ChainCatcher news, AI and crypto czar David Sacks posted on the X platform denying reports of a role change: "Some traditional media reported tonight that my role has changed, which is completely false. I expect to spend half my time in Washington guiding policy and the other half in Silicon Valley."Previously, according to Fortune, insiders from the transition team revealed that last week the position was downgraded from a leadership role to a general advisory role, partly because Sacks was unwilling to detach from the investment firm Craft Ventures and did not want to go through the formal appointment process. In the future, Michael Kratsios will lead the technology policy work, with Sacks providing policy ideas. Despite the change in position, Sacks remains influential, frequently active in Florida and San Francisco, and meeting with lawmakers. His appointment has sparked controversy over conflicts of interest, but some in Silicon Valley are optimistic, believing it may benefit startups, while others question his expertise and worry about the direction of policy.

ChainCatcher news, Trump appoints David Sacks as the "AI and Crypto Czar" to lead a new advisory committee, raising concerns. Sacks is a venture capitalist, podcaster, and former PayPal executive.However, insiders from the transition team revealed that last week the position was downgraded from a leadership role to a general advisory position, partly because Sacks was unwilling to detach from his investment firm Craft Ventures and did not want to go through the formal appointment process.In the future, Michael Kratsios will lead the technology policy work, with Sacks providing policy ideas. Despite the change in position, Sacks remains influential, frequently active in Florida and San Francisco, and meeting with lawmakers. His appointment has sparked controversy over potential conflicts of interest, but some in Silicon Valley are optimistic, believing it could benefit startups, while others express doubts about his expertise and worry about policy directions.

ChainCatcher news, according to the Workers' Daily report, the Beijing People's Procuratorate has released the work situation of the "Procuratorial Protection for Enterprises" special action and published typical cases. In a case of embezzlement, the defendant defrauded the company of over 140 million yuan, and the procuratorial authorities tracked the virtual currency to recover losses.Between 2020 and 2021, Feng, taking advantage of his position at a certain technology company's service provider and regional operations growth department, conspired with Tang and Yang to defraud the company of service provider bonuses totaling over 140 million yuan. Subsequently, Feng directed Tang and Yang to use eight overseas virtual currency trading platforms to convert the involved funds from yuan to virtual currency, obfuscating the source and nature of the funds through overseas "mixing" platforms, and transferring them in multiple layers. Part of the involved funds flowed into accounts controlled by Feng and others in yuan form, while some were concealed by Feng and others in virtual currency form.In response to the defendants' distribution of profits using virtual currency and the obfuscation of fund flows through overseas "mixing" platforms, the procuratorial authorities conducted a line-by-line comparison and two-way review of virtual currency and legal tender, accurately identifying the flow of funds. This ultimately prompted Feng to return 92 bitcoins, recovering over 89 million yuan in illicit gains, maximizing the economic losses recovered for the victimized unit.On September 14, 2024, the Beijing First Intermediate People's Court issued a judgment, sentencing defendant Feng and seven others for embezzlement, with prison terms ranging from 14 years and 6 months to 3 years, along with corresponding fines. The judgment has taken effect.

ChainCatcher message, Indian cryptocurrency exchange WazirX announced on the X platform an "update on non-liquid wallet assets and stolen assets": Recovering non-liquid wallet assets and stolen assets remains a top priority, and the team is actively exploring all possible avenues. For the stolen assets, Kroll has been hired to lead the forensic assessment, enhance platform security, and plan recovery strategies, which include:Tracking and freezing USDT balances with the support of law enforcement;Commissioning the preparation of a first-phase report to assess recovery potential;Possibly filing lawsuits against parties involved in the network attack and dispersing the stolen assets. To ensure complete transparency, a recovery report will be shared every 4 months under an effective plan, updating the scheme creditors on the latest progress.

ChainCatcher news, Indian cryptocurrency exchange WazirX has released an asset rebalancing and distribution plan, which has been approved by creditors and recognized by the court. The plan includes four main components:The net liquid platform assets will be rebalanced to ensure fair value distribution, and the first distribution to creditors will be made in the form of tokens within 10 working days after the plan takes effect.Recovery Tokens (RTs) will be issued to allocate subsequent recovery amounts from surplus, illiquid wallet assets, and stolen assets. When the net recovery amount available for purchasing RTs exceeds $10 million, WazirX will provide creditors with the opportunity to purchase RTs quarterly; if below this amount, it will be deferred to the next quarter for assessment.The future trading functionality of RTs is being evaluated to provide creditors with additional liquidity options.All distribution withdrawals must strictly comply with KYC and risk management requirements to ensure process compliance.

ChainCatcher news, according to a report by Techcrunch, the Chainalysis report released on Thursday shows that the total value of stolen cryptocurrency has surged by 21% this year, reaching $2.2 billion, with over half of the amount stolen by hacker groups linked to North Korea. In 2024, North Korean-linked hackers stole 61% of the total amount stolen that year in 47 cases, worth $1.34 billion; in 2023, they stole $660.5 million in 20 cases, and in 2022, they stole $400 million. This indicates that they are increasingly involved in these attacks.The report emphasizes that most cryptocurrency hacking incidents this year occurred from January to July, with the amount stolen exceeding $1.58 billion, approximately 84.4% higher than the same period in 2023. After July, the upward trend significantly slowed down, which is markedly different from 2021 and 2022, possibly due to geopolitical issues. Chainalysis attributes the stagnation in the number of hacks after July to the alliance between North Korea and Russia, which emerged after the meeting between Russian President Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in June. Since the June summit, the amount of cryptocurrency assets stolen by North Korea has decreased by 53.73%. As cooperation between North Korea and Russia strengthens, North Korea may change its cybercrime tactics.

ChainCatcher news, according to CoinDesk, the hacker involved in the Bitfinex theft case has made a public statement for the first time since being arrested. Ilya Lichtenstein reiterated that he alone stole 120,000 bitcoins, denying the speculation in the Netflix documentary that "his father was complicit and may belong to a Russian spy agency." This is his first public statement since his arrest in 2022.In the video statement, Lichtenstein said, "My father is not a hacker; he doesn't even know how to use Instagram. I sincerely apologize to Bitfinex for all the pressure I have caused them. I know what I did was wrong, but I did it anyway. Looking back at who I was then, I hate myself. I hate myself. For the past three years, I have been working hard to trace all assets and return them down to the last satoshi as required by my plea agreement, and I will continue to do so."

ChainCatcher news, Curve founder Michael Egorov responded on Twitter regarding "the liquidation of 918,000 CRV from his marked address," stating that this portion of CRV was stolen during the UwU Lend hack on June 10. Therefore, in this sense, they are not "real CRV," but rather "receipts for the funds promised to be repaid by Sifu that were hacked."It is reported that the lending protocol UwU Lend was attacked in June this year, resulting in a loss of approximately $3.72 million in assets.

ChainCatcher news, according to official information, DEXX has announced the launch of stolen asset debt claim NFTs. Affected users can claim debt claim NFTs according to the rules, and future compensation will be based on the NFT as the proof of claim. The specific implementation details are as follows:Rules for claiming debt claim NFTs: Users who have confirmed their affected tokens can select and register a secure wallet on the "Compensation Center" page. After that, the wallet will receive a debt claim NFT.Future compensation standards: Subsequent compensation will be based on the debt claim NFT as the proof of claim.Functions and value of debt claim NFTs: The debt claim NFTs received by users can not only serve as proof of claim but can also be circulated and transferred based on individual circumstances, providing users with greater flexibility in their choices.

According to ChainCatcher news, in a Tuesday announcement, Wormhole is collaborating with re-staking protocol developer Nuffle Labs to develop a solution that extends EigenLayer's re-staking capabilities beyond the Ethereum ecosystem. This move aims to advance the security generated by shared staking, protecting multiple protocols and applications simultaneously. The solution leverages Wormhole's messaging architecture and Nuffle's NUFF protocol, allowing assets to be re-staked directly from any L1 or L2 blockchain without the need for asset bridging.It is reported that Nuffle Labs is a spin-off of the NEAR Foundation, developing modular blockchain technology to expand the ecosystem, including the NEAR data availability layer and the NEAR fast finality layer. The collaboration with Wormhole will make all tokens provided through the Nuffle infrastructure available for AVS built on the EigenLayer shared security framework.

ChainCatcher news, on-chain detective ZachXBT updates that the assets stolen by the LastPass attacker have risen to $12.38 million, coming from over 100 victim addresses.Previous news, on-chain analyst ZachXBT disclosed that the LastPass attacker targeted over 40 victim addresses, stealing approximately $5.36 million in crypto assets. The attacker then exchanged the stolen funds for ETH and attempted to cover the flow of funds by transferring assets across chains from the Ethereum network to the Bitcoin network through multiple instant exchanges.

ChainCatcher news, according to official sources, Wormhole has announced the integration of the Circle Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol (CCTP) on Sui, allowing developers to seamlessly integrate native USDC transfers into dApp interfaces by simply writing code.

ChainCatcher news, Mask Network founder Suji Yan posted that multiple Pudgy Penguins toy products in a New York store were opened and the QR codes were stolen. The token airdrop led some people to rush into Walmart to steal QR codes that might receive the airdrop. He stated that the crypto community should condemn such behavior.

ChainCatcher news, on-chain analyst ZachXBT revealed that the LastPass attackers targeted over 40 victim addresses, stealing approximately $5.36 million in crypto assets. The attackers then exchanged the stolen funds for ETH and attempted to obscure the flow of funds by transferring assets across chains from the Ethereum network to the Bitcoin network through multiple instant exchanges.

ChainCatcher news, according to official sources, Wormhole has been deployed on World Chain. This integration makes Wormhole the interoperability provider for World Chain, initially supporting transfers of WLD, USDC.e, and WBTC.

ChainCatcher news, according to PeckShield monitoring, a phishing address that stole 55.4 million DAI has transferred 900 ETH (worth about 3.6 million USD) to Tornado cash.

ChainCatcher news, according to Pressreader, Bank Negara Malaysia is collaborating with several local financial institutions to explore the potential of wholesale central bank digital currency through a proof of concept (POC), aiming to optimize Malaysia's wholesale payment system RENTAS.Bank Negara Malaysia is also actively involved in several cross-border wholesale digital currency and innovation projects led by the Bank for International Settlements Innovation Hub, such as the "Dunbar" project, "Mandala" project, "Rialto" project, and "mBridge" project, primarily serving as an observer in these initiatives. "These projects delve into the applications of distributed ledger technology (DLT) and central bank digital currencies, with the goal of enhancing the efficiency of cross-border payments."It is reported that Bank Negara Malaysia's initial intention in participating in these projects is to deepen the understanding of central bank digital currencies among institutions and the financial industry, laying the groundwork for potential future developments.

ChainCatcher News, the U.S. Department of Justice announced that a man from Austin, Texas, was sentenced to two years in prison for falsely reporting the capital gains from the sale of $3.7 million in Bitcoin on his tax return. According to court documents and statements, Frank Richard Ahlgren III submitted false tax returns between 2017 and 2019, underreporting or failing to report $4 million in Bitcoin sales transactions, from which he made substantial profits. Regulatory provisions require all taxpayers to report any sales profits as well as gains or losses from the sale of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin on their tax returns.Lucy Tan, acting special agent in charge of the IRS Criminal Investigation Houston office, stated, "This case marks the first criminal tax prosecution solely related to cryptocurrency." In addition to imprisonment, the man is also required to pay $1,095,031 in restitution to the United States.

ChainCatcher message, according to Scam Sniffer monitoring, the stolen funds from DEXX are currently being transferred to Tornado Cash, with approximately 1000 ETH deposited so far.