The U.S. Department of Justice has charged 17 hackers allegedly tied to Iran’s Mabna Institute, according to Decrypt, accusing them of taking part in a multi-year cyber campaign that included the 2017 breach of U.S. cable network HBO. Prosecutors said the group stole data and then demanded roughly $6 million in Bitcoin as ransom. The indictment says the alleged operation worked on behalf of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and other Iranian government clients. Targets allegedly included hundreds of universities, companies, and government institutions around the world. Prosecutors said the campaign led to the theft of at least 31.5 terabytes of academic data and intellectual property. Authorities also said the group targeted more than 100,000 professor accounts globally and compromised about 8,000 accounts across 144 U.S. universities and 178 foreign universities. The U.S. State Department is offering up to $10 million for information on the whereabouts of five of the defendants. The report also said the Treasury Department in recent months sanctioned multiple Iranian crypto exchanges and froze more than $131 million in crypto assets linked to Iran’s central bank and the IRGC.

The U.S. Department of Justice said Tuesday that 17 Iranian nationals have been charged over an alleged long-running cyber campaign tied to the Mabna Institute, a group prosecutors say worked on behalf of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and other Iranian government and university clients. The case spans attacks on hundreds of U.S. and international universities, dozens of companies, and at least five state and federal agencies. Part of the indictment revisits the previously charged HBO hack involving Behzad Mesri, who prosecutors said stole proprietary data from the entertainment company and then tried to extort roughly $6 million in bitcoin. Five additional defendants — Saeid Houshyar, Manouchehr Hashemloo, Keyvan Fayaz, Saber Shahbazi Ballojeh, and Arman Kahzadian — were described as directly involved in that breach. The State Department’s Rewards for Justice program is offering up to $10 million for information on the defendants’ whereabouts. Prosecutors also said the stolen research was resold through Megapaper.ir and Gigapaper.ir, with the latter renting compromised professor credentials to Iranian users. U.S. institutions had spent about $3.4 billion to acquire the stolen material, while separate victims incurred more than $20 million in remediation costs.

POAP, the digital collectible project known for turning event attendance into on-chain badges, is shutting down further development after more than five years. Co-founder Isabel announced the decision on Aug. 3, prompting many early users to reopen their wallets and revisit badges tied to Ethereum conferences, hackathons, community gatherings and major moments such as the Merge. The badges remain visible on-chain, even as the team behind them steps away. The project began as an ERC-721 experiment at ETHDenver in February 2019 and later grew into one of crypto’s most recognizable participation credentials. By March 2020, POAP had appeared at more than 100 events and around 7,000 badges had been claimed. It later expanded into brand campaigns, including activations by Adidas and Estée Lauder, and saw one of its defining moments during Ethereum’s September 2022 Merge celebration, when more than 41,000 people watched the official party and participants placed more than 366,000 pixels on a collaborative canvas. The report argues that POAP’s core tension resembled an earlier Web2 experiment: GetGlue, a check-in and digital sticker platform that also turned user activity into collectible artifacts but failed to build a lasting business. In POAP’s case, on-chain persistence solved the record-retention problem. It did not solve monetization. The same qualities that made POAP meaningful as a free, low-friction record of shared experience also made it difficult to turn into a sustainable company without undermining the product’s original purpose.

BitMart has partnered with blockchain startup reality show CryptoKnights Season 2. CEO Nathan Chow will serve as a judge alongside Brock Pierce and Tristan Thompson. The show covers DeFi, DePIN, AI×blockchain, and more, with winners potentially getting listed on BitMart.

WEEX exchange has rolled out a Robinhood ecosystem rewards campaign covering seven related concept tokens: WISHBONE, HOODRAT1, JUGGERNAUT, VEXAI, HOODON, INDEX, and PONS. According to ChainCatcher, users who trade any of the eligible tokens during the event can share a total prize pool of $100,000. The campaign is scheduled to run from 17:00 on July 15 to 17:00 on July 25, UTC+8. The announcement frames the event as a trading-based promotion tied to the Robinhood ecosystem token theme.

Former Bitcoin developer Amir Taaki analyzes Satoshi Nakamoto’s coding quirks—outdated locks, Hungarian notation, and lack of OOP—suggesting an older engineer or physicist, not a modern programmer. He proposes code stylometry to identify Satoshi but notes the community's reluctance to investigate.

Former Bitcoin developer Amir Taaki analyzed Satoshi Nakamoto's unusual coding quirks—excessive locks, Hungarian notation, recursion, lack of objects, and Windows focus—suggesting a background in engineering or physics rather than modern software development.

Amir Taaki argues that Satoshi Nakamoto’s early Bitcoin code contains distinctive traits that may hint at an older creator with an engineering or physics background rather than a conventional software developer.