litigation

Policy Regula

2026-10-14 10:28:01

Illinois digital asset tax law cases move toward expedited review

A coalition that includes the Blockchain Association, the Crypto Council for Innovation, the Illinois state government, the Digital Chamber, and the Illinois Blockchain Association has filed a joint motion in Sangamon County Circuit Court seeking to speed up two lawsuits challenging the state’s Digital Asset Tax Law. The state has already agreed to an injunction that would pause the law’s effective date and enforcement until July 1, 2027. To obtain a faster ruling on the law’s legality, the parties also proposed an expedited summary judgment briefing schedule. Under that plan, opening motions would be filed on Nov. 4, 2026, and all related briefing would be completed by Jan. 22, 2027. The parties are asking the court to hold a hearing between Feb. 8 and Feb. 19, 2027, and to issue a decision by March 1, 2027. The state does not oppose that request. The proposed schedule still requires court approval.

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Celsius

2026-09-21 13:38:22

Celsius bankruptcy estate sues BitMEX affiliates to recover 6,360.1666 BTC

The Celsius bankruptcy estate filed suit against BitMEX-affiliated entities on Sept. 12 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, according to a post by Bitcoin News on X. The complaint alleges that the defendants carried out an improper liquidation in March 2020. The filing covers a total of 6,360.1666 BTC. That amount includes 1,325.8385 BTC that Celsius said it lost on March 12, along with another 5,034.3281 BTC that it acquired the following day from fund JST Alpha 1. The post also said BitMEX plans to cease exchange operations on Sept. 23. No further details were provided in the source material about the lawsuit claims or the planned shutdown.

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Policy and Re

2026-09-13 06:55:16

New Mexico lawyer fined $5,000 and held in contempt after ChatGPT filing fabricated witness testimony

The New Mexico Supreme Court fined attorney Stephen Aarons $5,000, held him in contempt, and referred him to the state disciplinary board after finding that he failed to verify facts and legal support in an AI-generated appellate filing. The case involved Oscar Renee Sandoval, who was convicted of murder in 2025 and sentenced to life in prison. According to the court, the filing included witnesses who did not exist in the trial record, along with fabricated testimony and invented details about threats and the shooter’s appearance. Aarons admitted at an Aug. 21 hearing that he had used ChatGPT and said he did not understand how severe AI hallucinations could be. Justice C. Shannon Bacon criticized that explanation in court. The appeal was reassigned on Sept. 2 to state public defender Kim Chavez Cook, and the process must now start over. Reuters was cited in the report for comments made in court and for Aarons’ response, in which he said he was remorseful and hoped the disciplinary board would consider it an honest mistake. The case stands out because the falsehoods were not limited to fake legal citations; they involved fabricated factual testimony in a life-sentence murder appeal.

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Chainalysis

2026-08-30 18:11:48

Chainalysis Sues ICE Over $94.6M Sole-Source Contract to TRM Labs

Blockchain analytics company Chainalysis has sued ICE before the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, alleging that the agency unlawfully awarded a $94.6 million sole-source contract to competitor TRM Labs. The contract provides forensic software and support for Homeland Security Task Force investigations, with a performance period running from July 1, 2026 to June 30, 2027. Chainalysis says it is the largest U.S. government blockchain-analysis contract awarded to date. In the complaint, Chainalysis says ICE issued an RFI on May 28 with 18 questions covering a proprietary fraud-victim database, AI-agent data retrieval, automated notices to virtual asset service providers to execute voluntary freezes, and cooperation with stablecoin issuers. Less than two weeks later, the final Statement of Need omitted many of those requirements, while ICE's market research used the RFI standard to conclude Chainalysis could not meet its needs. The suit also says “sextortion” appeared as one of three mission areas in the Statement of Need even though the RFI never mentioned it, and that some requirements closely match TRM’s proprietary product architecture. Chainalysis says it was the only company to submit a capability statement, yet ICE completed its market research the next day and named TRM the only supplier able to meet all requirements. ICE, according to the complaint, did not ask Chainalysis any follow-up questions.

1010

Meta

2026-08-20 08:32:50

Meta’s $1.4 trillion case is weighing on the stock, but the bigger trade may be valuation rather than a verdict-day options bet

Meta Platforms is being tried in a California-led consumer protection case that carries an extraordinary penalty range: states have asked for as much as $1.4 trillion, while Meta has countered with $4 million. The gap, as framed in the source article by Balder and translated by TechFlow, spans five orders of magnitude and leaves investors facing unusual uncertainty during the trial itself. Since the last close before jury selection, META has fallen 8.4%, versus a 0.7% decline in the S&P 500, a move the author argues reflects company-specific pressure rather than a broader market selloff. The article’s core argument is that the obvious trade — buying verdict-day, same-day-expiry call options — may be the wrong one. Because the ruling date is undisclosed, the risk lies not only in being wrong on direction but in being wrong on timing, while implied volatility on binary legal events is already expensive. Instead, the author says investors may be overlooking a different setup: Meta trades at about 16.9x forward earnings even as current profits are being depressed by heavy AI infrastructure and model spending. In that framing, the stock’s multiple and the durability of its advertising system may be more mispriced than any one-day options lottery tied to the court’s final filing.

720

Binance

2026-08-05 11:01:22

Binance-Affiliated Entities Sue RedotPay Founders for $472.8M Over User Diversion

According to Bloomberg, three Binance-linked entities—Nest Trading, DistributedTechnologies, and Chaintecs Consulting Singapore—have initiated legal action in Hong Kong against RedotPay's co-founders Gao Zhangpeng, Chan Wa Choi, and Yao Chao. The lawsuit accuses the trio of breaching agreements by funneling more than 470,000 users away from Binance Card to RedotPay, with claimed losses of $472.8 million. Binance says it discovered since March 2026 that RedotPay allowed Binance Pay funds to top up RedotPay cards without proper segregation, allegedly obtaining $304 million in user funds. RedotPay responded that it will actively defend against all allegations, stating operations remain unaffected. Additionally, Chaintecs has filed another suit against RedotPay affiliates in Singapore, with a hearing set for Friday. RedotPay, which previously pursued an IPO at roughly $4 billion valuation, now reports $14 billion in annualized payment volume, $180 million annualized revenue, and more than 8 million users.

2150

Kioxia

2026-08-03 06:42:09

Kioxia says subsidiary ordered to pay $229 million in ViaSat lawsuit

Kioxia, one of the world’s major memory chip makers, said its subsidiary has been ordered to pay $229 million in damages in litigation involving ViaSat, according to a BlockBeats report published on Aug. 3. The company also said it had already booked a loss provision in the first quarter for matters tied to the lawsuit. The update did not include additional details about the case beyond the damages figure and the accounting treatment disclosed by Kioxia. The report identified the item under the policy and regulation category.

2120

prediction-ma

2026-07-23 10:30:15

Wisconsin Sues Kalshi, Coinbase, Polymarket Over Alleged Illegal Sports Betting

Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul sues Kalshi, Robinhood, Coinbase, Polymarket, and Crypto.com, alleging "event contracts" are illegal sports betting. Kalshi's sports contracts account for 90% of its business, with annual revenue over $1 billion.

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