Free Republic

On May 29, 2025, a bipartisan group of members in the House of Representatives from the Financial Services and Agriculture Committees introduced the Digital Asset Market Clarity (CLARITY) Act. The bill seeks to establish a comprehensive regulatory framework for digital assets in the United States, with regulatory jurisdiction primarily split between the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).

The U.S. Congress is in the thick of its crypto efforts this week, with the Senate starting on final votes to approve its first-ever crypto bill. The U.S. Senate has easily passed its first significant vote 68-30 toward final approval of the GENIUS Act to regulate U.S. stablecoin issuers. The vote makes final passage of the bill a near certainty, marking the first major crypto bill to pass in the U.S. Senate, which had been the bottleneck for crypto efforts in past years. The House of Representatives has also made significant strides in advancing a crypto market structure bill, with...

The Trump White House has repeatedly sounded an alarm about visitors with ties to China’s Communist Party coming to the United States, arguing that they are a potential security threat. But the administration appears to have literally left the door open to a member of a Chinese government group when it went along with a plan to give the biggest purchasers of President Trump’s digital currency access to the president and the White House. Mr. Trump launched a so-called memecoin, a type of cryptocurrency, just days before his inauguration. To bolster sales, the president’s business partners created a contest in...

Forfeiture Action is the Latest Disruption of an Indicted North Korean Official’s Efforts to Generate Revenue for North Korea and its Weapons Program Through Illegal IT Worker Schemes and Cryptocurrency Theft The Department of Justice filed a civil forfeiture complaint today in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia alleging that North Korean information technology (IT) workers obtained illegal employment and amassed millions in cryptocurrency for the benefit of the North Korean government, all as a means of evading U.S. sanctions placed on North Korea. The funds were initially restrained in connection with an April 2023 indictment against...

At Bitcoin 2025, economist and author Saifedean Ammous laid out a bold vision for the future of global finance, asserting that Bitcoin - not the U.S. dollar - will anchor tomorrow’s economy, with Tether as the bridge...Saifedean Ammous, CEO of Saifedean.com and author of The Bitcoin Standard, delivered a data-driven keynote at the Bitcoin 2025 Conference, warning of inevitable U.S. dollar decline and positioning Bitcoin as the only rational hedge.“Default, devaluation, or default by devaluation are inevitable,” Ammous declared, adding pointedly, “Tether can’t fix what a century of fiat democracy ruined.”Using projections and flow charts, Ammous argued that Tether’s Bitcoin...

Imagine waking up one morning to find that your savings are frozen, your credit cards stopped working, and the dollar bill in your wallet isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on. It sounds dramatic–something from a dystopian novel or a bad Hollywood thriller. But behind the scenes, in the hushed chambers of central banks and the chaotic pulse of financial markets, warning bells are sounding. The global economy isn’t just vulnerable–it’s one crisis away from a devastating reset.

The second suspect in the alleged kidnapping and torture of an Italian bitcoin dealer inside a SoHo townhouse was seen scowling as he was remanded without bail in court Tuesday night. After he partied it up in the Hamptons over the weekend, William Duplessie appeared in Manhattan Criminal Court, where his lawyer claimed the 33-year-old crypto trader’s criminal case will “begin to unravel” when more details come out. “The facts here are hotly disputed, his involvement is hotly disputed,” attorney Sanford Talkin claimed to Judge Julieta Lozano during his nighttime arraignment hearing. Duplessie, who sported a frown at the hearing,...

Top Democratic operatives and donors have been hobnobbing in “luxury hotels” while trying to figure out why the party is shedding men and the working class — moves that have liberals have slammed as out of touch. In one instance, liberal super PAC Future Forward hosted a gathering in the Ritz-Carlton resort in wealthy Half Moon Bay, California, to apprise donors on what went wrong in 2024. Prominent figures such as California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) and Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear (D) were reported in attendance. Some of the elite gatherings featured appetizers like short-rib tostones, mini lobster rolls, beef...

The 37-year-old Crypto trader accused of kidnapping a 28-year-old Italian man inside a luxurious SoHo apartment repeatedly shocked his victim with electric wires, held him upside down from the top of a staircase, cut his leg with a saw and threatened to kill the victim’s family — all to get the password to the man’s Bitcoin account, prosecutors said Saturday. Manhattan Criminal Court Judge Eric Schumacher ordered John Woeltz held without bail on assault and kidnapping charges as police continued to search for his accomplice. He also issued a restraining order against Woeltz, so if he does get out of...

A gang of wealthy 'crypto bros' have been arrested for luring their former business partner to a stunning New York City mansion before torturing him for weeks. The group are accused of kidnapping the 28-year-old Italian man before committing sickening acts on him in the $75,000-per-month rented brownstone in Soho. They alleged to have Tazed him, pistol-whipped him and threatened to carve him up with a chainsaw if he did not give up the millions of dollars in his crypto account. But their plot was foiled when the victim - who has not been named - escaped and flagged down...

A month before President Trump’s inauguration, Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff flew to the United Arab Emirates with two goals: discussing regional issues with the Abu Dhabi royal known as the “spy sheikh,” and attending a cryptocurrency conference. Less than five months later, Witkoff’s son, co-founder of the crypto venture World Liberty Financial, took the stage at a conference in Dubai to announce the company had struck a deal for the sheikh’s company to buy $2 billion of their new cryptocurrency. The expected tens of millions of dollars in annual profits would be split between the Witkoffs and their co-founders—and...

In a massive sting operation straight out of a crime thriller, Spanish police have smashed one of Europe’s most powerful underworld banks – a slick, secretive syndicate laundering millions using the ancient and shadowy “hawala” method. Cash, crypto and contraband – the works. In unbelievable scenes, Spain’s National Police, backed by EUROPOL and EUROJUST, swooped on a web of luxury and illegality. The secret January raids – now revealed – saw over 250 officers hit 13 locations across Spain and Belgium in a coordinated blitz, nabbing 17 suspects, seizing mountains of loot and blowing apart a money-moving machine that had...

Imagine walking into a store in the near future–not with cash, not with a card, but with your eyes. No wallet, no phone. Just your iris. It sounds like science fiction. But it’s happening now, and it’s called Worldcoin. This is no ordinary tech rollout. The project, co-founded by OpenAI/ChatGPT CEO Sam Altman, is expanding rapidly across the world, offering people free cryptocurrency in exchange for one thing: a scan of their eyeball.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is officially launching his digital ID and cryptocurrency project, Worldcoin, in the United States. Worldcoin uses eye-scanning technology to confirm a person’s identity in a system called World ID. World ID is a digital ID that uses biometric verification to confirm payments and prove a person’s identity. Altman is hoping that Worldcoin will create a global identity and digital cash payment system.

It all happened overnight and in a matter of minutes. Ben Zhou, CEO of the cryptocurrency exchange Bybit, made a series of routine transfers from his home computer. A short while later, his company called to inform him that his reserves of Ethereum, the second most-used cryptocurrency after Bitcoin, worth $1.5 billion, had vanished. By then, the ethers had already been transferred to thousands of other people’s digital wallets. Bybit had just suffered the largest theft in history. Five days later, the FBI confirmed what some analysts suspected from the outset: the attack was the work of Lazarus, a hacking...

Are you ready for the Circle IPO? The “stablecoin” giant just filed to go public. It’s aiming for a valuation between $4 billion and $5 billion and plans to list on the NYSE as early as June under the ticker CRCL. It will be the biggest crypto IPO since Coinbase (COIN) went public back in 2021. Circle is the company behind USD Coin (USDC)— the world’s second-biggest stablecoin. I’ll share my favorite way to profit from the rise of stablecoins in a minute. First, let me quickly break down what stablecoins are and why they’re a huge disruption to the...

Mr. Armstrong, I just had to write in to say thank you for explaining that Bitcoin was just a trading asset, not some new currency that would replace the dollar. I understand that money must be elastic to grow with society in economic booms and population. I just read a quote reported by Bloomberg: “After four years of political purgatory, Bitcoin and the entire digital-asset ecosystem are on the brink of entering the financial mainstream.” I know a programmer who said you were correct that the Deep State created blockchain. Has this recent rise been orchestrated to get us to...

In just seven short years, Malone Lam Yu Xuan went from being a student in a secondary school in Choa Chu Kang to being dubbed crypto whizz-kid by some in the US in 2023. Many who saw his spending spree were amazed a 19-year-old could afford large mansions, a fleet of expensive cars and luxury clothes. In truth, Lam was living off the millions in crypto he stole from various investors, he later told investigators in the US. This was before August 2024, when he allegedly got involved in the theft of Bitcoin valued at more than US$240 million (S$320...

On March 17, US President Donald Trump’s senior advisor Elon Musk claimed that there are “Magic Money Computers” operational at several government departments that can “make money out of thin air.” Musk made the remark while speaking to Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) during the "Verdict" podcast.Well-known for his dynamic ventures such as Tesla, SpaceX, and X (formerly Twitter), Musk was appointed by Trump as the de-facto head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). The department has been focused on slashing government expenditure for several programs.In the conversation with Cruz, Musk claimed that the DOGE team has discovered 14 “Magic...

President Donald Trump established a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and a stockpile of other digital assets through an executive order on Thursday. The Treasury Department will set up an office to administer the reserve, which will be capitalized with Bitcoin (BTC) forfeited to the government as part of criminal or civil asset forfeiture proceedings, according to the order. “Bitcoin is the original cryptocurrency,” the order said. “Because there is a fixed supply of BTC, there is a strategic advantage to being among the first nations to create a strategic bitcoin reserve.” The order also created a US Digital Asset Stockpile under...