Crypto

Blockchain investigator ZachXBT has turned his attention to Tokenlon, accusing the lesser-known exchange of handling a large share of activity tied to illicit crypto flows. The allegation centers on suspected routing from romance scams, human trafficking-linked scam operations, investment fraud, and Chinese underground markets. The claim is serious, but still an allegation. No enforcement agency has publicly charged Tokenlon or imToken over the latest accusations, and the platform has rejected wrongdoing. Tokenlon responded on X that it does not custody…

Won-denominated crypto trading now accounts for roughly 30% of global spot volume, making South Korea the second-largest fiat-to-crypto market after the U.S. dollar. The scale is striking for a country of about 52 million people, with local exchanges generating around $26 billion in weekly turnover so far this year. The activity is concentrated in a small number of domestic exchanges. Upbit and Bithumb dominate Korean crypto trading, together handling nearly all local spot volume. That concentration gives listing decisions, compliance…

Ripple is contributing DPRK-linked threat intelligence to Crypto ISAC, giving member firms more shared data on North Korean cyber actors targeting digital-asset companies through wallets, domains, hiring channels, and suspected insider-access attempts. The contribution is focused on indicators tied to active DPRK campaigns, including fraudulent domains, wallets, and indicators of compromise. It also includes enriched profiles of suspected North Korean IT workers who may be trying to gain access to crypto companies through employment, contractor, or contributor roles. That detail…

Taiwan and South Korea are moving up the global stock-market rankings at historic speed as AI-linked semiconductor stocks pull trillions of dollars into Asian equity markets. The Kobeissi Letter flagged the shift in a post on X, saying Taiwan’s total stock-market capitalization has reached a record $4.5 trillion, surpassing Canada for the first time and overtaking the UK two weeks earlier. The same post placed South Korea’s market capitalization near a record $4.1 trillion after it overtook the UK, with…

Fundstrat co-founder Tom Lee believes crypto may have already moved through a hidden bear phase, even if the market never labeled it as a full cycle top. The argument centers on positioning, liquidity, and sentiment rather than price alone. In comments covered by BeInCrypto, Lee framed the recent weakness in crypto and large parts of the equity market as a stealth reset, with short positioning and liquidity withdrawal reaching levels more typical of market bottoms than late-cycle peaks. That view…

Retail investors are pouring into semiconductor ETFs at a historic pace, turning the AI infrastructure boom into one of the hottest public-market trades while crypto ETFs attract a more uneven bid. J.P. Morgan equity strategy data shared by The Kobeissi Letter put net retail buying of semiconductor ETFs at about $3.2 billion since January 2025. The flow has accelerated this year as investors position around the AI data-center buildout, where chips, memory, networking, cooling, and power infrastructure have become the…

Treasury Names Crypto In Iran Pressure Campaign U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has put Iran’s access to crypto directly inside Washington’s sanctions push, signaling that digital assets are now being treated as part of the same enforcement map as oil exports, shadow banking, shipping networks, and weapons procurement. Bessent sharpened that message in an April 29 post on X, where he said the Treasury Department had targeted Iran’s “international shadow banking infrastructure, access to crypto, shadow fleet” and other networks…

PI Swings After A Short-Lived Breakout Attempt Pi Network is back in focus after another sharp price swing put traders on edge. PI briefly pushed toward $0.20 on April 29, then lost momentum the next day as sellers dragged the token back toward the $0.17 to $0.18 range. The move came as the community watched several Pi developments at once. Traders have been tracking the network’s expected protocol 22 migration after earlier version 21 work, while Pi’s latest AI-focused update…

Crypto card spending is breaking out of its early-adopter box, and the numbers are getting too large to ignore. Monthly crypto card volume has surged about 500% since September 2024 to roughly $600 million, turning stablecoin-linked cards into one of the fastest-growing payment stories on public blockchains. The shift shows stablecoins moving from wallet balances and exchange liquidity into everyday consumer spending. Users are not only holding digital dollars anymore. They are increasingly routing them through card networks, mobile wallets,…