples Trust Company, a subsidiary of Peoples Group.

ChainCatcher news, sports brand PUMA has teamed up with entertainment agency Roc Nation and NFT company Legitimate to launch the "Evolution of the Mixtape" sneaker collection, inspired by the 50th anniversary of hip-hop music. Each pair of shoes is connected to exclusive digital content, including new music releases.Users can purchase online or in-store at PUMA, Foot Locker, and Champs locations in North America, with each pair priced at $130.

ChainCatcher news, the metaverse blockchain network Lamina1 has launched its ecosystem fund L1EF, announcing its first investments in two Web3 companies building immersive technologies for the open metaverse: IP Innovation Lab 0 Studio and the phygital experience platform Legitimate. The specific investment amounts have not yet been disclosed.0 Studio is developing immersive experiences and hyper-realistic digital avatars. Legitimate is the physical infrastructure for next-generation consumer retail applications, with its NFC tags allowing creators to connect physical products to customizable digital experiences powered by NFTs and Web3, without the need for coding or blockchain knowledge. (Source link)