CRYPTO ROAST

🔤 From Sheep Marketplace to $45M Bitcoin Bribe — the fall of Tomas Jirikovsky 🟠The Czech underworld just lost one of its more infamous characters. Tomas Jirikovsky — founder of the darknet market Sheep Marketplace — was arrested in connection with a 468 BTC (~$45M) “donation” that forced the resignation of former Justice Minister Pavel Blazek earlier this year. 🟠According to local reports, Jirikovsky tried to avoid arrest by climbing onto his roof during the raid. The drama ended quickly — police dragged him down and took him into custody. 🟠For those with a long memory, Jirikovsky’s darknet resume is stacked. In 2013, Sheep Marketplace became a hub for drugs, weapons, and counterfeits, until he shut it down — stealing an extra 841 BTC from users on the way out. By then, he’d stacked at least 1,500 BTC, most of which was never recovered. 🟠He served 9 years for embezzlement, drug trafficking, and illegal arms possession — or rather, half of it before getting parole in 2021. Since then, authorities have been hunting for his still-missing coins. 🟠The bribe case traces back to Nucleus, another darknet marketplace allegedly tied to Jirikovsky. Blockchain sleuths linked the 468 BTC bribe to its wallet — which hadn’t moved funds in 9 years until March 2025, when $77.5M worth of BTC suddenly shifted. 🟠As Trezor analyst Lucien Bourdon points out: “Bitcoin isn’t great for moving dirty money quietly. Large transfers can be traced forever.” 💰 From Silk Road to Sheep Marketplace to Nucleus — different markets, same ending: the blockchain remembers everything. ➡️CRYPTO ROAST

⭐️ Vietnam just took down its biggest crypto scam ever — and it’s straight out of the Ponzi playbook 🟠The Paynet Coin ($PAYN) scheme promised 5–9% monthly returns, fat referral bonuses, and even claimed you could book flights and hotels with their “coin.” In reality, it was nothing but an MLM pyramid, where new money paid off old victims. 🟠Mastermind? 45-year-old Nguyen Van Ha — no IT background, but he still had a custom blockchain built, complete with flashy “security” and a fake US registration. Authorities say he personally pocketed around $200M. 🟠To reel in victims, the crew hosted luxury seminars at 5-star hotels, making PAYN look like a golden ticket. The illusion worked: thousands of investors in Vietnam, India, and the Philippines poured money in — right up until the bust. 🟠Police froze $38M in assets (cash, forex, real estate) and arrested 20 people so far. The operation ran through sites like FMCPAY.com and AFF2024.com, which kept the cash flowing until the final curtain drop. 🟠The charges? Violating MLM laws and using electronic networks to misappropriate property. Translation: high-end Ponzi with a crypto wrapper. 🔝 In a year where scams and hacks have already cost the industry $2.47B, Paynet Coin might be the most brazen mix of old-school grift and blockchain glitter we’ve seen yet. ➡️CRYPTO ROAST

🤎 $XMR tanks -17% after “51% attack” — but is it real or just market theater? 🟠Headlines blew up after Qubic claimed they’d seized 51% of Monero’s hash rate — enough to rewrite blockchain history, block competing miners, and even pull off double spends. Just months ago, they had only 2%, but by late July they allegedly became the largest pool in the network. 🟠Sounds scary… until you dig deeper. The sole “source” for this claim? Qubic’s own website, where they announced they’d entered “defense mode” and supposedly taken control of the chain. Independent data, however, paints a different picture: an unregistered pool with a peak of around 30% hash rate — far from majority control. 🟠The “attack” everyone was shouting about? More like a temporary block reorg — something Monero has seen before. It creates short-lived “duplicate” chains but doesn’t actually let anyone take over the network. 🟠In the end, Monero remains as private and robust as ever. Exchanges can raise confirmation requirements, and if needed, the community can fork to kick out an attacker. Meanwhile, the price crash fits a familiar pattern: headline → panic → sell-off → someone shorts early, then buys back cheap. 😇 Whether Qubic was bluffing or just playing PR games, one thing’s certain — the real winners here were the traders who knew exactly how this movie ends. ➡️CRYPTO ROAST

🅰️ UPD: FDUSD liquidity on TON is back — but the story leaves more questions than answers 🟠After the sudden $100k drain from the FDUSD TON liquidity pool — which FD Labs tried to spin in their Twitter thread as a “natural part of market formation” — the funds have been returned. Now the legendary 30 holders from TON’s multi-million-strong community can finally swap their tokens for USDT. 🟠Sounds like a happy ending, right? Not quite. The reaction from Max Kraun, head of the TON Foundation, only fueled distrust — he publicly shifted the blame onto users themselves, hinting that the issue was due to the community’s “lack of understanding of processes.” 🙏 The result? The coins are back, but the reputational hit is done. For a pool that only had 30 participants to begin with, episodes like this only deepen skepticism. If this is FDUSD’s idea of “expanding opportunities” on TON, their next joint launch might attract even fewer takers. ➡️CRYPTO ROAST

💵First Digital Labs: “It’s Not a Rug Pull, It’s Market Formation” 🟠First Digital Labs — the developer of the FDUSD stablecoin — is pushing hard across multiple blockchains, including TON. The project brands itself as “transparent” and “institutionally reliable,” but this week, $100k in liquidity suddenly vanished from their TON pool. 🟠The timing is suspicious: the funds were pulled almost immediately after the pool’s launch, with no official market makers or LP partners named. In a Twitter thread, the team claimed that “liquidity providers took measures to help manage volatility” and framed it as a natural part of “market formation.” 🟠Translation from corporate-speak: someone drained the liquidity, and users are being told this is normal. No details on who did it, why, or whether victims will see any compensation. 🟠In DeFi, where every transaction is on-chain, this either looks like a controlled exit or proof that FD Labs has zero oversight of what happens in their pools. Neither scenario inspires confidence. 😏 And yes — Pasha (you know who) would be proud: zero specifics, a flood of fluff, and the core message — the money’s gone, and that’s just the way it is. ➡️CRYPTO ROAST

☠️ Google: Your Best Friend, Your Worst Thief 🟠Picture this: you type “AAVE” into Google, click the top result… and land on a scam site ready to drain your wallet dry. 🟠That’s exactly what’s happening now — PeckShieldAlert flagged a fake AAVE sitting at the top of Google search. Classic move: you think you’re connecting to a DeFi protocol, but you’re actually signing transactions that ship your crypto straight to scammers. 🟠The twist? This scam is older than Windows XP. Long before crypto, these sites were stealing bank logins and card data for decades. The only difference now — in DeFi, one careless signature and there’s no “refund” button. 🚨 Lesson? Never trust search results blindly. Double-check the URL, or be ready to become another line in the next phishing report. ➡️CRYPTO ROAST

🔤 UPD: Jury gridlocked in Tornado Cash case — judge pulls out the “dynamite” 🟠The Roman Storm trial just hit a major deadlock. After 4 days of jurors going in circles, the judge delivered an Allen charge — a legal nudge that basically says: “Try harder, don’t come back until you agree.” 🟠Storm’s defense pushed back hard, asking the court to accept a partial verdict. But prosecutors weren’t having it. The judge sided with them, meaning the jury’s back at it — possibly for days more. 🟠Translation? No mistrial (yet), but clear signs of division inside the jury room. And when you’re deciding whether open-source devs can go to prison for how code is used, that split says a lot. 🟠Reminder: Storm is facing charges tied to laundering $1B+ via Tornado Cash, including Lazarus Group funds. But the real question on trial? Whether writing public code makes you liable for how it’s used. ⚖️ Verdict’s still up in the air — but whatever happens, this case is shaping crypto dev history in real time. ➡️CRYPTO ROAST

🤎 CrediX: How to Lose $4.5M and Still Win 🟠$4.5M exploit, but nobody ran: CrediX just pulled off what most projects can only dream of — getting hacked and walking away with their money back. 🟠After suffering a $4.5M attack (via Tornado-funded wallet, of course), CrediX didn’t rage-post or threaten lawsuits. Instead, they reached a private deal with the exploiter — who agreed to return the funds in exchange for an undisclosed payment from CrediX’s own treasury. 🟠And here’s the twist: affected users will be airdropped the recovered assets within 48 hours. In crypto terms, that’s a miracle with same-day shipping. 🟠The nature of the deal remains fuzzy. Was this a “white hat” negotiation or a quiet ransom? Either way, it worked — and the users win. 🟠2025’s trend of hackers returning funds continues. $40M returned to GMX after a $5M bounty, $71M came back from a poisoning scam under pressure, and now CrediX pulls off a stealthy peace deal. 🟠The question is: will this become the new normal? Quiet deals behind closed wallets? 🤝 For now, CrediX dodged the bullet and saved their community. In a year when $2.5B has been lost to exploits, that’s no small feat. ➡️CRYPTO ROAST

🅰️ The $14 Billion Ghost Wallet 🟠The biggest BTC heist in history just got unmasked — and it’s been silently sitting on-chain for almost 4 years. 🟠On December 28, 2020, someone drained 127,426 BTC (then worth $3.5B) from Chinese mining pool LuBian — in a single tx. No one ever publicly claimed the breach. No “we got hacked.” No “we’ll reimburse.” Just… silence. 🟠At its peak, LuBian controlled 6% of Bitcoin’s hashrate — it was the 6th-largest pool on Earth. Overnight, 90% of its BTC vanished. Another $6M was slowly peeled off in follow-ups. The remaining 11,886 BTC? Frantically scattered across cold wallets. 🟠In a desperate move, LuBian tried to negotiate through 1,516 OP_RETURN messages, burning over 1 BTC just to beg the hacker to return the funds. No luck. By early 2021, LuBian disappeared — blamed at the time on China’s mining crackdown. 🟠According to Arkham, the pool likely used a weak key-generation algorithm. That’s right — they may have literally brute-forced themselves into oblivion. 🟠Here’s the kicker: the hacker never cashed out. That wallet — yes, still untouched — is now worth $14.3B. That makes them the 13th richest BTC holder alive. 🟠While regulators and lawmakers scream about Tornado and dev arrests, a wallet with $14B in stolen Bitcoin quietly lurks on-chain. No bridges. No mixers. No arrests. 🎭 In the end, LuBian didn’t fall to CCP bans or market pressure — it got outplayed by a keyboard and a bad RNG. ➡️CRYPTO ROAST

😈 From Badge to Bitcoin: UK Officer Caught Looting Seized Crypto 🟠You’d think after investigating crypto crime for a living, a cop would know better than to… become the criminal. But Paul Chowles, a lead crypto analyst at the UK’s National Crime Agency, decided to steal 50 BTC from a seized wallet tied to Silk Road 2.0. It was 2017 — the Bitcoin was worth £60K then, but by the time they caught him, it ballooned to £4.4M. Oops. 🟠He used classic dark-web tactics: Bitcoin Fog mixers, prepaid crypto debit cards, and 279 sneaky transactions. His grand mistake? Thinking he could outsmart blockchain analysis. Chainalysis said “hold my node” and traced the coins right back to him. Arrest, conviction, 5.5 years behind bars. Game over. 🟠But here’s the kicker — this isn’t even the first time law enforcement got Silk Road syndrome. Back in the OG Silk Road case, two US agents — DEA’s Carl Mark Force IV and Secret Service’s Shaun Bridges — literally stole BTC while investigating Ross Ulbricht, with one even attempting a post-conviction escape mission with stashed coins. 🟠So if you’re keeping score: Ross Ulbricht got double life, the Silk Road spinoff’s coins got re-stolen by the people seizing them, and now a UK cop wanted in on the legacy. At this point, Silk Road is less a darknet market and more a cursed treasure chest. 👮‍♀️ Let this be a reminder: blockchain doesn’t forget — not even when you wear a badge. If you’re laundering seized assets while pretending to fight crime, the ledger will find you. No mixer, no VPN, no bullshit will hide you from the timestamped truth. ➡️CRYPTO ROAST

☠️ FaZe Banks Ragequits After MLG Crypto Faceplant 🟠FaZe Clan CEO Banks just ragequit the internet after getting slammed for promoting the memecoin MLG Crypto — which pumped to $200M… then dumped like every other “community-driven” rug of 2025. 🟠He swears he “never scammed anyone a day in his f*cking life,” blames the backlash on clout-chasers farming his name, and says he’s stepping away from FaZe and “all this internet stuff.” 🟠But let’s get real. The token mooned, the team hyped it, the exit was fast — and the investors got rekt. Sound familiar? Even leaked group chats show Banks beefing with Adin Ross, accusing him of being “used as exit liquidity.” Ross clapped back, saying he had no role in the dump. 🟠Whether Banks dumped or not is beside the point. The coin tanked. People lost money. And once again, a memecoin built on “trust” turned into a trust issue. 🟠This isn’t just a one-off drama. From MELANIA token crashes to influencer grifts and phishing stunts — 2025 is already the golden era of influencer-fueled scams. 👾 When the only utility of a token is hype, your exit liquidity is already planned. ➡️CRYPTO ROAST

⭐️ UPD: Arrest in the $44M CoinDCX Hack 🟠Remember the $44M CoinDCX exploit? Turns out the breach wasn’t just technical — it had a human vector. Indian police arrested a CoinDCX software engineer after investigators linked the compromise to his work laptop. 🟠According to reports, the engineer — Rahul Agarwal — had allegedly installed malware after being targeted in what’s now considered a social engineering attack. Whether he was an inside man or a pawn in someone else’s game is still unclear. 🟠CoinDCX isn’t naming names officially, but their internal probe points to credential compromise through his device. They’re calling it “sophisticated.” What we’re seeing is the same old playbook: trust an employee, lose millions. 🟠The irony? The dev had a clean LinkedIn profile, years in DevOps, and a recent promotion. But even solid engineers become liabilities when malware slips past the front gate. 🟠And just like that, $44M flowed out overnight. The exploit started with a single $1 USDT test tx — then escalated fast into full-blown liquidity drain across six wallets. 💭 The message is clear: no amount of wallet segregation can save you if your endpoint security is garbage. Social engineering is still the cheapest zero-day on the market. ➡️CRYPTO ROAST

💵 AI bots, fake agencies, and luxury jets: just another week in crypto crime 🟠While the founder of AML Bitcoin just got slammed with a 7-year prison sentence for spinning tales about Panama Canal partnerships and siphoning off $10 million for luxury cars and real estate, another scammer — Vincent Mazzotta — has pleaded guilty in a $13M Ponzi scheme that promised insane returns from “AI-powered trading bots.” 🟠Mazzotta didn’t stop at made-up firms like Mind Capital and Cloud9Capital. He went full cartoon villain and created a fake U.S. government agency — the Federal Crypto Reserve — to charge victims extra under the illusion of investigating his own disappearing act. 🟠Investor funds were laundered through crypto mixers and splurged on private jets, five-star hotels, mansion rentals, chefs, and bodyguards. Meanwhile, Mazzotta’s partner-in-crime, aka “Bitcoin Yoda” (yes, seriously), sits behind bars awaiting trial this September. 🟠Their scam portfolio reads like a crypto-themed Netflix show: Circle Society, Omicron Trust, Bitcoin Wealth Management… and aliases like Delta Prime, The Blue Wizard, and Director Vinchenzo. All flash, zero fundamentals. 🟠These aren’t isolated incidents. They’re the predictable result of hype-driven markets where vaporware gets wrapped in buzzwords like “AI” and “anti-money laundering” — while ironically laundering millions. 🤖 The moral? If your next “trusted crypto project” includes a wizard, a Yoda, or promises to clean your ETH in a digital washing machine, maybe… don’t. ➡️CRYPTO ROAST

🎸Rugproof or Rugbait? Solana Launchpad Raises Red Flags 🟠The ironically named Rugproof promised “zero-risk” token launches, anti-dump mechanics, and lifetime rewards for loyal holders. But Bubblemaps saw right through it — and what they found wasn’t pretty. 🟠On-chain data shows the token’s creator sent SOL to 162 wallets, which then scooped up 50% of the supply at launch. That’s not decentralization — that’s textbook rug pull setup disguised as a fair launch. 🟠Rugproof claims the token redistributes SOL as rewards. But here’s the kicker: the wallet doing the sending is private, not a smart contract. And with no public audit, team info, or even functioning comms, there’s nothing to verify that claim. 🟠Bubblemaps flagged the same pattern in the ALT case, where the token collapsed from $190M to $3M. Now, in a bullish memecoin market, it’s open season for shady plays wrapped in slick branding. 👉 Naming your platform Rugproof while running a rug-like operation isn’t just bold — it’s crypto irony at its finest. ➡️CRYPTO ROAST

☠️ Monero Faces Economic War from Within 🟠Monero just got a taste of what happens when economic incentives turn into attack vectors. Sergey Ivancheglo — yes, the IOTA guy — launched an open campaign to dominate Monero’s hashrate using his Qubic network. He wasn’t subtle about it. The plan was to mine $XMR through Qubic, dump it back into Qubic’s ecosystem, and slowly strangle the competition by rejecting blocks from other pools. 🟠For a moment, it almost worked. Qubic shot to the top of Monero’s mining pool rankings, raising serious alarms about centralization. But the Monero community didn’t sit quietly — they bailed. Qubic’s hashrate collapsed, dropping it from first place to seventh in just days. 🟠But that doesn’t mean it’s over. Ivancheglo now says Qubic will stop reporting its hashrate. In other words, we won’t know how much control he still has. It’s a move straight from the playbook of opaque power — one that turns visibility into a liability. 🟠He claims it’s a test. A stress scenario for crypto. But nobody’s buying that. Because if you can mine the chain and censor your competitors, it’s no longer about curiosity — it’s control. 🪙 Monero is no stranger to threats. But this one didn’t come from regulators or exchanges. It came from another project with capital, incentives, and a willingness to break the system to prove a point. And that should scare everyone. ➡️CRYPTO ROAST

🔤 Ledger’s silent partner in crime: How Changelly turned cold storage into a hot mess 🟠Once seen as the gold standard of crypto safety, Ledger is now facing growing backlash — and it all centers around one name: Changelly. 🟠If you spend five minutes on Reddit, you’ll notice a disturbing pattern. Every few days, someone posts a familiar tale: “Bought a Ledger for security, used the built-in Changelly swap, funds disappeared, and now I’m stuck in KYC purgatory.” Most of these stories end with the same bitter line: “Ledger never replied.” 🟠On paper, Ledger isn’t at fault. Changelly is a third-party provider. But in practice? It’s deeply integrated into Ledger Live, looks native, and is marketed as a seamless swap feature. To the average user, it’s part of the Ledger experience. That illusion of trust is exactly what scammers love. 🟠This is pig butchering — minus the fake romance, but with the same outcome: assets drained under the guise of “compliance,” never to return. 🟠What makes it worse is that Ledger knows. Users report that support is silent, forum posts get deleted, and no visible effort is made to address the issue. In fact, the community now jokes that Changelly is Ledger’s Trojan Horse — not a bug, but a feature. 🟠And if Changelly ever collapses like FTX? Don’t be surprised when the pitchforks come out for Ledger too. 👛 Until then, users are learning the hard way: in crypto, the biggest risk isn’t always the code — sometimes, it’s that friendly-looking swap button in your “secure” wallet. ➡️CRYPTO ROAST

🔤 Arizona woman jailed for helping North Korean devs infiltrate US crypto firms 🟠What do Pyongyang and Web3 have in common? Apparently, remote gigs. 🟠While you’re busy passing KYC checks and dodging SEC letters, four North Korean operatives — with the help of a friendly Arizona woman — managed to land jobs at over 300 US crypto and tech companies. Fake names, fake documents, real Solidity skills. 🟠The scheme pulled in $17M in illicit gains. North Korea allegedly used the stolen identities to turn Git commits into missile funding. Clean. 🟠The woman? Sentenced to 8.5 years in federal prison, $284K seized, $177K in restitution, and three years of supervised release. Not bad for the DPRK’s unofficial recruiter of the year. 🟠And if you think your startup’s off the hook just because “you didn’t know” — think again. Under OFAC’s strict liability, even hiring “Jason from Texas” who turns out to be “Jong-un from Pyongyang” could land you in hot legal water. 🟠Meanwhile, Treasury officials say these schemes are growing. Remote workers. Fake IDs. Crypto payroll. Nuclear ambitions. 🏄‍♂️ Lesson? If your dev’s GitHub is too clean, his webcam is always off, and he refuses to join team calls — maybe double-check he’s not pushing code from North Korea. ➡️CRYPTO ROAST

☠️ From Flexing to Fear: How a Barber Got Kidnapped Over a Fake Bitcoin Fortune 🟠Quentin Cepeljac wanted to look like a crypto king. Instead, he ended up gagged in a dingy flat with a machete to his neck — all because he pretended to be a Bitcoin whale on social media. 🟠A London gang lured him in with the promise of luxury and female company. When they realized his wallet had just $9, the crypto dream died fast. But not before they squeezed $2,700 out of his bank account as a consolation prize. 🟠The attackers — now convicted — had no idea they were pulling a “rug” on themselves. They’d planned to rob a millionaire, but got a barber with a good imagination and a public Instagram. 🟠This isn’t just a comedy of errors. It’s part of a rising trend called wrench attacks — when thugs skip the hacking and just bring knives. Literally. 🟠In a space obsessed with “flexing”, the consequences are getting physical. If you’re flaunting PnL screenshots and flying first class to crypto conferences, just remember: you’re also broadcasting your coordinates to people with less patience than a chain reorg. 💵In a world where clout is currency, sometimes pretending to be rich is the most expensive mistake you can make. ➡️CRYPTO ROAST

🔤 3500 websites turned into silent Monero farms — and no one noticed 🟠When Coinhive shut down in 2019, people sighed in relief. Too early. Cryptojacking is back — this time without fan noise, lag, or overheating. A sleek little JavaScript miner loads in the background, sips 10% of your CPU, and quietly vanishes if DevTools are open or the device gets too warm. A perfect digital parasite. 🟠Targets? WordPress blogs, e-commerce platforms — basically, any site whose admin hasn’t updated plugins since 2021. Hackers slip in a file like karma[.]js, test if the browser can handle it, and start mining via WebSocket. You browse, they mine. Win-win? Not exactly. 🟠Profits? Tens of thousands per month with modest traffic. Nowhere near Coinhive’s golden $250k days, but hey — the risk is lower and the stealth is top-tier. 🟠It’s not about stealing wallets — it’s about quietly renting your hardware, without permission, paperwork, or revenue share. 👨‍💻 In 2025, cryptojacking isn’t an attack. It’s a subscription. One you never signed up for — and can’t cancel. ➡️CRYPTO ROAST

🎸 “Got scammed on WhatsApp? Jail Tornado Cash!” 🟠In the morning you believe in justice, by evening you’re watching a courtroom where a woman testifies that she lost $190K to a romance scam on WhatsApp — and somehow this means Tornado Cash is guilty. Legal logic worthy of a Darwin Award. 🟠The government brought out Hanfeng Lin, a scam victim, who claimed Payback (a sketchy “analytics” firm) told her the scammer used Tornado. But the defense did a proper onchain trace and found: not a single satoshi ever touched Tornado. 🟠An FBI expert admitted under cross-examination that he never checked Lin’s transactions. Prosecutors called in a second IRS analyst — seemingly just hoping someone might connect the dots. Meanwhile, real analysts like Taylor Monahan and ZachXBT have already mapped out the scammer’s flows — and surprise: Tornado was never involved. 🟠That’s like blaming Zoom for bank fraud because the scammer used video calls. If this logic holds, we might as well subpoena Telegram, WhatsApp, and the entire internet. 🟠Roman Storm now faces 45 years in prison. And his fate is being tied to an emotional testimony from a victim whose stolen funds never even entered the protocol he helped build. The scammers walk free, Tornado takes the fall, and justice does a facepalm. 🏆 When logic gets mixed — just not on Ethereum. ➡️CRYPTO ROAST