Timeline

Regulation

FinCEN withdraws its 2023 mixing proposal

FinCEN announced the withdrawal of its 2023 proposal to treat international convertible virtual currency mixing as a class of transactions of primary money laundering concern, together with a proposal on transactions involving unhosted wallets; the mixing withdrawal was published in the Federal Register on 6 October 2026.

• United States
• FinCEN

Court

Appeals court upholds Bitcoin Fog conviction

The D.C. Circuit affirmed Roman Sterlingov's convictions for money laundering conspiracy, money laundering and unlicensed money transmitting and his 150-month sentence, finding none of his arguments meritorious.

• Bitcoin Fog
• Roman Sterlingov

Exploit Reported

About $1.83 million in USDC leaves Payy's Ethereum rollup contract

A transaction calling verifyRollup moved 1,832,149 USDC out of Payy Network's Ethereum rollup contract at 04:21 UTC on 24 September 2026, Blockscout records; The Crypto Times reported that an investigator said the rollup may have been drained and that Payy had not commented. Payy's GitHub advisory, published in June and recorded as CVE-2026-48100 on 28 September, describes a circuit flaw, fixed in version 1.3.0, that let a registered prover forge burn messages; neither source links the flaw to the transfer.

Amount cited: $1.83M

• Payy

Court Reported

Roman Storm's retrial postponed to April 2027

Judge Katherine Polk Failla adjourned Roman Storm's retrial on the money laundering and sanctions conspiracy counts, on which the 2025 jury failed to reach unanimous verdicts, from 26 October 2026 to 26 April 2027, in light of his pending motion for acquittal and related request for a continuance, Cointelegraph reported.

• Tornado Cash
• Roman Storm

Launch

Grayscale's Zcash ETF begins trading on NYSE Arca

Grayscale's Zcash Trust, renamed The Zcash ETF on 24 August 2026 and previously quoted on OTCQX, began trading on NYSE Arca under the ticker ZCSH, according to Grayscale's announcement; the fund's prospectus filed with the SEC on 25 August says its shares were approved for listing there.

• Zcash
• Grayscale

Regulation

Pakistan lets licensed firms handle privacy coins only with full AML controls

Pakistan's Virtual Asset Services Regulations 2026, notified on 21 August 2026, let licensees deal in assets with anonymity-enhancing or privacy-enhancing features only where they can meet all AML, sanctions screening and travel rule duties, and bar them from doing so otherwise.

• Pakistan

Other

Aztec discloses a critical Alpha V5 proving-system flaw

Aztec said contributors had found a critical vulnerability in the Alpha V5 proving system that put V5 funds, applications and contract state at risk, with the fix planned for V6.

• Aztec

Upgrade

Zcash Ironwood upgrade seals the Orchard pool

Ironwood (NU6.3), built so that every user can verify the soundness of Zcash's circulating supply after the Orchard flaw, was scheduled for block 3,428,143; Blockchair's record shows that block was mined at 14:07 UTC on 28 July 2026 with its coinbase transaction in a new format under a new consensus branch ID. The upgrade seals the Orchard pool, so funds can leave it only through the turnstile, which caps withdrawals at verified deposits.

• Zcash
• Shielded Labs

Upgrade

Aztec Alpha V5 launches privacy-preserving apps

Aztec said Alpha V5 more than halves private-transaction proving times, cuts average block production time from 14 to 6 seconds and launches the first wave of privacy-preserving apps.

• Aztec

Shutdown

zkBob reopens in withdraw-only mode

After a circuit fix and a contract upgrade executed through its governance multisig on 5 July, zkBob restarted its Polygon and Optimism pools in withdraw-only mode, deprecating the protocol and urging users to withdraw.

• zkBob

Exploit Reported

Deprecated Aztec Connect contract exploited for about $2.19 million

An attacker exploited a gap between the transactions the deprecated Aztec Connect RollupProcessor contract settled and those covered by the proof's public inputs, minting L2 balances and withdrawing about $2.19 million in one transaction containing 14 processRollup calls, SlowMist reported; Blockscout records that transaction at 12:26 UTC on 14 June 2026.

Amount cited: $2.19M

• Aztec Connect
• Aztec

Other

zkBob pauses all pools after finding a double-spend bug

zkBob's security team found a critical double-spend vulnerability in one of its ZK circuits during a routine review and paused all pools; it said there was no public evidence of exploitation but could not rule it out.

• zkBob

Upgrade

Zcash emergency upgrade fixes an Orchard counterfeiting flaw

After researcher Taylor Hornby found a soundness flaw in the Orchard circuit on 29 May, which Shielded Labs said could have been used to create unlimited, undetectable counterfeit ZEC within Orchard, an emergency soft fork disabled Orchard transactions from block 3,363,426 on 2 June and the NU6.2 hard fork re-enabled them with a corrected circuit on 3 June; Zodl and the Zcash Foundation said there was no evidence of exploitation, while Shielded Labs said this cannot be proved cryptographically.

• Zcash
• Zodl
• Shielded Labs
• Zcash Foundation

Regulation

Malaysia bars privacy tokens on licensed exchanges

Revised Securities Commission Malaysia guidelines in force from 20 May 2026 say a digital asset exchange operator must not permit a privacy token to be offered for trading on its platforms.

• Malaysia

Other

Zcash developers disclose several patched node vulnerabilities

Zodl disclosed several patched vulnerabilities in the zcashd and Zebra node software, including one that could have disabled turnstile accounting; it said they were not exploited to affect the consensus chain and none could by themselves have inflated the ZEC supply.

• Zcash
• Zodl

Other

Zcash developers disclose a patched Sprout verification flaw

Zodl and Shielded Labs disclosed that a zcashd bug, reported by security researcher Alex Sol on 23 March 2026 and fixed in version 6.12.0, made nodes skip Sprout proof verification for new blocks, so invalid transactions from a miner could have drained the deprecated Sprout pool of up to about 25,400 ZEC; they said it was not exploited, the turnstile ruled out supply inflation and Zebra nodes were not affected.

• Zcash
• Zodl
• Shielded Labs

Exploit Reported

FOOM Cash drained through a misconfigured verifier

About $2.26 million was drained from FOOM Cash, a zero-knowledge lottery on Ethereum and Base, because its Groth16 verifier kept default setup values; a white-hat rescue returned $1.84 million, Rekt News reported. Veil Cash, a smaller privacy pool on Base, had lost 2.9 ETH to the same flaw around 20 February, and that ETH was later returned.

Amount cited: $2.26M

• FOOM Cash
• Veil Cash

Regulation

Brazil bars licensed firms from assets that favour anonymous laundering

Central Bank of Brazil Resolution 520, in force since 2 February 2026, requires licensed providers' listing policies to bar assets designed to favour money laundering by facilitating anonymity and bars providers from using mixers or tumblers; firms already operating are still in transition.

• Brazil

Court

Court orders final forfeiture of over $400 million in Helix assets

Judge Howell of the US District Court for the District of Columbia entered a final order of forfeiture after a settlement with a mortgage-holder, giving the United States legal title to more than $400 million in cryptocurrency, real estate and monetary assets tied to Helix, IRS-CI said.

Amount cited: $400M

• Helix
• Larry Dean Harmon

Regulation

India bars registered crypto firms from dealing in privacy coins

FIU-IND guidelines updated on 8 January 2026 tell registered virtual digital asset service providers to refuse deposits, withdrawals and dealings in anonymity-enhancing crypto tokens and not to facilitate transactions through mixers or tumblers.

• India

Launch

Zama Protocol goes live on Ethereum mainnet

Zama said its protocol was on mainnet after completing the first confidential stablecoin (cUSDT) transfer on Ethereum; a later Zama post gives 31 December 2025 as the mainnet date.

• Zama

Prosecution

Swiss and German authorities shut down Cryptomixer

Frankfurt's ZIT and Zurich cantonal prosecutors, with the BKA and support from Europol, shut down the cryptomixer.io mixing service on 26 November and seized about EUR 25 million in cryptocurrency during an operation that ran from 24 to 28 November 2025; Europol said over EUR 1.3 billion in bitcoin had been mixed through it since 2016.

• Cryptomixer
• BKA
• Europol

Other

OKX relists Zcash for spot trading

OKX opened ZEC/USDT spot trading at 12:00 UTC, almost two years after delisting ZEC, and later added ZEC for EEA customers in January and February 2026.

• OKX
• Zcash

Court

Samourai's William Lonergan Hill sentenced to four years

Judge Denise L. Cote sentenced Samourai Wallet's chief technology officer William Lonergan Hill to four years in prison for the same money transmitting conspiracy.

• Samourai Wallet
• William Lonergan Hill

Launch Reported

Aztec launches its Ignition Chain on Ethereum mainnet

Aztec launched the Ignition Chain, the decentralised consensus layer of its privacy-focused Ethereum layer 2, with block production starting on mainnet once its validator queue reached 500, The Block reported.

• Aztec

Court

Samourai's Keonne Rodriguez sentenced to five years

Judge Denise L. Cote sentenced Samourai Wallet's chief executive Keonne Rodriguez to five years in prison for the money transmitting conspiracy; prosecutors said Samourai facilitated over $237 million in illegal transactions.

Amount cited: $237M

• Samourai Wallet
• Keonne Rodriguez

Regulation

Kenya bars licensed crypto firms from mixing services

Kenya's Virtual Asset Service Providers Act 2025, in force from 4 November 2025, says licensed providers must not undertake mixer or tumbler services or anonymity-enhancing services, making breaches an offence; existing providers have until 4 November 2026 to comply.

• Kenya

Delisting

Kraken delists Monero for Canadian clients

Kraken disabled XMR trading for Canadian clients, having paused their deposits on 21 August 2025, citing Canadian compliance requirements; withdrawals stayed open.

• Kraken
• Monero

Exploit Reported

Qubic claims a majority of Monero's hashrate

Qubic's founder said its mining pool had achieved 51% of Monero's hashrate, and The Block reported a six-block-deep chain reorganisation; a Serai developer described it as a reorganisation attack rather than a full 51% attack.

• Monero
• Qubic

Court

Jury convicts Roman Storm on one count

After a four-week trial before Judge Katherine Polk Failla, a jury convicted Tornado Cash co-founder Roman Storm of conspiring to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business, which carries a maximum of five years in prison, and deadlocked on the money laundering and sanctions charges; prosecutors said Tornado Cash moved more than $1 billion of criminal proceeds.

Amount cited: $1B

• Tornado Cash
• Roman Storm

Prosecution

Samourai Wallet founders plead guilty

Keonne Rodriguez and William Lonergan Hill pleaded guilty before Judge Denise L. Cote to conspiring to operate a money transmitting business that transmitted criminal proceeds; prosecutors said Samourai facilitated more than $200 million in illegal transactions.

Amount cited: $200M

• Samourai Wallet
• Keonne Rodriguez
• William Lonergan Hill

Other

Binance removes the Monitoring Tag from Zcash

Binance removed the Monitoring Tag it had added to ZEC on 4 January 2024, ending that restriction; ZEC was never delisted.

• Binance
• Zcash

Regulation

Turkey bars licensed platforms from listing coins that hide wallet addresses

A Capital Markets Board communiqué published on 13 March 2025 and applying from 30 June 2025 requires crypto assets listed on licensed platforms not to be of a kind that allows transfers hiding wallet addresses.

• Turkey

Regulation

MiCA's bar on listing anonymising coins extends to the EEA

The EEA Joint Committee decision incorporating MiCA, Regulation (EU) 2023/1114, into the EEA Agreement entered into force on 24 June 2025, extending MiCA, including its Article 76(3) bar on trading platforms admitting crypto-assets with an inbuilt anonymisation function, to the EEA EFTA states Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway; Liechtenstein had applied MiCA through national law from 1 February 2025, and Norway's Crypto-Assets Act made it Norwegian law from 1 July 2025.

• European Economic Area
• Iceland
• Liechtenstein
• Norway

Regulation

France extends a laundering presumption to privacy coins and mixers

Law No 2025-532 of 13 June 2025 extended the Penal Code's presumption that assets are criminal proceeds, where a transaction can have no justification other than concealment, expressly to transactions using crypto-assets with an inbuilt anonymisation function or anonymising accounts and techniques; holding privacy coins is not barred.

• France

Prosecution

German authorities shut down the eXch swapping service

ZIT and the BKA, working closely with the Dutch FIOD, seized eXch's servers in Germany and shut down the swapping service, which did not require users to identify themselves, seizing about EUR 34 million in crypto-assets; they estimated about US$1.9 billion had passed through it and suspected it had taken part of the proceeds of the February 2025 Bybit hack.

Amount cited: $1.9B

• eXch
• BKA
• FIOD

Delisting

Binance's Dubai users lose Zcash and Decred trading

Binance began moving Dubai users to its locally regulated Binance Dubai (FZE) exchange, which does not support privacy tokens because they do not meet VARA listing requirements, ending ZEC, DCR and DASH spot trading and XMRUSDT perpetual contracts for them, with privacy-token withdrawals allowed until 8 June 2025.

• Binance
• Zcash
• Decred
• Dash

Delisting

Binance delists Firo after its first Vote to Delist

Binance ended FIRO spot trading at 03:00 UTC with 13 other tokens from its first Vote to Delist batch, in which ZEC was also a candidate but was not selected.

• Binance
• Firo

Regulation

US Justice Department stops targeting mixers for their users' acts

A Deputy Attorney General memo said the department would no longer target mixing and tumbling services for the acts of their end users or unwitting regulatory violations, and told prosecutors not to charge regulatory violations under 18 U.S.C. § 1960(b)(1)(A) and (B) without evidence of a wilful violation.

• United States
• US Department of Justice

Launch Reported

0xbow launches Privacy Pools on Ethereum

0xbow launched Privacy Pools on Ethereum mainnet, a privacy tool rooted in a 2023 paper co-written by Vitalik Buterin that uses an association set provider to vet funds so only deposits it deems clean can enter the pool, The Block reported; Blockscout shows that the Entrypoint and ETH pool contracts listed in 0xbow's documentation were deployed on 29 March 2025.

• Privacy Pools
• 0xbow

Sanction

US Treasury lifts sanctions on Tornado Cash

Treasury removed the economic sanctions on Tornado Cash, citing the administration's review of the novel legal and policy issues raised by using financial sanctions against activity in evolving technology and legal environments.

• Tornado Cash
• OFAC

Regulation

Argentina bars licensed crypto firms from offering obfuscation tools

CNV General Resolution 1058/2025, published on 14 March 2025 and in force 45 days later, requires registered virtual asset service providers not to offer services, tools or mechanisms designed to make it hard to identify the origin and destination of transactions; privacy coins are not named.

• Argentina

Delisting

Bybit delists Zcash and Dash spot pairs

Bybit ended ZEC/USDT spot trading and Convert after 08:00 UTC, announced on 24 February together with DASH, with withdrawals open until 28 May 2025; its ZEC perpetual contract was not part of the notice.

• Bybit
• Zcash

Court Reported

Pertsev released under electronic monitoring pending appeal

A Dutch court approved Alexey Pertsev's conditional release from prison under electronic monitoring so that he could work on his appeal against the 2024 conviction, The Block reported.

• Tornado Cash
• Alexey Pertsev

Regulation

MiCA's bar on listing anonymising coins starts to apply

MiCA's rules for trading platforms began to apply, including Article 76(3) on crypto-assets with an inbuilt anonymisation function, and the Transfer of Funds Regulation applied the travel rule to crypto-asset transfers, describing transfers involving privacy wallets, mixers or tumblers as carrying specific high-risk factors.

• European Union

Delisting

Gate delists privacy-coin derivatives and margin markets

Gate delisted USDT perpetual contracts for XMR, ZEC, XVG, DASH and ZEN and margin markets for XMR, ZEC, XVG, FIRO and others at 08:00 UTC, citing regulatory requirements and market changes for the margin markets; spot trading was not covered.

• Gate
• Monero
• Zcash
• Verge
• Firo

Court

Fifth Circuit rules Tornado Cash's immutable contracts cannot be blocked

In Van Loon v. Department of the Treasury, the Fifth Circuit held that Tornado Cash's immutable smart contracts are not property that can be blocked under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.

• Tornado Cash
• OFAC

Court

Helix operator Larry Harmon sentenced to three years

Larry Dean Harmon, who had pleaded guilty to money laundering conspiracy in August 2021, was sentenced to three years in prison for operating the Helix darknet mixer, which processed over $300 million of cryptocurrency from 2014 to 2017.

Amount cited: $300M

• Helix
• Larry Dean Harmon

Court

Bitcoin Fog operator sentenced to 12 years and six months

Roman Sterlingov was sentenced to 12 years and six months in prison for operating Bitcoin Fog from 2011 to 2021 and ordered to pay a forfeiture money judgment of $395,563,025.39.

Amount cited: $395.56M

• Bitcoin Fog
• Roman Sterlingov

Delisting

Kraken halts Monero for EEA clients

Kraken halted trading and deposits on all XMR markets for clients in the European Economic Area at 15:00 UTC, saying regulatory changes left it no choice, with withdrawals open until 31 December 2024.

• Kraken
• Monero

Shutdown Reported

zkSNACKs ends the Wasabi coinjoin coordinator

zkSNACKs, the company behind Wasabi Wallet, shut down its coinjoin coordination service from 1 June 2024, also affecting Trezor Suite and BTCPay Server users; ForkLog said the decision followed increasing law enforcement pressure on mixers.

• Wasabi Wallet
• zkSNACKs

Regulation

EU adopts AML rules barring accounts that use anonymity-enhancing coins

Regulation (EU) 2024/1624 bars credit institutions, financial institutions and crypto-asset service providers, from 10 July 2027, from keeping anonymous accounts or accounts that allow the anonymisation or increased obfuscation of transactions, including through anonymity-enhancing coins; self-hosted wallet providers without access to users' wallets are not covered.

• European Union

Court

Dutch court convicts Tornado Cash developer Alexey Pertsev

The Rechtbank Oost-Brabant convicted Tornado Cash developer Alexey Pertsev of laundering large amounts of crypto-assets and sentenced him to 64 months in prison, finding that the tool combined maximum anonymity with a serious lack of features enabling identification, control or detection.

• Tornado Cash
• Alexey Pertsev

Delisting

Kraken delists Monero in Ireland and Belgium

XMR trading and deposits stopped for Kraken clients in Ireland and Belgium on 10 May 2024, with withdrawals closing and remaining balances converted to BTC on 10 June.

• Kraken
• Monero

Prosecution

Samourai Wallet founders arrested and charged

Prosecutors in the Southern District of New York charged Keonne Rodriguez and William Lonergan Hill with money laundering and unlicensed money transmitting conspiracies, alleging Samourai Wallet executed over $2 billion in unlawful transactions; Rodriguez was arrested in the US, Hill in Portugal, and Samourai's servers and domain were seized with Icelandic authorities.

Amount cited: $2B

• Samourai Wallet
• Keonne Rodriguez
• William Lonergan Hill

Shutdown

Aztec Connect withdrawal window closes

This was the end of the one-year window in which Aztec said it would keep processing Aztec Connect withdrawals before it stopped running the sequencer; the rollup's code is open source, so anyone can still publish blocks.

• Aztec Connect
• Aztec

Court

Jury convicts Bitcoin Fog operator Roman Sterlingov

A federal jury found Roman Sterlingov guilty of money laundering conspiracy, sting money laundering, operating an unlicensed money transmitting business and breaching the D.C. Money Transmitters Act; prosecutors said Bitcoin Fog moved over 1.2 million BTC, worth nearly $400 million at the time.

Amount cited: $400M

• Bitcoin Fog
• Roman Sterlingov

Exploit Reported

Malicious code in a Tornado Cash proposal leaks deposit data

CoinDesk, citing community member Gas404, reported that JavaScript hidden in a governance proposal submitted on 1 January 2024 redirected Tornado Cash users' deposit data to a server run by the proposal's author, and that one deposit had been stolen.

• Tornado Cash

Delisting

Binance delists Monero

Binance ended trading on all XMR pairs at 03:00 UTC under a notice of 6 February that also covered ANT, MULTI and VAI, with withdrawals supported until 20 May 2024.

• Binance
• Monero

Delisting

OKX delists Monero and Zcash spot pairs

OKX delisted its XMR and ZEC spot pairs, with DASH and ZEN, saying they did not meet its listing criteria; deposits had been suspended from 27 December 2023, and its XMR and ZEC perpetual swaps and margin pairs had been delisted that month.

• OKX
• Monero
• Zcash

Other

Binance adds its Monitoring Tag to Monero, Zcash and Firo

Binance added its Monitoring Tag, which requires users to pass a risk quiz every 90 days to trade, to ZEC, XMR and FIRO, along with seven other tokens.

• Binance
• Monero
• Zcash
• Firo

Sanction

OFAC sanctions the Sinbad.io mixer

OFAC sanctioned Sinbad.io, calling it a key money-laundering tool of North Korea's Lazarus Group that had laundered proceeds of the Atomic Wallet, Axie Infinity and Horizon Bridge thefts, and noting that some industry experts believed it to be a successor to Blender.io.

• Sinbad.io
• OFAC
• Lazarus Group

Prosecution

Dutch FIOD takes the Sinbad.io mixer offline

The FIOD and the Dutch Public Prosecution Service disrupted Sinbad.io, one of the largest cryptocurrency mixing services, seizing its servers in the Netherlands and Finland.

• Sinbad.io
• FIOD

Regulation

FinCEN proposes a special measure on international crypto mixing

FinCEN proposed a rule identifying international convertible virtual currency mixing as a class of transactions of primary money laundering concern, aimed at increasing transparency around mixing.

• United States
• FinCEN

Delisting Reported

Binance restricts Monero and Firo for Belgian users

Belgian users moved to Binance's Polish entity could no longer buy or trade XMR and FIRO, with MOB and ZEN in the same notice, The Block reported.

• Binance
• Monero
• Firo

Exploit

Monero's community crowdfunding wallet is drained

The Monero Core Team said the Community Crowdfunding System's main wallet was drained of its entire balance, 2,675.73 XMR, on 1 September 2023; disclosing it on 4 November, it said the source of the breach was unknown and the General Fund would cover the loss.

• Monero

Prosecution

US charges Tornado Cash founders and arrests Roman Storm

Prosecutors in the Southern District of New York unsealed an indictment charging Roman Storm and Roman Semenov with conspiracies to commit money laundering, violate sanctions and operate an unlicensed money transmitting business, alleging Tornado Cash facilitated more than $1 billion in money laundering; Storm was arrested in Washington State and Semenov remained at large.

Amount cited: $1B

• Tornado Cash
• Roman Storm
• Roman Semenov

Sanction

OFAC designates Tornado Cash co-founder Roman Semenov

OFAC sanctioned Roman Semenov, one of three Tornado Cash co-founders, in coordination with the Justice Department's indictment of Semenov and Roman Storm.

• Tornado Cash
• Roman Semenov
• OFAC

Delisting Reported

Binance stops Monero and Firo trading in four EU countries

Binance users in France, Italy, Poland and Spain could no longer buy or trade XMR and FIRO, along with BEAM, MOB and ZEN; ZEC, DCR and XVG were in the original May 2023 notice but were spared before it took effect, The Block reported.

• Binance
• Monero
• Firo

Regulation

EU adopts MiCA with a listing bar on anonymising coins

The Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (EU) 2023/1114, signed on 31 May 2023, requires trading platforms to prevent the admission of crypto-assets with an inbuilt anonymisation function unless holders and transaction history can be identified (Article 76(3)); the Transfer of Funds Regulation (EU) 2023/1113 was signed the same day.

• European Union

Exploit Reported

Attacker takes over Tornado Cash governance

A governance proposal approved on 20 May hid an extra function that gave the attacker 1.2 million votes and control of the Tornado Cash DAO; The Block reported that 483,000 TORN was taken from the governance vault and 379,000 TORN sold for about $680,000 in ether.

• Tornado Cash

Prosecution

German authorities shut down ChipMixer

Frankfurt prosecutors' cybercrime unit (ZIT) and the BKA seized ChipMixer's servers and about EUR 44 million in bitcoin, estimating that the darknet mixer had laundered about 154,000 BTC, roughly EUR 2.8 billion, since 2017.

• ChipMixer
• BKA

Shutdown

Aztec announces the sunset of Aztec Connect

Aztec Labs said it would wind down the Aztec Connect privacy rollup, disabling deposits on 31 March 2023 and keeping a one-year withdrawal window to 31 March 2024; its documentation gives 21 March 2023 as the date the rollup stopped accepting deposits.

• Aztec Connect
• Aztec

Regulation

Dubai's VARA bars anonymity-enhanced cryptocurrencies

VARA's Virtual Asset Issuance Rulebook of 7 February 2023 states that, under the Virtual Assets and Related Activities Regulations 2023, issuing anonymity-enhanced cryptocurrencies and all virtual asset activities related to them are prohibited in the Emirate.

• United Arab Emirates
• VARA

Other Reported

Researchers extract Secret Network's consensus seed through Intel SGX flaws

The SGX.Fail researchers said they had used Intel SGX flaws made public on 9 August 2022 to obtain Secret Network's consensus seed, a master decryption key for its private transactions, so the privacy of past transactions could not be guaranteed; after the disclosure they began on 1 October, registration of new nodes was frozen and from 2 November reopened only to non-vulnerable hardware. SCRT Labs told The Block that funds were never at risk.

• Secret Network
• SCRT Labs

Sanction

OFAC redesignates Tornado Cash under North Korea authorities

OFAC redesignated Tornado Cash with additional DPRK-related authorities and issued new guidance, in an action that also designated two North Korean weapons representatives.

• Tornado Cash
• OFAC

Regulation

DIFC rule bars financial services involving privacy tokens

Dubai Financial Services Authority rule GEN 3A.2.2, in force in the Dubai International Financial Centre since 1 November 2022, says a person must not carry on a financial service relating to a privacy token or involving a privacy device; DFSA guidance treats tokens with optional privacy features as privacy tokens.

• United Arab Emirates
• DIFC

Delisting

Huobi Global delists seven privacy coins

Huobi Global delisted DASH, DCR, FIRO, XMR, XVG, ZEC and ZEN from 08:00 UTC on 19 September 2022, having ended trading in them on 6 September and closed deposits on 12 September, when it announced the move.

• Huobi Global
• Monero
• Zcash
• Decred
• Verge
• Firo
• Dash

Prosecution

Dutch FIOD arrests a suspected Tornado Cash developer

The FIOD arrested a 29-year-old man in Amsterdam on suspicion of concealing criminal financial flows and facilitating money laundering through Tornado Cash, saying at least $1 billion of cryptocurrency of criminal origin had passed through the mixer; press reports later named him as developer Alexey Pertsev.

Amount cited: $1B

• Tornado Cash
• Alexey Pertsev
• FIOD

Sanction

US Treasury sanctions Tornado Cash

OFAC sanctioned the Tornado Cash mixer, saying it had been used to launder more than $7 billion of virtual currency since its creation in 2019, including over $455 million stolen by the Lazarus Group.

Amount cited: $7B

• Tornado Cash
• OFAC
• Lazarus Group

Upgrade

Zcash NU5 launches the Orchard shielded pool

The NU5 network upgrade activated on mainnet, launching the Orchard shielded payment protocol, which uses the Halo proving system to remove reliance on trusted setup ceremonies, together with a unified address format.

• Zcash
• Electric Coin Company

Sanction

OFAC sanctions its first mixer, Blender.io

OFAC sanctioned the virtual currency mixer Blender.io, its first sanctions on a mixer, saying it had processed over $20.5 million of the proceeds of the Lazarus Group's theft of almost $620 million from a project linked to Axie Infinity in March 2022.

Amount cited: $20.5M

• Blender.io
• OFAC
• Lazarus Group

Launch

Railgun's current Ethereum contract is deployed

Blockscout records that the RAILGUN proxy contract on Ethereum, whose implementation is now RailgunSmartWallet, was created at block 14,693,013 on 1 May 2022.

• Railgun

Delisting Reported

Kraken stops Monero trading for UK clients

According to an alleged Kraken client letter posted online and reported by ForkLog, UK clients could no longer add to XMR margin positions from 23 November 2021 and their XMR margin positions and open orders were closed on 26 November; XMR deposits were stopped while withdrawals stayed open. No Kraken page confirming this was found.

• Kraken
• Monero

Exploit

Haven Protocol hit by xAsset minting exploits

Attackers exploited flaws in Haven Protocol's private xAsset code, minting 203,000 xUSD and 13.5 xBTC on 22 June, an unknown amount of XHV on 24 June and 9 million xUSD on 29 June 2021, according to the team, which halted exchange deposits, paused conversions and proposed a chain rollback.

• Haven Protocol

Prosecution

Bitcoin Fog operator Roman Sterlingov arrested

Roman Sterlingov was arrested at Los Angeles International Airport in April 2021; the D.C. Circuit says Bitcoin Fog stopped operating two days after his arrest, with its last withdrawal on 29 April 2021, which places the arrest on 27 April. Prosecutors said he had run the mixer since October 2011.

• Bitcoin Fog
• Roman Sterlingov

Regulation

South Korea bars exchanges from handling coins that hide transfer records

A Korea Financial Intelligence Unit regulation in force from 25 March 2021, when the virtual asset anti-money laundering regime took effect, requires virtual asset service providers not to handle coins with built-in technology that stops their transfer records being identified; the Financial Services Commission had announced the bar on 17 February.

• South Korea

Delisting Reported

Bittrex delists Monero, Zcash and Dash

Bittrex removed its XMR, ZEC and DASH markets at 23:00 UTC on 15 January 2021, having announced the move on 1 January without giving a reason; CoinDesk linked it to exchanges' efforts to comply with KYC and anti-money laundering rules.

• Bittrex
• Monero
• Zcash
• Dash

Delisting

Upbit delists Decred

Upbit ended DCR trading on its KRW, BTC and USDT markets after the Decred team said it had no plan to change its privacy function; Upbit had flagged DCR as an investment-warning asset after a privacy feature update and stopped deposits on 18 December.

• Upbit
• Decred

Other

FinCEN fines Helix operator $60 million

FinCEN assessed a $60 million civil money penalty against Larry Dean Harmon, founder and operator of the Helix and Coin Ninja mixers, for Bank Secrecy Act violations, the first such penalty against a bitcoin mixer.

Amount cited: $60M

• Helix
• Larry Dean Harmon
• FinCEN

Other

Gemini enables shielded Zcash withdrawals

Gemini began supporting ZEC withdrawals to shielded z-addresses, describing it as the first time shielded ZEC withdrawals were available on a regulated exchange.

• Gemini
• Zcash

Delisting Reported

CoinSpot halts Monero trading in Australia

CoinSpot told clients that trading in Monero, Bytecoin and Zcoin would halt from 31 August 2020; ForkLog linked the move to regulatory requirements, and CoinSpot's Monero page still showed the coin unavailable to trade in October 2026.

• CoinSpot
• Monero
• Firo

Delisting

Upbit delists Verge and Zcoin over anonymity features

Upbit ended trading in XVG and Zcoin (XZC, now Firo) under a notice of 8 May 2020 that cited the projects' anonymous-transaction aims, having flagged them as investment-warning assets and stopped deposits on 29 April; NAV, EXCL and ZEN were delisted in the same notice.

• Upbit
• Verge
• Firo

Launch

Tornado Cash deploys its 0.1 ETH pool contract

Blockscout records that the TornadoCash_Eth_01 pool contract was created at Ethereum block 9,116,966 on 16 December 2019; the Dutch FIOD says Tornado Cash started in 2019.

• Tornado Cash

Delisting

Upbit delists Monero, Zcash and Dash

Upbit ended trading in XMR, ZEC and DASH on its KRW, BTC, ETH and USDT markets, and in XHV, TUBE and PIVX, citing the risk of money laundering; it had stopped deposits on 9 September when it flagged the coins as investment-warning assets, citing FATF standards on virtual asset transfers.

• Upbit
• Monero
• Zcash
• Dash

Delisting Reported

Coinbase stops UK customers holding Zcash

Coinbase told UK customers by email that they could no longer hold a ZEC balance and that balances not converted or sent elsewhere by 26 August 2019 would be sold for pounds; Decrypt reported that no explicit reason was given.

• Coinbase
• Zcash

Prosecution

Dutch FIOD and Europol take down Bestmixer.io

The Dutch FIOD, working with Europol and the authorities in Luxembourg, seized six servers of the Bestmixer.io mixing service, which Europol said had a turnover of at least $200 million in about a year; Europol called it the first law enforcement action of its kind against a cryptocurrency mixer.

Amount cited: $200M

• Bestmixer.io
• FIOD
• Europol

Other

Zcash discloses a fixed counterfeiting vulnerability

Electric Coin Company disclosed a vulnerability that could have let an attacker create fake ZEC without being detected, saying it had been fixed by the Sapling upgrade of 28 October 2018 and did not affect user privacy.

• Zcash
• Electric Coin Company

Upgrade

Zcash Sapling upgrade activates

The Sapling network upgrade activated at block 419,200, introducing new shielded addresses that Electric Coin Company said cut the time to build a shielded transaction by 90% and memory use by over 97%.

• Zcash
• Electric Coin Company

Regulation

Japan's exchange association bars coins whose transfers cannot be traced

Rules of the Japan Virtual and Crypto assets Exchange Association in force from 24 October 2018 bar its members, which every registered exchange must join or match, from handling crypto-assets whose transfer records cannot be traced or are extremely difficult to trace unless those problems are resolved; the rules bind member exchanges, not individual holders.

• Japan
• Japan Virtual and Crypto assets Exchange Association

Delisting Reported

Coincheck delists Monero, Zcash, Dash and Augur

Coincheck stopped handling XMR, ZEC, DASH and REP from 18 June 2018 under a notice in Japan's official gazette of 18 May, converting remaining balances to yen; Business Insider Japan said the coins had been flagged for, among other things, their high anonymity, and that the exchange was rebuilding after a large NEM theft.

• Coincheck
• Monero
• Zcash
• Dash

Other

Gemini opens Zcash trading as a licensed exchange

With New York State Department of Financial Services approval, Gemini opened ZEC deposits on 19 May and trading on 22 May 2018, calling itself the world's first licensed Zcash exchange; it accepted deposits from shielded addresses but allowed withdrawals only to transparent ones.

• Zcash
• Gemini

Upgrade

Monero introduces Ring Confidential Transactions

RingCT, which hides transaction amounts on Monero, was implemented at block 1,220,516, mined on 10 January 2017; the Monero Project says it became mandatory for all transactions after September 2017.

• Monero

Launch

Zcash mainnet launches

Electric Coin Company released the Zcash genesis block on 28 October 2016 and mining and transactions began; Kraken had announced ZEC funding and trading for launch day.

• Zcash
• Electric Coin Company
• Kraken