Sebastian Sinclair

Coinbase’s settlement with regulators on Wednesday has marked the industry’s largest in almost a year and one of the largest to date.



The New York State Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) found the exchange <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/coinbase-stock-up-after-settlement">violated anti-money laundering</a> laws in 2018 and 2019 by allowing customers to open accounts without complete background checks.



As such, Coinbase has agreed to pay a $50 million fine as well as a further $50 million that will go towards its compliance practices, per the agreement laid out in the settlement.



Coinbase’s latest regulatory snafu follows a previous <a href="https://www.cftc.gov/PressRoom/PressReleases/8369-21" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">$6.5 million settlement</a> in a civil penalty with the Commodities and Futures Trading Commission in March 2021. 



The exchange was accused of delivering false, misleading, or inaccurate reports relating to transactions on a trading platform it operated known as GDAX.



The settlement amount is similar to NYDFS previous money laundering-related fines of financial giants such as Deutsche Bank (<a href="https://www.dfs.ny.gov/system/files/documents/2020/07/ea20200706_deutsche_bank_consent_order.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">$150 million</a> in 2020) and Wells Fargo (<a href="https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-wells-fargo-new-york-fine-20181022-story.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">$65 million</a> in 2018).



What follows is a roundup of the industry’s most significant settlements with US regulators in relation to dollar amounts and terms laid out in the legal agreements stretching back to 2019.



<h3>BlockFi Fined $100 Million over interest-bearing products</h3>



In February of last year, now-bankrupt crypto lender <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/crypto-lender-blockfi-to-pay-100m-in-fines-to-us-regulators">BlockFi was ordered to pay $50 million</a> in fines to the Securities and Exchange Commission and a further $50 million to various state regulators.



It was alleged at the time the lender had illegally offered a high-interest yield product, known as BlockFi Interest Account (BIA), which had allowed users to lend out their crypto for up to 9.25% in annual percentage yield.



US customers were prohibited from opening any new interest-yielding accounts, and existing accounts were converted to “BlockFi Yield” under an existing regulatory-compliant framework.



BlockFi later <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/blockfi-bankruptcy-highlights">filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy</a> on Nov. 28 following the collapse of FTX.



<h3>Bitfinex parent pays $18.5 million over alleged $850 million cover-up</h3>



Roughly one year before BlockFi’s settlement, crypto exchange Bitfinex’s parent <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/bitfinex-tether-owner-pays-185-mln-fine-settle-nyag-cryptocurrency-cover-up-2021-02-23/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">agreed to pay</a> an $18.5 million fine to the New York Attorney General&#8217;s office to settle charges it had engaged in a cover-up to hide the loss of hundreds of millions in client funds.



Hong Kong-based iFinex Inc, also the parent of stablecoin issuer Tether, was required to halt trading activity with New Yorkers as part of the deal.&nbsp;



Bitfinex was accused of having sent $850 million to Panama-based payments processor Crypto Capital Corp without first telling clients. After funds went missing, it was alleged the exchange siphoned $700 million from Tether’s stablecoin reserves to cover the shortfall.



As part of the agreement to settle, Bitfinex and Tether did not admit or deny wrongdoing.



In October, 2021, Tether <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/tether-settles-with-cftc-for-42-5m">settled with the CFTC for $42.5 million</a> over the agencies allegations that Tether misrepresented the reserves backing of USDT.



<h3>Block.One pays $24 million to settle charges over unregistered ICO</h3>



Block.One, the company behind the EOS cryptocurrency, reached a settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission in October 2019, <a href="https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2019-202" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">agreeing to pay</a> a $24 million fine for conducting an unregistered securities sale



Its initial coin offering of 900 million EOS tokens first began way back in June 2017, and is considered the largest ICO in history, having raised some $4.1 billion.



As per the legal agreement, Block.One later settled the charges without admitting or denying the findings by the federal regulator.



<h3>Telegram fined $18.5 million, forced to repay $1.2 billion from ICO sale</h3>



Also in October 2019, the SEC filed a complaint against the parent of social media platform Telegram, alleging the company raised more than $1.2 billion from the illegal securities sale of 2.9 billion Grams — a proposed utility token.



At the time, the SEC alleged Grams had been sold via an initial coin offering to some 171 initial purchasers around the globe and sought to restrain Telegram from any further sales.&nbsp;



The US Southern District Court of New York later agreed with the SEC’s findings in March 2020 and issued an injunction barring any further sale of Grams. Without admitting or denying the allegations, Telegram agreed to pay $18.5 million in a civil penalty.



Up until last year, Telegram was also required to notify the SEC before embarking on any further issuance of digital assets. Telegram was also forced to repay the $1.2 billion back to investors.



Although Telegram was prohibited from pursuing its centralized blockchain development plans, the underling open-source code was used to launch <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/ton-standout-in-rocky-crypto-markets">the community-driven TON project</a>. The team behind Telegram’s Messenger app is now building upon the same technology it previously developed in-house.



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Coinbase’s $100M Settlement, Largest Since BlockFi

Macauley Peterson

In a sea of red since FTX bankruptcy’s, the native cryptoasset of The Open Network (TON) has been a standout.&nbsp;&nbsp;



Up around 50% since just Nov. 10, the layer-1 proof-of-stake blockchain progeny of Telegram — the messaging app wildly popular among industry participants — sits ahead of the more-familiar names of Chainlink and Cosmos in terms of market capitalization. That’s even after accounting for a 30% retracement from its recent peak notched Dec. 19.&nbsp;



TON’s latest bullish indicator: a fresh $10 million injection earmarked for building out the blockchain’s infrastructure from Cypher Capital, a multi-strategy crypto investment firm based in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).



The funding builds upon an earlier $126 million “rescue fund,” <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/business/2022/11/30/ton-steward-looks-to-draw-projects-to-its-ecosystem-with-126m-rescue-fund/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">debuted</a> last month to support TON development, then-described as “a soft commitment … ready to deploy whenever there’s a suitable opportunity that is in need of support from the TON community.”&nbsp;&nbsp;



Newly committed funds are set to focus on applications in the Middle East, Africa, Asia, Turkey, and India, according to Bill Qian, chairman of Cypher Capital and a board member of the TON Foundation, who in a statement called the network “a game changer in the Web3 space.”



<h3>Telegram connection&nbsp;</h3>



The bull case for TON leans heavily on its association with Telegram and its <a href="https://www.demandsage.com/telegram-statistics/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">estimated</a> 55 million monthly active users.



Though the <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/telegram-users-can-now-send-receive-crypto-following-2-year-hiatus" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">SEC in 2019</a> shut down the messenger’s in-house crypto effort, the app remains a major player in the community-forked initiative that relaunched the project in a more decentralized manner.



Telegram service fragment.com, for instance, offers an auction-style marketplace for Telegram usernames, which, unsurprisingly, uses the TON blockchain and corresponding payment token.



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">
“The auction of usernames or anonymous numbers on Telegram is a great demonstration of how the simplicity of tokenization on TON can create many real-world examples of blockchain technology,” a TON spokesperson told Blockworks.
</blockquote>



Transaction fees for such services are paid in TON, the network&#8217;s staking token used to incentivize the validators that process transactions.



Other applications in search of user growth are <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/telegram-wallet-now-lets-users-exchange-crypto-with-each-other" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">the @Wallet bot</a> and a privacy-focused TON Proxy service that can access websites through the network’s own DNS service — analogous to the <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/ens" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Ethereum Name Service</a>.



The spokesperson was unable to provide details on the number of such sites created, but said “we believe that this product is in demand within the community, and it is something that we will continue to develop when TON Storage launches,” referring to TON’s equivalent to <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/storage" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">decentralized storage</a> providers such as IPFS or Arweave.



The @Wallet bot within Telegram was used by 1.7 million users in the past year, according to the TON Foundation. Although the bot is a custodial wallet service, it is not operated by Telegram, but rather maintained by independent TON developers.



Non-custodial wallets are also available, namely Tonkeeper, which runs as a standalone mobile app co-founded by TON Foundation “ambassador” Oleg Andreev.&nbsp;



<h3>TON bridge to Ethereum-based dapps</h3>



TON’s treasury is not tracked by <a href="https://openorgs.info/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Openorgs.info</a>, but the TON foundation <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/telegram-users-can-now-send-receive-crypto-following-2-year-hiatus" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">said in April</a> it had raised about $1 billion to fund development efforts. TON currently trades for about the same as it did at the time — $2.00 even as of the stock market’s close in New York on Wednesday.



The TON Foundation describes itself as “a non-commercial group of supporters and contributors who help further grow the TON blockchain&#8221;. Founding members include Steve Yun and Andrew Rogozov, ex-CEO of Russian social networking site VK.com.



TON recently gained coverage on <a href="https://defillama.com/chain/TON" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">DefiLlama</a> thanks to a decentralized exchange with about $500,000 in total value locked (TVL).



The Foundation provides <a href="https://ton.org/primer.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">a bridge</a> to allow TON holders to interact with decentralized applications (dapps) built on Ethereum, such as <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/Uniswap" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Uniswap</a>.



Around 19.2 million TONCOIN — the ERC-20 token <a href="https://etherscan.io/token/0x582d872a1b094fc48f5de31d3b73f2d9be47def1" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">representing TON on Ethereum</a> — have been bridged so far, with around $38.5 million held by around 4,900 wallets. About 78% of that amount is concentrated in the top 10 such accounts, including venture capital firm Dragonfly Capital, with 25% of the supply on Ethereum.



It’s not clear what percentage of Telegram users have tried services on the TON blockchain, but data provided by <a href="https://tontech.io/stats/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">tontech.io</a> point to steady growth in accounts on the network, which surpassed 1.6 million in December. The number of active users was not available as of publication. 



Updated Dec. 30, 2022 at 6:42 am ET: Clarified Yon and Rogozov&#8217;s status as Ton Foundation founding members.



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Bucking Crypto Bear Trend, Telegram Progeny Promises a Ton

Shalini Nagarajan

Nefarious actors have been increasingly turning to Telegram, according to Microsoft — as well as one of the tech gian’s own products — in attempts to infiltrate crypto companies.



The tech giant categorized the pervasiveness of such hacks, typically driven by malware, as a barrier to widespread adoption of cryptocurrencies. More concerning, still, in Microsoft’s estimation: Hackers are becoming quite adept at their brands of trickery.



“We are also seeing more complex attacks wherein the threat actor shows great knowledge and preparation, taking steps to gain their target’s trust before deploying payloads,” Microsoft wrote in a <a href="https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/security/blog/2022/12/06/dev-0139-launches-targeted-attacks-against-the-cryptocurrency-industry/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">blog </a>Tuesday.



Microsoft detailed its own investigation of a would-be bad actor, “DEV-0139,” which the company said infiltrated Telegram chats between an unidentified crypto exchanges and their “VIP” clients, as well as the company’s other counterparties. The company said the hacker, or hacking collective, employed Excel files in bids to acquire valuable and private information.&nbsp;



While pretending to represent a separate crypto company — with apparently passable knowledge of the operations and communications of both firms — Microsoft said they invited the target to a different chat, where DEV-0139 attempted solicited feedback on the fee structure used by the crypto exchanges.



Upon gaining the trust of the target, the malicious actor sent an Excel file called “OKX Binance &amp; Huobi VIP fee comparison.xls” in an alleged bid to project credibility.



Opening the Excel file itself triggered a series of mishaps. A set of automatic actions contained in the file were used to obtain the user’s data, executed in invisible mode. This malicious “backdoor” allowed the bad actor to remotely access the infected system.&nbsp;



Microsoft also found another older file using the same technique, suggesting the incident wasn’t isolated — and that the actor may be executing similar campaigns with other targets.&nbsp;



It isn’t unusual for crypto scammers to use bots on Telegram to hoodwink users and lead them to malicious links. A 2021 report by digital threat detection firm <a href="https://q6cyber.com/blog/otp_bots_are_a_growing_threat/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Q6 Cyber</a> found that bot services, which can be purchased for around $300, can also be used to target investors.



2022 has already gone down as a year full of <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/the-nine-largest-crypto-hacks-in-2022" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">high-profile thefts</a> in the sector, including $600 million from FTX, $182 million from Beanstalk and $325 million from Wormhole. Interest in self-custody of assets has accordingly increased dramatically — boosted even more by user concerns of keeping crypto assets on centralized exchanges in light of FTX’s <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/1-binance-ftx-deal-is-off-unless-ftx-us-is-part-of-the-package-source" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">implosion</a>.



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Microsoft IDs Excel, Telegram Threat Targeting Crypto Startups

Bessie Liu

<div id="highlights-block_dc57bf2e467ef6dd99f857a7be95c787" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>Buyers can use USD, EUR, UAH, BYN and KZT to purchase cryptocurrencies</li>
 <li>Only toncoin (TON) and bitcoin (BTC) can be purchased for now and only TON can be transferred via chat messages</li>
 </ul>
 
</div>



Developers behind the Telegram @Wallet Bot, which allows Telegram users to purchase cryptocurrencies with a bank card, exchange and transfer to other wallets, have launched a P2P cryptocurrency exchange.



The Wallet Bot <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/telegram-users-can-now-send-receive-crypto-following-2-year-hiatus/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">launched in April</a>, allowing Telegram users to buy toncoin (TON) and send it within chat messages. The latest update will allow sales of cryptocurrencies between users through the Telegram app, with the exchange services acting as guarantors for each transaction. In any case of disagreement between the seller and the buyer, the service will conduct a dispute resolution process.



Read more: <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/what-are-seed-phrases">What Are Seed Phrases and Are They Needed? The New Debate</a>



The service is pitched as offering “anonymous P2P deals,” however, users must share their mobile phone number with the bot in order to deposit, exchange or purchase crypto.



Users who wish to sell cryptocurrencies will be paying a 0.9% commission, while buyers will not need to pay any fees, according to a statement by developers of the @Wallet bot.



To sell tokens, users will post notices in the app, which buyers can then select from. Buyers can use USD, EUR, UAH, BYN and KZT to purchase cryptocurrencies.&nbsp;



Toncoin (TON) and bitcoin (BTC) are available for purchase at the moment, with plans to increase the offering at a later date, according to the company. Only TON is able to be sent between users directly through chats.



“It is aimed towards ordinary users and provides a low entry threshold for learning about blockchain. Many services on TON are similar to the usual applications that people are already used to using,” a TON Foundation representative told Blockworks.



&#8220;Without leaving Telegram you can buy cryptocurrency, send it to your friends using a short nickname without long wallet addresses, get access to the internet with the @mobile bot, pay for a subscription to your favorite Telegram channel along with many other services,&#8221; the representative said.



The TON blockchain that was originally founded by the Durov brothers, the founders of Telegram Messenger. Telegram previously intended to launch an official token, GRAM, but was <a href="https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2020-146" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">prevented from doing so</a> by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in 2020, forced to return $1.2 billion raised for the project to investors and pay an $18.5 million fine.



The TON Foundation “is a decentralized community started by Anatoliy Makosov and Kirill Emelyanenko after Telegram stepped away from the project,” <a href="https://ton.org/en/community" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">according to its website</a>.



“One of the goals is to merge blockchain technology with the traditional internet,” the spokesperson said. “In order to further this decentralized concept, TON is creating its own ecosystem, which already includes DNS, sites, and proxies.”



The total number of custodial wallet accounts has grown to 1.3 million according to <a href="https://tontech.io/stats/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">a stats page</a> provided by the group, however the <a href="https://toncoin.tonscan.io/accounts" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Ton Scan block explorer</a> was not displaying any information as of press time.



The <a href="https://t.me/s/toncoin" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">TON community Telegram group</a> has 630,000 subscribers.



The TON token is trading at $1.39 as of 9:00 am ET, with a market capitalization of about $1.7 billion and circulating supply of 1.22 billion TON, <a href="https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/toncoin/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">according to</a> CoinMarketCap.



Macauley Peterson contributed reporting.



This story was updated on Oct. 4 at 10:09 am ET.



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Telegram @Wallet Bot Now Lets Users Exchange Crypto With Each Other

<div id="highlights-block_626c01b2a93a8" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>The TON Foundation announced Tuesday a new bot for use within social app Telegram, enabling users to send and receive Toncoin to one another</li>
 <li>It marks the first time Telegram has added crypto functionality onto its platform following a bout with the SEC in 2019</li>
 </ul>
 
</div>



Cryptocurrency functionality has been added back into the social app Telegram following a more than two-year hiatus stemming from a lengthy bout with the SEC in 2019.



Users can now send and receive Toncoin, as well as make bitcoin purchases via the app, according to a Tuesday <a href="https://twitter.com/ton_blockchain/status/1518940393370537985?s=20&amp;t=evqVezCJYaL_Bc2JpMOnUw" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">tweet</a> by The Open Network (TON) Foundation. Telegram boasts more than 550 million active users and is one of the world&#8217;s most popular social networks.



The foundation is responsible for the development of the TON blockchain which enables the crypto infrastructure for use within the social app. Last week, the foundation announced that it had raised $1 billion in donations to further its development efforts.



Following that announcement, Toncoin rose 14.3% from around $2.03 on Tuesday to $2.32 by Wednesday before succumbing to sell-side market pressure. As of press time, the token is down 10% over a 24-hour period and is changing hands for $2.06, data by provider <a href="https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/the-open-network" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">CoinGecko</a> shows.



Users are not required to pay transaction fees and will no longer need to enter long crypto addresses with wallet functionality embedded into the app, according to the announcement.



It marks the first time the app has restored crypto functionality since its battle with the SEC in October 2019. Telegram abandoned the project shortly after being requested by the securities regulator to cease the sale of its native &#8220;Gram&#8221; tokens. As part of <a href="https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2020-146" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">a 2020 settlement</a>, Telegram was required to return the $1.2 billion the company raised in the token sale and ordered to pay an $18.5 million fine.



“Telegram’s active involvement with TON is over,” Telegram founder and CEO <a href="https://telegra.ph/What-Was-TON-And-Why-It-Is-Over-05-12" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Pavel Durov</a> wrote at the time.



By May 2020, Telegram&#8217;s involvement with TON became less clear, and the development of the TON blockchain was overtaken by various enthusiasts and projects, who forked the original project&#8217;s open-source code.



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