Rollbit coin (RLB) emerged as the top performer this week, posting a robust gain of 39.31% over the past seven days. Closely following RLB, apecoin (APE) also experienced substantial growth, climbing by 27.86%. Both of these cryptocurrencies demonstrated strong momentum and captured significant market attention.
Other notable gainers for the week included binaryx (BNX), which rose by 25.11%, and sui crypto (SUI), which increased by 17.38%. The popular altcoins quant (QNT) and starknet (STRK) saw gains of 16.48% and 12.97%, respectively. Aave (AAVE), 1inch Network Token (1INCH), bitcoinsv (BSV), and uniswap (UNI) also featured on the list of top gainers with respectable weekly increases.
A virtual confab designed to repair relations between the crypto industry and the Biden Administration turned ugly Thursday morning, underscoring the uphill battle progressive crypto advocates are having trying to glean industry support for the presidential candidacy of Kamala Harris, Fox Business has learned.
Donald Trump Jr. has announced plans to launch a new decentralized finance (DeFi) cryptocurrency platform to address inequality in banking access. However, the platform is still in the early stages and will take some time to become a reality.
During a Q&A session on subscription-based platform Locals on Aug. 8, Donald Trump Jr, the eldest son of presidential candidate and former President Donald Trump, said he wasn’t launching a memecoin but working on a crypto platform to take on the banks.
“What we’re talking about is a larger type of platform,” that’s very different and not a memecoin, he said. However, he added that it would be a “long time before we can do anything,” not giving anything away on a time frame.
The nine spot Ethereum Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) recently launched in the United States have ended its four days outflow streak by recording a net inflow of $33.6 million yesterday.
This is the first time in four days that the Ethereum ETFs are ending a day of trading without a deficit. The inflows into the collective Ethereum ETFs finally outweighed the outflows putting an end to the bleeding streak previously recorded.
According to Data from Farside Investors UK, Grayscale’s Ethereum Trust (ETHE) was the only ETF product to record an outflow for the day. ETHE recorded a net outflow of $120.3 million continuing in its usual fashion of recording outflows since the first day of trading.
Movement Labs, a network focused on open-source tooling for the Move smart contract language, and Polygon Labs, a software development company building an aggregated blockchain network, today announced a strategic collaboration that marks a significant milestone in blockchain interoperability. Movement Labs will join the AggLayer developed by Polygon Labs, enabling unified liquidity across MoveVM-based Layer-2 chains, all AggLayer-connected chains, and Ethereum. This integration makes Movement the first Move-based ecosystem to utilize the AggLayer, effectively bridging the gap between Move and EVM ecosystems.
Movement’s testnet launch and $160M in committed TVL, showcases demand for secure, interoperable Move-based L2 solutions
The announcement coincides with the launch of Movement Labs’ public testnet, which has already attracted an impressive $160 million in committed Total Value Locked (TVL) before mainnet. Solv Protocol, pioneering a Decentralized Bitcoin Reserve, has pledged $100 million in TVL on Movement. New and existing Movement Labs investors, including 280 Capital, have committed an additional $60 million in TVL.
As part of this collaboration, the AggLayer will serve as the foundation for unifying liquidity across these MoveVM-based chains, AggChains, and Ethereum — addressing the critical issue of fragmented liquidity in the blockchain space. The AggLayer, the first components of which went live in February, securely connects sovereign chains together, unifying liquidity, users, and state, but with the feel of a single chain. By fixing crypto’s fragmentation problem, the AggLayer enables developers to grow projects across an infinitely horizontal web of connected chains.
Movement uses Celestia for data availability, providing a high-throughput, solution for posting transaction data off-chain while still settling to Ethereum. As the industry’s leading data availability layer, Celestia allows developers to scale without permission, unlocking alt-VM L2s and high-throughput applications previously only viable on alt L1s like Solana or permissioned DA solutions.
By leveraging Polygon technology, Movement Labs aims to create an efficient, secure, and interoperable blockchain environment that addresses critical Web3 challenges, including fragmented liquidity and user experience.
“Our platform addresses a critical need in the Web3 ecosystem,” explained Rushi Manche, Co-Founder of Movement Labs. “Developers no longer have to choose between the trusted Ethereum environment and the security of alternative L1s. Movement offers the best of both worlds — the familiarity of an Ethereum L2 with the enhanced security and performance of the Move language. This allows projects to deploy with confidence, knowing they’re protected against common vulnerabilities while still leveraging the economic strength of the Ethereum ecosystem.”
“The AggLayer’s mission is to unify Web3 in its entirety by bringing together as many users, developers, programming languages, different smart contracts and chains, and liquidity as possible,” said Marc Boiron, CEO of Polygon Labs. “The introduction of chains within the Movement network to the AggLayer accelerates this mission, bringing Web3 another step closer to unlimited global interoperability. This collaboration will greatly help in alleviating some of the most pressing challenges in Web3 — siloed liquidity and fragmented user experience, which currently hinder mass adoption.”
The launch of Movement Labs’ public testnet showcases six diverse Web3 projects already deployed on Movement testnet:
Echelon – a highly efficient money market designed to scale Move DeFi & Liquidity with LST, RWA, and stablecoin backed strategies.
Moveposition – a decentralized borrow/lend platform on Movement Labs. Powered by an institutional-grade risk engine and using adaptive risk management, Moveposition offers users a reliable and precise way to manage assets through a simple wallet connection.
Meridian – a decentralized liquidity marketplace and liquid staking protocol natively built on Movement Labs, enabling users to seamlessly trade and earn with their assets.
Avitus: a Movement-native perpetual protocol allowing any asset as collateral for trading, enabling users to leverage existing holdings without swapping to blue-chip assets.
BRKT – a decentralized prediction market and competition management protocol utilizing binary options and bracket-style tournaments.
Infinite Seas – a fully on-chain maritime trading, battling, and diplomatic MMO game
This collaboration and the successful testnet launch represent significant steps towards Movement’s “Road to Parthenon” — its journey to mainnet.
By leveraging the AggLayer, Movement enables developers to deploy Solidity contracts on Move-based chains without code modification, while benefiting from Move’s enhanced security features that eliminate nearly 90% of auditor-prioritized attack vectors. This integration not only enhances interoperability but also paves the way for increased innovation and adoption in the blockchain space.
Latin America investors have shown that they are quite particular when it comes to using crypto. A recent survey by Binance, one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges, revealed that Latam investors prefer to use cryptocurrency as a long-term savings and investment tool, rather than leveraging it as a day trading asset.
The Binance survey, which polled 10,000 users from Latam markets like Argentina, Colombia, Brazil, and Mexico, found that 50.3% of the users polled, one of each two customers, preferred to use cryptocurrency as an investment tool. In the second place in the list of adoption use cases, 18.8% of the users polled declared they traded with these assets daily.
Other use cases also were found in the Binance poll, including peer-to-peer (P2P) transactions with 8.4%, decentralized finance applications with 8.2%, and purchases with (4.9%). While crypto in Latam has been traditionally linked to sending and receiving remittances, the use case only registered marginal levels of adoption, reaching only 3.4% and falling even below non-fungible tokens (NFTs), which scored 4.8% of adoption.
Binance also delved into the motivations Latam investors had for putting their funds into crypto. The top reasons included the high yields that benefit investors in the field (20.3%) and the financial freedom these provide (15.2%). Other reasons included inflation and devaluation hedging, innovation, portfolio diversification, and privacy.
Guilherme Nazar, regional vice president of Binance for Latam, stated:
Latam is a very important region for Binance, and we believe there is room for significant user growth, based on the specific demands of users in each country.
The crypto market cap has returned to its peak, which reached around $2.49 trillion a week ago, adding 3.3% in the last 24 hours. At this stage, the top coins are the lifting force for the market, with BTCUSD up 3.1%, Ethereum up 4.4%, and Solana up 5.5%.
Bitcoin’s price has reached $69.5K, its highest since mid-June. The Bitcoin 2024 conference tipped the scales in favour of the bulls. The technical picture speaks in favour of further upside, as the latest spurt came after a local shakeout that removed overbought conditions and broke the resistance of the descending channel.
Ethereum is gaining momentum after pushing back from its 200-day moving average. Twice in the past month, the main altcoin got support on dips below this line. On Monday, the coin is testing the 50-day average, rising to $3380, the taking of which opens a fast route to $3500 and then $4000.
Solana is making steady progress upwards, reaching $192, its highest since early April. This shows a stronger recovery compared to Bitcoin and the broader market, where capitalisation is lower than the peak in early June.
According to SoSoValue, net outflows from spot Ethereum-ETFs rose to $162.7 million on 26 July, continuing for a third day. Total assets under management (AUM) fell to $8.97 billion. In the three days since the ETF was approved, investors have withdrawn $1.6 billion or 17% of AUM from Grayscale’s ETHE.
Solana (SOL) surpassed BNB in market capitalisation and ranked fourth on CoinMarketCap.
Donald Trump, during a speech at the annual Bitcoin 2024 conference in Nashville, promised to fire SEC head Gary Gensler and create a strategic Bitcoin reserve if elected. He also said he would be a “pro-Bitcoin” president and would not allow any of the 213,239 BTC seized by authorities and held in US government wallets to be sold. According to Trump, the US will become the world’s cryptocurrency capital.
Former NSA and CIA employee Edward Snowden expressed serious concerns about BTC privacy issues during a speech at Bitcoin 2024. He reminded attendees that despite the common misconception, Bitcoin transactions are not completely anonymous because they can be traced back to specific individuals.
Hardware wallet maker Ledger unveiled its new Ledger Flex device at the Bitcoin 2024 conference. The Ledger Flex features an NFC and an E-Ink touchscreen.
Donald Trump, once a cryptocurrency opposer, has since planned to be a “pro-bitcoin president” if elected in November.
The Republican nominee is seeking support from an industry frustrated by US regulations.
“The Biden-Harris administration’s repression of crypto and bitcoin is wrong, and it’s very bad for our country,” Trump said to cheers at a conference in Tennessee.
The ex-president likened cryptocurrencies to the growth of the “steel industry of 100 years ago”, and said, “Bitcoin stands for freedom, sovereignty and independence from government coercion and control.”
Trump said if he was in the White House, he would not allow the US government to sell its bitcoin holdings.
“This will serve in effect as the core of the strategic national bitcoin stockpile,” Trump said.
The proposal was more limited than one offered the day before by long-shot third-party candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who said he would seek to build a stockpile of 4 million bitcoins.
Keonne Rodriguez and William Lonergan Hill Are Charged with Operating Samourai Wallet, an Unlicensed Money Transmitting Business That Executed Over $2 Billion in Unlawful Transactions and Laundered Over $100 Million in Criminal Proceeds
Damian Williams, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York; Thomas Fattorusso, the Special Agent in Charge of the New York Field Office of the Internal Revenue Service, Criminal Investigation (“IRS-CI”); and James Smith, the Assistant Director in Charge of the New York Field Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”), announced today the unsealing of an Indictment charging KEONNE RODRIGUEZ, the Chief Executive Officer and a co-founder of Samourai Wallet (“Samourai”), and WILLIAM LONERGAN HILL, the Chief Technology Officer and also a co-founder of Samourai, with conspiracy to commit money laundering and conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business. These charges arise from the defendants’ development, marketing, and operation of a cryptocurrency mixer that executed over $2 billion in unlawful transactions and facilitated more than $100 million in money laundering transactions from illegal dark web markets, such as Silk Road and Hydra Market; a web-server intrusion; a spearphishing scheme; and schemes to defraud multiple decentralized finance protocols. RODRIGUEZ was arrested this morning and is expected to be presented today or tomorrow before a U.S. Magistrate Judge in the Western District of Pennsylvania. HILL was arrested this morning in Portugal based on the U.S. criminal charges. The United States will seek HILL’s extradition to stand trial in the United States. The case is assigned to U.S. District Judge Richard M. Berman.
In coordination with law enforcement authorities in Iceland, Samourai’s web servers and domain (https://samourai.io/) were seized. Additionally, a seizure warrant for Samourai’s mobile application was served on the Google Play Store. As a result, the application will no longer be available to be downloaded from the Google Play Store in the United States.
U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said: “As alleged, Keonne Rodriguez and William Lonergan Hill are responsible for developing, marketing, and operating Samourai, a cryptocurrency mixing service that executed over $2 billion in unlawful transactions and served as a haven for criminals to engage in large-scale money laundering. Rodriguez and Hill allegedly knowingly facilitated the laundering of over $100 million of criminal proceeds from the Silk Road, Hydra Market, and a host of other computer hacking and fraud campaigns. Together with our law enforcement partners, we will continue to relentlessly pursue and dismantle criminal organizations that use cryptocurrency to hide illicit conduct.”
IRS-CI Special Agent in Charge Thomas Fattorusso said: “$2 billion in transactions with an unlicensed money transmitter means $2 billion flowed without any oversight, from whomever to wherever. Because of the company’s disregard for regulation, it’s alleged that Samourai Wallet laundered more than $100 million in criminal proceeds. Special Agents with IRS:CI New York and IRS:CI LA’s Cyber units worked with our federal and international law enforcement partners to not only arrest the founders and CEO, but to also seize their domain. Samourai Wallet is now closed for business.”
FBI Assistant Director in Charge James Smith said: “Threat actors utilize technology to evade law enforcement detection and create environments conducive to criminal activity. For almost 10 years, Keonne Rodriguez and William Hill allegedly operated a mobile cryptocurrency mixing platform which provided other criminals a virtual haven for the clandestine exchange of illicit funds, the facilitation of more than $2 billion in illegal transactions, and $100 million in dark web money laundering. The FBI is committed to exposing covert financial schemes and ensuring no one can hide behind a screen to perpetuate financial wrongdoing.”
According to the allegations in the Indictment unsealed today in Manhattan federal Court:[1]
Background on Samourai
From about 2015 through February 2024, RODRIGUEZ and HILL developed, marketed, and operated a cryptocurrency mixing service known as Samourai, an unlicensed money transmitting business from which they earned millions of dollars in fees. Samourai unlawfully combined multiple unique features to execute anonymous financial transactions valued at over $2 billion for its customers. While offering Samourai as a “privacy” service, the defendants knew that it was a haven for criminals to engage in large-scale money laundering and sanctions evasion. Indeed, as the defendants intended and well knew, a substantial portion of the funds that Samourai processed were criminal proceeds passed through Samourai for purposes of concealment. During the relevant period, Samourai laundered over $100 million of crime proceeds originating from, among other criminal sources, illegal darkweb markets, such as Silk Road and Hydra Market; various wire fraud and computer fraud schemes, including a web-server intrusion, a spearphishing scheme, and schemes to defraud multiple decentralized finance protocols; and other illegal activities.
RODRIGUEZ and HILL began developing Samourai in or about 2015. Samourai is a mobile application that users can download onto their cellphones, and the application has been downloaded over 100,000 times. After users download Samourai, they can store their private keys for any BTC addresses they control inside of the Samourai program. These private keys are not shared with Samourai employees, but Samourai operates a centralized server that, among other things, supervises and facilitates transactions between Samourai users and creates new BTC addresses used during the transactions. Samourai is used by customers all over the world, including customers located in the United States and in the Southern District of New York.
RODRIGUEZ and HILL designed Samourai to offer at least two features intended to assist individuals engaged in criminal conduct to conceal the source of the proceeds of their criminal activities. First, Samourai offers a cryptocurrency mixing service known as “Whirlpool,” which coordinates batches of cryptocurrency exchanges between groups of Samourai users to prevent tracing of criminal proceeds by law enforcement on the Blockchain. Second, Samourai offers a service called “Ricochet,” which allows a Samourai user to build in additional and unnecessary intermediate transactions (known as “hops”) when sending cryptocurrency from one address to another address. This feature similarly may prevent law enforcement and/or cryptocurrency exchanges from recognizing that a particular batch of cryptocurrency originates from criminal activity. Since the start of the Whirlpool service in or about 2019, and of the Ricochet service in or about 2017, over 80,000 BTC (worth over $2 billion applying the BTC-USD conversion rates at the time of each transaction) has passed through these two services operated by Samourai. Samourai collects a fee for both services, estimated to be about $3.4 million for Whirlpool transactions and $1.1 million for Ricochet transactions over the same time period.
RODRIGUEZ and HILL’s Knowledge and Intent for Criminal Proceeds to be Laundered by Samourai
RODRIGUEZ and HILL operated Twitter accounts that encouraged and openly invited users to launder criminal proceeds through Samourai. For example, in or around June 2022, Samourai’s Twitter account — operated by RODRIGUEZ — posted the following message regarding Russian oligarchs seeking to circumvent sanctions:
Similarly, in a private message on or about August 27, 2020, HILL — using a Twitter account with the username “Samourai Dev” — discussed the use of Samourai by criminals operating in online black markets such as Silk Road in private messages with another Twitter user (the “Twitter User”) (emphasis added):
Twitter User: Silk Road is why I first found Bitcoin and the desire to keep engaging in those types of markets is one reason that I want to defend/strengthen those use cases . . .
Samourai Dev: No, not at all. We probably have different views on some basic tenets of bitcoin, you and I – so to each his own so to speak. At Samourai we are entirely focused on the censorship resistance and black/grey circular economy. This implies no foreseeable mass adoption, although black/grey markets have already started to expand during covid and will continue to do so post-covid. . . .
Additionally, in response to Europol highlighting Samourai as a “top threat” to the ability of law enforcement to trace the proceeds of criminal activity, HILL posted a message in or around March 2021 suggesting that Samourai would not change its practices in response to allegations that Samourai was being used for money laundering:
Similarly, RODRIGUEZ and HILL possessed and transmitted to potential investors marketing materials that discussed how Samourai’s customer base was intended to include criminals seeking privacy or the subversion of safeguards and reporting requirements by financial institutions. For example, in Samourai’s marketing materials, RODRIGUEZ and HILL similarly acknowledge that the individuals most likely to use a service like Samourai include individuals engaged in criminal activities, including “Restricted Markets.”
In the below excerpt from Samourai’s marketing materials, RODRIGUEZ and HILL acknowledge that its revenues will be derived from “Dark/Grey Market participants” seeking to “swap their bitcoins with multiple parties” to avoid detection:
In Samourai’s marketing materials, RODRIGUEZ and HILL promoted Samourai’s Wallet and its “Mixing Service” as a “Premium Privacy Service” for transactions involving the proceeds of goods and services that include, among other things, “Illicit Activity.”
* * *
RODRIGUEZ, 35, of Harmony, Pennsylvania, and HILL, 65, a U.S. national who was arrested in Portugal, are each charged with one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, and one count of conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business, which carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison.
The maximum potential sentences are prescribed by Congress and are provided here for informational purposes only, as any sentencing of the defendants will be determined by the judge.
Mr. Williams praised the investigative work of IRS-CI and the FBI. He also acknowledged the assistance of the Justice Department’s Office of International Affairs. Mr. Williams also thanked Europol, the Portugal Judiciary Police, the Icelandic Police, the FBI Field Office in Pittsburgh, the FBI’s International Operations Division, and the IRS-CI Los Angeles Field Office for their assistance in the investigation of this case.
This case is being handled by the Office’s Complex Frauds and Cybercrime Unit and Illicit Finance and Money Laundering Unit. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Andrew K. Chan and David R. Felton are in charge of the prosecution.
The charges contained in the Indictment are merely accusations and the defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.
