Taiwan’s FSC opens investment channels for professional investors, allowing access to high-risk foreign digital asset ETFs while maintaining a cautious stance on market risks.
Shuttered crypto exchange Garantex is reportedly back under a new name after laundering millions in ruble-backed stablecoins and sending them to a freshly created exchange, according to a Swiss blockchain analytics company.
Global Ledger claims the operators of the Russian exchange have shifted liquidity and customer deposits to Grinex, which they say is “Garantex’s full-fledged successor,” in a report released to X on March 19.
“We can confidently state that Grinex and Garantex are directly connected both onchain and offchain.”
“The movement of funds, including the systematic transfer of A7A5 liquidity, the use of one-time-use wallets, and the involvement of addresses previously associated with Garantex, provides clear onchain proof of their link,” the Global Ledger team said in the report.
After completing its investigation on March 13, Global Ledger says it had found onchain data showing Garantex laundered over $60 million worth of ruble-backed stablecoins called A7A5 and sent them to addresses associated with Grinex.
Global Ledger claims Garantex has moved all its funds over to a newly launched exchange and is back in business. Source: Global Ledger
“In this case, the burning and subsequent minting process was used to launder funds from Garantex, allowing new coins to be minted from a system address with a clean history,” the team said.
A Garantex manager also reportedly told Global Ledger that customers have been visiting the exchange office in person and moving funds from Garantex to Grinex.
“Additionally, offchain indicators, such as transactional patterns, commentaries and exchange behaviors, further reinforce this connection,” it said.
The report also points to a description of Grinex on the Russian crypto tracking site CoinMarketRating, claiming that the owners of Garantex created it. The reports said this shows “Grinex is not an independent entity but rather a full-fledged successor to Garantex, continuing its financial operations despite the exchange’s official shutdown.”
By March 14, the volume of incoming transactions on Grinex was nearly $30 million, according to Global Ledger. CoinMarketRating shows that the trade volume for the month is now over $68 million, with spot trading topping $2 million.
On March 6, the US Department of Justice collaborated with authorities in Germany and Finland to freeze domains associated with Garantex, which they claim processed over $96 billion worth of criminal proceeds since launching in 2019.
Stablecoin operator Tether also froze $27 million in Tether (USDT), on March 6 which forced Garantex to halt all operations, including withdrawals.
Ministers are drawing up plans restricting foreign donors from giving unlimited funds to UK political parties, Sky News understands.
Currently, political parties can accept donations from any company registered in the UK – and foreign donors can and have used these companies to make indirect contributions.
The rules allow for British companies to be used in this way even if they don’t make any money at all.
However, Sky News understands that officials are currently looking at restricting donations based on how much money a company makes – either using a profit or a share of revenue to calculate a potential cap for the amount each UK business can give.
The government says this is in line with its manifesto pledge to “protect democracy by strengthening the rules around donations to political parties”.
Senior government sources have told Sky News these changes are partially about Elon Musk.
Officials are said to be anxious about the rumoured donation of $100m (about £80m) that Musk has suggested he would make to Reform UK.
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Nigel Farage says ‘Musk is going to support Reform’
The government’s thinking is that the tech billionaire is likely to do this just before the next election, and they hope they can pass their Elections Bill – the legislation through which the donation loophole would be closed – through parliament before that happens.
The bill would enter parliament in the next session, but ministers have told MPs that they should expect an update to these plans within months.
Musk’s donation would be an astronomical amount in the context of British politics.
The sum would trump all political donations that have been made to any political party this year – and would inevitably make a big impact on campaigning.
Elon Musk is not on the electoral register and the British arm of his company X – X.AI London Limited – has not yet made any money.
Under the proposed changes, this avenue of donating money to Reform UK would not be possible.
Image: Reform UK’s total received donations for 2024 would be considerably higher with £80m from Elon Musk
A government source said this is just one of the options on the table, adding that another change they are considering will mean enhanced due diligence checks on donations from unincorporated associations.
In exclusive polling, Sky News has found that any money given to parties by foreign donors is incredibly unpopular.
A total of 77% of respondents thought foreign nationals who are not registered to vote in the UK should not be allowed to donate to political parties, while only 7% thought they should be.
Even looking specifically at Reform UK voters, who would likely benefit from an Elon Musk donation, the percentage is roughly the same: 73% said they shouldn’t donate to British politics at all, while 7% said they should.
Image: A total of 77% of respondents said foreign nationals should not be allowed to donate to UK political parties
There is a lot of cash swirling all around Westminster and foreign money can and does enter UK politics.
Transparency International found almost £1 in every £10 donated to parties and politicians came from unknown or dubious sources between 2001 and 2024.
Whatever the motivation, these changes could bring greater transparency to what’s behind any murky money swirling into Westminster.
Crypto regulations must be enacted through an act of Congress to become permanent and meaningful pieces of legislation, according to former Congressman Wiley Nickel.
In an exclusive video interview with Cointelegraph’s Turner Wright, Nickel urged bipartisan collaboration to push through comprehensive crypto regulations. The former Congressman added:
“I think it’s really important for anybody who cares about this issue to step back and realize that if you want lasting change in Washington, you must move legislation through Congress. Otherwise, if you’re talking about executive orders, it will just go back and forth.”
“You don’t want to have the mess that we saw just months ago with Gary Gensler’s SEC — you need to get legislation through Congress,” Nickel reiterated.
Both chambers of Congress rush to push through meaningful legislation
Rep. Tom Emmer, the majority whip of the United States House of Representatives, reintroduced legislation banning a CBDC in the US on March 6.
Wyoming Senator Cynthia Lummis also reintroduced the Bitcoin Act in March, which builds upon an earlier bill of the same title but allows the US to purchase more than 1 million Bitcoin (BTC).
Rep. Byron Donalds recently announced that he would draft legislation to codify the Bitcoin strategic reserve into law — shielding President Trump’s original executive order from being overturned by a future administration.
On March 12, the House of Representatives repealed the IRS broker rule requiring decentralized finance platforms to report information to the Internal Revenue Service in a 292-131 vote.
Speaking at this year’s Blockworks Digital Asset Summit, Democrat Rep. Ro Khanna said that Congress should be able to pass comprehensive crypto regulation in 2025, including a stablecoin bill and a market structure bill.