The Treasury moved to blacklist its first crypto exchange in late September this year, with sanctions applied to Russian-owned Suex for its role in laundering financial transactions for ransomware actors. Says tied billion btc transactions to His notoriety as a bitcoin miner made him feel like a potential target: “Most intelligent people know that I’ve lost my coins, but the bozo local drug dealer with his friends, they don’t know that. That’s what worries me.” He explained that he kept the private keys for some of his crypto in offline wallets that were stored outside the house—or “off site,” as he put it. That way, if a thief broke in and demanded them, he wouldn’t be able to hand them over. This safety measure also prevented him from impulsively divesting himself of his holdings: to sell crypto, you need the relevant private key. Despite everything, he was still in it for the long haul.
Chainalysis identified “Decentralized finance (De-Fi) protocols” — critical codes supporting the operation of major crypto exchanges and businesses — as the biggest targets of hackers, both in 2023 and 2022. De-Fi protocols accounted for 82% of all hacking last year, up from 73% the year before. More articles by this author The Treasury said that comprehensive reporting is necessary “to minimize the incentives and opportunity to shift income out of the new information reporting regime.” It noted that cryptocurrency is a small share of current business transactions.