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Paxos confirms it’s responsible for paying a $500K Bitcoin transaction fee

The Bitcoin miner who received 19.8 BTC in fees from blockchain infrastructure firm Paxos has returned the funds following Paxos’ claim that it made a mistake in paying over $500,000 in transfer fees. On Sept. 10, Paxos paid the six-figure fee to move $2,000, with the average network fee typically being around $2. The company later acknowledged the mistake, confirming the transfer came from its servers. Almost a day after Paxos’ claims, the Bitcoin miner who received the funds went on X (formerly Twitter) to express frustrations after agreeing to refund the amount to Paxos. The funds were returned on Sept. 15.

Court approves sale of FTX digital assets

A bankruptcy court has approved the sale of FTX digital assets in weekly batches through an investment adviser and under preestablished guidelines. The sale does not include Bitcoin, Ether and “certain insider-affiliated tokens,” which can be sold through a separate decision by FTX after 10 days’ notice. FTX sales are not expected to have a heavy impact on markets. According to a recent shareholder update, the bankrupt exchange has $833 million worth of Bitcoin and Ether. A total of $3.4 billion is held in Digital Assets A — the top 10 assets the company holds — which include Solana, Bitcoin, Ether, Aptos and others.

Gemini Earn users could recover all funds in new DCG remuneration scheme

Digital Currency Group has proposed a new agreement plan for the creditors of the now-bankrupt Genesis Global. The plan estimates unsecured creditors will receive “a 70–90% recovery with a meaningful portion of the recovery in digital currencies.” Additionally, the remuneration plan says the recovery of claims for Gemini Earn users would be projected at “approximately 95–110%” without any contribution from Gemini. According to the filing: “If Gemini were to agree to provide $100 million to Gemini Earn users under the Proposed Agreement, as it previously did, there would be little doubt Gemini Earn users would receive more than full recovery.”



Franklin Templeton files for spot Bitcoin ETF

Asset manager Franklin Templeton applied with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission to launch a spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF). According to the application, the fund would be structured as a trust. Coinbase would custody the BTC, and The Bank of New York Mellon would be the cash custodian and administrator. Franklin Templeton has $1.5 trillion in assets under management and joins a long list of asset managers waiting for regulatory approval. The SEC recently delayed decisions on spot ETF applications from WisdomTree, Valkyrie, Fidelity, VanEck, Bitwise and Invesco on Aug. 31.

Two more top executives depart Binance.US amid layoffs, SEC action

The exodus of executives from crypto exchange Binance has reached the firm’s offshoot in the United States, as at least three top employees left Binance.US over the past few days. This week’s departures included the exchange’s CEO, Brian Shroder, alongside legal head Krishna Juvvadi and chief risk officer Sidney Majalya. The mass exit is believed to be tied to the ongoing U.S. investigation into Binance and Binance.US. The SEC sued Binance.US, Binance and CEO Changpeng Zhao in June for allegedly engaging in unregistered securities operations and other improprieties. On Aug. 28, the agency requested to file sealed documents in the case, fueling concerns about a criminal probe by the U.S. Department of Justice.

Winners and Losers

At the end of the week, Bitcoin (BTC) is at $26,465, Ether (ETH) at $1,628 and XRP at $0.50. The total market cap is at $1.05 trillion, according to CoinMarketCap.

Among the biggest 100 cryptocurrencies, the top three altcoin gainers of the week are Toncoin (TON) at 21.30%, VeChain (VET) at 11.94% and Bitcoin Cash (BCH) at 11.36%. 

The top three altcoin losers of the week are ApeCoin (APE) at -16.82%, Astar (ASTR) at 14.47% and Flare (FLR) at 12.61%.

For more info on crypto prices, make sure to read Cointelegraph’s market analysis.

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Most Memorable Quotations

“I think my generation and younger than me are the ones that are really going to change that narrative for investing, whether it’s in cryptocurrency or other investments moving forward.”

Scotty James, Australian snowboarder

“The only country I would not encourage you to start a company right now is in the U.S.”

Brad Garlinghouse, CEO of Ripple

“We’re still in the fax era of global payments.”

David Marcus, former PayPal executive and co-founder Lightspark

“I don’t think everybody in D.C. actually fully realizes how powerful the crypto voting community block is.”

Brian Armstrong, CEO of Coinbase

“You cannot get 100% transparency and 100% privacy.”

Alex Svanevik, CEO of Nansen

“Climate change is still a systemic threat to our species. I think as a society, we kind of owe it to ourselves to do anything that we can.”

Marek Olszewski, CEO of Celo

Prediction of the Week 

Bitcoin price all-time high will precede 2024 halving — New prediction

Bitcoin has a $250,000 target for after its next block subsidy halving — but new all-time highs will come sooner, according to the latest BTC price prediction from BitQuant, a popular social media commentator who sees a rosy future for the largest cryptocurrency.

On Sept. 15, the pseudonymous “central banker and Bitcoiner” revealed a pre-halving target above $69,000. “No, Bitcoin is not going to top before the halving,” he wrote in part of the commentary.

Bitcoin has just over six months before the halving, the event that cuts miner rewards earned per block by 50% every four years. “No, BTC is not going to $160K because the magnitude of every pullback is large,” he wrote, adding that “this means it will peak after the halving, in 2024. And yes, the target price is around $250K.”

FUD of the Week 

SEC charges company behind Stoner Cats NFT series with unregistered securities sale

Stoner Cats 2 LLC (SC2), the company behind the Stoner Cats animated web series, has agreed to a cease-and-desist order and other measures imposed by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission after being charged with conducting an unregistered offering of crypto-asset securities in the form of nonfungible tokens (NFTs). According to the SEC, SC2 sold more than 10,000 NFTs for about $800 apiece. The sale took 35 minutes and occurred on July 27, 2021, and the proceeds were used to fund the series. Besides agreeing to the cease-and-desist order, SC2 will pay a civil penalty of $1 million.

OneCoin co-founder Greenwood gets 20 years in US jail for fraud, money laundering

Karl Greenwood, co-founder of OneCoin with Ruja Ignatova, was sentenced in the United States to 20 years in prison and ordered to pay $300 million on Sept. 20. Ignatova remains at large. Greenwood, who is a citizen of the United Kingdom and Sweden, was sentenced in a court in New York. In a statement by the Justice Department, U.S. Attorney Damian Williams called OneCoin “one of the largest fraud schemes ever perpetrated.” The multilevel marketing and Ponzi scheme reaped $4 billion from 3.5 million victims, the statement said. Ignatova has not been seen since October 2017 and is on the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Ten Most Wanted List.

North Korea’s Lazarus Group responsible for $55M CoinEx hack

The attack on crypto exchange CoinEx, which drained at least $55 million, was carried out by the North Korean hacker group Lazarus, according to blockchain security firm SlowMist and pseudonymous on-chain investigator ZachXBT. The hacker group was identified after it inadvertently exposed its address, which was the same one used in the recent Stake and Optimism hacks. On Sept. 12, CoinEx saw large outflows of funds to an address without any prior history. Security experts immediately suspected that the exchange was breached, with initial estimates reaching approximately $27 million.

Are DAOs overhyped and unworkable? Lessons from the front lines

Many contend that DAOs have failed to deliver on their promises, but developers are coming up with novel solutions.

6 Questions for Kei Oda: From Goldman Sachs to cryptocurrency

Kei Oda spent 16 years trading bonds for Goldman Sachs — a life that eventually bored him. That was when he turned to cryptocurrency.

Web3 Gamer: PUBG devs’ Web3 project, Animoca’s $20M raise, Shardbound review

The company behind PUBG announces a new Web3 platform, monetization in Web3 and more.

Editorial Staff

Cointelegraph Magazine writers and reporters contributed to this article.

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Politics

Thodex CEO found dead: How this $2B crypto scam changed Turkish law

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7 hours ago

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November 8, 2025

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Thodex CEO found dead: How this B crypto scam changed Turkish law

Faruk Fatih Özer was found dead in his prison cell on Nov. 1. The former CEO of now-defunct crypto exchange Thodex was serving an 11,000-year sentence for running one of the largest crypto scams in history.

His death marks the latest turn in the Thodex saga, with ripple effects so significant they altered Turkish cryptocurrency laws.

The initial details of Özer’s death point to suicide, but the investigation is still ongoing. It has once more brought Thodex back into the spotlight.

Here’s a look back at Özer’s story, how the crypto exchange impacted Turkish law and how it may have contributed to the country’s increased crypto adoption.

$2-billion Thodex scam sees raids, arrest and CEO out on the lam

On April 21, 2021, Thodex cryptocurrency exchange suddenly shut down trading and withdrawals. The initial announcement read that this could continue for four to five days. As Cointelegraph Turkey reported at the time, the exchange claimed that this was to improve its operations with the help of “world-renowned banks and funding companies.”

But local media reported that Özer had fled to Thailand with over $2 billion in funds as part of an exit scam. There were also reports that police had raided the exchange’s offices in Istanbul.

Istanbul’s chief prosecutor’s office corroborated the reports the following day. It announced a probe into Thodex and said police had arrested 62 people allegedly involved in the scam. Özer denied the accusations, claiming his trip abroad was to meet foreign investors.

As of April 30, 2021, a Turkish court decided to jail six suspects, including family members of the missing CEO and senior company employees, pending trial. Interpol also issued a red notice for Özer.

“When he is caught with the red notice, we have extradition agreements with a large part of these countries. God willing he will be caught and he will be returned,” said Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu.

Özer managed to evade capture for over a year. Albanian authorities eventually detained him on Aug. 30, 2022. He attempted to appeal extradition in court, but the decision was upheld, and Özer was in Turkish custody by April 30, 2023, two years after the scandal began.

Özer was detained by Turkish authorities after being extradited from Albania. Source: AA

The case against Özer was swift. In July 2023, just three months after arriving in Turkey, he was sentenced to seven months and 15 days in prison for failing to submit certain documents requested by the Tax Inspection Board during the trial.

On Sept. 8, 2023, the Anatolian 9th High Criminal Court sentenced Özer, along with two of his siblings, to 11,196 years, 10 months and 15 days in prison, along with a $5-million fine.

In court, Özer claimed that he and his family were facing false accusations. He said, “I am smart enough to manage all institutions in the world. This is evident from the company I founded at the age of 22. If I were to establish a criminal organization, I would not act so amateurishly. … It is clear that the suspects in the file have been victims for more than 2 years.”

Related: Turkey to empower watchdog to freeze crypto accounts in AML crackdown: Report

Özer was serving his sentence at the Tekirdağ No. 1 F-Type High Security Closed Penal Institution when he died. F-Type prisons are high-security institutions reserved for political prisoners, members of organized crime syndicates and other armed groups serving an aggravated life sentence.

Human rights advocates have repeatedly raised concerns about the conditions at F-Type prisons. In 2007, Amnesty International noted “harsh and arbitrary” disciplinary treatments, as well as isolation.

Turkey changes its laws to protect investors

The Thomex scandal and its ensuing fallout were so significant that they drove the Turkish government to change its policies toward cryptocurrencies.

Immediately following news of Özer fleeing the country, the Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey banned crypto payments and prohibited payment providers from offering fiat on-ramps for crypto exchanges. The official notice outlawed “any direct or indirect usage of crypto assets in payment services and electronic money issuance.” Notably, the ban excluded banks, meaning that users can still deposit lira onto crypto exchange accounts using bank transfers.

The ban aimed to ensure financial stability, while other agencies like the Capital Markets Board (CMB) and the Financial Crimes Investigation Board (MASAK) moved to legitimize trading activities. In May 2021, MASAK amended money laundering and terrorism financing laws to include provisions for cryptocurrency.

By 2024, the “Law on Amendments to the Capital Markets Law” came into effect. This built on the initial changes in 2021, which included extensive consumer protection measures in addition to provisions on licensing and reporting.

These new measures, which also aimed to move Turkey off the Financial Action Task Force’s “gray list” of countries with inadequate Anti-Money Laundering measures, have in turn helped spur the local crypto industry.

Chainalysis’ “2025 Geography of Crypto Report” found that Turkey led the Middle East and North Africa in value received in crypto. Trading activity also spiked last year.

In the long term, the Thodex scandal may have led to increased crypto adoption in the country, but only after it rocked the Turkish crypto industry and left many investors out to dry. It also resulted in the imprisonment and death of its orchestrator and CEO.

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