US Seizes $25M in Crypto From Cross-Border Fraud Ring

U.S. prosecutors and the Secret Service seized more than $25 million in cryptocurrency linked to a cross-border fraud network, the Justice Department said July 21. The haul came through a cyber fraud task force investigation and five civil forfeiture complaints filed in Washington, D.C.

The largest single case involved a romance scam that hit more than 200 victims and totaled roughly $12.1 million, officials said. A second tranche of about $10.4 million came from a wallet network flagged by Canadian authorities. Investigators traced more than 270 transactions tied to fraudulent investment platforms, and said those two cases account for about 85% of the assets targeted for forfeiture.

Other cases covered withdrawal restrictions, fake investment accounts, and tracing of scam proceeds. Several suspected money launderers appear to be based in Southeast Asia, with internet addresses linked to China, Malaysia, and Cambodia, authorities said. Those jurisdictions have appeared repeatedly in prior reports on industrial-scale scam operations and laundering pipelines.

The seizures come as regulators and lawmakers sharpen their focus on digital asset compliance. Sen. Bill Hagerty renewed his push for a market structure bill tied to the CLARITY effort, arguing that consistent rules help both investors and enforcement. “Markets work best when everyone knows the rules,” Hagerty said.

On the infrastructure side, Uniswap introduced a v4-based permissioned pool feature on July 26, according to Wu Blockchain. The pools use an on-chain allowlist check to gate access for assets subject to regulatory requirements, such as tokenized securities and funds. Uniswap's existing permissionless v4 pools will keep running unchanged. Launch partners include Superstate, Securitize, and Dowgo.

Payments firm Wise plans to reapply for a national trust bank charter with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency under the GENIUS stablecoin bill framework, The Block reported. The OCC rejected Wise's prior application earlier this week, citing failure to show effective anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing controls. Investment bank William Blair said a renewed filing is unlikely to change Wise's core view of payments-focused stablecoins.

Markets also saw several notable blockchain flows. Whale Alert flagged a transfer of 1,815 Bitcoin from Kraken to an unidentified wallet, worth about $116.6 million. The move of BTC off an exchange came at a time when traders watch for signals around liquidity and custody preference.

On-chain analyst ai_emo said Arthur Hayes received 644.723 Ether from FalconX roughly eight hours earlier, with the amount matching a USDC deposit from three days prior, suggesting a purchase, ODaily reported. Since July 15, Hayes has bought a total of 3,914.84 ETH through major market makers and exchanges at an average price of $1,908.86. He was sitting on an unrealized loss of about $113,000 at the time of publication.

Crypto analyst Killa said the amount of Bitcoin held by long-term holders that is currently underwater has risen above levels seen during the FTX collapse and is approaching the 2018 bear-market zone, ODaily reported. Killa put Bitcoin's realized price near $50,000 and noted prior cycles sometimes saw spot prices test long-term holder realized levels. The analyst cautioned that major cycle indicators behaved unusually in the last bull run and that future bottom signals may also diverge from historical patterns.

Hyperliquid burned roughly $5 million worth of its native token from priority fee revenue, a move typically viewed as reducing circulating supply over time depending on issuance and broader tokenomics.

In DeFi infrastructure, Odos, the decentralized trade aggregator, will shut down all services on July 30, 2026, ODaily reported. The Odos app will switch to read-only mode on July 27, letting users view balances and history but not execute trades. The company said it has never directly custody-held user funds, and that assets in external wallets remain controlled by users' private keys. Users who created wallets via Google, Apple, or email login are urged to export their private keys or move assets to self-custody wallets before the shutdown date.

Odos was spun out in 2022 from Semiotic Labs, a contributor to The Graph ecosystem, and has routed more than $104 billion in cumulative volume across roughly 15 blockchain networks, the report said. Monthly volume peaked around $7.85 billion in December 2024 before declining to the hundreds of millions by mid-2026. The ODOS token will continue to exist independently of the service shutdown, the firm said, and there are no plans for new products, token migrations, or airdrops.

Prediction markets suggested tempered expectations for Ether upside into year-end. Polymarket traders price the probability that Ethereum reaches $3,000 in 2026 at 17%, according to ODaily. A contract tracking whether ETH hits $1,000 or $3,000 first has seen about $95,300 in volume and will settle using Binance's ETH/USDT one-minute candle data on Dec. 31, 2026. Another Polymarket market for ETH's 2026 price has neared $9 million in volume, with traders assigning an 83% chance of $2,000, 56% for $2,500, 12% for $3,500, and less than 4% for $5,000.

A separate Polymarket contract tracking whether ETH sets a new all-time high by Dec. 31 is showing a 6% probability, with a 1% chance by Sept. 30. Related markets on Kalshi put the odds of ETH clearing $3,500, $3,750, and $4,000 in 2026 at roughly 15%, 12%, and 10%, respectively.