TFIN DAO | Web3

A new CertiK report says “wrench attacks” on crypto holders jumped 75% in 2025, with at least 72 verified cases where criminals used threats, home invasions, kidnappings or assaults to force victims to unlock wallets or hand over seed phrases, causing more than 40 million dollars in confirmed losses. Europe is now the main hotspot, accounting for over 40% of incidents, with France alone logging 19 cases as organized groups increasingly track on-chain identities and social media to target wealthy holders. The report calls this a “technical paradox,” where stronger digital security pushes criminals toward physical coercion, and notes that even Lloyd’s of London now offers insurance that explicitly covers such attacks, highlighting that personal privacy and physical safety are now core parts of crypto security, not just passwords and cold storage.

The U.S. Treasury has, for the first time, sanctioned entire crypto exchanges under its Iran program, blacklisting U.K. registered platforms Zedcex and Zedxion for operating in Iran’s financial sector and helping move about 1 billion dollars in stablecoins, mainly USDT on Tron, for entities linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The action also freezes associated wallets and cuts the exchanges off from compliant banks and service providers, and targets a network tied to Iranian businessman Babak Morteza Zanjani, long accused of aiding sanctions evasion. Officials say this is part of a broader effort to crack down on Iran’s shadow banking channels and sends a clear warning to the wider industry that platforms which facilitate high risk Iranian flows risk not just fines, but being fully severed from the dollar and global financial system.

Bitcoin plunged to around 81,000 dollars in one of its worst days of the year, wiping almost 10,000 dollars off the price in hours and triggering about 777 million dollars in long liquidations that deepened the drop. The selloff came as traders reacted to shifting odds that a more hawkish candidate, Kevin Warsh, could become the next Federal Reserve chair, which hurt hopes for easier policy and pushed investors toward gold and silver. Technical indicators like the daily RSI slipped below the neutral zone and trend signals turned negative, with analysts now watching to see if bitcoin can quickly reclaim the high 80,000s or risk another leg lower.

A group of crypto lawyers revisited the open letter they sent President Trump a year ago about how to make the United States the world’s crypto capital and issued a new “report card,” concluding that the goal now looks realistically achievable if current progress continues. They give the U.S. an A- for supporting companies, citing a friendlier tone from key agencies, active White House engagement and movement on a Senate Agriculture Committee market structure bill. The grades drop to a B and B+ for the overall business environment and alignment with core crypto values, since enforcement remains patchy and key legislation on market structure and stablecoins is still pending. The authors argue that while the work is unfinished, clearer roles for the CFTC, better definitions of which assets are commodities and growing awareness in Congress of the risks of overregulation mean America is closer than ever to genuine crypto leadership, as long as lawmakers can lock in durable rules without undermining decentralization and open access.

ERC 8004 is a new Ethereum standard that gives AI agents a persistent on chain identity and reputation, using three registries for identity, reputation and validation so that agents can prove who they are and how they have behaved across apps and networks. Instead of leaving this data inside closed platforms, ERC 8004 keeps it on a neutral blockchain where any framework can read it, which supporters see as the basis for an open agent economy. The standard is already being implemented on networks like Polygon and combined with payment rails such as Coinbase’s x402 so agents can both transact and be held accountable on chain, with tools like 8004scan tracking thousands of registered agents. Analysts say this positions Ethereum and its companion networks as a trust layer for autonomous software, even though ETH’s price has not reacted strongly and still trades around three thousand dollars.

Silver perpetual futures on Hyperliquid are now trading close to 1 billion dollars in daily volume at around 110 dollars per unit, putting the SILVER USDC contract behind only bitcoin and ether pairs on the platform and ahead of big altcoin markets like solana and XRP, with slightly negative funding that signals two way positioning rather than a one sided squeeze. Bitcoin, meanwhile, is stuck in a tight range near 88,000 dollars, with weak ETF flows and options markets showing more interest in downside protection than aggressive upside bets. The shift reflects a broader move into hard assets as gold and silver rip to new highs, and shows how crypto native venues are turning into multi asset derivatives hubs where traders increasingly use on chain infrastructure to express macro views on metals while BTC trades in a defensive equilibrium.