News linked to both this project and an event.
According to The Block, Rob Nichols, CEO of the American Bankers Association (ABA), sent a letter to senior bank executives on Sunday evening urging them to contact U.S. Senators and call for further tightening of provisions related to stablecoin rewards ahead of the Senate Banking Committee’s markup vote scheduled for Thursday. Nichols warned that the current draft fails to effectively prevent crypto firms from offering users “interest-like rewards,” which could trigger massive outflows of bank deposits and threaten economic growth and financial stability. The current draft was negotiated by Senators Angela Alsobrooks and Thom Tillis. It prohibits paying users interest or returns for holding stablecoins but permits rewards tied to genuine activity or transactions—a provision supported by Coinbase. Banking industry groups contend that these exceptions contain loopholes that could be circumvented, and on May 8, they jointly wrote to Committee Chairman Tim Scott and Democrat Elizabeth Warren, requesting technical revisions to the language of the provision.
According to Cointelegraph, Coinbase has been sued in a U.S. federal court in California over frozen funds linked to a $55 million DAI phishing theft that occurred in 2024. The plaintiffs allege that some traceable stolen funds—after being mixed via Tornado Cash—were deposited into Coinbase retail user accounts and remain frozen. Coinbase states it can only release the assets after a court rules on their ownership. The complaint also links the theft to the malicious wallet drainer platform Inferno Drainer. Victims had engaged Zero Shadow and Five Stones Intelligence to track the stolen funds.
According to Decrypt, an anonymous cryptocurrency whale filed a lawsuit against Coinbase this week in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, accusing the exchange of refusing to return over $55 million worth of DAI stablecoins stolen in a phishing attack in 2024. The plaintiff claims to have engaged multiple on-chain investigation firms to trace the funds, ultimately identifying that the stolen assets flowed into a Coinbase account. Coinbase confirmed in December 2024 that it had frozen the relevant assets but refused to return them, citing the need for a court order. As of today—more than a year and a half after the incident—the victim has still not recovered the assets and has therefore turned to litigation. The attack was carried out by hackers using the “Inferno Drainer” tool to spoof the DeFi Saver login page; after the victim inadvertently interacted with the fake page, their wallet was fully compromised by the attackers.
According to the LA Times, Evan Tangeman, a 22-year-old resident of California, was sentenced to 70 months in federal prison followed by three years of supervised release for laundering at least $3.5 million for the “Crypto Kids” criminal organization. The group carried out social engineering scams by impersonating employees of cryptocurrency exchanges such as Coinbase and Gemini, stealing over $263 million worth of digital assets. The illicit proceeds were used to purchase luxury vehicles, lease high-end residences, and fund extravagant spending. In addition to handling money laundering, Tangeman assisted group members in leasing luxury homes and instructed co-defendants to destroy digital devices after other members were arrested. Federal agents seized a Rolls-Royce Ghost and a Porsche GT3 RS from his residence.
Arkham monitoring shows that a U.S. government address has just transferred $606,470 worth of Bitcoin to Coinbase Prime. This Bitcoin was previously seized by the U.S. government from Ilya Lichtenstein, the Bitfinex hacker. It remains unclear whether this batch of stolen Bitcoin will be sold on Coinbase.
According to on-chain analytics platform Lookonchain (@lookonchain), the U.S. government deposited 8.2 BTC (approximately $606,000) into Coinbase Prime; these funds originated from assets previously seized in connection with the Bitfinex hack.