News linked to both this project and an event.
According to a Reuters report, Nobitex—the largest cryptocurrency exchange in Iran—has processed at least approximately $2.3 billion in funds via the Tron and BNB Smart Chain networks since 2023. Some of these funds originated from the Central Bank of Iran (CBI), which is under U.S. sanctions, and are linked to other sanctioned entities, including the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Hamas, and Hezbollah. Data from blockchain analytics firms Arkham and Elliptic, along with insights from multiple analysts, indicate that related transactions on Tron alone exceeded $2 billion, while those on BNB Smart Chain totaled approximately $317 million; tens of millions of dollars continued flowing even after hostilities erupted. The report notes that Tron was founded by Justin Sun, and BNB Smart Chain was launched by Binance; both blockchains intersect financially and governance-wise with World Liberty Financial—a crypto project led by Donald Trump. Since its founding in 2018, Nobitex’s sanctioned-related transactions have cumulatively amounted to at least approximately $366 million.
According to The Block, Grinex—a Russia-linked cryptocurrency exchange—suspended withdrawals and trading on Thursday after suffering a hack reportedly worth approximately $15 million. Blockchain analytics firm Elliptic stated that the stolen funds consisted of USDT, which were subsequently moved across the Tron and Ethereum networks and swapped for TRX and ETH to reduce the risk of being frozen by Tether. Grinex said its wallet infrastructure was hit by a “large-scale cyberattack,” resulting in losses exceeding 1 billion rubles—approximately $13.1 million. Reports indicate Grinex is widely regarded as one of the successor platforms to sanctioned exchange Garantex, which U.S. authorities targeted last year for facilitating hundreds of millions of dollars in illicit fund flows.
Castle Labs (@castle_labs) published a post stating that the current crypto market is undergoing a profound paradigm shift—speculative models prioritizing extraction are gradually giving way to investment logic oriented toward revenue generation. The article notes that since 2026, the broader crypto market has performed poorly: most assets have seen sustained price declines, ETF funds have continued flowing out, project shutdowns have intensified, and institutional VC investments have grown increasingly conservative. The key catalysts for this shift were last October’s large-scale liquidation event and the ongoing market reflection triggered by gold consistently outperforming Bitcoin. On the revenue data front, among the roughly 5,700 protocols tracked by DeFiLlama, only 3.5% generated over $100,000 in revenue over the past 30 days—and fewer than 1% actually distributed earnings to token holders. The article focuses on top revenue-generating protocols—including Hyperliquid (HYPE), Pumpdotfun (PUMP), Tron (TRON), Sky (SKY), Jupiter (JUP), Aave (AAVE), and Aerodrome (AERO)—analyzing their price-to-sales ratios (P/S) and token holder return metrics. It argues that protocol revenue—and its capacity to feed value back to token holders—is becoming the core metric investors use to evaluate and select projects. Regarding institutionalization trends, traditional financial giants—including NYSE, Robinhood, BlackRock, and Franklin Templeton—