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According to Bits.media, a large illegal cryptocurrency mining operation was discovered in the city of Nizhny Tagil in Sverdlovsk Oblast, Russia, and the nearby city of Kushva. The mining operation was hidden in an abandoned industrial park and deployed about 10,000 mining machines, which were dismantled by a joint operation of the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation, the police, and the power company.Local power companies estimate that the losses caused by the long-term illegal electricity usage of this mining operation amount to nearly 1 billion rubles (approximately 12.7 million USD). Investigators stated that its electricity consumption was sufficient to meet the lighting needs of a small city. Law enforcement has arrested three suspects, who are currently under house arrest and are being investigated for "causing property damage through deception or abuse of trust." Under Russian law, those involved could face up to 5 years in prison.Investigations revealed that the operators of the mining site accessed the power grid through intermediaries and allegedly tampered with electricity meter data to cover up the actual electricity usage. Law enforcement agencies stated that the actual electricity consumption of the mining operation was about twice the approved quota. The local energy department initially launched an investigation due to frequent voltage fluctuations, power outages, and equipment failures in the abandoned factory area, ultimately pinpointing the location of the mining operation. A local television station also produced a documentary titled "Mining" to document this operation.

According to Bits Media, the Russian government has expanded the scope of information that miners and mining infrastructure operators must submit to the tax authorities. Under the new regulations, the national registry of miners and operators must include network address data for equipment used in cryptocurrency mining (ASIC miners). The Russian Ministry of Finance stated that this move aims to simplify the regulation of digital asset transactions and the investigation of violations. Additionally, grid operators will be able to more accurately monitor the infrastructure load in areas with a high concentration of mining capacity.According to the law, government agencies, courts, the Bank of Russia, and grid operators can access the information in the miners' registry. The Federal Tax Service is responsible for maintaining the registry of miners and mining infrastructure operators. Under current law, miners and infrastructure operators (such as mining pools) must submit and regularly update the following information: for mining equipment, details such as manufacturer, model, serial number, algorithm, hash rate, power consumption, and operating mode. Regarding mining: the amount and type of cryptocurrency mined, mining pools, and links to online statistics.

According to Livecoins, the property crime investigation department DEIC of São Paulo, Brazil, in collaboration with the electricity company CPFL Piratininga, conducted an operation that seized approximately 1,400 Bitcoin mining machines suspected of operating with stolen electricity. It is estimated that the amount of stolen electricity is enough to supply about 2,000 households for a month. Although Bitcoin mining is not illegal in Brazil, the focus of the actions by CPFL and DEIC is on the theft of electricity.

According to Zhejiang Daily, recently, the Ningbo Customs Anti-Smuggling Bureau successfully dismantled multiple criminal gangs smuggling virtual currency "mining machines" through in-depth operations and meticulous investigations, effectively cutting off an illegal industrial chain.Previously, during a routine inspection of a batch of imported express shipments declared as "industrial blockers," Ningbo Customs discovered that the actual goods did not match the declaration and were, in fact, virtual currency "mining machines." Customs officers quickly transferred this lead to the anti-smuggling department. After receiving the report, the Ningbo Customs Anti-Smuggling Bureau immediately assembled a task force by drawing on elite personnel, and through data analysis and clue investigation, gradually clarified the organizational structure and operational model of the criminal network. When the timing was right, they decisively struck, simultaneously conducting net-seizing operations in Dongguan, Shenzhen, and other locations, successfully dismantling multiple smuggling gangs of mining machines.Upon investigation, it was confirmed that this series of cases seized over 400 illegal entry mining machines of brands such as Ant L9 and Ice River KS3. The investigation revealed that the smuggling gang led by Liao, in order to make illegal profits, procured "mining machines" from overseas suppliers, disassembled the whole machines, and misreported the product names to smuggle them into the country through international express channels from ports in Ningbo, Guangzhou, and other places. After the goods entered the country, the gang reassembled them, either selling them directly domestically or transporting them to hidden "mining sites" in Xinjiang, Hunan, and other places to engage in illegal virtual currency "mining" activities. At the same time, they utilized virtual currencies like USDT for cross-border payment settlements to evade financial supervision.

According to the Zhejiang Daily, the Ningbo Customs Anti-Smuggling Bureau in Zhejiang, China, recently cracked multiple cases of smuggling virtual currency mining machines, dismantling several criminal gangs and seizing over 400 mining machines of models such as Ant L9 and Ice River KS3.The report states that the involved gangs misrepresented the mining machines as "industrial block devices" and smuggled them into the country through international express channels from ports in Ningbo, Guangzhou, and other locations. They then reassembled the machines and sold them domestically or transported them to mining sites in Xinjiang, Hunan, and other areas for hosting and mining.Investigators stated that the relevant gangs also used USDT for cross-border payment settlements to evade financial regulation.

According to the official announcement, Circle has launched a new infrastructure suite for the "Agentic Economy," called Circle Agent Stack, which includes products such as Circle CLI, Agent Wallets, Agent Marketplace, and Nanopayments based on Circle Gateway, supporting AI agents as autonomous economic entities for asset holding, service discovery, and on-chain payments.Among them, Nanopayments supports gas-free USDC transfers at a minimum level of $0.000001, aimed at high-frequency machine-to-machine payment scenarios; Agent Wallets allow AI agents to autonomously manage funds under preset permissions and risk control frameworks; Agent Marketplace provides an AI service directory, enabling agents to automatically discover and invoke services.Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire stated that traditional financial infrastructure is designed for "humans," while the future global economy will increasingly be driven by AI and agents. The Circle Agent Stack is the first complete product suite launched for "AI agents themselves" rather than developers.

According to market news, American Bitcoin Company (NASDAQ: ABTC) disclosed in its latest quarterly report that the company purchased approximately 11,298 S21 XP ASIC miners (with a computing power of about 3.05 EH/s) from Bitmain for $49,400,000 this year, of which 80% of the payment was made by pledging 314 BTC.Based on this calculation, the valuation of the pledged Bitcoin agreement is approximately $125,900 per coin, while the average market price of BTC at that time was less than $70,000, resulting in a discount of about 44%. According to the agreement, Bitmain cannot forcibly liquidate the pledged BTC during the approximately 24-month redemption period. If the BTC price at maturity is higher than the agreement valuation, ABTC can choose to repay in cash and reclaim the BTC, locking in the appreciation gains; if it is lower than the agreement valuation, ABTC can forgo redemption and leave the BTC to Bitmain. This structure essentially grants ABTC a long-term Bitcoin call option.As of March 31, 2026, ABTC has cumulatively pledged 3,090 BTC to Bitmain, with a fair value of approximately $210,800,000, corresponding to a mining equipment purchase liability of about $364,300,000.

According to The Block, Bitcoin mining infrastructure company Luxor Technology announced a deepened partnership with MicroBT, committing to invest $100 million in the procurement of WhatsMiner mining machines.As part of the agreement, MicroBT signed a letter of intent to invest in Luxor through its investment management firm Inflection Technology Ltd., with the specific amount undisclosed. In addition, Luxor will support WhatsMiner mining machines through its LuxOS firmware, with new features including power switching completed within 30 to 60 seconds, improved startup speed during power limitation events, and will be rolled out in phases. Mining operators running LuxOS will have access to a complete service system including Luxor mining pool, hash rate derivatives, energy services, and fleet management tools.

Coinbase stated that it is optimizing the rule creation process in its anti-fraud system by integrating machine learning models with a rules engine, achieving more efficient risk management. It also proposed a dual-track strategy of "models responsible for long-term defense, rules responsible for rapid response," and built a unified framework to create a feedback loop between the two: rules are used to capture new types of fraud and train the model in reverse, thereby continuously enhancing overall defense capabilities.In terms of specific optimizations, Coinbase has transformed the previously manual rule creation process into a data-driven and automated recommendation system by restructuring data, automating schema evolution, and introducing notebook-based analytical tools, significantly improving efficiency. Among these improvements, the performance of rule backtesting has increased by more than 10 times, and the overall response time has been reduced from several days to a few hours. Additionally, the new system uses machine learning to recommend parameters, helping to reduce false positive rates while combating fraud and minimizing the impact on normal users. Coinbase indicated that the next step will be to advance event-driven automatic rule generation and explore the "one-click conversion" of efficient rules into model features, further moving towards an automated risk management system.

According to official news, the Trump family mining company American Bitcoin announced that it has completed the power deployment of approximately 11,298 ASIC miners, further advancing its expansion plan and enhancing overall mining capacity.Data shows that after this expansion, the company's total self-owned hash rate reaches approximately 28.1 EH/s, an increase of about 12% compared to before; the total scale of miners has increased to approximately 89,242 units, with new hash rate of about 3.05 EH/s and energy efficiency of about 13.5 J/TH.In terms of operations, approximately 58,999 miners are currently online, corresponding to a hash rate of about 25.0 EH/s, with an average energy efficiency of about 14.1 J/TH. The company stated that this round of expansion will strengthen its structural advantages in Bitcoin accumulation.

According to CoinDesk, The Ether Machine, an Ethereum treasury company, announced on Friday that its $1.6 billion SPAC merger agreement with Dynamix Corporation (stock code: DYNX) has been terminated due to unfavorable market conditions.The merger agreement was initially disclosed in 2025, aiming to list The Ether Machine on Nasdaq under the stock code ETHM. The company is positioned as an Ethereum treasury and yield vehicle, generating returns through staking and DeFi strategies while holding a large reserve of Ethereum. According to CoinGecko data, The Ether Machine currently holds 496,712 ETH, valued at over $1.1 billion.The transaction garnered attention due to its scale, which included a $1.5 billion fully subscribed PIPE financing, described as the largest of its kind since 2021, in addition to approximately $170 million in the Dynamix trust account. The Ethereum holdings of the merged entity are expected to exceed 400,000 ETH, partly contributed by co-founder Andrew Keys' investment.In their termination statement, the two companies stated that this was "mutually agreed upon by both parties to terminate." According to documents filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), as part of the termination agreement, Dynamix will receive $50 million in compensation within 15 days.

NASDAQ-listed company AVAX One Technology (AVX) announced the advancement of its AI infrastructure strategy. The company has signed a FEED plan for a 10MW AI/HPC microgrid data center, located in Alberta, Canada, leveraging the local low-cost natural gas power to create a high-cost-performance, scalable dedicated AI computing facility. The project is designed by BlueFlare and is one of the first AI computing centers in the area.At the same time, the company invested less than $500,000 to purchase 220 Bitmain S21 Pro mining machines, increasing Alberta's computing power from 150 PH/s to over 200 PH/s. This move serves as a transitional cash flow source during the construction period of the AI center, achieving a dual-track layout of "mining + AI computing power" to quickly monetize existing power capacity.

On the 26th of this month, the Urumqi Public Security Bureau High-tech Zone (New City District) reported that the Ergong Township Police Station discovered a suspected illegal repair site for electronic "mining machines" during a patrol in its jurisdiction. Police found an abnormal warehouse in a small micro-enterprise park on Yuhang Road in the New City District, where a large number of disassembled and awaiting repair mining machine equipment was piled up, suspected of violating China's relevant prohibitions on the production, sale, repair, leasing, and custody of "mining machines."During the enforcement process, the police also found serious safety hazards at the site, including unauthorized electrical wiring, fire safety facilities not undergoing annual inspections as required, and the absence of a fire management system, posing significant risks of fire and electric shock.After counting, a total of 310 mining machine devices awaiting repair were legally seized on-site, and relevant evidence has been secured. The parties involved have been ordered to immediately cease illegal activities. The case has now been transferred to the relevant departments for further handling.

On the 26th of this month, the Urumqi Public Security Bureau High-tech Zone (New City District) Branch reported that the Ergong Township Police Station discovered a suspected illegal repair site for electronic mining machines during a patrol in its jurisdiction.Police found an unusual warehouse in a small micro-enterprise park on Yuhang Road in the New City District, where a large number of disassembled and awaiting repair mining machine equipment were piled up, suspected of violating China's relevant bans on the production, sale, repair, leasing, and custody of mining machines. During the enforcement process, the police also discovered serious safety hazards at the site, including unauthorized electrical wiring, fire safety facilities not undergoing annual inspections as required, and the absence of a fire management system, posing significant risks of fire and electric shock. After counting, a total of 310 mining machine devices awaiting repair were legally seized on-site, relevant evidence has been secured, and the parties involved have been ordered to immediately cease illegal activities. The case has now been transferred to the relevant departments for further handling.

According to a report by Cointelegraph, an analysis report by Forrester senior analyst Meng Liu states that Stripe's newly launched Machine Payment Protocol (MPP) may mark a turning point for micropayments.The analyst noted that micropayments typically refer to small transactions worth a few cents or a few dollars, which have long struggled to gain widespread adoption due to cumbersome digital checkout processes and reluctance to approve small charges. However, AI agents executing payments while completing tasks, such as paying for data access or using online services, eliminate these barriers.

According to official news, the new stablecoin blockchain Tempo, incubated by Stripe and Paradigm, has announced its mainnet launch, aiming to achieve instant settlement, predictable low fees, high throughput, and global availability. Users can build on Tempo through public RPC endpoints.In addition to the mainnet launch, Tempo has also introduced the Machine Payment Protocol (MPP), an open standard for machine payments co-developed by Stripe and Tempo.