Latest news with #DragonflyCapital
Yahoo
25-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Tornado Cash investor slams prosecutors eyeing ‘unprecedented' new charges
Federal prosecutors could charge executives at crypto venture firm Dragonfly Capital in connection with its 2020 investment in Tornado Cash developer Peppersec Inc, an assistant US attorney reportedly said Friday. That prompted a swift rebuke from one of the firm's managing partners, who said the company stood by its investment and called the prospect 'outrageous.' 'We made this investment because we believe in the importance of open-source privacy-preserving technology,' Managing Partner Haseeb Qureshi said on X on Friday. 'Charging a venture firm for a portfolio company's alleged misconduct would be unprecedented.' Attorneys for Tornado Cash co-founder Roman Storm want to call Dragonfly Managing Partner Tom Schmidt as a witness in Storm's criminal trial, which began last week in New York. But Schmidt, apparently facing the spectre of prosecution, has said he intends to invoke his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, according to Storm's attorneys. 'Are you looking at possibly prosecuting everyone at Dragonfly?' Judge Katherine Polk Failla asked federal prosecutor Thane Rehn on Friday during a back-and-forth over Schmidt's potential testimony, according to a post from Inner City Press. 'Not everyone,' Rehn reportedly replied. Tornado Cash allows users to cloak the movement of crypto from one wallet to another. Its users include people who want to maintain their privacy on the blockchain, as well as cybercriminals who have used it to launder stolen crypto. Prosecutors have charged Storm with conspiracy to commit money laundering, operate an unlicensed money-transmitting business, and violate US sanctions. He faces more than 40 years in prison. Dragonfly invested $882,000 in Peppersec in August 2020, according to a document unveiled in court on Thursday. Qureshi said Friday that Dragonfly 'obtained an outside legal opinion that confirmed that Tornado Cash as built complied with the law.' Private messages At Storm's trial Thursday, prosecutors shared a series of private messages between the Tornado Cash founders and Dragonfly executives. The executives advised the founders on their business plans, including a proposal to re-create Tornado Cash with anti-money laundering features, the messages show. Two days before investing in Tornado Cash, Qureshi urged Storm to create a three-year vesting schedule for the founders' tokens. 'You don't want to spook the market,' Qureshi said. '2 years is on the small side these days for founder lockups.' In February 2022, Storm asked Schmidt to urge holders of the Tornado Cash token to vote to introduce a 'relay registry' — a protocol feature that was key to some of Storm's alleged crimes, prosecutors say. Later that year, governments began to scrutinise privacy-enhancing crypto protocols such as Tornado Cash, and the founders began to implement changes to limit its use by cybercriminals. In April, the founders changed the Tornado Cash website to block crypto wallets sanctioned by the US. A month later, Storm told Dragonfly executives the Peppersec team was 'brainstorming an idea.' 'Privacy for blockchain with full compliance,' Storm said in a message in a group chat that included Qureshi and Schmidt. 'Has to be under new brand name, basically fork of Tornado Cash but with KYC/AML in it.' Qureshi said he was 'not a fan' of the idea. 'Legally it seems fine, but I just don't know if anyone will actually want this,' he said. 'Market need seems quite thin.' Dragonfly cooperation Tornado Cash was sanctioned by the US Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control that August. (Those sanctions were lifted this year after Ethereum developer Preston Van Loon and other Tornado Cash users successfully sued the Treasury Department.) 'Despite public assurances otherwise, Tornado Cash has repeatedly failed to impose effective controls designed to stop it from laundering funds for malicious cyber actors on a regular basis,' Treasury official Brian Nelson said in a statement. Storm was arrested a year later. Despite living in Washington State, the software engineer is being tried in the Southern District of New York. Prosecutors say that by communicating with Schmidt while the executive was in New York, Storm committed his alleged crimes in the district. 'We always encouraged our portfolio companies to follow the law, and we maintain that Tornado Cash itself has a lawful right to exist—a view reinforced by Van Loon v. Department of the Treasury and OFAC's subsequent rescission of sanctions,' Qureshi said Thursday. Dragonfly received a government subpoena in 2023 and has 'fully cooperated' with the government's investigation of Roman Storm since, according to Qureshi. He added that prosecutors have 'made clear' the venture firm was not a target of their investigation. 'We believe the government's statement in court today was primarily to undermine a defense of Tornado Cash—to make it more difficult for the defense to call Tom to testify on the stand,' Qureshi said. 'After all of this time—years later—bringing charges against Dragonfly would be outrageous, contrary to the facts and the law, and would induce a chilling effect onto all investment into crypto and privacy-preserving technologies in America.' Aleks Gilbert is DL News' New York-based DeFi Correspondent. Reach out to him with tips at aleks@ Sign in to access your portfolio
Yahoo
11-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
US 'way behind' on crypto regulation: Dragonfly partner
Dragonfly Capital Partners, Haseeb Qureshi joins Bloomberg "The Close" to share his view on the unraveling spaghetti that is the traditional financial system. 登入存取你的投資組合
Bloomberg
09-07-2025
- Business
- Bloomberg
US 'way behind' on crypto regulation: Dragonfly partner
Bloomberg Markets: The Close Dragonfly Capital Partners, Haseeb Qureshi joins Bloomberg "The Close" to share his view on the unraveling spaghetti that is the traditional financial system. (Source: Bloomberg)
Yahoo
28-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Exclusive: Stablecoin company Conduit raises $36 million from Dragonfly Capital and Altos Ventures
Conduit, a stablecoin company founded in 2021, announced on Wednesday that it has raised $36 million led by Dragonfly Capital and Altos Ventures with participation from Sound Ventures, DCG, and Commerce Ventures. This round, a Series A, brings Conduit's total funding to $53 million. The company did not disclose its valuation in the round. Founder and CEO Kirill Gertman says Conduit's goal is to make cross-border payments faster, cheaper and more reliable for businesses worldwide. He said that his company settles international payments with stablecoins—a type of cryptocurrency that is designed to maintain a value in line with the U.S. dollar—in an attempt to complete transactions more quickly than traditional banks. In addition to helping companies send and receive stablecoins between countries, Conduit also helps its clients exchange local currencies for stablecoins and vice versa. 'Essentially, our service is the one-stop-shop for going in and out of local currencies and stablecoins,' Gertman said. Conduit supports 14 different fiat-currencies and operates in nine countries including the United States, Mexico, Brazil, Nigeria, and Kenya. 'We have a network of over 20 banks across nine countries that we work with very closely that gives us the best access to local rails,' Gertman said, referring to the different payment infrastructure in each country. Conduit's payments service comes in the form of an app or can be embedded directly into a fintech platform's interface. The company produces revenue by charging customers a fee on each stablecoin transaction. Since launching its flagship service in late 2023, Conduit has grown to process more than $10 billion worth of transactions annually, Gertman said. The company services over 5,000 merchants globally and over 100 fintech platforms have embedded Conduit into their platforms. Many other companies are also focused on making cross-border payments easier with stablecoins. These companies include crypto firm Ripple and payments giant Stripe,which acquired Bridge, a stablecoin start-up, in October. Conduit plans to use the money raised in this round to introduce its product in five Asian countries by the end of the year and expand its client base to include new types of businesses. Clarification, May 28, 2025: This article has been updated to clarify that Altos Ventures co-led the round with Dragonfly Capital. This story was originally featured on 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
01-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Exclusive: Stablecoin company Zar raises $7 million in round led by Dragonfly Capital, Andreessen Horowitz and VanEck Ventures
While they may be called something different in every country, corner stores offer convenient access to snacks and beverages as well as phone minutes and remittances. The former CEO of a Pakistan-based payments company Brandon Timinsky wants to add stablecoins to the list of what these mom and pop businesses handle. As stablecoins—a type of cryptocurrency designed to maintain a value in line with the U.S. dollar—become an increasingly integral option for settling cross-border payments, Timinsky wants to make it possible for people to exchange cash for crypto at any corner store with his company Zar. To do so, he has raised $7 million from Dragonfly Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, and VanEck Ventures, with additional participation from Coinbase Ventures and the co-founders of the Solana blockchain, to launch Zar's flagship service. The company's valuation in the deal was not disclosed. After founding SadaPay in 2019—and selling it in 2024—Timinsky is seeking to harness the benefits of crypto in emerging markets. Since 2021, stablecoins like USDT and USDC have exploded into a $238 billion industry, including helping people outside of the U.S. settle cross-border payments and protect their wealth from inflation. Timinsky says his company will take advantage of the 28 million global registered mobile money agents—a person or business contracted to offer financial services outside of a bank—who facilitate more than $1.5 trillion worth of financial services annually. 'Zar is tapping into that infrastructure to create a cash for stablecoin exchange in the physical world,' Timinsky told Fortune. 'Like Coinbase is an exchange online, Zar is an exchange that exists in the physical world.' Timinsky said that while Zar is not available to the public yet, nearly 100,000 customers have signed up for a waitlist and about 7,000 vendors have expressed interest in adding its services to their stores. The interest spans 20 countries, he said, including in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Nigeria, Lebanon, and Argentina. Zar is not initially targeting the U.S. market. Stablecoin use is not as popular in the U.S. because the local currency tends to be more stable and has more robust payment systems than other countries. It works like this: Customers will walk into a 'bodega' in Colombia or 'kirana store' in Pakistan and scan a QR code. That QR code will link to the Zar app where the customer can review the vendor's ratings, check out other nearby exchanges, and enter how much money they would like to exchange for stablecoins. Then, the customer hands over their cash and the stablecoins are deposited into their digital wallet. Vendors will be able to make money from this service by choosing the exchange rate they will charge customers and adding a margin for themselves to profit, Timinisky said. Additionally, Zar will charge a fee on each transaction which may vary by country. Zar's funding announcement is part of a growing movement of stablecoin companies trying to implement the underlying infrastructure to facilitate transactions for the class of cryptocurrency. A company called Rain issues credit cards to customers who want to settle transactions in stablecoins. Another company, Plasma, is building a blockchain specifically designed for stablecoin transactions. Timinsky says he plans to launch his service by the end of the summer. The company will use the money raised in this round to expand its team, add office space, and continue building out its technology. This story was originally featured on
