Roswell, New Mexico, has made history by becoming the first city in the United States to adopt Bitcoin as part of its strategic financial reserves. This move marks a bold step toward integrating digital assets into public finance. By holding Bitcoin, the city aims to diversify its treasury and position itself for long-term financial strength. Roswell’s decision reflects growing interest in Bitcoin as a hedge against inflation and a modern store of value for municipalities.
Kraken, a prominent cryptocurrency exchange, has uncovered a sophisticated infiltration attempt by a North Korean hacker posing as a job candidate.
The security and recruitment teams advanced the candidate through the hiring process. The aim was to study their strategies and gather crucial insights.
How a North Korean Hacker Tried to Infiltrate Kraken
Kraken detailed the incident in a recent blog post on May 1. The hacker applied for an engineering role at the exchange, initially appearing as a legitimate candidate, allegedly named Steven Smith. However, several red flags emerged during the hiring process.
“What started as a routine hiring process for an engineering role quickly turned into an intelligence gathering operation, as our teams carefully advanced the candidate through our hiring process to learn more about their tactics at every stage of the process,” Kraken noted.
Moreover, the Open-Source Intelligence gathering (OSINT) investigation uncovered the candidate’s involvement in a network of fake identities.
“This meant that our team had uncovered a hacking operation where one individual had established multiple identities to apply for roles in the crypto space and beyond. Several of the names had previously been hired by multiple companies, as our team identified work-related email addresses linked to them. One identity in this network was also a known foreign agent on the sanctions list,” the blog read.
Additionally, technical inconsistencies in their setup, like using remote, colocated Mac desktops accessed via a VPN and altered IDs, pointed to an infiltration attempt. This information confirmed that the candidate was likely a state-sponsored hacker.
In a final interview with the candidate, Kraken’s Chief Security Officer, Nick Percoco, and some team members confirmed the company’s suspicions. The candidate’s failure to verify their location or answer questions about their city and citizenship revealed them as an impostor.
“Their job is to start employment to steal intellectual property, steal money from those companies, take home a paycheck, and do it in a widespread way,” Percoco told CBS about the hackers.
FinCEN Proposes Ban on Huione Group Over North Korean Ties
Meanwhile, in another development, the US Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) has proposed banning Cambodia-based Huione Group from the US financial system. The department identified Huione as a key facilitator for North Korean hacker groups, including those involved in cyber heists and “pig butchering” cryptocurrency scams.
“Huione Group has established itself as the marketplace of choice for malicious cyber actors like the DPRK and criminal syndicates, who have stolen billions of dollars from everyday Americans,” Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent said.
FinCEN accused the group of laundering over $4 billion in illicit funds between August 2021 and January 2025. According to the department, Huione’s network, including Huione Pay, Huione Crypto, and Haowang Guarantee, is a preferred marketplace for cryptocurrency criminals, offering services such as payment processing and an illicit online marketplace.
“Today’s proposed action will sever Huione Group’s access to correspondent banking, degrading these groups’ ability to launder their ill-gotten gains. Treasury remains committed to disrupting any attempt by malicious cyber actors to secure revenue from or for their criminal schemes,” Bessent added.
These incidents highlighted a pattern of North Korean cyberattacks on the cryptocurrency sector. In 2024, hackers stole over $659 million from crypto firms.
According to a joint statement from the United States, Japan, and the Republic of Korea, North Korean hackers targeted the industry using tactics like social engineering and malware (e.g., TraderTraitor, AppleJeus). Additionally, North Korean IT workers were identified as insider threats to private sector companies.
In fact, recently, on-chain investigator ZachXBT uncovered significant North Korean involvement in decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols, with some of them relying on nearly 100% of their monthly volume/fees from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK).
Central banks around the world are actively researching, testing, and piloting central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), with several countries already rolling out digital money for public use. However, despite growing interest, day-to-day adoption among citizens remains limited.
CBDCs offer several clear advantages. They allow governments and central banks to implement monetary policies more efficiently, making processes like tax deductions and foreign investment regulations automatic. Additionally, CBDCs cut down on the costs and complexities of printing and managing physical cash.
India, widely recognized for its digital payment success with UPI, is now eyeing its next milestone with programmable digital money. The country launched its Digital Rupee pilot in December 2022, and by early 2024, it had onboarded 1.3 million users and over 300,000 merchants. The pilot uses a token-based offline model and integrates smoothly with existing digital infrastructure like UPI and Aadhaar.
Aishwary Gupta, Global Head of Payments at Polygon Labs has opened up about how different countries are learning from their CBDC experiments. “As of 2024, over 130 countries, representing 98% of global GDP, are exploring CBDCs,” Gupta said in an interview with Coinpedia. “But adoption is uneven. China’s e-CNY has over 260 million wallets and processed more than $250 billion, but its daily usage remains limited. Nigeria’s eNaira has struggled with adoption, mainly due to trust and utility gaps.”
He added that India’s early success is thanks to its strong digital infrastructure and public-private collaboration. Gupta believes CBDCs must address real-world challenges like financial inclusion and remittances while preserving privacy to gain public trust.
“Public-private partnerships, strong identity frameworks, and clear communication are key. Ultimately, trust in CBDCs is not built through issuance, but through design, transparency, and impact,” the expert said.
The Bigger Debate: Control vs. Privacy
While central banks maintain that CBDCs are meant to complement cash, not replace it, critics argue they could eventually tighten government control over monetary systems. As the world moves toward tokenized assets and decentralized technologies, concerns around privacy, surveillance, and financial freedom in a CBDC-driven economy continue to grow.
The global CBDC experiment is still in its early stages, but the conversations around trust, privacy, and the role of central banks in a digital future are only getting louder.
The post Exclusive: India’s Digital Rupee Pilot Sets Benchmark for CBDC Rollouts, Says Polygon Labs Payments Head appeared first on Coinpedia Fintech News
Central banks around the world are actively researching, testing, and piloting central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), with several countries already rolling out digital money for public use. However, despite growing interest, day-to-day adoption among citizens remains limited. CBDCs offer several clear advantages. They allow governments and central banks to implement monetary policies more efficiently, making …
Dogecoin has been among the top-traded tokens, which has been attracting enough liquidity, which has maintained the volatility. Meanwhile, the latest price action has remained stuck within a narrow range, hinting towards a drop in the bullish and bearish pressures. While the spot market remains uncertain, the whales seem to be confident of the upcoming price action as they continue to transfer huge amounts of DOGE but without impacting the DOGE price rally.
As per the data from a popular reporting platform, Whale Alert, an interesting transfer of over 478 million DOGE between two unknown wallets was reported. Another data from Santiment shows these whales have been on a selling spree since the first week of April. Despite the growing selling pressure over the token, the trade setup suggests the Dogecoin (DOGE) price is due for a major breakout, which may clear the path towards $0.2.
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The post Dogecoin Squeezing Within a Decisive Phase-Here’s the DOGE Price Prediction for the Upcoming Week appeared first on Coinpedia Fintech News
Dogecoin has been among the top-traded tokens, which has been attracting enough liquidity, which has maintained the volatility. Meanwhile, the latest price action has remained stuck within a narrow range, hinting towards a drop in the bullish and bearish pressures. While the spot market remains uncertain, the whales seem to be confident of the upcoming …
