Ynys Mon: The island constituency where it’s all to play for in the general election
In the Gwelfor Community Centre in Holyhead, it’s bingo night. Dabbers in hand, players are poised to win.
But there’s another competition brewing here.
Anglesey – and the constituency of Ynys Mon – is one of the most hotly contested seats in Wales.
The Conservatives are desperate to keep hold of it after their narrow win in 2019, but it’s a three-way split, with Plaid Cymru and Labour both vying for victory. All are in with a chance of winning.
In fact, there are double the number of parties running this time, eight in total, compared to the last election.
But every politician in this remote part of Wales has a battle on their hands to convince disillusioned voters.
Bingo caller Margaret Pratchett says politicians in Westminster don’t care about the plight of people in North Wales.
“Just because we’re out in the middle of nowhere, doesn’t mean to say we’re absolutely forgotten,” bingo caller Margaret Pratchett tells me.
I ask whether she thinks politicians in Westminster care about North Wales.
“No. Not one little bit. They’ve got no idea what we need around here. We need work. We need doctors. We need care assistants. All things like that.”
Since Brexit there has been a 14% drop-off in trade at Holyhead
Trade ‘drop off’
Holyhead is a busy working port.
Five times closer to Dublin than London, it is a major freight route between Britain and Ireland.
But since Brexit, trade remains 14% lower – and that impact trickles down to the smallest of businesses.
At the Boathouse B&B, owners Claudia and Chris have seen footfall decline. From port workers to tourists, they’re having to work harder to fill rooms.
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“I think trade overall has gone down, but you can see that with the number of people, the number of freights, everything going through the port that has dramatically dropped off,” Claudia says.
The couple say they’ll vote Plaid Cymru – but Claudia isn’t happy with any of the choices: “It’s more a tactical vote. If you’ve got to pick a rotten tomato, you’re going to pick the least rotten.”
Ynys Mon is one Welsh constituency where it is all to play for.
Mix of opinions
In Breakwater Country Park, 30 or so mums are busy painting, singing and reading with their babies and toddlers.
There’s a mix of opinions here on who to vote for.
“I will vote Plaid Cymru because they’ve got Wales’s priority in mind, I think. And I think the Conservatives haven’t done much for Wales in the last couple of years,” one mum tells me.
Another – happy with the PM’s performance.
“I saw what Rishi Sunak had to say and I supported everything he said to be honest. I think the Conservatives have done a good job since they’ve been in power and I think they deserve a chance to continue,” she said.
Ffion Edwards remains undecided about whom she is going to vote for
While some are decided, the majority are not.
Mum of two Ffion Edwards says she’s been approached by all the big parties.
“Yes. From Labour, Conservative, Plaid Cymru – they’ve each been knocking at the door trying to gain our support,” she tells me.
“I’m still very undecided, so – I will be voting for sure, but I’m just not sure which party to vote for at the moment. I’m feeling a little bit nervous. It’s difficult to anticipate what’s going to happen and how that’s going to affect us locally and nationally.”
The Menai Suspension Bridge
‘Despondency’
Like everywhere in this election, jobs and the economy are often front and centre.
Plans to build a new nuclear power station on the north coast of Anglesey would bring thousands of jobs, but it’ll be decades before it’s powering the lights across the Menai Strait.
Oyster farmer Shuan Krijnen says he is experiencing unprecedented levels of despondency
On the south of the island and fresh from the riverbank is Shaun Krijnen – who for decades has farmed oysters in Anglesey.
They’re shipped to London’s finest restaurants, but he’s not happy about the capital’s political offering.
“I’ve been voting in every election since I was 18. I’m 53 now. I don’t think I’ve felt a level of despondency for an election as I have at the moment,” he said.
“Anglesey’s been Labour. Then it’s been Conservative but it’s also, I would say, one of Plaid’s heartlands really. But for me, I don’t even know…I might make up my decision when I see the names on the ballot paper.”
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While polls show the general election result may be a foregone conclusion, in battleground constituencies like Ynys Mon, there is all to play for.
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Here is the full list of candidates standing in Ynys Mon:
- Virginia Ann Crosbie (Conservatives)
- Leena Sarah Farhat (Lib Dem)
- Emmett Jenner (Reform UK)
- Llinos Medi (Plaid Cymru)
- Martin Schwaller (Green Party)
- Sir Grumpus L Shorticus (Monster Raving Loony Party)
- Ieuan Mon Williams (Labour)
- Sam Andrew Wood (Libertarian Party)
The new trade tariffs announced by US President Donald Trump may place added pressure on the Bitcoin mining ecosystem both domestically and globally, according to one industry executive.
While the US is home to Bitcoin (BTC) mining manufacturing firms such as Auradine, it’s still “not possible to make the whole supply chain, including materials, US-based,” Kristian Csepcsar, chief marketing officer at BTC mining tech provider Braiins, told Cointelegraph.
On April 2, Trump announced sweeping tariffs, imposing a 10% tariff on all countries that export to the US and introducing “reciprocal” levies targeting America’s key trading partners.
Community members have debated the potential effects of the tariffs on Bitcoin, with some saying their impact has been overstated, while others see them as a significant threat.
Tariffs compound existing mining challenges
Csepcsar said the mining industry is already experiencing tough times, pointing to key indicators like the BTC hashprice.
Hashprice — a measure of a miner’s daily revenue per unit of hash power spent to mine BTC blocks — has been on the decline since 2022 and dropped to all-time lows of $50 for the first time in 2024.
According to data from Bitbo, the BTC hashprice was still hovering around all-time low levels of $53 on March 30.
Bitcoin hashprice since late 2013. Source: Bitbo
“Hashprice is the key metric miners follow to understand their bottom line. It is how many dollars one terahash makes a day. A key profitability metric, and it is at all-time lows, ever,” Csepcsar said.
He added that mining equipment tariffs were already increasing under the Biden administration in 2024, and cited comments from Summer Meng, general manager at Chinese crypto mining supplier Bitmars.
Source: Summer Meng
“But they keep getting stricter under Trump,” Csepcsar added, referring to companies such as the China-based Bitmain — the world’s largest ASIC manufacturer — which is subject to the new tariffs.
Trump’s latest measures include a 34% additional tariff on top of an existing 20% levy for Chinese mining imports. In response, China reportedly imposed its own retaliatory tariffs on April 4.
BTC mining firms to “lose in the short term”
Csepcsar also noted that cutting-edge chips for crypto mining are currently massively produced in countries like Taiwan and South Korea, which were hit by new 32% and 25% tariffs, respectively.
“It will take a decade for the US to catch up with cutting-edge chip manufacturing. So again, companies, including American ones, lose in the short term,” he said.
Source: jmhorp
Csepcsar also observed that some countries in the Commonwealth of Independent States region, including Russia and Kazakhstan, have been beefing up mining efforts and could potentially overtake the US in hashrate dominance.
Related: Bitcoin mining using coal energy down 43% since 2011 — Report
“If we continue to see trade war, these regions with low tariffs and more favorable mining conditions can see a major boom,” Csepcsar warned.
As the newly announced tariffs potentially hurt Bitcoin mining both globally and in the US, it may become more difficult for Trump to keep his promise of making the US the global mining leader.
Trump’s stance on crypto has shifted multiple times over the years. As his administration embraces a more pro-crypto agenda, it remains to be seen how the latest economic policies will impact his long-term strategy for digital assets.
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Cryptocurrency exchange OKX is under renewed regulatory scrutiny in Europe after Maltese authorities issued a major fine for violations of Anti-Money Laundering (AML) laws.
Malta’s Financial Intelligence Analysis Unit (FIAU) fined Okcoin Europe — OKX’s Europe-based subsidiary — 1.1 million euros ($1.2 million) after detecting multiple AML failures on the platform in the past, the authority announced on April 3.
While admitting that OKX has significantly improved its AML policies in the past 18 months, the authority “could not ignore” its past compliance failures from 2023, “some of which were deemed to be serious and systematic,” the FIAU notice said.
OKX was among the first crypto exchanges to receive a license under Europe’s new Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulation via its Malta hub in January 2025.
The news of the $1.2 million penalty in Malta came after Bloomberg in March reported that European Union regulators were probing OKX for laundering $100 million in funds from the Bybit hack.
Bybit CEO Ben Zhou previously claimed that OKX’s Web3 proxy allowed hackers to launder about $100 million, or 40,233 Ether (ETH), from the $1.5 billion hack that occurred in February.
This is a developing story, and further information will be added as it becomes available.
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Authorities in the US state of Massachusetts continue targeting unlawful cryptocurrency market practices, with a local court fining crypto financial services firm CLS Global.
A federal court in Boston on April 2 sentenced CLS Global on criminal charges related to fraudulent manipulation of crypto trading volume, according to an announcement from the Massachusetts US Attorney’s Office.
In addition to a $428,059 fine, the court prohibited CLS Global from offering services in the US for a probation period of three years.
CLS Global, a crypto market maker registered in the United Arab Emirates, in January pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit market manipulation and one count of wire fraud.
CLS agreed to manipulate the FBI’s “trap token” NexFundAI
The charges against CLS Global followed an undercover law enforcement operation involving NexFundAI, a token created by the FBI as part of a sting operation in May 2024.
CLS Global was among at least three firms that took the FBI’s bait and agreed to provide “market maker services” for NexFundAI, including a fraudulent scheme to attract investors to purchase the token.
In October 2024, the Securities and Exchange Commission announced fraud charges against CLS and its employee, Andrey Zhorzhes. The US securities regulator also filed complaints against two other NexFundAI manipulators, Hong Kong-linked ZM Quant Investment and Russia-linked Gotbit Consulting.
CLS Global’s profile
According to CLS Global CEO Filipp Veselov, the company was founded in 2017 to fill in a “huge gap in the market for high-quality market-making solutions and trading consulting.”
Prior to CLS, Veselov worked at the Russian cryptocurrency exchange platform Latoken, which is advertised as a “global digital asset exchange” and has about 370,000 followers on X.
The CLS team also includes chief revenue officer Pavel Singaevskii, who previously served as sales manager at Stex, a crypto platform that reportedly ceased operations without warning in 2023.
Source: CLS Global
According to CLS Global’s X page, the platform continues operating and has more than 110,000 followers at the time of publication.
How much wash trading is in crypto?
Wash trading is an illegal practice involving artificially inflating trading volume by repeatedly buying and selling the same asset, generating a misleading perception of demand.
According to a January 2025 report by the US blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis, the crypto market has at least $2.6 billion in estimated wash traded volumes, or just about 2% of total daily crypto trading volumes, as reported by CoinGecko.
Estimated wash trade volume in crypto. Source: Chainalysis
Related: Russian Gotbit founder strikes $23M plea deal with US prosecutors
Some studies indicate that wash trading makes up a bigger share of the crypto market.
In 2022, the US National Bureau of Economic Research reported that illegal wash trading may account for as much as 70% of average trading volumes on unregulated exchanges.
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