Latest news with #AxieInfinity
Yahoo
31-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Axie Infinity exec, NFT scammer testify in Roman Storm trial
Validators, relayers, and private keys. Self-custody and 'smart contract logic.' Decentralised autonomous organisations. HODL. Jurors in the trial of Tornado Cash co-founder Roman Storm were buried under an avalanche of crypto jargon on Wednesday as prosecutors' witnesses explained — or tried to explain — the basics of blockchain technology. Those witnesses included Viet Anh Ho, the chief technology officer at Axie Infinity developer Sky Mavis, and 23-year-old Andre Llacuna, one of the people behind a $1.1 million NFT scam. Their testimony continued prosecutors' effort to show that Tornado Cash was the tool of choice for cybercriminals attempting to launder dirty crypto. Storm has been charged with conspiracy to commit money laundering, operate an unlicensed money-transmitting business, and violate US sanctions. He faces 45 years in prison. Testimony Ho recalled how hackers affiliated with North Korea tricked a Sky Mavis employee into downloading malicious software. The hackers then stole more than $600 million in crypto from the software bridge connecting Ethereum and Sky Mavis' blockchain. Much of that crypto was laundered through Tornado Cash. Llacuna detailed his own scheme to steal crypto worth more than $1 million in 2022. That year, the young hairdresser and one of his clients created 8,888 NFTs featuring images of anthropomorphic scoops of ice cream called 'Frosties.' They drummed up interest in the project, promising would-be investors a Frosties-themed videogame and other features that could boost the NFTs' price. They managed to sell all 8,888 Frosties for 0.04 Ether apiece — a total of $1.1 million. Llacuna and his partners promptly deleted the Frosties website and social media accounts. Soon, they tried splitting their haul among fresh crypto wallets. But they realised that wouldn't be enough to cover their tracks. 'It was obvious to us that no matter how many wallets we sent it in and out of, it would still be traceable,' he told jurors Wednesday. One of Llacuna's partners suggested they use Tornado Cash. 'It seemed like the best option for us to hide the money and get away with it,' he said. Llacuna was arrested in March 2021. He pleaded guilty to two counts of fraud, but has yet to receive a sentence. He said Wednesday he was testifying in hopes he would receive a lenient sentence. A third witness, Tornado Cash enthusiast Justin Bram, was asked to explain how the crypto mixer works. Bram made an educational video about Tornado Cash in 2021 and soon began exchanging messages with the protocol's co-founders. They eventually suggested he take a position co-managing a pool of Tornado Cash tokens that could be used to fund marketing initiatives or research. Bram detailed its so-called relayer system, which makes crypto transfers untraceable. He explained how an 'anonymity mining' program offered Tornado Cash tokens to people who deposited and left their crypto in the protocol, beefing its transaction-cloaking capabilities. Bram said he ended his Tornado Cash affiliation in 2021 because 'the regulatory climate was heating up.' Hackers were sending money to Tornado Cash, 'and it seemed like a bad look,' he said Wednesday. But he also said the protocol provides a key service for Ethereum users who want or need privacy. And Storm had never asked him to make videos 'pitching Tornado Cash to money launderers.' 'Moment of radicalisation' Storm's attorneys, in turn, continued their attempt to reframe Tornado Cash in jurors' minds. It was not a tool built for and marketed to money launderers, Storm's attorneys suggested, but a tool for the privacy-conscious that was simply misused by cybercriminals. Under questioning from one of Storm's attorneys, Llacuna acknowledged Tornado Cash was easy to find online — not some forbidden software he had to use the so-called dark web to access. Indeed, US citizens can legally use the crypto mixer. But that wasn't always the case: In 2022, the US sanctioned Tornado Cash, making it a crime for any US citizen to use the protocol. 'The original Tornado Cash blacklist by OFAC was sort of a moment of radicalisation for me,' Tim Clancy, a member of the Silviculture Society, a group that advises the Ethereum Foundation, told DL News outside Storm's courtroom Wednesday. 'Tornado Cash was filling an extremely valuable role.' The sanctions were lifted this year after a group of Tornado Cash users successfully challenged them in court. A federal appellate judge found the government did not have the authority to sanction self-executing software that was, for all intents and purposes, owner-less. That Storm still faces a decades-long prison sentence is a grave injustice, Clancy said. He traveled from Boston to support the embattled software developer. Clancy wasn't the only person who traveled in a show of solidarity. Storm has become a cause célèbre among crypto enthusiasts, who consider his prosecution an attempt to stifle the development of privacy-preserving software. HAI developer Ameen Soleimani was in attendance Wednesday, and other notable crypto developers and enthusiasts plan on attending Storm's trial in the coming days. Clancy said he has personally donated more than $100,000 to Storm's defence — and has a plan to donate more. On Wednesday, he brought a copy of 'PGP: Source Code and Internals,' a book by software engineer Philip Zimmermann. While Zimmermann never faced criminal charges, he became a target for US authorities in the 1990s after publishing online the source code for his Pretty Good Privacy encryption protocol. Clancy spent $600 to buy the book, he said. After just one print run, it has become hard to find. He intends to ask Storm to sign the book. If Clancy succeeds, he'll auction the signed book and donate the proceeds to Storm's defence, he said. 'We don't want him to be martyred,' Clancy said. Aleks Gilbert is DL News' New York-based DeFi correspondent. You can reach him at aleks@ Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
15-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Tornado Cash was a 'giant washing machine' for North Korea's dirty crypto, feds tell Roman Storm jury
Tornado Cash developer Roman Storm is on trial for a $1B crypto-laundering conspiracy. Prosecutors say Tornado Cash was the go-to anonymizing tool for hackers and scammers. Storm brazenly wore a shirt featuring the Tornado Cash logo and a washing machine, prosecutors said. Is Tornado Cash developer Roman Storm just a smart and selfless software engineer? Or is the 34-year-old Russian expat the go-to money launderer for the world's biggest scammers and hackers? A federal jury in Manhattan heard two very different stories in opening statements Tuesday for Storm's $1 billion money laundering conspiracy trial. Prosecutors pointed to three of the biggest crypto heists in recent years — including North Korea's $600 million hack attack on the online gaming platform Axie Infinity. Each time, the criminals hid their stolen money by running it through Tornado Cash, prosecutor Special US Attorney Kevin Gerard Mosley told the seven-woman, five-man jury. Storm's popular online tool "mixes" cryptocurrency, scrambling transactions to make them "basically untraceable and virtually impossible for law enforcement or anyone else to track," Mosley told the jury. "The defendant was running and profiting from a giant washing machine for dirty money, and he knew it," the prosecutor said. "He even marketed Tornado Cash as a washing machine," he added. "In fact," he promised jurors, "you will see a photo of the defendant wearing a T-shirt showing a washing machine with the Tornado Cash logo on it." Prosecutors say Storm kept laundering hundreds of millions of dollars for hackers with the North Korea-linked Lazarus Group even after such transactions were banned under US and global sanctions. "Criminals could avoid being tracked by running their money through the defendant's washing machine," Mosley said of Tornado Cash, a so-called crypto "mixing" tool that lets users deposit and withdraw crypto from a shared pool, obscuring the identities on either end of the transaction. "It would be mixed up with other crypto," Mosley said of the hackers' criminal proceeds, "so it would come out looking clean." Storm tried to cover his tracks after the Lazarus Group was sanctioned, the prosecutor said, by removing a single software control "switch" that could be used to shut off just one part of the washing machine. "He did that so he could pretend the whole washing machine was out of his control," while continuing to reap millions in profits, the prosecutor said. But in fact, Storm was still "running the whole laundromat," he added. "He had the keys to the front door, he paid the gas and electric bills, he still said, 'We're open for business.'" In her own opening statement, defense attorney Keri Curtis Axel countered that Storm is just a privacy advocate who wrote some very useful code. Tornado Cash was backed by US investors, and was built for perfectly legitimate purposes, she told the jury. "Roman had nothing to do with the hackers and scammers — he didn't want them to use Tornado Cash," she said. "The overwhelming majority of people who used it were normal people using it for their own financial privacy, which is the purpose that Roman intended." As for that T-shirt? The one with the Tornado Cash logo imposed over a washing machine? "He wore it at a reputable tech conference in Boston in 2019," Axel said. "And people of the jury, I want you to keep in mind it's just a T-shirt — worn in poor taste." "It's like a comic strip or a meme. It was a joke," she said. "It was not evidence of a crime." The trial is expected to last about a month and to feature both hackers and victims among the government's witnesses. Storm faces up to 40 years in prison if convicted of conspiring to commit money laundering, run an unlicensed money-transmitting company, and violate federal sanctions. Read the original article on Business Insider
Business Insider
15-07-2025
- Business
- Business Insider
Tornado Cash was a 'giant washing machine' for North Korea's dirty crypto, feds tell Roman Storm jury
Is Tornado Cash developer Roman Storm just a smart and selfless software engineer? Or is the 34-year-old Russian expat the go-to money launderer for the world's biggest scammers and hackers? A federal jury in Manhattan heard two very different stories in opening statements Tuesday for Storm's $1 billion money laundering conspiracy trial. Prosecutors pointed to three of the biggest crypto heists in recent years — including North Korea's $600 million hack attack on the online gaming platform Axie Infinity. Each time, the criminals hid their stolen money by running it through Tornado Cash, prosecutor Special US Attorney Kevin Gerard Mosley told the seven-woman, five-man jury. Storm's popular online tool "mixes" cryptocurrency, scrambling transactions to make them "basically untraceable and virtually impossible for law enforcement or anyone else to track," Mosley told the jury. "The defendant was running and profiting from a giant washing machine for dirty money, and he knew it," the prosecutor said. "He even marketed Tornado Cash as a washing machine," he added. "In fact," he promised jurors, "you will see a photo of the defendant wearing a T-shirt showing a washing machine with the Tornado Cash logo on it." Prosecutors say Storm kept laundering hundreds of millions of dollars for hackers with the North Korea-linked Lazarus Group even after such transactions were banned under US and global sanctions. "Criminals could avoid being tracked by running their money through the defendant's washing machine," Mosley said of Tornado Cash, a so-called crypto "mixing" tool that lets users deposit and withdraw crypto from a shared pool, obscuring the identities on either end of the transaction. "It would be mixed up with other crypto," Mosley said of the hackers' criminal proceeds, "so it would come out looking clean." Storm tried to cover his tracks after the Lazarus Group was sanctioned, the prosecutor said, by removing a single software control "switch" that could be used to shut off just one part of the washing machine. "He did that so he could pretend the whole washing machine was out of his control," while continuing to reap millions in profits, the prosecutor said. But in fact, Storm was still "running the whole laundromat," he added. "He had the keys to the front door, he paid the gas and electric bills, he still said, 'We're open for business.'" In her own opening statement, defense attorney Keri Curtis Axel countered that Storm is just a privacy advocate who wrote some very useful code. Tornado Cash was backed by US investors, and was built for perfectly legitimate purposes, she told the jury. "Roman had nothing to do with the hackers and scammers — he didn't want them to use Tornado Cash," she said. "The overwhelming majority of people who used it were normal people using it for their own financial privacy, which is the purpose that Roman intended." As for that T-shirt? The one with the Tornado Cash logo imposed over a washing machine? "He wore it at a reputable tech conference in Boston in 2019," Axel said. "And people of the jury, I want you to keep in mind it's just a T-shirt — worn in poor taste." "It's like a comic strip or a meme. It was joke," she said. "It was not evidence of a crime." The trial is expected to last about a month and to feature both hackers and victims among the government's witnesses.
Coin Geek
19-05-2025
- Business
- Coin Geek
Philippines' crypto wealth grows beyond P2E origins: report
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready... The Philippines is fast emerging as a crypto wealth hub, with Filipino crypto owners now ranking among the top globally in terms of average holdings. According to the Crypto Friendly Cities Index 2025 by global financial migration platform Multipolitan, the country ranks 20th in crypto wealth concentration, with Filipino crypto holders owning $14,194.46 (PHP790,000). This marks a shift from the early days when crypto interest in the Philippines was largely driven by play-to-earn (P2E) gaming. The report noted, 'Axie Infinity in the Philippines became a lifeline for thousands of gamers looking to earn income through play-to-earn mechanics.' At the height of its popularity, Filipinos made up 40% of Axie Infinity's global user base. While the value of Axie's tokens has dropped from its peak during the pandemic, crypto ownership in the country continues to expand. Multipolitan highlighted that the Philippines is no longer defined solely by speculative activity or gaming but is part of a larger transformation in global finance. Southeast Asia's crypto powerhouse: Where the Philippines stands Within Southeast Asia, the Philippines trails Singapore (ranked 5th globally), where each crypto holder owns an average of $85,536.63. Malaysia is placed 18th with $20,895.49 per holder, followed by Vietnam at 19th, with each owner holding $16,681.28 in crypto assets. Globally, Slovenia leads with an average of $240,460.17 per crypto owner, followed by Cyprus ($174,972.89), Hong Kong ($97,531.40), and South Korea ($94,827.77). These high averages indicate concentrated crypto wealth, typically associated with jurisdictions that provide regulatory clarity and strong digital infrastructure. 'Crypto wealth no longer belongs exclusively to traditional finance capitals like New York, London, or Singapore. It's borderless, fluid, and finding new homes wherever innovation and clarity converge,' the Crypto Friendly Cities Index 2025 stated. Source: Multipolitan Regulatory environment shapes crypto-friendly cities The report emphasized that cities and countries offering clear, consistent, and crypto-supportive regulations are increasingly drawing both talent and capital. 'Regulatory clarity isn't just beneficial—it's essential,' it noted, citing cases such as Binance relocating operations and Coinbase (NASDAQ: COIN) threatening to leave the U.S. due to hostile regulations. In the Philippines, regulators are gradually catching up. In 2024, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) drafted rules for Crypto Asset Services Providers (CASPs), aiming to protect consumers and create a more stable legal framework for digital assets. This comes as fraudulent activity and unclear rules continue to pose risks. Cities compete for crypto capital Multipolitan's analysis clearly shows where the future of finance is headed and which cities are positioning themselves to lead. Cities like Dubai, Singapore, and Zug are drawing global crypto entrepreneurs, institutional investors, and digital nomads, thanks to clear regulations, tax advantages, and high quality of life. 'These cities aren't just friendly to crypto—they're building entire financial ecosystems around it,' the report said. 'The next epicenter of global finance won't just embrace crypto—it will thrive on it.' Among the key drivers identified are regulatory arbitrage, digital infrastructure, and crypto culture. In the Crypto Friendly Cities Index 2025, cities such as Zurich, Lisbon, Abu Dhabi, and Singapore ranked highly across all five measured metrics: regulation, tax regime, wealth & lifestyle, digital infrastructure, and crypto infrastructure. The report emphasized that 'first movers aren't just leading—they're dominating.' Crypto wealth concentration: Who holds the keys? Beyond adoption, Multipolitan also introduced a Crypto Wealth Concentration Index, which adjusts ownership data using a Gini coefficient to assess the inequality of crypto holdings. This sheds light on how deeply integrated crypto is among populations and whether it's concentrated among a few elites or broadly distributed. The United Arab Emirates stood out as the global adoption leader, with over 25% of its population holding crypto, thanks to 'proactive government policies and clear regulations.' Meanwhile, the United States continues to lead in trading volume, recording $2.07 trillion, largely due to institutional involvement. By contrast, countries like Slovenia and Cyprus, despite smaller populations, showed higher average holdings per user, suggesting high wealth concentration among a relatively small but active group. 'The question now isn't who's adopting crypto—it's who will hold the keys to crypto's immense wealth in the future,' the report concluded. The future financial capital Multipolitan sees the race toward becoming a global crypto hub as more than a trend—it's a foundational shift in financial geography. 'The global financial landscape is shifting,' the report declared. 'Cities that move quickly to embrace crypto aren't merely positioning themselves for relevance—they're securing their place as the financial centers of tomorrow.' This shift is especially relevant for countries like the Philippines, where crypto adoption has gone from grassroots use in gaming communities to broader financial integration. Watch: The Philippines is moving toward blockchain-enabled tech title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen="">
Yahoo
13-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Animoca Brands Plans U.S. Listing to Capture 'Unique Moment' of Trump Administration: FT
Animoca Brands, a Web3 investment company, is planning a public listing in New York, seeking to capture the "unique moment" offered by the Trump administration's approach to digital asset regulation, executive chairman Yat Siu told the Financial Times. An announcement on plans to list could be made soon, Yat Siu said in an interview, according to the Financial Times. Under former President Joe Biden, the U.S. crypto regulatory landscape was littered with lawsuits and enforcement actions against prominent crypto companies such as crypto exchanges Coinbase and Kraken. These have been dropped this year in a signal of the more friendly approach to the digital asset industry by the Trump administration. 'If the U.S. didn't do what they did with the regulators [under Biden], we probably would have competitors in the U.S.," Siu said. "It's a unique moment in time. I feel like it would be one heck of a wasted opportunity if we didn't at least try." The Hong Kong-based company has been a prominent investor in the Web3 industry for a number of years, having risen to prominence during the non-fungible token (NFT) boom of 2021. Its investments include blockchain game Axie Infinity, NFT marketplace OpenSea and Kraken. Kraken is itself considering selling shares to the public for the first time in the U.S. next year. Beyond investments in NFTs and GameFi projects, Animoca Brands' most recent financial report showed a pivot towards its advisory service, which covers token advisory, tokenomics, marketing, listing advisory, node operation and trading services. Animoca holds $293 million in cash and stablecoins, $538 million in digital assets, and $2.9 billion in off-balance-sheet token reserves on its balance sheet, according to its latest report. The company did not immediately respond to CoinDesk's request for further comment. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
