U.S. prosecutors charged Peter Stokes, 19, in a case tied to Scattered Spider, alleging a failed $8 million crypto ransom demand against a luxury jewelry retailer and broader links to major cyber extortion activity.

A broad set of regulatory, fundraising and market-structure developments shaped the crypto sector over the past 24 hours. South Korea formally opened discussions on the second phase of its Digital Asset Basic Act, with stablecoin oversight at the center of the agenda, while Hanwha Group emerged as the largest shareholder in tokenization platform Securitize. In Russia, lawmakers advanced and then passed a bill establishing rules for crypto market participants and cross-border trade, though the measure still requires presidential sign-off. In the U.S., the Securities and Exchange Commission cleared Ionic Digital’s registration statement ahead of its planned July 28 Nasdaq direct listing, received Grayscale’s registration filing for a Worldcoin ETF, and sued Mining Automatic and Zan Shaikh over an alleged $22 million crypto mining investment fraud. Elsewhere, spot Bitcoin and Ether ETFs posted fresh net inflows, Nigeria set up a virtual asset coordination framework, Pakistan created a virtual asset investigation unit, and Arcus launched 24/7 tokenized stock trading and a perpetuals beta on Robinhood Chain.

Developments across crypto, regulation, trading infrastructure, and adjacent tech sectors piled up between July 21 and July 22. Jito Labs rolled out JTX, a self-custodial trading venue on Solana for spot trading in ecosystem tokens and tokenized real-world assets. Telegram founder Pavel Durov said the company plans to ship a native non-custodial Gram wallet inside every Telegram client this summer, a move he described as a wallet deployment for more than 1 billion users. In regulation, Russia’s State Duma passed its first comprehensive crypto law, while Pakistan’s FIA set up a virtual asset investigation unit focused on money laundering and terrorist financing. In the U.S., Coinbase published a postmortem on its July 14 outage, saying a Kubernetes resource naming conflict disrupted transfers, card payments, and on-chain services but did not put customer funds at risk. The broader news cycle also included ETF flow data, legal action over an Illinois digital asset tax, new trading products from Arcus and Kalshi, additional financing for Digital Asset, and a Chapter 11 filing by Movement Labs.

Pakistan’s Federal Investigation Agency has created a virtual currency investigation unit within the newly launched National Cyber Crime and Control Center (NC3), according to Dawn. The unit will focus on cases involving money laundering and terror financing through virtual assets. An official from the counterterrorism wing said it will work with the newly formed Pakistan Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority, or PVARA, to investigate crimes tied to crypto assets. The official also urged the National Cyber Crime Investigation Agency and the Anti-Narcotics Force to establish similar units to address the use of crypto assets in cybercrime and drug trafficking. At the same time, the FIA has integrated anti-money laundering operations, border entry and exit monitoring, and investigations into human trafficking and migrant smuggling within NC3, while pushing new rules and staff expansion to speed up case handling and improve coordination across enforcement functions.

Pakistan’s Federal Investigation Agency has created a dedicated cryptocurrency investigation unit inside its newly operational National Command and Control Centre, adding an enforcement layer to the country’s broader move to formalize digital assets. The unit will focus on money laundering and terrorism financing involving virtual currencies, while the Pakistan Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority remains responsible for regulation. FIA Counter-Terrorism Wing Director Dr Muhammad Athar Waheed said the agency will examine criminal use of crypto and called on the National Cyber Crime Investigation Agency and the Anti-Narcotics Force to establish similar units. The move comes as Pakistan accelerates crypto policy steps, including lifting an eight-year banking ban, advancing exchange licensing, and exploring tokenization of state assets, even as religious debate over whether crypto qualifies as permissible wealth under Islamic law remains unsettled.

A UK court has sentenced two members of the hacking group Scattered Spider to five and a half years in prison each, according to a Techub report citing CryptoBriefing. The pair have pleaded guilty. The case centers on an attack carried out between Aug. 31 and Sept. 3, 2024, against Transport for London systems. Authorities said the breach caused £39 million in losses and exposed data belonging to 7 million users. The case also involved the theft of $8 million in cryptocurrency. Scattered Spider, also known as UNC3944, is known for social engineering attacks and has frequently used SIM-swapping methods to steal crypto wallets. The UK National Crime Agency said members of the group were driven mainly by a desire to show off. Authorities are still working with U.S. federal agencies to pursue the wider network.