Tag: CRYPTOS FoxBusiness.

Canadian police warned Wednesday that fraudsters are using the Royal Canadian Mounted Police logo in crypto recovery schemes targeting victims who already lost funds in earlier fraud.

The warning follows a case in Nanaimo, British Columbia, where a resident who had already lost money in a crypto job scam was later contacted by someone claiming they could help recover the funds.

The victim first lost about $5,000 CAD ($US3,600) late last year after receiving an unsolicited text message promoting a remote stock-trading job that required depositing crypto via an ATM. Communication with the supposed employer stopped soon after the payment, according to a report from CHEK.

Earlier this year, the same person encountered an online message styled as an RCMP public notice encouraging fraud victims to report similar cases.

After submitting the form, the victim received a call from a man claiming to be a lawyer who said they had identified two crypto accounts linked to the victim and could help retrieve roughly $60,000 in supposed earnings.

Police said the promotion falsely implied RCMP involvement.

“The RCMP does not contact individuals about discovered cryptocurrency accounts, partner with private firms to recover lost funds, or request any form of payment to investigate fraud. Any communication suggesting otherwise is fraudulent,” Reserve Constable Gary O’Brien, media relations officer at the Nanaimo RCMP, said in a statement.

Police said law enforcement does not advertise recovery services or ask for payment to retrieve lost funds. Officers also urged residents to be cautious of unsolicited job offers or online messages involving crypto and to verify the credentials of anyone claiming to be a lawyer or investigator.

The tactic is “increasingly systematic rather than random,” with the pattern known commonly known as a “fake recovery service scam,” Andy Zhou, co-founder and CEO of blockchain security firm BlockSec, told Decrypt.

“These schemes work largely because scammers often have access to information from the original scam,” Zhou said, citing how the FBI has previously warned how “fraud groups deliberately re-target individuals” by “posing as lawyers, recovery agents, or government partners who claim they can retrieve stolen assets.

Using branding from law enforcement is effective “because it exploits a powerful psychological mechanism known as authority bias,” he said. “When victims believe a message comes from police or a regulator, they are far more likely to cooperate or pay so-called “administrative fees” to unlock recovered funds.”

Fraud networks often reuse information gathered during earlier schemes, which can make previous victims easy targets for follow-up scams, Zhou explained. In some cases, organized groups circulate lists of individuals who have already sent money, making those victims “extremely valuable” targets for further fraud.

Attackers also exploit the fact that victims often search online for ways to recover lost funds, Zhou said. Criminals may set up fake recovery services or advertisements claiming victims appear on a government-affiliated list of scam victims whose funds can supposedly be retrieved, with the methods “designed to create urgency and credibility.”

“This tactic can be especially convincing because victims often assume that specialized law-enforcement expertise is required to trace blockchain transactions, making the story appear plausible,” he added.

Canadian police have been training in crypto investigations since 2022, as fraud cases involving digital assets have grown. The training program was introduced to help officers better understand how cryptocurrencies work and how they are used in criminal activity.

Decrypt has reached out to the RCMP for comment.

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei is pushing a compromise with the Pentagon after a heated dispute that left the AI company at risk of being blacklisted by the US government.

According to the Financial Times, Amodei has engaged in urgent negotiations with officials, including Emil Michael, under-secretary of defense for research and engineering, to reach an agreement governing military access to Anthropic’s AI models.

A successful outcome would allow the Pentagon to continue deploying the company’s technology and would avert a threatened designation as a supply chain risk that would effectively sever Anthropic from defense contracts and force military contractors to cut ties with the San Francisco-based AI firm.

Following a US operation to capture Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro in January, reports surfaced that Anthropic employees discovered through Palantir logs that Claude was used during the operation.

The application raises questions about compliance with Anthropic’s Acceptable Use Policy.

Combined with the company’s reluctance to allow its AI to be used for fully autonomous weapons and mass surveillance, this led to a dramatic breakdown in negotiations with the Pentagon.

The department is seeking broader permission for the AI to be used for any “lawful” purpose, which Anthropic fears could enable surveillance uses it opposes.

After Amodei rejected the government’s ultimatum, President Donald Trump ordered federal agencies to stop using Anthropic’s technology, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth designated the firm a national security supply chain risk.

Amodei accused the Pentagon and OpenAI of misrepresenting the issue. He also suggested that Anthropic was being sidelined partly because it has not praised Trump as enthusiastically as its rivals.

Anthropic, alongside OpenAI, Google, and xAI, landed a Pentagon deal worth up to $200 million to advance agentic AI for military use. Losing that foothold would represent a major setback for a company that has positioned itself as a leader in AI safety.

Disclosure: This article was edited by Vivian Nguyen. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.

Bitcoin $BTC$73,261.36 should be trading higher than it is today.

That’s the view of Kevin de Patoul, CEO and co-founder of crypto investment firm Keyrock, who argues that the market is misreading both macro conditions and structural progress in digital assets.

The world’s largest cryptocurrency was trading around $73,000 at the time of publication. Bitcoin is down about 18% year-to-date, having reached an all-time high of around $125,000 in early October last year.

“If you go back to early 2025 through 2026 and look at all the positive developments such as regulatory progress and institutional adoption, most people would have said that should make the price explode,” de Patoul said. “Increasing macro uncertainty should increase bitcoin demand, and yet it hasn’t.”

Instead, $BTC has spent much of the past nine months under pressure, still behaving like a risk-on asset rather than the risk-off hedge many proponents claim it to be. Capital that flowed aggressively into bitcoin over the past 18 months, largely institutional, now appears more tactical than ideological.

“It’s still priced as a risk-on asset. Last in, first out in terms of capital allocation,” he said. “If investors perceive it that way, then in periods of stress they reduce exposure.”

Crypto assets have delivered a muted performance over the past six months, with bitcoin drifting well below its prior highs and much of the altcoin market struggling to sustain momentum. Trading volumes have thinned, volatility has compressed and broad-based rallies have failed to materialize, marking a sharp contrast to the speculative surges of previous cycles. Even as institutional adoption and tokenization efforts advance in the background, price action has remained subdued, reflecting cautious capital flows and a market searching for its next catalyst.

De Patoul stops short of saying the market is wrong. But he struggles to reconcile the pullback with the broader backdrop. “Nothing really explains the recent drop unless there’s a misunderstanding of the type of asset it’s supposed to be.”

That disconnect is emblematic of what he sees as crypto’s current moment: not a breakout cycle, but a structural transition.

“We’re not issuing stablecoins or taking retail deposits, but we’re connected to everything and provide liquidity across all venues,” de Patoul said. “That gives us a front-row seat to the evolution, and lets us participate in the market as it shifts toward digital assets and tokenized infrastructure.”

A tale of two markets

From Keyrock’s vantage point, working with banks, asset managers, issuers and exchanges, 2026 feels less like stagnation and more like rewiring.

“2026 feels like a transition year rather than a breakout one,” de Patoul said. “A lot of what defined crypto in previous cycles is dying out faster than expected, while the parts that actually make sense are still being built, like real finance moving onchain.”

In his view, two largely uncorrelated markets are developing in parallel.

The first is the crypto-native ecosystem: decentralized finance (DeFi), altcoins and the familiar cycle of liquidity and hype. Here, sentiment is subdued. The rising tide that once lifted all tokens has receded. Broad-based speculative rallies are harder to sustain, replaced by “very precise opportunities that make sense,” he said.

The second is the digitization of traditional finance. Tokenized money market funds, stablecoins, onchain funds and new market infrastructure. On that side, he says, he remains as enthusiastic as ever.

“When I speak to institutions, nothing has changed. The level of enthusiasm, the level of building, none of that drive has slowed,” de Patoul said. “The aim is to make crypto assets more accessible to clients and to rewire parts of financial markets.”

These institutional efforts are less sensitive to bitcoin’s price swings. Stablecoins, tokenized funds and settlement rails are about upgrading financial plumbing, not speculating on crypto’s next rally. Circle’s (CRCL) IPO and partnerships like Apollo’s tie-up with DeFi protocol Morpho reflect multi-year commitments, he noted.

But while the assets have been tokenized, the utility layer is still under construction.

Built, but not yet useful

The past 18 months marked a leap from concept to product. Funds were tokenized. Stablecoins proliferated. Infrastructure was deployed.

Yet liquidity remains thin in many tokenized money market funds and real-world assets (RWAs). The tokens exist, but often function as wrappers rather than transformative instruments.

“They’ve built the token. Now the question is: where can it be used? Who accepts it? Can it be used as collateral? Can it bring liquidity at scale?” de Patoul said.

Tokenizing a fund can, paradoxically, cut it off from traditional capital pools without immediately unlocking digital-native benefits. The bridge between traditional institutions and onchain markets, the ability to use tokenized assets seamlessly across both worlds, takes time.

“We’re stuck in an in-between phase,” he said. “The pieces are there. The next step is putting them together to bring liquidity at scale.”

That’s why he sees 2027 and 2028 as the real inflection point.

Traditional capital markets are orders of magnitude larger than crypto. Even a small percentage migrating onchain could eclipse crypto’s previous peak.

“In the course of 2027, we could get to a situation where RWAs grow to be as big as the whole of crypto was in the past,” de Patoul said. “It’s going to play out over the next two to three years.”

Digital finance, in other words, may outgrow crypto, though not necessarily in the form of a price-led boom.

“If the utility were fully there today, we’d probably have a booming market,” he said. “But it’s not. This is a transition phase.”

Keyrock’s Bet

Founded eight years ago on the thesis that all assets would eventually be digital and onchain, Keyrock is positioning itself as a bridge between traditional and digital finance.

Historically rooted in capital markets and market-making, the firm continues to expand its crypto-native offerings, derivatives trading, liquidity provision and tailored strategies for investors. In September, it launched Keyrock Asset Management, adding a second pillar to the business. Assets under management remain modest given the recent launch, de Patoul said.

The broader ambition is to evolve from tokenization toward functionality: making digital assets genuinely useful at scale.

“A very big focus for us is how you move from tokenizing products to making those assets useful, and tokenizing at scale,” he said.

Regulatory clarity remains a gating factor. De Patoul points to the proposed Clarity Act as a “yellow flag,” not because he doubts its eventual passage, but because timing matters. “If it’s derailed for two years, it will have a meaningful impact,” he said. “Regulations getting passed is a massive deal for institutions. That’s when they can invest at scale.”

For now, crypto’s price action may feel uninspiring. But from de Patoul’s vantage point, the quiet build-out of digital market infrastructure is far more consequential than a short-term rally.

“The foundations are going in,” he said, “but the scale is yet to come.” This is why he sees “2027 and 2028 as the real inflection point for digital markets.”

Read more: JPMorgan bullish on crypto for rest of year as institutional flows set to drive recovery

Another notable acquisition has taken place in the cryptocurrency sector. A prediction market platform…

PredictFun announced the strategic acquisition of the on-chain prediction platform Probable. While the financial details of the deal were not disclosed, Binance founder Changpeng Zhao (CZ), a leading figure in the industry, also shared a message of support regarding the development.

CZ expressed his positive view of the agreement in a statement on social media, saying, “Congratulations, it’s great to see two powerful projects joining forces.”

Probable, the acquired company, is known as an on-chain prediction platform that initially received investment from PancakeSwap and YZi Labs. The platform offers a structure that allows users to trade based on probability predictions for various events.

Launched in December 2025, PredictFun quickly achieved a significant trading volume. According to platform data, over 120,000 users have conducted transactions totaling $1.5 billion to date. During the same period, over 3.3 million transactions were recorded on the platform.

Following the acquisition of Probable, PredictFun aims to strengthen its infrastructure technology and make its market structure more efficient. The company states that this merger will enable it to improve its technological architecture, increase transaction efficiency, and optimize capital utilization.

*This is not investment advice.

The crypto market has rebounded today, with Bitcoin rallying above $71,000 for the first time since the start of last month. This comes as tensions between the U.S. and Iran ease, with reports that Iran had reached out to the U.S. to end the ongoing conflict.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the cryptocurrency exchange Kraken has received approval for its ‘master account’ with the US Federal Reserve.

Accordingly, Kraken, the second-largest cryptocurrency exchange in the US, achieved something no other cryptocurrency company had ever done before: gaining access to the FED.

At this point, Kraken became the first cryptocurrency company to gain access to the Fed’s core payment system, thus announcing that it could transfer money through the same payment channels used by thousands of US banks and credit unions.

This account gives Kraken direct access to the Fed’s payment channels, but not to the Fed’s credit facilities. Therefore, Kraken does not become a bank with this approval.

According to the limited-purpose or “narrow scope” master account framework proposed by Federal Reserve Board member Christopher Waller, a company can hold reserves and make payments with central bank money, but cannot lend money, access the Fed’s interest rate facilities, or operate as a traditional commercial bank.

At this point, according to sources, the Kraken endorsement was designed as a “pilot” program to test the narrow scope of the master account concept.

This situation could lead to an increase in FED master account applications from other cryptocurrency companies as well. Besides Kraken, Wyoming-based Custodia Bank, Anchorage Bank, and Ripple, which have long sought FED access and have been suing the FED since 2022, have also applied for master accounts.

Wyoming Republican Senator Cynthia Lummis described this move as a historic milestone for cryptocurrencies.

*This is not investment advice.

Ripple has announced a significant expansion of its enterprise payment solution, Ripple Payments.

The company announced that it offers an end-to-end stablecoin infrastructure by integrating custody, virtual accounts, and a combined fiat + stablecoin payment channel into the platform. According to Ripple, the platform is currently active in more than 60 markets and has processed over $100 billion in transaction volume to date.

The company claimed to offer a licensed and institutionally standardized infrastructure that unites traditional finance and the digital asset ecosystem under one roof. The statement noted that at a time when financial institutions are racing to implement stablecoin payments, Ripple stands out with its broad regulatory coverage, global network, and new product features.

Ripple recently strengthened its platform with the acquisitions of Palisade (custody and treasury automation) and Rail (virtual accounts and collection solutions). Thanks to this integration, customers can now:

• It can collect payments in fiat currency and stablecoins.
• They can store assets securely,
• It can perform currency/stablecoin conversions.
• Funds can be transferred to operational accounts through a single platform.

Additionally, named virtual accounts and wallets can be created, collection flows can be automated, and funds can be consolidated into a single account. Ripple President Monica Long stated that digital assets should be treated with the same seriousness as traditional finance, emphasizing that institutional-level infrastructure, licensing, and deep liquidity are critical in this area.

What are the New Features?

Managed Custody: Provides a secure and scalable wallet infrastructure for institutional clients. Enables high-speed transaction signing and automated transfer of funds to operational accounts.

Unified Collection: Businesses can accept fiat and stablecoin payments through named virtual accounts. Automated conversion and reconciliation processes are consolidated into a single account.

Advanced Liquidity Management: The platform enhances efficiency in cross-border payments by enabling timely and cost-effective liquidity transfers between assets.

Ripple stated that global stablecoin transaction volume reached $33 trillion last year, and stablecoins accounted for 30% of total on-chain transaction volume. This growth, it was noted, is accelerating the fintech ecosystem.

*This is not investment advice.

A delegation from Coinbase, led by CEO Brian Armstrong, was at the White House on Tuesday, according to Crypto in America’s Eleanor Terrett.

The visit was reported hours after President Donald Trump issued a statement on Truth Social, urging banks to make a deal with crypto firms over the key crypto market structure bill.

It was confirmed by Politico that Trump had held a closed-door meeting with Armstrong before making his public comments.

In his remarks, Trump criticized banks for standing in the way of pro-crypto bills such as the GENIUS Act and the CLARITY Act, warning that delays could push innovation to countries like China and hurt American investors.

The CLARITY Act, which aims to establish a comprehensive federal framework for digital asset market structure and delineate jurisdictional boundaries between the SEC and CFTC, faces a major Senate stalemate due to unresolved disputes over stablecoin yield provisions.

Banks have pushed for a ban on stablecoin yields in a bid to curb deposit flight, whereas crypto figures like Armstrong have contended the push unfairly targets crypto firms.

Despite efforts by administration officials to mediate between banks and crypto companies, no resolution has been reached.

However, during his speech at the World Liberty Forum last month, Armstrong said a breakthrough in the bill talks may be near. He expressed optimism that negotiations are back on track, saying there is a “win-win-win” path forward for crypto firms, banks, and consumers.

Disclosure: This article was edited by Vivian Nguyen. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.

The cryptocurrency market has reached a critical juncture amidst global geopolitical tensions and macroeconomic uncertainties. In the program “The Wolf Of All Streets,” experts assessed Bitcoin’s biggest “macro test” and the market’s direction.

FOX Business reporter Eleanor Terrett approached the debate from the perspective of Washington and regulation. According to Terrett, the US election process and the candidates’ approach to cryptocurrencies are part of a macro test for the market. Regulatory clarity will determine Bitcoin’s permanence in the mainstream financial system.

Terrett noted that institutional interest is still fresh, and the entry of spot Bitcoin ETFs into the market has increased the asset’s macro resilience.

Strategist Andrew Parish highlighted the dilemma of whether Bitcoin is a “risky asset” or a “safe haven.” He stated that tensions in the Middle East and the risk of global conflict are putting pressure on liquidity, and that Bitcoin’s correlation with traditional markets is being tested during this period.

Parish argued that the market squeeze would eventually lead to a sharp breakout, but the direction of that move would be determined by global cash flow.

Investment expert Tillman Holloway focused on the market’s technical cycles and investor psychology. Holloway stated that Bitcoin’s current price movements show similarities to past cycles, but this time the macroeconomic backdrop (inflation and interest rates) is much more complex.

Holloway stated that investors are currently undergoing a “test of patience,” adding that a major move is on the horizon but that they should be prepared for volatility.

*This is not investment advice.

Cryptocurrency exchange Binance TR has introduced its new Launchpool project, Opinion ($OPN). This event will be the exchange’s ninth Launchpool.

Users will be able to qualify for the $OPN airdrop by staking their BNB holdings on Binance TR starting Tuesday, March 3rd at 03:00. The launchpool event will continue until Thursday, March 5th at 02:59, after which the $OPN token will be listed on the exchange at 16:00 on the same day.

Opinion, a new cryptocurrency project, is being promoted as an ecosystem that provides infrastructure for the global trading of trading signals, opinions, and predictions.

According to the announced plan, the project aims to activate the governance mechanism in the second quarter of the year, while planning to enter the large-scale adoption process after the fourth quarter. The roadmap defines the first quarter of 2026 as the “Expansion Phase.” During this period, the goals include launching the $OPN token, beginning the construction of the ecosystem infrastructure, and expanding the community and early-stage partners.

The second quarter will see the transition to the “Ecosystem Growth Phase.” This phase plans to deepen network implementations, expand signaling and use cases, and initiate token holder participation in decentralized governance.

The third quarter of 2026 is positioned as the “Protocol Maturity” period. This phase will focus on infrastructure updates, improvements to governance mechanisms, and increased support for integration with more applications.

The project aims to enter a “mass adoption phase” in the fourth quarter and beyond. In this context, it was stated that training activities and ecosystem support programs will be implemented to spread the “multi-user internet” vision to a wider user base.

The developers also detailed the $OPN token supply distribution and unlock schedule. 23.5% of the total supply was allocated for the airdrop. Of this, 3.5% will be distributed unlocked during the TGE (Token Generation Event), and the remaining portion will remain locked for 7 months. It was stated that users who locked their tokens for certain periods after the first airdrop could earn additional airdrop rewards.

*This is not investment advice.