Crypto World
US Seeks $3.4M USDt Forfeiture Linked to Crypto Investment Scam
U.S. federal prosecutors have filed a civil forfeiture action to recover roughly $3.44 million in USDt tied to an online crypto investment scam that targeted victims across several states. The funds were seized in February and March 2025, and authorities are seeking a court’s blessing for permanent forfeiture. The case highlights how fraudsters used calculated manipulation to win trust before steering victims into a fraudulent investment scheme. The investigation, which began in late 2024 after multiple losses, involved residents in Massachusetts, Utah, and South Carolina, among others, underscoring the cross-state reach of crypto-enabled scams and the persistence of enforcement actions in the sector.
Key takeaways
- The civil forfeiture action seeks about $3.44 million in USDt linked to a multi-state investment scam that operated through cryptocurrency wallets.
- The scheme revolved around a fabricated Ethereum investment, supposedly backed by physical gold, and instructed victims to purchase Ether and transfer it to wallets controlled by the perpetrators.
- Funds transferred into those wallets were routed through intermediary addresses, swapped for USDt, and moved to unhosted wallets controlled by the fraudsters.
- The case follows a pattern of trust-building and manipulation used by scammers to induce victims to invest in purported crypto ventures.
- In related enforcement actions, U.S. authorities have recovered USDt in other fraud contexts, including a romance-scam-related recovery in Massachusetts and a larger seizure tied to a “pig-butchering” scheme in North Carolina, while the stablecoin issuer has reported significant seizures tied to illicit activity in recent years.
Tickers mentioned: $ETH, $USDT
Market context: The episode sits within a broader pattern of law-enforcement focus on crypto-enabled fraud, with authorities increasingly tracing on-chain activity to recover illicit funds and coordinate action across jurisdictions. The linked actions reflect ongoing cooperation between prosecutors, financial investigators, and digital-asset tracing firms as investigators pursue complex money trails across wallets and exchanges.
What to watch next (Not financial advice):
- Whether a court grants permanent forfeiture of the USDt tied to the scheme and how the funds will be distributed to victims or used to cover administrative costs.
- Any additional civil or criminal actions against the individuals named in the complaint, including potential charges related to fraud and money laundering.
- Subsequent enforcement actions tied to similar “fake investment” narratives that exploit a trust in crypto assets.
- Updates from the stablecoin ecosystem operators and regulators regarding tracing tools and cooperation with law enforcement.
Sources & verification
- United States Attorney’s Office in Boston — civil forfeiture announcement related to USDt in a multi-state crypto scam.
- Massachusetts romance-scam case linked to USDt recoveries reported by the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
- North Carolina enforcement action involving a large USDt seizure tied to a pig-butchering scheme.
- Tether public disclosures on USDt freezes related to illicit activity over the past three years.
Forfeiture action targets USDt-linked scam tied to gold-backed ETH pitch
The civil forfeiture filing in Massachusetts centers on a scheme in which scammers approached victims through messages designed to look like accidental outreach, using encrypted channels and digital messaging to establish a false sense of legitimacy. Once trust was established, the perpetrators marketed an “exclusive” Ethereum investment opportunity that allegedly carried the backing of physical gold. Victims were instructed to acquire Ether and forward it to wallets controlled by the fraudsters, who then moved the proceeds through a sequence of addresses to obscure the money trail.
According to prosecutors, the Ether sent by victims flowed through intermediary addresses and was converted into USDt before ending up in unhosted wallets controlled by the scammers. The operation relied on a familiar playbook in which fraudsters cultivate a sense of urgency and exclusivity, exploiting the reputation of crypto assets to convince naïve investors to part with their funds. The complaint notes that the manipulation techniques are designed to create trust quickly, enabling victims to overlook red flags and proceed with transfers that appear legitimate at the outset.
In such fraud schemes, scammers obtain funds from victims using manipulative tactics and cultivate a level of trust before steering them into a fraudulent investment.
Investigators traced the activity back to late 2024, when at least four individuals reported losses, including residents in Massachusetts and others in Utah and South Carolina. The pattern aligns with a broader corpus of cases where on-chain activity is used to funnel funds from unsuspecting investors into stages that obscure the final beneficiary wallets. The asset at the center of this case, USDt, was identified as the vehicle for consolidating and moving funds after initial transfers of Ether were completed. The seizure of USDt in February and March 2025, followed by the civil action, underscores the persistent effort by law enforcement to claw back stolen assets and deter future frauds in the crypto space.
The broader enforcement environment has featured other high-profile seizures and recoveries. In one Massachusetts romance-scam, prosecutors sought to recover approximately $327,829 in USDt linked to the fraud, illustrating how fraud schemes frequently cross state lines and involve specialized money-laundering techniques. In North Carolina, authorities seized more than $61 million in USDt tied to a large “pig-butchering” operation that exploited fake investment platforms to defraud victims. The pattern across cases demonstrates the active role of federal and state agencies in tracing and recovering illicit cryptocurrency proceeds, as well as the cooperation with token issuers who can provide granular insight into on-chain flows. Moreover, the stablecoin issuer has publicly stated it has frozen about $4.2 billion in USDt associated with suspected illicit activity over the past three years, a signal of intensifying collaboration with enforcement agencies and financial-tracing firms.
Beyond the immediate forfeiture action, the case signals how prosecutors may pursue similar targets across multiple jurisdictions as crypto crime evolves. The combination of on-chain tracing, wallet clustering, and the ability to identify conversion points — from Ether purchases to USDt settlements — creates a realistic path for asset recovery even when funds traverse several intermediary addresses. The use of USDt, a widely held stablecoin, also elevates the stakes for both criminals and investigators: stablecoins can serve as convenient liquidity vehicles, but they are increasingly subject to oversight and tracing, as well as rapid freezing capabilities when law enforcement highlights illicit use.
For investigators, the Massachusetts case underscores the importance of cross-agency collaboration and the value of public-facing charges that illustrate the mechanics of frauds to the general public. For victims and potential investors, it reinforces the need for due diligence when confronted with “exclusive” investment pitches involving crypto assets and promises of gold-backed guarantees. The incident also provides a practical reminder that even legitimate-seeming projects can be misused by bad actors who exploit the complexity and perceived legitimacy of digital assets to obscure theft.
What to watch next
- The court’s ruling on the permanent forfeiture of the USDt tied to the scheme and the disposition of forfeited assets.
- Any follow-on charges or civil actions against the individuals named in the complaint and any new indictments stemming from the same ring.
- Potential additional recoveries tied to similar “fake investment” narratives and broader trends in crypto-tracing capabilities.
- Regulatory and industry responses to enforcement actions, including updates to anti-fraud measures and enhanced due-diligence standards for crypto investment communications.
Why it matters
This case illustrates how on-chain tools and traditional investigative methods converge to dismantle crypto-enabled fraud. It shows that law-enforcement agencies are increasingly capable of tracing funds across multiple wallets and converting assets during the investigation, even as criminals attempt to conceal their tracks through intermediary addresses and currency swaps. For investors, the episode reinforces the need to scrutinize claims of guaranteed returns, especially those tied to crypto assets and claims of external guarantees like physical-gold backing. For exchanges and wallets, the ongoing enforcement environment emphasizes the urgency of implementing robust identity checks, monitor-uplift protocols, and rapid cooperation with authorities when suspicious patterns emerge.
Overall, the action in Massachusetts sits within a wider ecosystem of investigations and seizures that aim to deter crypto fraud and reinforce accountability for asset flows in a rapidly evolving market. While the case does not define the entire crypto landscape, it contributes to a growing body of precedent demonstrating that illicit proceeds can be traced, frozen, and returned to victims even as fraudsters attempt to exploit the anonymity and speed of digital currencies.
Opinion by: Mohammed Marikar, co-founder at Neem Capital
Artificial intelligence has consistently been defined by scale, so far — bigger models, faster processing, expanding data centers. The assumption, based on traditional technology cycles, was that scale would keep improving performance and, over time, costs would fall and access would expand.
That assumption is now breaking down. AI is not scaling like other software. Instead, it is capital-intensive, constrained by physical limits, and hitting diminishing returns far earlier than expected.
The numbers make this clear. Electricity demand from global data centers will more than double by 2030 — levels once associated with entire industrial sectors. In the US alone, data center power demand is projected to rise well over 100 percent before the decade ends. This expansion is demanding trillions of dollars in new investment alongside major expansions in grid capacity.
Meanwhile, these systems are being embedded into law, finance, compliance, trading and risk management, where errors propagate quickly but credibility is non-negotiable. In June 2025, the UK High Court warned lawyers to immediately stop submitting filings that cited fabricated case law generated by AI tools.
The scaling AI debate
When an AI system can invent a precedent that never existed, and a professional relies on it, debates about scaling start becoming serious questions of public trust. Scaling is amplifying AI’s weaknesses rather than solving them.
Part of the problem lies in what scale actually improves. Large language models (LLMs) are evolving to become increasingly fluent because language is pattern-based. The more examples an LLM sees of how real people write, summarize and translate, the faster it improves.
Deeper intelligence — reasoning — does not scale the same way. The next generation of AI must understand cause and effect and know when an answer is uncertain or incomplete. It will need to explain why a conclusion follows, not simply produce a confident response. This does not reliably improve with more parameters or more compute.
The consequence is a growing verification burden. Humans must spend more time checking machine output rather than acting on it, and that burden builds as systems are deployed more widely.
The cost of training AI models
Training frontier AI models has already become extraordinarily expensive, with credible tracking suggesting costs have been multiplying year over year, and projections that single training runs could soon exceed $1 billion. Training is only the entry cost.
The larger expense is inference: running these models continuously, at scale, with real latency, uptime and verification requirements. Every query consumes energy. Every deployment requires infrastructure. As usage grows, energy use and costs compound.
In terms of markets and crypto, AI systems are increasingly used to monitor onchain activity, analyze sentiment, generate codes for smart contracts, flag suspicious transactions and automate decisions.
In such a fast-moving, competitive environment, fluent but unreliable AI propagates errors quickly; false signals move capital, and fabricated explanations and hallucinations undermine trust. One example of this is false positives being generated in automated Anti-Money Laundering (AML) flagging, a common issue that wastes time and resources on investigating innocent trading activity.
Time to improve reasoning
Scaling AI systems without improving their reasoning amplifies risk, especially in use cases where automation and credibility are vital and tightly coupled.
Ensuring AI is economically viable and socially valuable means we cannot rely on scaling. The dominant approach today prioritizes increasing compute and data while leaving the underlying reasoning machinery largely unchanged, a strategy that is becoming more expensive without becoming proportionally safer.
Related: Crypto dev launches website for agentic AI to ‘rent a human’
The alternative is architectural. Systems need to do more than predict the next word. They need to represent relationships, apply rules, check their own steps and make it possible to see how conclusions were reached.
This is where cognitive or neurosymbolic systems come into play. By organizing knowledge into interrelated concepts, rather than relying solely on brute-force pattern matching, these systems can deliver high reasoning capability with far lower energy and infrastructure demands.
Emerging “cognitive AI” platforms are demonstrating how structured reasoning systems can operate on local servers or edge devices, allowing users to keep control over their own knowledge rather than outsourcing cognition to distant infrastructure.
Cognitive AI systems are harder to design and can underperform on open-ended tasks, but when reasoning is reusable in this way rather than rederived from scratch through massive compute, costs fall and verification becomes tractable.
Control over how AI is built matters as much as how it reasons. Communities need systems they can shape, audit and deploy without waiting for permission from centralized platform owners.
Some platforms are exploring this frontier by using blockchain to enable both individuals and corporations to contribute data, models and computing resources. By decentralizing AI development itself, these approaches reduce concentration risk and align deployment with local needs rather than global demands.
AI faces an inflection point. When reasoning can be reused rather than rediscovered through massive pattern matching, systems require less compute per decision and impose a smaller verification burden on humans. That shifts the economics. Experimentation becomes cheaper, inference becomes more predictable. Scaling no longer depends on exponential increases in infrastructure.
Scaling has already done what it could. What it has exposed, just as clearly, is the limit relying on size alone. The question now is whether the industry keeps pushing scale or starts investing in architectures that make intelligence reliable before making it bigger.
Opinion by: Mohammed Marikar, co-founder at Neem Capital.
This opinion article presents the author’s expert view, and it may not reflect the views of Cointelegraph.com. This content has undergone editorial review to ensure clarity and relevance. Cointelegraph remains committed to transparent reporting and upholding the highest standards of journalism. Readers are encouraged to conduct their own research before taking any actions related to the company.
Key Highlights
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Cintas announces acquisition of UniFirst at $310 per share in $5.5B transaction.
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Deal projects $375M in operating cost synergies over four-year period.
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United organization will provide services to 1.5M commercial clients throughout North America.
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Workforce to receive enhanced professional development and technological resources.
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Deal expected to finalize in second half of 2026, subject to regulatory and shareholder approval.
UniFirst Corporation (UNF) stock finished regular trading at $257.91, declining 1.80%, before surging to $281.00 in pre-market activity, representing an 8.86% gain. Cintas Corporation (CTAS) revealed a binding agreement to purchase UniFirst through a combination of cash and stock valued at $310 per share. The approximately $5.5 billion deal is designed to create a dominant North American service provider.
This merger unites two family-established enterprises known for exceptional service quality and operational performance. The consolidated company will support approximately 1.5 million commercial accounts while combining complementary distribution systems, manufacturing facilities, and technological platforms. The integration is expected to broaden service portfolios while enhancing operational effectiveness and financial performance.
Cintas projects approximately $375 million in operational cost savings to be realized over a four-year timeline. These efficiencies will come from optimizing materials procurement, manufacturing processes, service delivery, and corporate overhead. The transaction structure prioritizes value creation while preserving service excellence and employee welfare.
Operational Advantages and Strategic Value of the Acquisition
The unified organization will offer an enhanced portfolio spanning uniform programs, facility services, and workplace safety solutions. Increased scale and capabilities will strengthen competitive positioning against major industry players and emerging alternatives. Commercial customers will access more comprehensive, streamlined, and economical solutions through the combined operation.
The acquisition enables consolidation of overlapping assets, distribution systems, and digital infrastructure. Cintas intends to utilize both organizations’ capital investments to enhance operational performance and service consistency. This approach will drive expansion initiatives while upholding quality benchmarks and client loyalty.
UniFirst team members are projected to gain from increased professional prospects within the enlarged organization. Professional growth programs, educational initiatives, and digital tools will facilitate employee progression. The integration strategy prioritizes talent retention while strengthening service delivery for customers throughout North America.
Deal Structure and Financial Considerations
UniFirst investors will obtain $155 cash and 0.7720 Cintas shares for each UniFirst share held. The aggregate $310 per share consideration equals 8.0x UniFirst’s trailing twelve-month EBITDA. Cintas will finance the cash component through available capital, committed financing facilities, and arranged bridge funding.
Both companies’ boards have unanimously endorsed the agreement, which remains subject to standard regulatory clearances and stockholder approval. The Croatti family, controlling two-thirds of voting rights, has committed to vote in favor of the combination. Completion is anticipated during the latter half of 2026, with execution focused on realizing cost efficiencies and driving operational expansion.
Cintas disclosed preliminary third quarter fiscal 2026 revenues of $2.84 billion, reflecting 8.9% year-over-year growth. Organic revenue expansion, excluding acquisitions and foreign exchange impacts, measured 8.2%. UniFirst is scheduled to announce second quarter fiscal 2026 earnings on April 1, 2026, and will not provide quarterly outlook updates given the pending acquisition.
Since the world learned of massive US military deployments toward Iran on February 18, crude oil has rallied 36%, far surpassing bitcoin’s (BTC) 2.8%.
War-related headlines have definitely affected BTC which, with its 24-hour spot trading venues, has served as a trillion-dollar proxy for risk-on assets.
By charting the price of oil relative to BTC from the de facto start of the war, some of the conflict’s most critical moments become clear.
As a reference price for their pre-wartime starting points, at 12:15am New York time on February 18, BTC traded at $67,833. Oil, specifically contracts for difference (CFDs) on WTI crude, were trading at $62.39 per barrel.
At that time, open-source intelligence accounts began documenting “the largest US Air Force combat buildup in Europe and the Middle East since the Gulf War,” listing dozens of tankers, F-22s, and F-16s repositioning toward the Persian Gulf and Iran.
Chart 1: Price reaction to historic US naval movements toward Iran
The onset of war became obvious, and oil prices responded to the likelihood of supply restrictions. CFDs for the world’s most-traded and arguably most important commodity rallied without interruption for hours, and by two days later, oil had jumped 7% to $66.76 per barrel.
BTC, meanwhile, barely budged to $67,376, a near-flat 48-hour performance from its $67,833 start.
The divergence in those first 48 hours set the template for what followed.
Oil immediately priced in an imminent kinetic war. BTC did not.
The sophistication of oil traders relative to BTC traders was obvious during those first two days.
Slowly, as anyone should expect from the class of risk-on investments as threats become too obvious to ignore, BTC slid deeper into the red after the initial military buildup reports, hitting a low of $62,525 a week later on February 24, a 7.8% decline from its 12:15am start on February 18.
Oil, in contrast, had already begun a steady climb as more confirmation of military intent trickled into the mainstream news cycle. War was inevitable, and oil traders knew it.
Chart 2: Price reaction to official announcement of war
Finally, at 1:15am New York time on February 28, US and Israeli airstrikes on Iran formally commenced under the banner of “Operation Epic Fury.” Donald Trump announced the operation via Truth Social.
At this time, BTC was trading at $65,492. However, because the announcement fell on a weekend, oil CFDs weren’t open for trading, so there’s no way to know exactly how high oil would have traded.
Unfortunately, the most recent simultaneous price for both assets was February 27 at 5pm New York time: BTC at $65,524 and oil at $67.28 per barrel.
BTC panicked on the initial, formal announcement from Trump. Within 30 minutes, it dropped 3.8% to $63,037. It then recovered.
By Sunday, March 1 at 6pm New York time, when oil CFDs resumed trading, crude had gapped up 11.5% to $75 per barrel.
BTC, at $65,245, remained essentially flat since Trump’s formal announcement.
Oil was already repricing supply disruptions through the Strait of Hormuz, where Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps was threatening to block tanker traffic. BTC wasn’t. It had already sold off slightly from its pre-war, $67,833 start.
Oil surges 91% to $119 per barrel, while BTC recovers its mild loss
The war escalated quickly, sending the price of oil skyrocketing, but risk-on assets soon recovered entirely.
Iran tried to close the Strait of Hormuz, briefly disrupting roughly 20% of global oil supply. Tanker traffic through the chokepoint dropped 81%. Airports and US bases throughout the Middle East took on drone and missile damage.
Oil producers declared force majeure on contracts. Drone strikes hit Saudi Arabia’s largest refinery and Qatari export facilities. Gulf oil production collectively fell by 6.7 million barrels per day by March 10.
Incredibly, oil prices wicked up to $119.48 per barrel at 10:32pm New York time on March 8, a 91.5% surge from its February 18 baseline. BTC peaked much earlier, at $74,075 on March 4 at 2:15pm New York time, for a comparatively modest 9.2% gain.
By 10:40pm New York time on March 10, oil had pulled back 29% from its peak to $84.86 per barrel, partly on comments from Trump suggesting the conflict would resolve “very soon.”
BTC sat at $69,725.
Read more: Bitcoin up, Dubai real estate down since Iran war began
Chart 3: From start to finish, two wildly different returns
In the roughly three weeks since the start of the war, oil has gained approximately 35% while BTC as a risk-on asset has gained approximately 3%. The above chart illustrates that time period.
Oil’s entire trading range over that time period was $62.39 to $119.48 per barrel. BTC’s range, despite its far smaller size, was a far more conservative $62,525 to $74,075.
One asset reacted to a worldwide a supply shock. The other absorbed headline volatility and largely shrugged it off.
As usual, there are many ways to trade headlines. At least across the opening weeks of this war, oil scarcity has been the bullish trade. BTC was the hold.
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[PRESS RELEASE – Fort Worth, Texas, March 11th, 2026]
CoinFello, an AI agent optimized for interacting directly with any EVM smart contract, today announced the release of its open source OpenClaw skill in partnership with MetaMask. The new integration enables Moltbots, personal AI agents running on OpenClaw, to securely execute on-chain transactions using delegated smart wallet permissions.
The launch introduces a new framework for connecting AI agents with crypto wallets while maintaining user custody of private keys. By leveraging ERC-4337 smart accounts and ERC-7710 delegations through the MetaMask Smart Accounts Kit, the CoinFello OpenClaw skill allows Moltbots to grant other agents, such as CoinFello, narrowly defined delegations to act on their behalf. This represents a significant advancement in agentic wallet security compared to the current status quo, where agents typically store private keys or API credentials in plain text.
The system follows the principle of least privilege. A user’s Moltbot can grant CoinFello, and eventually other compatible agents, only the permissions required to complete a specific task, ensuring no agent receives broader wallet access than necessary. When a user submits a natural-language request, CoinFello converts the instruction into a delegated transaction and validates it in an evaluation layer before execution.
“If we want agents to participate meaningfully in the on-chain economy, we need a security model that is better than handing an autonomous system a private key,” said Brett Cleary, CTO at CoinFello. “The CoinFello Skill introduces hardware-isolated keys and fine-grained delegations, giving AI agents a secure way to execute transactions while helping bootstrap on-chain capabilities for the broader agent ecosystem.”
The release comes amid the rapid growth of the OpenClaw ecosystem. Over the past two months, the OpenClaw GitHub repository has surpassed 150,000 stars and 22,000 forks, while npm downloads exceeded 416,000 in the previous 30 days.
Until now, many AI agent wallets have given the agent direct access to a private key or API credential, exposing sensitive secrets within the agent’s runtime and creating a large attack surface.
Some newer designs attempt to mitigate this risk by using server-side trusted execution environments (TEEs), but they still rely on centralized infrastructure.
The CoinFello skill takes a different approach. The signing key stays on the user’s device, while tasks are carried out through fine-grained ERC-7710 delegations. Agents can execute actions without ever accessing the private key.
Using the CoinFello skill, Moltbots can perform a wide range of blockchain actions via natural-language prompts. Supported capabilities include swapping between ERC-20 assets, bridging across EVM networks, interacting with NFTs such as ERC-721 or ERC-1155 tokens, staking, lending, automatic rebalancing of token portfolios, and executing multi-step trading strategies.
The CoinFello OpenClaw skill is built on the Agent Skills specification and is compatible with OpenClaw environments and Claude Code. The implementation is released under the MIT license, allowing developers to freely deploy, modify, and contribute to the skill in their own AI agent environments.
CoinFello notes that the system is designed to remain open and configurable. While CoinFello acts as the default Web3 agent, Moltbots can delegate permissions to any compatible on-chain agent. The company says future development will focus on expanding permissions frameworks and deeper integrations with the MetaMask Smart Accounts Kit to support broader portfolio management features.
Interest in the intersection of AI agents and crypto infrastructure has accelerated in recent months as developers experiment with autonomous software agents capable of interacting with decentralized networks. The CoinFello OpenClaw skill aims to provide a secure foundation for this emerging category by bridging natural language interfaces with on-chain execution.
About CoinFello
CoinFello is an AI agent designed to explain, execute, and automate interactions with smart contracts. Built for self-custody, the platform is currently available in private alpha for end users, with developer versions expected soon. CoinFello supports EVM-compatible networks, leverages EigenAI to enable a self-custodied AI environment, and integrates the MetaMask Smart Accounts Kit to give users control over their assets.
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Crypto World
Binance, PayPal, and Ripple join Mastercard’s massive new push into blockchain payments
Mastercard has launched a new Crypto Partner Program that brings together more than 85 companies from across the digital asset and payments industries, an effort to link blockchain technology more directly with the infrastructure that underpins global commerce.
The program includes crypto exchanges, blockchain developers, fintech firms and banks such as Binance, Circle, Ripple, Gemini, PayPal and Paxos, the company told CoinDesk in a statement. Participants will work with Mastercard to explore how blockchain-based systems can connect with traditional payment rails used by banks, merchants and consumers around the world.
Mastercard said the initiative focuses on practical use cases where digital assets are already gaining traction, including cross-border transfers, business-to-business payments and global payouts.
Digital assets once operated largely outside the traditional financial system. In recent years, however, companies and financial institutions have begun experimenting with blockchain tools to move money faster across borders or settle transactions around the clock.
For payment companies like Mastercard, the challenge is less about replacing existing systems and more about connecting new ones to the networks that already handle global commerce.
Mastercard’s network links banks, merchants and consumers in more than 200 countries and territories. The company argues that blockchain-based payments will only scale widely if they can plug into that kind of global infrastructure.
The Crypto Partner Program is designed to create that bridge. Companies in the program will work with Mastercard teams to help shape products that combine on-chain tools — such as programmable payments or tokenized assets — with established payment rails.
The initiative also gives partners access to forums where they can collaborate with one another and with Mastercard’s broader ecosystem of financial institutions and merchants.
The move builds on several earlier efforts by Mastercard to engage with the digital asset industry. The company has supported crypto-linked payment cards, backed blockchain startups through its Start Path accelerator and developed services aimed at helping banks manage crypto compliance and risk.
Competitors have taken similar steps. Visa has worked with stablecoin issuers and blockchain firms to test settlement using digital dollars, while major banks continue to explore tokenized deposits and blockchain-based payment systems.
Still, integrating digital assets into everyday commerce remains a complex process. Payments require consistent standards, regulatory oversight and systems that work across borders — areas where traditional card networks have decades of experience.
Binance formally refuted the allegations a few days ago.
The Department of Justice has begun investigating whether Iran, which is currently engaged in a full-on war with the United States, has used the world’s largest crypto exchange to evade American sanctions, according to a report from the Wall Street Journal.
The probe comes a few weeks after several US Democratic senators, led by Richard Blumenthal, urged the DOJ and Treasury to look into any potential moves on Binance from Iran-linked wallets.
Citing people familiar with the matter, the WSJ reported earlier today that officials have contacted individuals with knowledge of the Iranian transactions to interview them and gather evidence.
However, the publication said it couldn’t “determine whether the Justice Department is investigating Binance itself for potential misconduct, or solely the customers on its platform.”
As reported over the weekend, Binance officially rejected the allegations made by the US senators, calling the media reports cited in the Senate “false, unsupported, and defamatory claims.”
The company explained that it operates a robust compliance program with more than 1,500 specialists worldwide and advanced monitoring tools designed to detect suspicious activity.
It asserted that its exposure to wallets linked to any sort of illicit activity has declined by nearly 97% since early 2024. However, it admitted that “absolute zero risk is impossible on public blockchains but relies on robust monitoring and controls to minimize and mitigate risks.”
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The strikes between the US and Israel on one side and Iran on the other have put crypto back into focus, at least to an extent. Reports emerging in the first hours and days after the attacks began indicated that crypto outflows skyrocketed by triple-digit percentages, and the overall on-chain activity linked to Iran had risen to unprecedented heights.
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Key Takeaways
- Hyperscale Data targets $180M–$200M revenue for 2026 through AI and blockchain expansion.
- Complete Ballista integration projected to contribute $40M annually versus $3.2M in Q4 2025.
- Ault Lending division forecast to generate $20M–$30M, enhancing profit margins.
- AI infrastructure and software solutions positioned for scalable revenue growth.
- Multi-segment operations and premium-margin platforms support robust 2026 projections.
Shares of Hyperscale Data, Inc. (GPUS) finished trading at $0.1669, gaining 0.97%, while pre-market activity showed the stock at $0.1715, climbing 2.76%. The firm unveiled fiscal 2026 revenue projections ranging from $180 million to $200 million. These estimates suggest potential year-over-year expansion of 80% to 100% compared to preliminary fiscal 2025 figures.
Hyperscale Data, Inc., GPUS
Preliminary 2025 revenue figures included only partial-year results from Gresham Worldwide, Inc. This entity is merging with Ballista Group, Inc., which recently emerged from bankruptcy proceedings. Management anticipates Ballista will generate $40 million in full-year 2026 revenue, substantially higher than the $3.2 million recorded during Q4 2025.
Revenue acceleration stems from broadening activities across artificial intelligence infrastructure, software solutions, blockchain technology, financial services, and digital platforms. Historical capital deployments in these sectors are now yielding more stable financial returns. Leadership projects these strategic investments will produce between $24 million and $44 million in 2026 revenue.
Multiple Revenue Streams Underpin 2026 Projections
The company’s lending arm, Ault Lending, is forecast to contribute $20 million to $30 million toward 2026 revenue totals. Current quarter expectations include roughly $10 million from this division alone. Ault Lending has delivered strong profitability margins despite variable trading conditions.
The company’s multi-faceted business model enables various revenue channels while preserving strategic capital management. Premium-margin segments are anticipated to boost consolidated profitability. Income from software applications, blockchain initiatives, and digital ecosystems may yield superior margins relative to conventional infrastructure services.
Ongoing capital investment in high-performance computing facilities, AI data centers, and Bitcoin mining infrastructure will continue through 2026. Rising utilization across these assets should enhance fixed-cost efficiency and improve aggregate margin performance. Management expects operational leverage to strengthen as emerging platforms achieve commercial-scale revenue production.
Artificial Intelligence and Digital Platform Development
Hyperscale Data progresses its artificial intelligence infrastructure strategy, featuring Michigan-based AI computing facilities and expanded HPC capabilities. Worldwide demand for AI computational power, enterprise hosting solutions, and inference processing shows sustained upward momentum. AI-driven service offerings are positioned to become major contributors to revenue expansion and margin enhancement.
The organization’s software and digital platform investments are architected for efficient scaling alongside physical infrastructure. Growing platform revenue is expected to bolster profitability through fourth-quarter 2026. Leadership forecasts that higher-margin business segments will create leverage for sustained growth into fiscal 2027.
Hyperscale Data proceeds with Ballista consolidation efforts and subsidiary integration to reinforce financial resilience. Year-round contributions from reorganized business units provide enhanced revenue predictability. The company establishes itself to leverage diversified operational capabilities, scalable infrastructure assets, and maturing digital platforms throughout the 2026 fiscal year.
The Department of Justice is investigating Iran’s use of Binance for alleged sanctions evasion after the exchange repeatedly denied wrongdoing.
The US Department of Justice is reportedly investigating Iran’s use of Binance for alleged sanctions evasion.
The DOJ is investigating whether Iran used Binance to evade US sanctions and whether transactions on the exchange helped route funds to networks linked to Iran-backed groups, including Yemen’s Houthi militants, the Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday, citing company documents and people familiar with the matter.
The WSJ said it remains unclear whether the DOJ is investigating Binance itself, its users, or both. Officials have contacted people with knowledge of the transactions to seek interviews and gather evidence, the report said.
The probe follows earlier reporting that Binance dismantled an internal investigation into roughly $1 billion that flowed through the platform to a network tied to Iranian proxy groups.
The DOJ had not confirmed the investigation at the time of publication. Binance did not immediately respond to Cointelegraph’s request for comment.
Related: CZ says CEXs have ‘zero motive’ to aid terrorists as court dismisses terrorism suit
US Senate Democrats launched a probe in February, and Binance has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.
Binance pleaded guilty in 2023 to violating US anti-money-laundering and sanctions laws, paying a $4.3 billion fine and agreeing to operate under US oversight.
Former Binance CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao pleaded guilty to related charges and spent four months in jail in 2024. In October 2025, CZ received a pardon from US President Donald Trump.
Magazine: How crypto laws changed in 2025 — and how they’ll change in 2026
- XRP may have completed a long correction and formed a market bottom.
- Analysts say the current setup mirrors the pattern before the 2017 rally.
- A Wave-5 breakout could drive XRP toward the $5.85 target.
XRP has spent the past several months moving through a slow and frustrating consolidation phase that many traders now believe may represent the final stage of its correction.
The digital asset is currently trading around $1.38 after a period of mixed performance that has seen short bursts of strength followed by pullbacks.
This kind of sideways movement often appears near the end of a market correction, which is why some analysts are beginning to argue that XRP may already be forming a long-term bottom.
The argument is based on a technical structure that looks strikingly similar to the pattern that developed before XRP’s historic rally in 2017.
Back then, the token spent months drifting through a quiet accumulation phase while the broader market paid little attention to it.
When the breakout finally arrived, the price accelerated rapidly and caught much of the market off guard.
Today, analysts believe the same type of structure may be forming once again.
$XRP‘s pattern setup and breakout process was extremely similar to that 2017 move and with this being, there is potential we see this overall run unfold in an identical manner.
Doing so means that right now is only a temporary pullback before a move well above the $20 mark… pic.twitter.com/1MIriZ4Rqn
— JAVON⚡️MARKS (@JavonTM1) March 7, 2026
Several technical charts show XRP completing a large corrective pattern that has been unfolding for months.
According to this view, the correction appears to have finished its final wave, which often marks the point where a new bullish cycle begins.
If the structure continues to play out as expected, XRP could now be entering the early stage of its next major upward move.
This possibility has renewed interest among traders who remember how quickly XRP moved once momentum returned during the previous cycle.
Analysts point to a potential Wave-5 breakout
Furthermore, a number of market analysts have turned to Elliott Wave theory to explain why they believe XRP may be close to a turning point.
Under this model, markets move through a series of impulsive waves followed by corrective phases that prepare the ground for the next advance.
Some analysts, like Dark Defender, believe XRP has just completed an extended corrective structure that lasted several months.
That correction appears to have formed an ABC pattern, which is often seen near the end of a downward phase.
With that structure now appearing complete, analysts say the market may be entering the final upward wave of the cycle.
This final stage is known as Wave 5 and is typically associated with strong bullish momentum.
One widely discussed projection places the next major price objective near $5.85 if the breakout develops as expected.
Reaching that level would represent a substantial recovery from current prices and would mark one of the strongest rallies XRP has seen in years.
XRP completed the large C Wave with 5 Sub-Waves.
Wave 5 towards the $5.85 level is here.
(N F A)#XRP Bull Run will be facemelting. pic.twitter.com/8yQaJcfLjq— Dark Defender (@DefendDark) March 10, 2026
However, analysts also emphasise that the move will likely unfold in stages rather than in a straight line.
Several resistance zones remain along the path, including levels near $1.88, $2.35, and just above the $3 mark.
Each of these areas could slow the advance as traders take profits and the market absorbs new buying pressure.
Still, clearing those barriers could open the door for a much larger move.
Long-term projections stretch far beyond the first targets
While the $5.85 level has attracted attention in the short term, some analysts believe XRP’s potential upside could extend much further.
A more aggressive interpretation of the current wave structure suggests the asset could eventually climb toward the $8 to $14 range during the next phase of the cycle.
In the most optimistic scenario, the final leg of the rally could even approach the $20 region if market conditions remain supportive.
These projections remain speculative, but they reflect growing confidence that the current structure may be setting up a larger trend reversal.
[PRESS RELEASE – Johannesburg, South Africa, March 11th, 2026]
VALR, the largest crypto exchange in South Africa by trade volume, today announced the launch of its newest Crypto Bundle, the VALR Bitcoin and Gold Bundle (BITGOLD). This bundle provides investors with simplified exposure to both Bitcoin and tokenised gold (XAUT) in a single, balanced product.
Crypto Bundles on VALR are designed to offer diversified exposure to various crypto and real-world assets. They consist of selected assets with allocations that are rebalanced regularly according to the bundle’s methodology. This approach delivers a low-maintenance investment experience, as holdings are automatically adjusted to maintain target weights without requiring active trading from users. Rebalancing occurs monthly for the BITGOLD bundle.
The VALR Bitcoin and Gold Bundle combines Bitcoin’s potential for significant upside with gold’s established role as a safe-haven asset. Bitcoin, often viewed as digital innovation in finance, has shown strong long-term growth despite volatility. Over the past five years, Bitcoin has delivered substantial returns in many periods, though it has experienced sharp corrections, reflecting its asymmetric risk-reward profile amid growing institutional adoption and market maturation.
Gold, in contrast, has a centuries-old reputation for preserving value during times of uncertainty, inflation, and currency debasement. In recent years, gold prices have risen steadily, with notable gains driven by geopolitical tensions and macroeconomic factors. From early 2021 levels around $1,800 per ounce, gold has appreciated significantly, reaching over $5,000 in recent months.
By allocating equally to Bitcoin and tokenised gold, VALR’s BITGOLD bundle seeks to balance these characteristics. This combination allows investors to gain exposure to two assets that have historically performed differently in response to inflation, global uncertainty, and currency challenges.
“Investors increasingly seek ways to hedge against uncertainty while capturing innovation in digital assets,” said VALR’s Co-Founder and CEO, Farzam Ehsani. “The BITGOLD bundle simplifies this by merging Bitcoin’s growth potential with gold’s store of value track record over several millenia. ”
Visit https://www.valr.com/en/crypto-bundles for more details and risk disclosures.
About VALR
Founded in 2018 and headquartered in Johannesburg, VALR is backed by prominent investors including Pantera Capital, Coinbase Ventures, and Fidelity’s F-Prime Capital. Licensed by South Africa’s Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA) and with regulatory approval in Europe, VALR serves over 1.7 million registered users and 1,800 corporate and institutional clients worldwide. The exchange offers a full range of products, including spot trading, margin, perpetual futures, staking, lending, borrowing, OTC services, VALR Invest, Crypto Bundles, and VALR Pay. VALR is committed to building a just financial future that promotes human dignity and global unity. For more information, visit valr.com.
Disclaimer: Trading or investing in crypto assets (including Crypto Bundles) is risky and may result in the loss of capital as the value may fluctuate. VALR (Pty) Ltd is a licensed financial services provider (FSP #53308). Crypto Bundles do not represent securities and should not be misconstrued as collective investment schemes such as mutual funds, ETFs, ETVs or ETNs.
VALR does not guarantee returns or preservation of capital. Past performance is not indicative of future returns. Trading Crypto Bundles involves risks, including potential price deviations from the underlying assets due to market conditions, liquidity or pricing mechanisms. Tracking error may occur due to pricing discrepancies, rebalancing costs (including transactional fees), or changes in constituent asset pricing or behaviour. Bundle composition and weighting may change frequently due to rebalancing. Information provided by VALR regarding Crypto Bundles is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial, legal, tax, or investment advice and you are solely responsible for evaluating whether Crypto Bundles are suitable for your financial situation, risk tolerance and investment goals. You should conduct your own due diligence and seek independent professional advice where appropriate.
Trading Crypto Bundles is subject to VALR’s Terms of Service. Jurisdictional restrictions apply. Please refer to VALR’s full set of Risk Disclosures.
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