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The U.S. government, through the Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), has initiated a multi-agency coordinated financial action aimed at systematically targeting Iran's domestic digital asset infrastructure, with the goal of dismantling Tehran's parallel shadow banking system. According to officially disclosed information, this operation has successfully identified and incapacitated a large interconnected digital wallet network directly controlled by the Iranian regime, and has immediately frozen nearly $500 million in sovereign-related crypto assets.The U.S. intends to disrupt Iran's ability to bypass long-standing Western trade embargoes by blocking these alternative capital channels, cutting off its resources to regional proxy networks, and systematically weakening the regime's ability to transfer or repatriate wealth outside the oversight of traditional global clearing institutions. The focus of this enforcement action is to systematically identify state-sponsored large cryptocurrency trading portals, which have quietly evolved into core nodes for evading sanctions.Federal intelligence reports indicate that these regional platforms have processed billions of dollars in high-frequency digital asset transactions, heavily relying on mainstream stablecoins and high-throughput alternative blockchain networks to obscure their illegal settlement flows. Under the newly implemented executive directive, the Treasury is actively blacklisting specific crypto addresses, tracking mining pool variables, and imposing sanctions on foreign technology providers that facilitate these state-supported networks.Additionally, the U.S. is leveraging its dominant position in international banking to compel foreign financial intermediaries to fully comply with its aggressive crypto asset control protocols. The Treasury has issued stern warnings to international technology centers that any platform providing clearing services or liquidity assistance to designated Iranian digital entities will face immediate risks of exclusion from the U.S. financial system.This comprehensive containment model shifts regulatory responsibility to global exchanges, forcing them to deploy advanced real-time blockchain analysis tools to programmatically identify and block any inbound transactions originating from Iranian internet protocol or historical wallet clusters. By installing these stringent crypto safeguards at the level of global gateways, the U.S. government is transforming permissionless distributed ledgers into highly controlled economic zones, ensuring that alternative payment infrastructures cannot be used to undermine broader Western geopolitical security objectives in the next decade.

According to a news release from the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, the Hong Kong police announced that they have joined law enforcement agencies from 9 countries and regions, including Singapore, South Korea, and Thailand, to combat cross-border fraud and money laundering activities. This operation took place from March 10 to May 7, resulting in the arrest of 3,018 individuals, involving over 138,000 fraud cases, with total losses of approximately $752 million (about HKD 5.89 billion).During the operation, law enforcement agencies froze a total of 101,989 bank accounts and successfully intercepted approximately $161 million (about HKD 1.26 billion) in fraudulent funds. Among them, the Hong Kong police arrested 870 individuals and intercepted approximately HKD 539 million in funds. The largest case involved a Singapore company that was defrauded of $36 million (about HKD 280 million), with the related funds subsequently flowing into multiple bank accounts in Hong Kong and other regions. About half of this amount was converted into stablecoins and dispersed into different virtual asset wallets, with the police successfully freezing $20 million of these funds after tracking.Investigations show that money laundering through virtual asset platforms is on the rise, and various regions need to continue enhancing their capabilities to respond to crimes involving virtual assets through intelligence sharing and collaborative mechanisms.

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 Ministry of Public Security of China, recently, the police from China, the United States, and the United Arab Emirates conducted international law enforcement cooperation for the first time, jointly combating telecom network fraud crimes in the Dubai area. They successfully dismantled 9 fraud dens and arrested 276 criminal suspects.Investigations revealed that the related fraud gangs established "romantic" relationships with victims through social platforms, deceiving them into trusting them emotionally, and then inducing victims to invest in so-called high-return cryptocurrency projects, resulting in their fraud. A relevant official from the Ministry of Public Security of China stated that this joint crackdown is an important achievement of international law enforcement cooperation by the Chinese police. The Chinese police will deepen practical cooperation with more countries, carry out joint crackdown actions, resolutely eliminate fraud dens, and make every effort to capture suspects involved in telecom fraud, effectively safeguarding the legitimate rights and interests of people in all countries.

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 market news, the Korean National Tax Service is building an AI system costing about $2.2 million to track cryptocurrency transactions and crack down on tax evaders, expected to be completed by the end of 2026.The system will integrate exchange trading records with blockchain data to identify suspicious transactions such as money laundering, unreported gifts, and offshore tax evasion, and will expand its tracking scope to non-custodial wallets. The National Tax Service is coordinating implementation details with five major exchanges, including Upbit and Bithumb, with the final tax guidelines expected to be released by the end of 2026.A survey by the Financial Services Commission of South Korea shows that the country has verified over 11 million cryptocurrency investors, but the growth rate has significantly slowed, with the growth rate of tradable accounts dropping from 25% in the first half of 2024 to 3% in the second half. The South Korean government has confirmed that it will impose a 22% tax on cryptocurrency asset gains starting January 1, 2027, with taxes due on the portion of annual gains exceeding approximately $1,800. This tax has been postponed twice from its original schedule in 2025.

According to Crypto.news, the New South Wales police in Australia seized 52.3 bitcoins, worth approximately 5.7 million Australian dollars (4.1 million US dollars), in a law enforcement operation targeting the dark web market, making it one of the largest dark web cryptocurrency seizures in the country.This operation is part of the Strike Force Andalusia investigation that began in September 2024 and lasted 15 months. The police tracked a large bitcoin wallet holding proceeds from the dark web market, ultimately identifying two male suspects, aged 39 and 41, who are accused of supplying prohibited drugs and transferring over 100,000 Australian dollars in dark web-related cryptocurrency.

The venture capital firm a16z supports the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and opposes a series of crackdowns by various states on prediction markets. On Friday, a16z submitted an 18-page comment letter to the CFTC, stating that the actions taken by state regulators against prediction market platforms—including cease-and-desist orders and proposed bans—are creating "serious barriers to fair access" for users.In just the past month, the CFTC has filed a series of lawsuits against Illinois, Arizona, Connecticut, New York, and Wisconsin, claiming that these states are attempting to regulate markets overseen by the federal government, which exceeds their jurisdiction. a16z argues that requiring trading platforms to block U.S. users based on their state of residence conflicts with the CFTC's rules on fair market access. The company wrote, "Being forced to deny fair access to users from states seeking to license or ban certain event contracts could severely compress available liquidity."CFTC Chairman Mike Selig asserts that the event contracts of prediction markets fall under swap contracts, placing them within the CFTC's "exclusive jurisdiction." State regulators and state attorneys general counter that platforms like Kalshi and Polymarket offer unlicensed gambling products. a16z also discussed the utility provided by what it calls prediction markets, stating that their pricing mechanism is a "unique form of price discovery" that helps "reveal the probabilities of uncertain events." The company further argues that blockchain-based prediction markets are more transparent than traditional platforms, claiming that "the auditability of on-chain transactions" makes it easier for participants and regulators to oversee.In April, the prediction markets Polymarket and Kalshi surpassed a cumulative trading volume of $15 billion.

According to Jinshi News, Asian stock markets are expected to perform weakly when they open on Tuesday, as investors turn their attention to the earnings reports of U.S. tech giants with a total market capitalization of nearly $16 trillion. Walter Todd, president and chief investment officer of Greenwood Capital Associates, stated that the U.S. stock market has rebounded to historical highs, seemingly ignoring the ongoing geopolitical risks, mainly due to upward revisions in earnings expectations and improved market sentiment. He warned that any cracks in optimistic expectations could pose significant risks to market trends.

Police officer Guo Tingyu from the Cybersecurity Division of the Qingshan Branch of the Wuhan Public Security Bureau participated in the investigation of Hubei's first virtual currency theft case. By tracking the flow of funds and analyzing the code of fake wallets, he identified and dismantled a cryptocurrency theft gang involved in over 100 million yuan in illicit funds, with all five suspects arrested.The gang induced users to download a counterfeit virtual currency wallet app to steal coins, with a total download count of over ten thousand. Guo Tingyu also participated in the investigation of multiple virtual currency-related criminal cases.

According to the Hong Kong Wen Wei Po, the Hong Kong police have disclosed the resolution of a cross-border phone scam case, where a criminal group impersonated mainland officials, specifically targeting mainland students studying in the UK and Australia.The scammers falsely claimed that the victims were involved in criminal cases such as money laundering and demanded their "cooperation in the investigation." They instructed the victims to travel to Hong Kong to purchase gold grains in multiple transactions at jewelry stores as "collateral," with each transaction not exceeding HKD 120,000 to evade the registration system of gold shops. The group members then collected and transferred the stolen goods. The gold grains were subsequently melted down into gold bars or exchanged for cash and virtual currency. The police have currently received a total of 7 related cases, involving approximately HKD 7 million, with the highest single case loss reaching HKD 1.6 million.

Project Eleven today awarded the Q-Day prize to researcher Giancarlo Lelli, who successfully derived a 15-digit elliptic curve private key from a public key using publicly accessible quantum hardware, marking the largest scale demonstration of its kind to date, a 512-fold increase from the 6-digit demonstration in September 2025.Lelli used a variant of Shor's algorithm for the elliptic curve discrete logarithm problem, which is the mathematical foundation of the Bitcoin signature scheme, with the awarded hardware featuring approximately 70 qubits. Currently, no known quantum computer can crack real Bitcoin wallets, and the security of Bitcoin's 256-bit elliptic curve remains far beyond current quantum capabilities. Notably, Google lowered its resource estimates for ECDLP-256 on March 31 and set a target for the migration to quantum cryptography after 2029, followed by Cloudflare, and the UK's NCSC also set migration milestones from 2028 to 2035.On-chain data shows that approximately 6.93 million BTC are at potential quantum risk due to exposed public keys. The Bitcoin community has proposed BIP 360 and BIP 361 to promote the migration to quantum-resistant output types, but the coordination challenges of a decentralized network remain the biggest hurdle.

Polymarket stated on platform X, "Last month, we released enhanced market integrity rules to combat insider trading. When we discover users trading on government confidential information, we refer the matter to the Department of Justice and cooperate with their investigation. Polymarket does not tolerate insider trading, and today's arrests prove that this system is effective."The arrest mentioned by Polymarket refers to the U.S. federal authorities arresting a special forces soldier this Thursday who was involved in the arrest of Venezuelan President Maduro. This soldier is suspected of profiting over $400,000 by betting on Maduro's ouster. Sources say federal investigators believe this commando placed over $33,000 in bets on the prediction market Polymarket just hours before President Trump announced the capture of Maduro in January.

The U.S. Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) announced sanctions against Cambodian Senator Kok An, accusing him of controlling "fraud parks" across the country, defrauding American victims through cryptocurrency investment scams.According to a statement released by OFAC on Thursday, in addition to Kok An, 28 other individuals and entities have been added to the sanctions list, all believed to be connected to his fraud network. This network is accused of luring victims into sending cryptocurrency assets under the guise of "high return investments." This action follows a raid by Cambodian police on two scam centers in the border city of Poipet. Previously, Kok An had been accused of operating scam bases in the area. OFAC stated that scammers typically gain victims' trust by establishing "friendships" or "romantic relationships," then guide them to participate in so-called cryptocurrency investment platforms, thereby defrauding them of funds, with the total amount involved reaching millions of dollars.It is noteworthy that some individuals involved in the scam activities are themselves victims of human trafficking, forced to engage in illegal activities under threats of violence. OFAC pointed out that these scam centers are often located in casinos or repurposed office parks, used not only for money laundering but also as bases for defrauding American citizens and committing human rights violations. Additionally, regulators have simultaneously shut down over 500 fraudulent website domains used for cryptocurrency investment scams, indicating that the U.S. crackdown on related criminal activities is intensifying.

According to Xinhua News Agency, the Office of the Central Anti-Corruption Coordination Group for International Fugitive Pursuit and Cross-Border Corruption Governance held a meeting to launch the "Sky Net 2026" operation. In this operation, the National Supervisory Commission will lead a special action for recovering losses from overseas pursuit of duty-related crimes, the Ministry of Public Security will carry out the "Fox Hunt" special operation, the People's Bank of China, in conjunction with the Ministry of Public Security, will conduct a special action to prevent and combat the use of offshore companies and underground banks to transfer stolen funds abroad, and the Central Organization Department, together with the Ministry of Public Security and the National Immigration Administration, will manage the positions of "naked officials" and address issues related to public officials violating regulations when traveling abroad.

Bitcoin security researcher and Ethereum Foundation researcher Justin Drake published a discussion on the timeline for quantum computing to crack Bitcoin.Justin Drake believes that the findings of Google's quantum AI white paper are conservative. "By 2032, quantum computers will have at least a 10% chance of recovering the secp256k1 ECDSA private key from leaked public keys. While it still feels unlikely that a cryptographically relevant quantum computer (CRQC) will emerge before 2030, it is undoubtedly time to start preparing."Justin Drake also stated that achieving commercially viable Bitcoin proof of work through Grover's algorithm will not happen in the short term. "We are talking about decades, or even centuries later. This observation should help shift the focus of the discussion onto ECDSA and Schnorr. As an unofficial Bitcoin security researcher, I still believe that Bitcoin proof of work has failed due to the reduction in the security budget."

Google's research shows that future quantum computers may only need 9 minutes to crack Bitcoin private keys, which is 1 minute shorter than the average block time of 10 minutes for BTC.The study warns that memory pool attacks could become a real threat and urges an immediate transition to post-quantum cryptography.

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.