The weirdness around rump's "US Crypto Reserve" announcement

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Ethical questions are swirling around Trump’s plan. So are practical ones.
by Andrew Prokop
Mar 3, 2025, 1:12 PM EST

... In a TruthSocial post, Trump said he’d directed his advisers to “move forward” on creating a “Crypto Strategic Reserve,” and that it would include the cryptocurrencies XRP, Solana, and Cardano. In a follow-up post, he added that Bitcoin, Ethereum, and “other valuable Cryptocurrencies will be at the heart of the Reserve.”

Naturally, the announcement sent crypto prices — which had been trending downward since Trump’s inauguration — shooting higher on Sunday, particularly among the specific tokens Trump named. But some of the market enthusiasm wore off on Monday as questions deepened about what Trump’s announcement actually meant and whether it would be meaningful.

The announcement also set off alarm bells from those concerned about corruption and cronyism. Not only did Trump seem to suggest government plans to favor an industry some of his top supporters have heavily invested in, but he called out specific cryptocurrencies, including some lesser-known ones, by name.

How exactly did he come up with that list? And was he proposing to spend taxpayer money not only on buying crypto, but on picking favorites in the market, to make his allies richer? ...

https://www.vox.com/politics/402310/trump-us-crypto-reserve-sacks-xrp-solana-cardano

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1. Bitcoin tumbles, reversing most of the rally from crypto reserve announcement

Published Mon, Mar 3 20257:29 AM ESTUpdated 3 Hours Ago
Tanaya Macheel

A bitcoin rally faded Monday as traders grappled with concerns that proposed tariffs were on track to take effect.

Concerns about the economic impact from these levies overshadowed earlier excitement about President Donald Trump’s announcement of a U.S. strategic crypto reserve. Bitcoin
was last trading down 8% at the $86,000 level, according to Coin Metrics. Ether
is was down about 15% to $2,100.

Meanwhile, stocks tied to cryptocurrencies also reversed direction. Coinbase and Robinhood fell 4.6% and 6.4%, respectively. Shares of MicroStrategy swung from a 14% rally when the market opened to trading down more than 1.8% Monday afternoon ...

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/03/03/crypto-market-today.html

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2. Crypto Theft Hits $2.2 Billion as Hackers Target Digital Wallets

By Tico Times
March 2, 2025

Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum are targets of choice for online criminals, who often exploit weaknesses in major trading platforms or individual users’ digital “wallets” to make major scores. A recent $1.5-billion heist of Ethereum from the Bybit platform — attributed by the FBI to North Korean hackers — is believed to be the largest yet in an ever-longer litany of thefts.

Cryptocurrencies are based on blockchain technology, which publicly records transactions between people holding and exchanging them. That has not kept a lid on theft, with an estimated $2.2 billion worth of the assets stolen in 2024, according to a report from specialist data firm Chainalysis.

It was the fourth year in a row that the worldwide total topped $1 billion, the report noted. “Hackers from North Korea have become notorious for their sophisticated and relentless tradecraft,” Chainalysis highlighted, adding that 60 percent of all 2024 crypto thefts by value were linked to the hermit nation ...

https://ticotimes.net/2025/03/02/crypto-theft-hits-2-2-billion-as-hackers-target-digital-wallets

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3. Crypto bros can't believe how corrupt reserve plan is

Sam Stein is joined by business and finance journalist Ben Walsh to discuss Donald Trump’s bleat announcing his plans for a federal crypto reserve that has enraged crypto traders for obvious corruption.

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4. Money laundering through cryptocurrencies

Money laundering using cryptocurrencies follows the general pattern of placement-layering-integration but with some specific features:

Cryptocurrencies are anonymous at their point of creation therefore the placement stage of the money laundering process is often absent.

It only takes a few seconds to create an account (“address”) and this is free of cost. It is only possible to use each account twice: to receive money and then transfer it elsewhere.

It is possible to create a large money laundering scheme with thousands of transfers at a low cost and to execute it using a computer script.

Due to rapid increases in exchange rates, with some cryptocurrencies showing 10,000% growth, it is very easy to justify unexpected wealth through cryptocurrencies ...

https://syntheticdrugs.unodc.org/syntheticdrugs/en/cybercrime/launderingproceeds/moneylaundering.html