mixer

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.

According to Decrypt, European law enforcement successfully shut down the cryptocurrency mixing service Cryptomixer, which has laundered over $1.4 billion in Bitcoin since 2016.The operation was carried out by German and Swiss law enforcement agencies with the support of Europol and Eurojust in Zurich, Switzerland, resulting in the seizure of three servers, 12 TB of data, and over $27 million in cryptocurrency, as well as the confiscation of the domain cryptomixer.io.Reports indicate that Cryptomixer provided laundering services for ransomware gangs, dark web markets, and underground forums, helping criminals obscure the origins of illegal proceeds from drug trafficking, arms dealing, ransomware attacks, and payment card fraud. Cybercrime consultant David Sehyeon Baek stated that the mixer operated for nearly a decade and handled large sums of money, highlighting its significant position in the underground market.

According to Bloomberg, the co-founder of the cryptocurrency mixer Samourai Wallet has been sentenced to five years in prison for money laundering, having laundered hundreds of millions of dollars from illegal dark web transactions and fraud schemes. Keonne Rodriguez was sentenced on Thursday by U.S. District Judge Denise Cote, with the prison term being the maximum sentence for conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmission business, to which Rodriguez has pleaded guilty.

ChainCatcher news, according to CertiK monitoring, hackers have transferred approximately 50% of the stolen funds from the CrediX project into the Tornado Cash mixer. Currently, the hacker's wallet still holds 630 ETH (approximately 2.8 million USD) that has not been transferred.

ChainCatcher news, according to on-chain analyst Ai Yi (@ai_9684xtpa), the GMX hacker's "self-retained" 1,700 ETH has begun to be "washed" through a mixer.In the past 3 hours, the hacker has returned approximately $40 million in FRAX and ETH, but retained nearly $5 million in profits due to the increase in coin prices as a white hat bonus; half an hour ago, 100 ETH of that was transferred to Tornado, and the remaining amount is estimated to be just a matter of time.

According to ChainCatcher news, as reported by DL News, the defense attorney for Tornado Cash co-founder Roman Storm accused U.S. federal prosecutors of misleading the court on the legal applicability of non-custodial crypto mixers, claiming that the prosecution failed to disclose key communications with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), which could undermine the government's core allegations that Tornado Cash operates as an unlicensed money transmission business.Roman Storm's defense cited details disclosed in a case related to the Samourai Wallet developers, emphasizing that FinCEN had previously stated that Samourai Wallet might not meet the definition of a money services business due to its non-custodial nature. Given that Tornado Cash is also a non-custodial protocol, the defense argues that this position is equally applicable.Currently, Roman Storm's legal team is requesting the court to order the government to disclose all communications with FinCEN and provide materials related to the Samourai Wallet case, with the trial expected to begin on July 14.

ChainCatcher news, Bybit co-founder Ben Zhou released the latest summary regarding the stolen funds. It is reported that out of a total of $1.4 billion (approximately 500,000 ETH) in stolen funds, 88.87% is still traceable, 7.59% has gone missing, and 3.54% is frozen.The report shows that 86.29% of the stolen funds (approximately 440,000 ETH, worth $1.23 billion) have been converted into 12,836 BTC, distributed across 9,117 wallets, with an average of 1.41 BTC per wallet. The hackers have begun using BTC mixers such as Wasabi, CryptoMixer, Railgun, and TornadoCash to transfer funds, with 193 BTC primarily flowing to the Wasabi mixer, which were then dispersed to multiple P2P traders.Ben Zhou stated that decoding mixer transactions has become the biggest challenge currently faced and called for more bounty hunters to participate in tracking and decoding efforts. In the past 30 days, the platform received 5,012 bounty reports, of which 63 were valid reports.

ChainCatcher message, on-chain detective ZachXBT disclosed in a personal channel that the eXch (centralized mixer) team mistakenly sent 34 ETH (worth $96,000) to another exchange's hot wallet address after helping the Bybit security incident hacker group Lazarus Group launder $35 million.

ChainCatcher message, on-chain detective ZachXBT posted in the official channel that he has monitored the Lazarus Group transferring 5000 ETH from the Bybit hacker address to a new address, and has begun laundering the funds through eXch (a centralized mixer), and transferring the funds to the Bitcoin network via Chainflip.

According to ChainCatcher news reported by The Block, a federal grand jury in the Northern District of Georgia has indicted three Russian citizens for crimes related to operating two cryptocurrency mixers. According to a statement released by the U.S. Department of Justice, the defendants Roman Vitalyevich Ostapenko, Alexander Evgenievich Oleynik, and Anton Vyachlavovich Tarasov are accused of running two mixing companies named Blender.io and Sinbad.io. They are charged with conspiracy to launder money and operating an unlicensed money transmitting business.In May 2022, the U.S. discovered that North Korean hackers used Blender to launder $20.5 million from the $600 million Axie Infinity hack, leading to sanctions against Blender. Blockchain analytics firm Elliptic pointed out in 2023 that Sinbad is likely a rebranded version of Blender, operated by the same organization. Blender maintained a "no-logs policy" and deleted user transaction details.The company operated from 2018 until 2022, with its successor Sinbad emerging a few months after Blender's shutdown. On November 27, 2023, law enforcement took action to shut down Sinbad. If convicted, the defendants could face up to 20 years in prison for money laundering and up to 5 years for operating an unlicensed money transmitting business. Ostapenko and Oleynik were arrested on December 1, 2024. Tarasov remains at large.

ChainCatcher news, according to Cointelegraph, Helix founder Larry Harmon was arrested in 2020 for helping criminals launder money and has now been sentenced to three years in prison and the forfeiture of over $400 million in cryptocurrency and other assets.U.S. District Court Judge Beryl Howell stated that the sentence was lenient given his assistance in the Bitcoin Fog mixer case.Larry Harmon operated the dark web Helix cryptocurrency mixer from 2014 to 2017, during which he laundered over 350,000 BTC. Helix collaborated with the Grams dark web search engine, which Larry Harmon also operated.

ChainCatcher news, the digital asset trading platform Hotcoin successfully held the "Web3 Networking Mixer" Token2049 side event at the 80rr Fintech Hub in Singapore. This event was co-hosted by Hotcoin, Orbis, and Hedera, attracting numerous industry elites, well-known projects, and global KOLs from around the world. The event featured speeches, roundtables, and tea breaks.Hotcoin's Chief Operating Officer Steven Gu attended and delivered a speech. Steven stated that Hotcoin is currently focusing on supporting Web3 ecological projects, covering various aspects such as DeFi, social, and blockchain games. Through Hotcoin's global influence and resource advantages, it aims to help more outstanding potential projects promote themselves in the global market more efficiently and at a lower cost.Hotcoin is about to celebrate its seventh birthday and will continue to support the development of the industry ecosystem. It will uphold a user-first, safe, and compliant development strategy to create a secure, practical, and convenient blockchain ecosystem for global users.

According to ChainCatcher news, the OKX Web3 wallet will collaborate with OKX Ventures, Portal, ZetaChain, Unisat, Stacks, Babylon, and BounceBit to host the "OKX BTC Mixer" themed event during BTC2024 Nashville.This event will officially take place on July 25 in Nashville, Tennessee, USA, gathering industry leaders, investors, and top entrepreneurs from the blockchain, Web3, and Bitcoin sectors to discuss the evolution and future prospects of the Bitcoin ecosystem.

ChainCatcher news, the Bitcoin Community Mixer Singapore is hosted by CKB Eco Fund and Hashkey Capital, co-hosted by MoleDao, aiming to promote cooperation, community building, and innovation within the Bitcoin ecosystem.The conference will gather several Bitcoin ecosystem projects such as Cellula, Fiamma, and UTXO Stack, inviting numerous heavyweight guests from the blockchain industry, Bitcoin developers, researchers, and enthusiasts to discuss the latest developments and projects in the Bitcoin ecosystem.