🔓 Revolut handed passports and Bitcoin histories to a fake government request

Someone spoofed a real government agency's email domain, sent Revolut a data request, passed authentication — and Revolut complied.

What leaked: passport copies, verification selfies, home addresses, IBANs and full Bitcoin transaction histories. Investigator ZachXBT says the attack targeted high-net-worth crypto holders — which, amid a wave of violent "wrench attacks" against known holders, makes this more than a data spill.

Revolut confirmed the breach to TechCrunch, calling it "a sophisticated external impersonation scam." How many customers were hit and which agency was impersonated — not disclosed.

KYC collects everything. Who guards the archive is apparently a separate question.

Decrypt

💸 Anthropic is going for the record books

Anthropic — the company behind Claude and one of OpenAI's most credible rivals — is in talks with Nvidia over a $10 billion strategic investment ahead of what could be the largest IPO in history, per Reuters.

The numbers are hard to sit with calmly: the company is looking to raise up to $100B in the offering, at a valuation of around $2 trillion. That's more than the entire US retail sector.

Nvidia isn't a neutral bystander here — it's one of Anthropic's main chip suppliers. An early anchor position in the IPO would tighten that relationship considerably: part bet, part business development, all at eye-watering scale.

Talks are ongoing and could change direction. Still — when the rumoured deal size is ten figures and the valuation has twelve, "ongoing" barely feels like a disclaimer anymore.

Cointelegraph

📌 Daily Recap · Sep 16

🏛️ Ex-BitMEX founder drops £36M on Farage's party
🔓 Revolut gave passports to a fake government email
💸 Anthropic chases history with Nvidia's $10B check

Tag whoever was heads-down in meetings — they missed a lot today

CHEATKOTT - Your Daily News

🪙 Crypto check
₿ BTC $76,563 📈 +1.0% (24h)
Ξ ETH $2,449 📈 +2.1% (24h)

😨/🤑 Fear & Greed: 50 — Neutral

📈 Bitcoin back at $79K — Iran included

Trump posted on Truth Social that Iran "wants a deal — fast and badly," hinting the conflict could be nearing its end. BTC erased its weekend losses and gained roughly 3%, pushing back above $79,000.

Oil dipped on the news, though Brent holds near $105. Separately, odds of a Fed rate hike on Wednesday jumped from 59% to 92.7% in one week — the move itself is priced in, so all eyes are on how Powell frames what comes next.

Geopolitics, crude, and interest rates in one package. Bitcoin stopped being "just crypto" a while ago.

Cointelegraph

💡 AI taps the brakes — Bitcoin hits the gas

Over the weekend, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei published an essay calling on AI labs to deliberately slow capability gains. Sam Altman and Elon Musk both agreed publicly within 24 hours.

Chip stocks took the hit: Nvidia −3%, Intel −5%, AMD −6%, Marvell −7.5%. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index sank nearly 6%.

BTC moved the other way — up to $78,280, gaining ~2% on the day, with Ethereum +2.1% and XRP +3.3%. Bitcoin tends to follow Fed signals more than AI headlines, and a legislative tailwind helped: odds of the Clarity Act passing in 2026 jumped to 31% on Polymarket, with a Senate cloture vote due Tuesday.

The day AI was asked to slow down turned out to be a fine day for the asset that doesn't need AI at all.

Decrypt

💸 $230M, a USDT chain, and two USB sticks

Venezuela's sanctioned state oil firm PDVSA started demanding USDT payments to sidestep US restrictions. In late 2023, Polish energy giant Orlen wired $230 million to a Dubai middleman to secure 6 million barrels of Venezuelan crude.

The funds scattered across crypto intermediaries — including, memorably, two USB sticks carrying $110 million in USDT handed to a Caracas broker. Orlen received roughly $29 million worth of oil. Polish prosecutors put total damages at $378 million; three former Orlen executives face up to 25 years in prison, per the Financial Times.

The USB sticks have yet to comment.

Cointelegraph

💸 Senate votes no — crypto stocks bleed

The U.S. crypto industry spent years and hundreds of millions in political contributions pushing for a federal regulatory framework. On Tuesday it hit a wall: the Senate voted 49-50, far short of the 60 needed to advance the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act.

Coinbase, Circle and Galaxy each dropped over 8%. Miners and Robinhood followed. The bill would have clarified which regulator oversees what — and given the CFTC real authority over spot markets. Without it, the industry stays in legal limbo.

The Fed's rate decision Wednesday added pressure across the board, per Blockworks — but the crypto names fell hardest.

Hundreds of millions spent. Forty-nine votes secured. The Senate has its own arithmetic.

CoinDesk

💸 Bitcoin is back at September lows — and crypto isn't the reason

Global bond yields just hit levels unseen in decades, and risk assets are taking the hit. BTC dropped to $75,560, wiping out the previous day's recovery to $79,600 in a single session.

🔸 US 10-year yield: 5.041% — first time since 2007
🔸 G7 average 10-year: 4.285% — highest since the 2008 financial crisis
🔸 UK 30-year gilts: 5.95% — not seen since 1998
🔸 WTI crude near $105, driven by Middle East supply fears

Rate hikes are back on the table: the Fed is expected to move Wednesday, the Bank of Japan on Friday. Meanwhile the CLARITY Act — a bill that would divide crypto oversight between the SEC and CFTC — got just 14% odds on Polymarket, per Cointelegraph.

Bonds at 30-year highs, oil surging — Bitcoin just happened to be standing nearby.

📌 Daily Recap · Sep 17

📈 Iran deal hopes push Bitcoin back above $79K
💡 AI chiefs agree to slow down, chip stocks crater
💸 Venezuela's oil giant went full crypto to dodge sanctions
🏛️ Senate kills crypto bill after millions in lobby cash
📉 Bond yields at decade highs drag Bitcoin to $75K

Whoever was offline today just missed a lot — pass this along

CHEATKOTT - Your Daily News

🪙 Crypto check
₿ BTC $77,581 📈 +1.4% (24h)
Ξ ETH $2,489 📈 +1.7% (24h)

😨/🤑 Fear & Greed: 56 — Greed

💸 Nine years, then the lights go out

CoinEx — a Hong Kong crypto exchange running since 2017 — is closing for good. December 22, 2026, exactly nine years after launch. Signups are already frozen; spot trading ends September 29.

Founder Haipo Yang turned down a sale, calling this a "clean ending." Holders of CET get a buyback at the original listing price of 0.005 USDT, no volume cap. Reserves sit above 100%.

CoinEx is the third exchange to fold this year, after BitMEX and BitMart. A coincidence, or just how 2026 is going.

One footnote: in June, TRM Labs alleged $3.8 billion flowed between CoinEx and sanctioned Iranian platforms over seven years. The exchange denied it. Yang says the exit is his call — per Decrypt.

💸 Binance, Iran, and $1.5 billion

Background: in 2023, Binance pleaded guilty to sanctions violations, paid billions in fines, and its founder Changpeng Zhao did four months in prison before Trump pardoned him. Seemed like the end of it.

The DOJ sees it differently. Per The Wall Street Journal, $1.5 billion moved through Binance into Iran, some of it reaching the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Two Hong Kong middlemen sold black-market Iranian oil to Chinese buyers, cycling proceeds through Binance wallets. One of them, Blessed Trust, was an official Binance partner.

Both companies are now banned from the platform. The investigators who found them were fired — "individual circumstances," says Binance.

Classic.

Engadget

💸 Bitcoin under a 20-year federal lock

In March, Trump signed an executive order telling the government to stop selling seized crypto. Congress now wants to make that permanent — surviving any future administration.

The House Financial Services Committee passed ARMA (H.R. 8957) 28–21. The government's 324,527 BTC (~$24.7B) would be frozen for at least 20 years, with mandatory quarterly audits. The bill also writes private key ownership into law as "fundamental to financial sovereignty."

Full House and Senate votes still ahead. But a government legally barring itself from touching Bitcoin for two decades isn't crypto politics anymore — it's fiscal architecture.

Via CoinTelegraph.

💸 The Fed just hiked for the first time since 2023

The Fed had been on hold since 2023 while markets waited for cuts. Wednesday: +25 basis points, range 3.75%–4%, unanimous. PPI at 5.4% annually, CPI up 0.4% on the month, oil back above $100 — the case for waiting ran out.

The political layer stings. Trump nominated Warsh in May saying he wanted someone who'd cut rates. Third meeting as chair — Warsh hiked. "Be independent" was apparently also on the list; he took it literally.

Bitcoin held support at $73,500–75,600: spiked to $75,900, pulled back to $75,100. Fear & Greed dropped from 69 to 51. Next meeting October 27–28. Was Wednesday the finale or the opening act?

Decrypt

🎸 One Last Bow

On July 5, 2025, Ozzy Osbourne played his final concert at Villa Park in Birmingham — the city where Black Sabbath began. Seventeen days later, he was gone, after years of fighting Parkinson's disease.

It was also the first full Black Sabbath reunion in 20 years. 42,000 in the crowd, 3 million on the livestream. Slayer, Tool, Pantera, Steven Tyler — all there to say goodbye.

"He wanted to perform again and say goodbye to his fans. That's all." — Sharon Osbourne

Now it's a film. *Ozzy & Black Sabbath: Back to the Beginning* arrives in cinemas worldwide on October 28, directed by Ben Wainwright-Pearce, who filmed *Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour*. Tickets on sale September 24 at backtothebeginning.com.

As Variety reports — the farewell that 3 million watched on a small screen is heading somewhere bigger.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgKNMGMZEaQ

📌 Daily Recap · Sep 18

🌅 CoinEx chose a clean exit over a sale
⚖️ DOJ still eyeing Binance despite the billion-dollar settlement
🔒 Congress wants Bitcoin reserves locked away for 20 years
📈 Fed hikes rates for the first time since 2023
🎸 Ozzy's last concert was also Black Sabbath's reunion

Someone you know spent today in back-to-back meetings — pass this along so they don't miss the whole world moving without them

CHEATKOTT - Your Daily News

🪙 Crypto check
₿ BTC $81,079 📈 +4.5% (24h)
Ξ ETH $2,629 📈 +5.7% (24h)

😨/🤑 Fear & Greed: 71 — Greed

🏗️ Circle is betting on the rails, not the coin

Circle — the company behind USDC — launched its own blockchain, Arc. CEO Jeremy Allaire called it "more consequential than USDC itself."

Arc is framed as an "economic operating system" for payments, tokenized assets and lending. 100+ institutions are involved, including BlackRock, Mastercard, Visa and DTCC. Fees are paid in USDC, not a volatile native token. An ARC token exists — 10 billion minted — but no public launch yet, with any real utility pushed to 2027.

The backdrop: BofA, Citi and Goldman are building a rival stablecoin; Stripe has its own chain. Circle's wager is that the winner won't be the best stablecoin — it'll be whoever owns the pipes, per CoinDesk.

💸 Decentralized platform ≠ legal loophole

Two Robinhood engineers, Hefu Chai and Huaisong Xiang, had access to a private Slack channel with upcoming token listing plans. Federal prosecutors allege they traded perpetual futures on Hyperliquid ahead of announcements — Chai before at least 10 listings, Xiang before 11 — each clearing over $50,000.

Their apparent logic: derivatives on a decentralized exchange sit outside normal enforcement. They don't. Both face fraud charges carrying up to 10 years. Robinhood says it reported the matter to law enforcement itself.

The precedent, per CoinDesk: onchain derivatives, insider information — still insider trading.