U.S. President Donald Trump granted a pardon to former Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao after the cryptocurrency heavyweight plea pleaded guilty in 2024 to one felony count for “willfully” violating the Bank Secrecy Act by failing to maintain an anti-money laundering program at Binance.
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Zhao served a four-month sentence in a low-security prison, completing his term in September. He also paid a $50 million fine and agreed not to serve as a Binance executive again. Forbes calculates his worth as $85.6 billion and estimates he still owns 90% of Binance.
Zhao has asked Trump for a pardon and lobbied extensively to obtain one. Binance in May announced a deal with World Liberty Financial, the Trump Organization’s cryptocurrency arm. Under the deal, Emirati venture firm MGX pledged to use World Liberty Financial USD1 stablecoins to complete a $2 billion investment into Binance, a deal that could net the Trump family up to $80 million, reported Fortune.
Binance looked the other way at transactions involving Hamas, al-Qaeda, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria and ransomware hackers, the Department of Treasury said in November 2023.
In a statement, White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said that Trump “exercised his constitutional authority by issuing a pardon for Mr. Zhao, who was prosecuted by the Biden administration in their war on cryptocurrency.”
Saudi Arabia-based artificial intelligence-crypto project Astra Nova reported a major setback after a third-party market maker compromise led to the mass sale of its newly launched RVV token. According to blockchain analyst EmberCN, an attacker dumped roughly 860 million RVV tokens – about 8.6% of the total supply – in exchange for $10.2 million in USDT, sending the token price from $0.028 to a low of $0.007 before it recovered to around $0.014.
Astra Nova confirmed the incident on X, formerly Twitter, and said its smart contracts remained secure. The project explained that the breach occurred when a malicious actor gained control of a market maker account and began liquidating assets.
In response, Astra Nova pledged a buyback of the stolen RVV tokens and offered a 10% bounty if the assets are returned. The project also severed ties with the compromised market maker.
A U.S. cryptocurrency investor lost about $3.05 million in XRP after their Ellipal wallet was compromised, with the stolen funds routed through cross-chain bridges and laundered to over-the-counter venues tied to Huione, blockchain sleuth ZachXBT reported on Sunday.
The investigator traced over 120 ripple-to-tron swaps conducted on Oct. 12, showing the funds consolidating on Tron before being dispersed to Huione Group-linked OTC platforms by Oct. 15. U.S. authorities have accused Huione and its affiliates of facilitating large-scale money laundering efforts connected to Southeast Asian scam operations. The U.S. Department of Treasury finalized on Oct. 14 a ban on the Huione Group from the dollar settlement system (see: US Blacklists Huione Group for Money Laundering).
According to ZachXBT, the incident likely stemmed from user error rather than a hardware exploit. The victim reportedly mistook a hot wallet setup for cold storage – a common confusion with hybrid custodial devices.
The U.K. Financial Conduct Authority filed civil proceedings in the London High Court against several entities linked to crypto exchange HTX, alleging the platform unlawfully promoted crypto services to British consumers in violation of financial promotion rules.
The regulator said the move aims to “protect consumers and uphold the integrity of U.K. financial markets,” reported Bloomberg. The FCA had previously warned consumers against using HTX, which continues to operate under its former Huobi brand in some regions.
HTX is associated with Tron founder Justin Sun, who serves as an adviser and is among the largest holders of TRUMP – the official meme coin tied to U.S. President Donald Trump. It remains unclear whether Sun is named as a defendant. The FCA declined to provide further details and HTX has not commented.
Wallets tied to the hacked Chinese mining pool LuBian moved 15,959 bitcoins – worth about $1.83 billion – to four separate addresses in what analysts believe was a coordinated transfer.
According to blockchain data shared by Web3 researcher OnchainLens, which cited Arkham Intelligence, two batches of 4,999 BTC, around $540 million each, were sent to separate wallets, alongside 3,424 BTC, $369.7 million, and 2,535 BTC, $274.4 million.
LuBian, a once-obscure mining pool that grew rapidly before vanishing, was at the center of a massive 2020 theft involving 127,426 BTC. The stolen trove, valued at roughly $3.5 billion at the time, is now worth over $14 billion – one of the largest crypto heists ever recorded.
The movement marks the first major on-chain activity from the hacked wallets in years.
Canada’s financial crime watchdog imposed a record $126.2 million fine, or CA$176.9 million, on crypto exchange Cryptomus for anti-money laundering and sanctions violations. The fine is the largest penalty ever issued by the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada.
FINTRAC said Cryptomus, operated by British Columbia-based Xeltox Enterprises, failed to report more than 1,000 suspicious transactions in July 2024 tied to darknet markets, child sexual abuse material, ransomware, fraud and sanctions evasion. The agency also found 7,557 unreported transfers from Iran and 1,518 large-value crypto transactions over CA$10,000 between July and December 2024.
Cryptomus had already been banned from trading securities in the province earlier this year.
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