Anchorage Digital faces scrutiny from US Homeland Security — Report
The US Department of Homeland Security’s El Dorado Task Force has reportedly launched an investigation into Anchorage Digital Bank, a Wall Street-backed cryptocurrency firm.
According to an April 14 Barron’s report, members of the task force have contacted former employees of the company over the past weeks to examine its practices and policies. Citing unidentified sources, the report claims the probe looks at potential financial crimes within Anchorage.
The reported Homeland task force probe hints at cross-national financial activities. Established in 1992, the El Dorado Task Force focuses on “transnational money laundering” activities and financial crimes carried out by organizations.
Anchorage is co-founded by Portuguese-American entrepreneur Diogo Mónica and Nathan McCauley, according to its website. Along with its US businesses, Anchorage has operations in Singapore and Portugal. Its investors include Andreessen Horowitz, Goldman Sachs and Visa, among others.
Anchorage Digital is the only federally chartered crypto bank in the United States. It received its national trust bank charter from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) in January 2021.
Despite its advanced regulatory position, Anchorage Digital has faced regulatory challenges in the US. In April 2022, the OCC issued a consent order against the bank for deficiencies in its Bank Secrecy Act and Anti-Money Laundering compliance programs. At the time, the company was ordered to establish a committee to address the alleged issues under the oversight of the OCC.
Cointelegraph reached out to Anchorage for comment but had not received a response at the time of publication.
Anchorage’s crypto footprint
Anchorage was founded in 2017, and since then has been expanding its crypto footprint with services for institutional clients. The company is a custodian of BlackRock’s Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) alongside Coinbase and BitGo. BlackRock’s BTC funds have attracted over $35.5 billion in cumulative inflows since its launch in January 2024.
Another of Anchorage’s clients is Cantor Fitzgerald. The company has offered custody and collateral management for Cantor’s Bitcoin holdings since March 2025. Anchorage reported over $50 billion in assets under management in 2024.
Among Anchorage’s custody competitors are players such as Ripple, Kraken, Taurus and Fireblocks, but the storage of digital assets has also attracted traditional financial institutions to the crypto field. HSBC, Citi and BNY Mellon — America’s oldest bank — are also competing to safeguard crypto assets for institutional clients.
According to Fireblocks’ Adam Levine, senior vice president of corporate development, the US market lacks qualified custodians for digital assets. “[…] there are limited options for certain market participants to keep their digital assets in safe keeping via a qualified custodian,” Levine told Cointelegraph in a previous interview.
A 2025 survey by EY reveals that 59% of institutional investors plan to allocate over 5% of their assets under management to cryptocurrencies, indicating a growing demand for institutional-grade custody services.
Institutional investors are expected to increase crypto allocations in 2025. Source: EY
Magazine: SEC’s U-turn on crypto leaves key questions unanswered
PayPal says the US Securities and Exchange Commission has abandoned its investigation into the payment giant’s US-dollar stablecoin.
PayPal said in an April 29 regulatory filing that the SEC concluded its investigation into PayPal USD (PYUSD) and wouldn’t be taking any action.
The company said it received a subpoena from the SEC’s Division of Enforcement over its stablecoin in November 2023.
“The subpoena requests the production of documents. We are cooperating with the SEC in connection with this request,” PayPal stated at the time.
In its latest filing, the firm said the SEC notified it in February that the agency “was closing this inquiry without enforcement action.”
PayPal has said its stablecoin is 100% redeemable for US dollars and “fully backed” by dollar deposits, including short-term treasuries and cash equivalents.
However, the stablecoin has struggled to gain momentum in a crowded market dominated by rivals Tether and Circle. PYUSD has a market capitalization of just $880 million, less than 1% of Tether’s (USDT) $148.5 billion.
PayPal’s stablecoin has seen better growth this year with a 75% increase in PYUSD circulating supply since the beginning of 2025, according to CoinGecko. It remains down 14% from its peak supply of just over $1 billion in August 2024.
Earnings on PYUSD, Coinbase partnership
That growth could be bolstered by a company announcement on April 23 introducing rewards for PYUSD in a new loyalty offering that will enable US users to earn 3.7% annually for holding the asset on the platform.
Meanwhile, on April 24, PayPal announced a partnership with Coinbase to increase the adoption of PYUSD.
“We are excited to drive new, exciting, and innovative use cases together with Coinbase and the entire cryptocurrency community, putting PYUSD at the center,” said Alex Chriss, PayPal President and CEO.
Related: PayPal to offer 3.7% yield on stablecoin balances: Report
The payments giant also reported robust first-quarter earnings and the completion of significant share repurchase activities.
The firm beat Wall Street estimates, earning $1.33 per share in the first quarter, topping analyst expectations of $1.16. Revenue rose 1% from a year before to $7.8 billion.
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Asset manager BlackRock has filed to create digital ledger technology shares from one of the firm’s money market funds, which will leverage blockchain technology to maintain a mirror record of share ownership for investors.
The DLT shares will track BlackRock’s BLF Treasury Trust Fund (TTTXX), which may only be purchased from BlackRock Advisors and The Bank of New York Mellon (BNY), the firm said in its April 29 Form N-1A filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The money market fund holds over $150 million worth of assets, invested almost entirely in US Treasury bills and cash.
BlackRock said that the shares “are expected to be purchased and held through BNY, which intends to use blockchain technology to maintain a mirror record of share ownership for its customers.”
Unlike the BlackRock USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund (BUIDL), DLT shares won’t be tokenized but will instead be used as a transparency tool to verify ownership.
BlackRock will continue to maintain traditional book-entry records as the official ownership ledger.
BlackRock didn’t propose a ticker or set a management fee for the DLT shares in its filing.
A minimum initial investment of $3 million worth of DLT is required for institutions seeking to purchase the digital shares.
BlackRock follows Fidelity’s March 21 filing to list an Ethereum-based OnChain share class, which seeks to track the Fidelity Treasury Digital Fund (FYHXX) — an $80 million fund consisting almost entirely of US Treasury bills.
While the OnChain share class filing is pending regulatory approval, Fidelity expects it to take effect on May 30.
Wall Street heavyweights continue to explore blockchain use cases
Asset managers have increasingly turned to blockchain to tokenize Treasury bills, bonds and private credit over the past few years.
Related: BlackRock Bitcoin ETF buys $970M in BTC as inflows surge, boost market
The treasury tokenization market is currently valued at $6.16 billion, led by BlackRock’s BUIDL at $2.55 billion, while the Franklin Templeton-issued Franklin OnChain US Government Money Fund (BENJI) secures over $700 million worth of real-world assets, according to rwa.xyz.
Ethereum remains the chain of choice for tokenizing treasury assets, and currently houses over $4.55 billion worth, while the Stellar network and Solana round out the top three at $474.9 million and $274.5 million, respectively.
The potential of RWA tokenization has also been championed by BlackRock’s CEO, Larry Fink, who believes the technology could revolutionize investing.
Magazine: Ethereum is destroying the competition in the $16.1T TradFi tokenization race
The US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control can’t restore or reimpose sanctions against the crypto mixing service Tornado Cash, a US federal court has ruled.
Austin federal court judge Robert Pitman said in an April 28 judgment that OFAC’s sanctions on Tornado Cash were unlawful and that the agency was “permanently enjoined from enforcing” sanctions.
Tornado Cash users led by Joseph Van Loon had sued the Treasury, arguing that OFAC’s addition of the platform’s smart contract addresses to its Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons (SDN) list was “not in accordance with law.”
OFAC had sanctioned Tornado Cash in August 2022, accusing the protocol of helping launder crypto stolen by the North Korean hacking collective, the Lazarus Group.
The agency dropped the platform from the sanctions list on March 21 and argued that the matter was “moot” after a court ruled in favor of Tornado Cash in January.
This latest amended ruling prevents OFAC from re-sanctioning Tornado Cash or putting it back on the blacklist.
Initially, the court denied a motion for partial summary judgment and granted in favour of the Treasury. However, the Fifth Circuit reversed the decision and instructed the lower court to grant partial summary judgment to the plaintiffs, which led to the sanctions being revoked.
In March, the Treasury argued there was no need for a final court judgment in the lawsuit.
Crypto body petitions White House over Tornado Cash
On April 28, the DeFi Education Fund petitioned White House crypto czar David Sacks to have prosecutors drop charges against Tornado Cash co-founder Roman Storm.
Related: Samourai Wallet, feds ask for time to mull dropping crypto mixer case
Storm was charged in August 2023 with helping launder over $1 billion in crypto through the protocol, and his trial is still set for July.
The group said that the Department of Justice was attempting to hold software developers criminally liable for how others use their code, which they argued was “not only absurd in principle, but it sets a precedent that potentially chills all crypto development in the United States.”
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