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US Government Blacklists Slew of Bitcoin and Monero Addresses Linked to Man Accused of Running Darknet Marketplace
The U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) is blacklisting a handful of crypto addresses linked to a man known for allegedly running Nemesis, a now-defunct darknet marketplace.
In a new press release, the OFAC says that it is sanctioning Iranian national Behrouz Parasad and his Bitcoin (BTC) and Monero (XMR) addresses because he is accused of being the sole administrator of the illegal site.
As stated by Acting Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Bradley T. Smith,
“As the administrator of the Nemesis darknet marketplace, Parsarad sought to build – and continues to try to re-establish – a safe haven to facilitate the production, sale, and shipment of illegal narcotics like fentanyl and other synthetic opioids.
Treasury, in partnership with U.S. law enforcement, will use all available tools to dismantle these darknet marketplaces and hold accountable the individuals who oversee them.” Read More
US Lawmakers Launch ‘Congressional Crypto Caucus’ To Ensure Global Leadership in Setting Digital Asset Standards
Two US lawmakers have launched a bipartisan “Congressional Crypto Caucus” in an effort to advance a digital asset policy agenda.
House Reps. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) and Tom Emmer (R-MN) say in a press release that the caucus will “defend open, permissionless and private innovation in the United States.”
“The Crypto Caucus will help advance a policy agenda focused on the following:
- Promoting Transparency and Open Participation – Encouraging open-source development and permissionless access to blockchain networks to foster accountability, innovation, and inclusivity.
- Expanding Economic Opportunity – Supporting policies that promote financial autonomy, digital property rights, and broader access to innovative financial tools.
- Strengthening National Security and Global Competitiveness – Ensuring the U.S. leads in setting global digital asset standards, enhancing transparency, and addressing illicit finance concerns.
- Enhancing Consumer Protections and Financial Inclusion – Encouraging clear, transparent regulations that safeguard consumers, promote financial literacy, and expand equitable access to financial services.
- Providing Regulatory Clarity – Developing a balanced, principles-based framework that fosters legal certainty and encourages responsible innovation.”
Emmer, who as majority whip is the third-ranking Republican in the House, says the new caucus is designed to accomplish the will of pro-crypto voters. Read More
New Hampshire Bitcoin Reserve Bill Passes House Committee in Landslide Vote
New Hampshire has become the latest U.S. state to push forward a Bitcoin reserve bill, joining the growing trend of integrating the digital asset into state finances.
On Wednesday, the state’s House Commerce and Consumer Affairs Committee passed House Bill 302 by a resounding 16-1 vote.
The bill, which would allow the state treasurer to allocate up to 5% of public funds into Bitcoin alongside precious metals like gold, silver, and platinum now moves to the House floor for consideration.
On the national stage, President Donald Trump has thrown his weight behind the Bitcoin reserve movement. On Sunday, he announced his plan to create a U.S. Crypto Reserve with Bitcoin and Ethereum “at the heart” of it. Read More
AI Developers Turn to Synthetic Data as Original Content Dries Up
AI's reliance on synthetic data is growing, but experts warn of risks like bias, and manipulation.
As AI models consume the internet’s free content, a looming crisis is emerging: What happens when there’s nothing left to train on?
A recent Copyleaks report revealed that DeepSeek, a Chinese AI model, often produces responses nearly identical to ChatGPT, raising concerns that it was trained on OpenAI outputs.
That’s led some to suspect the era of “low-hanging fruit” in AI development may be over.
In December, Google CEO Sundar Pichai acknowledged this reality, warning that AI developers are rapidly exhausting the supply of freely available, high-quality training data.
“In the current generation of LLM models, roughly a few companies have converged at the top, but I think we're all working on our next versions too,” Pichai said at the New York Times’ annual Dealbook Summit in December. “I think the progress is going to get harder.”
With the supply of high-quality training data dwindling, many AI researchers are turning to synthetic data generated by other AI. Read More
What is the Ethereum Prague-Electra (Pectra) upgrade?
Ethereum’s Pectra upgrade combines two separate upgrades: the Prague upgrade and the Electra upgrade.
The Prague upgrade is focused on changes to the network’s execution layer, with the Electra upgrade impacting the consensus layer. These upgrades, when combined, are collectively referred to as the “Pectra” upgrade.
The Pectra upgrade will follow “Dencun,” an amalgamation of the Deneb and Cancun upgrades, which occurred in March 2024. Dencun was technically an Ethereum hard fork designed to lower transaction fees for layer-2 solutions and improve Ethereum scalability.
Pectra is a new milestone on Ethereum’s development roadmap. Ethereum developer Terence Tsao shared that the Pectra upgrade successfully went live on the Sepolia test network on March 5 at 7:29 am UTC. This marks the completion of its second test phase, achieving a flawless proposal rate.
This success follows a setback last week on the Holesky test network, where a misconfiguration among validators caused a chain split, briefly disrupting the network. Tsao responded to questions about these issues, explaining that it could take at least 18 more days to resolve the Holesky upgrade, as ongoing investigations are focused on problems related to “correlation penalties” and “validator balance drains.”
Test networks like Sepolia and Holesky allow developers to test new upgrades in a controlled environment before applying them to Ethereum’s main network, ensuring that any potential issues are addressed in advance. With the Sepolia test phase complete, Ethereum moves one step closer to deploying Pectra on the mainnet, although Holesky still requires further work to resolve the existing issues. Read More
The Markethive R² Principle Explained. Reach and Returns: Subscriptions vs Qualifications
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Markethive is a hybrid platform comprising social media, inbound marketing, and digital broadcasting within a cryptocurrency ecosystem, with many strings to its bow. Markethive operates on a fundamental principle that can be summarized as "Reach and Returns," represented as R².
This dual focus highlights the platform's commitment to providing both extensive marketing and broadcasting capabilities and effective tools and systems for cultivating a strong customer base. This principle is at the core of Markethive's operations, emphasizing the platform's focus on both reaching a broad audience and delivering significant returns on your investment, time, and qualifications.
"Reach" refers to Markethive's capacity to disseminate your message, products, or services to a broad audience. This is achieved through features and strategies designed to maximize visibility and engagement. For instance, our social media integration allows you to reach potential customers across various platforms, and our targeted advertising tools ensure your message is seen by the right audience. All these are made possible through the Markethive a-la-carte subscriptions.
"Returns," on the other hand, signifies the platform's emphasis on generating tangible results from your efforts. By providing tools to attract, nurture, and convert leads into customers and clients, Markethive aims to deliver a substantial return on your investment of time, skills, and resources through the Markethive KEY qualification.
This dual approach ensures that your marketing efforts are far-reaching and impactful, ultimately leading to significant growth and success for your business. Whether you're looking to expand your brand awareness, generate leads, or drive sales, Markethive's R² principle provides a comprehensive framework for achieving your marketing goals and return on investment within the Markethive Ecosystem. Read More
US Authorities Are Releasing Seized Bitcoin Mining Hardware: Reuters
U.S. authorities have started releasing thousands of seized Chinese-made crypto mining machines, though most of the equipment remains in custody, Reuters reported Wednesday.
It follows months of seizures at ports nationwide, initiated by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Agency, citing requests from the Federal Communications Commission to uphold existing regulations.
Decrypt has reached out to the FCC to learn more.
The enforcement actions emerged amid broader concerns about Chinese technology in sensitive sectors, with trade tensions escalating from President Donald Trump’s moves to impose tariffs on China and several other countries.
The agencies’ actions align with guidelines from the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security, which stipulates rules for engaging “advanced semiconductors” typically used in AI and crypto, to “prevent diversion” of such material resources to further Chinese interests.
Blockspace, an industry publication focused on Bitcoin mining and hardware, first reported in November last year that the seizures began by initially targeting models from Bitmain, a privately owned Chinese firm. Read More
Charles Hoskinson says he ‘knew nothing’ of ADA being selected for US reserve
Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson said he wasn’t aware that US President Donald Trump would include the network’s native token, ADA, in his proposed crypto reserve until the day it was announced.
“We knew nothing about ADA being selected for the reserve. It was news to me,” Hoskinson said in a video on March 5. He added that he woke up on March 2 to 150 messages of congratulations but had “no idea what the heck was going on.”
“We never even knew about it, and nobody even talked to us about it,” he added, before saying that he tried hard to have these conversations before being told, “We’ll call you back” or “We’ll figure it out.”
Donald Trump proposed a US crypto reserve on March 2, stating that it would “obviously” contain Bitcoin and Ether, but caused a reaction from some in the industry for also including XRP, Solana and Cardano.
ADA skyrocketed 76% in a few hours following the announcement, jumping from $0.647 to top out at $1.14 before dumping 30% over the following day.
The move caused quite a stir among some crypto executives and analysts, who derided the proposal for its inclusion of assets other than Bitcoin. Read More
Binance To Delist Tether’s USDT and Eight Other Non-Compliant Stablecoins in Europe
Top global crypto exchange Binance is delisting Tether’s USDT and other stablecoins for European customers because the digital assets are not compliant with new regulations in those countries.
In a new announcement, Binance says that beginning March 31st, the platform will delist nine stablecoins for customers in the European Economic Area (EEA) because they are not compliant with the EU’s Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCA) regulations.
Says Binance,
“Following the latest guidance from EU authorities in relation to stablecoins, we are making changes to the availability of non-MiCA compliant stablecoins in the EEA to comply with regulatory requirements. Impacted assets are USDT, FDUSD, TUSD, USDP, DAI, AEUR, UST, USTC and PAXG.”
After March 31st, customers located in European countries will still be able to custody the stablecoins as well as withdraw or deposit them on Binance. Read More
How Developers Are Solving AI’s Financial Limitations with Blockchain
As artificial intelligence continues to evolve, its integration with blockchain technology and robotics could open new possibilities for automation and finance.
One of the limitations of AI, and by extension robots, is their inability to manage transactions autonomously. To address this, developers are now integrating AI with blockchain infrastructure, allowing AI agents to transact securely, manage digital assets, and execute smart contracts.
At ETH Denver 2025, Decrypt spoke with industry experts from the Coinbase Developer Platform, AI and robotics developers OpenMind and Robonomics to explore how AI-powered humanoid robots and other systems leverage blockchain to function as independent economic agents.
“Out of the box, AI does not interact with the blockchain at all,” Lead Developer at Coinbase Developer Platform Nemil Dalal told Decrypt. “If you want it to have a wallet, send money, or transfer funds to different places, it can't do that. It also can't sign up for a bank account on its own. This is a major limitation because AI, in many cases, needs the ability to transact.”
Recognizing this gap, the Coinbase Developer Platform developed a framework called Agent Kit, which the company launched in November, Dalal said. Agent Kit allows AI to be given a wallet, enabling it to perform any on-chain action that a human can. Read More
Ethereum Pectra upgrade live on testnet, but mainnet may face delays
Ethereum’s highly anticipated Pectra upgrade was successfully deployed on its final testnet, Sepolia, marking a major milestone in the lead-up to the mainnet activation. However, potential delays remain as developers continue to address outstanding issues from a previous testnet failure.
Ethereum’s Pectra upgrade has gathered significant community support as it aims to improve Ether staking, layer-2 (L2) network scalability and overall network capacity.
Pectra was successfully rolled out on its final testnet, Sepolia, at 7:29 am UTC on March 5.
The upgrade, which consists of 11 separate Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs), went live on Sepolia “with a perfect proposal rate,” according to core Ethereum contributor Terence.
The Ethereum Foundation previously confirmed that once both the Holesky and Sepolia testnets are successfully upgraded to Pectra, a mainnet activation epoch will be chosen.
However, the upgrade was activated on the Holesky testnet on Feb. 24 and failed to finalize. This may mean Ethereum developers will further delay the mainnet launch as they investigate the issues. Read More
Disclaimer: These articles are provided for informational purposes only. They are not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or any other advice.
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