Five individuals of Indian-American descent are alleged to have participated in a money laundering operation in New York, involving a sum of $30 million. This operation revolved around a cash-for-Bitcoin scam, which is a method commonly used to facilitate illegal activities.The scheme reportedly entailed exchanging large amounts of cash for Bitcoin, a popular cryptocurrency. Money launderers often employ cryptocurrencies due to their perceived anonymity and ease of international transfer. In this particular case, the five suspects purportedly accepted substantial amounts of cash from unknown sources in exchange for Bitcoin, effectively "cleaning" the illicit funds.The laundering of $30 million through this operation is a considerable sum, underscoring the potential scale of the alleged criminal activities. Such schemes are a matter of concern for law enforcement agencies and regulators, as they can facilitate various illegal activities, including tax evasion, drug trafficking, and fraud.The alleged involvement of five Indian Americans in this operation serves as a reminder that individuals from various backgrounds can be implicated in such activities. Law enforcement agencies and regulatory bodies remain vigilant in their efforts to combat money laundering and cryptocurrency-related crimes, working to prevent these schemes from further undermining financial systems and economies. Investigations and legal actions will likely follow as authorities work to unravel the details of this case. $BTC #BTC #dydx #etf

Unciphered, a cryptocurrency recovery startup says it’s figured out how to crack an encrypted hard drive containing $235 million in bitcoin that has been locked for 12 years. The only problem is, the drive’s owner doesn’t want it to.As reported by Wired, the Seattle-based company says that after eight months of research, it’s managed to develop a process that allowed it access to a so-called IronKey USB thumb drive sent to it by Wired.Now, Unciphered says it’s ready to use the same technique on a drive that’s currently locked in a Swiss vault along with 7,002 bitcoin. The drive in question belongs to a Swiss crypto entrepreneur named Stefan Thomas. Thomas received the Bitcoin in 2011 for creating a video titled ‘What is Bitcoin?’ However, shortly thereafter, he lost the piece of paper on which he’d written the password. Since then, he’s used up eight of the 10 password attempts afforded to him by the IronKey before it erases the keys — and access to the fortune — forever.But this month, through a mutual associate, Unciphered reached out to Thomas to inform him they had successfully unlocked a 2011-era IronKey drive and asked if they could unlock his drive of the same model.However, Thomas declined their offer. He told Wired he has “been working with a different set of experts on the recovery” for a year now and that they have already been promised a cut of the bitcoin. He said “I’m no longer free to negotiate with someone new,” but added that it’s possible Unciphered could be subcontracted by the two already hired teams.In response, Uniciphered plans to publish an open letter to Thomas, alongside a video, both with the intention of changing his mind.“We cracked the IronKey,” said Unciphered’s director of operations Nick Federoff. “Now we have to crack Stefan. This is turning out to be the hardest part.”So why is cracking the drive such a huge deal? IronKeys are ‘military grade‘ USB sticks that contain a self-destruct sequence that’s initiated after 10 failed password attempts.To crack the drive, Unciphered meticulously deconstructed it using millions of dollars worth of equipment, mapping out the processor on a microscopic level. The company even tracked down engineers who had worked to produce relevant drive parts dating back to the 1990s. After roughly eight months of work, the team managed to counter the 10-password attempt limit and, according to Wired, gain “essentially infinite tries.”“We were hesitant to reach out to him [Thomas] until we had a full, provable, reliable attack,” Unciphered hacker Tom Smith (an alias) told Wired.Despite its great success, Unciphered is reluctant to reveal the full extent of its research in case it opens Pandora’s box and exposes old IronKey drives to hackers. Its director of operations said, “If this were to leak somehow, there would be much bigger national security implications than a cryptocurrency wallet.”Unciphered has said that even if it doesn’t get permission to unlock the $235 million bitcoin drive, it will still continue to help recover other users’ irretrievable crypto.

🥇 Satoshi Nakamoto is not Hal FinneyCasa co-founder Jameson Lopp has done his research and stated that Hal Finney could not have been bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto.Jameson Lopp is certain that Finney could not have sent an email on behalf of Satoshi Nakamoto to bitcoin developer Mike Hearn, as he was at the time participating in a race held in Santa Barbara on April 8, 2009. At the time the email was sent, Finney had not yet crossed the finish line.$BTC #dydx #BTC #mina #etf #pepe

Have you heard the phrase “Not your keys, not your crypto?” Let’s learn about its origin.In 2018, Reddit user Sotashi suggested that the entire community should withdraw all Bitcoin from exchanges on the same day and then bring them back. This would help to understand whether all assets are really in their place and expose platforms that cannot be trusted.Cryptocurrency platforms that have agreed to participate in the group event are BTC com, Binance, Coinbase CTO, XMR Wallet, Coindelta, The Rock Trading, Bitfi, Bitspark, Abra, CoinPulse, Keep Key, and others.Since the idea was floated, this promotion is held annually on January 3 (by the way, here’s the countdown timer.On this day, you can join the rest of the crypto community in withdrawing Bitcoin from CEXs to see who you can and can’t trust.Over the years, the promotion has helped expose problems with Bitfinex, Coinbase, Poloniex, and HitBTC, as well as exposing the Singaporean exchange BiteBTC, which shut down as a result of the community initiative.We remind you, though, that the best way to store cryptocurrencies is with non-custodial wallets 😎