Scams

On June 17, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Maryland said HyperFund promoter Rodney Burton, known as "Bitcoin Rodney," pleaded guilty to conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business tied to an alleged $1.8 billion scheme. Prosecutors said Burton promoted HyperFund from June 2020 to January 2022 and received at least $7.85 million in proceeds. He faces up to five years in prison and is scheduled for sentencing on July 23.

Mystake, one of the largest UK-facing crypto-casino networks, went offline for roughly 20 hours last weekend after several B2B game studios removed their slot titles from its sites. The outage affected Mystake and related brands and left some pages showing errors or empty game libraries. The sites later returned, but with a reduced catalog as the broader crypto payment rails continued operating.

US Representatives María Elvira Salazar and Sean Casten introduced the Stop Crypto ATM Scams Act on June 11 to tighten rules for crypto ATM operators. The proposal follows reported 2025 losses of more than $333 million and would require scam warnings, recordkeeping, and new caps such as a $2,000 daily limit for new customers.

OpenAI said on June 8 it confidentially submitted an IPO filing to the SEC, while noting it has not settled on a timeline for going public. Separately, the SEC proposed removing parts of its NMS framework including Rule 611, a change one analyst said could reduce structural friction for tokenized US equities. Hungary’s new Tisza-led government also said it will roll back prior crypto-trading restrictions that included approval requirements for conversions and criminal penalties.

Web3 Antivirus reported that rug pulls represented more than 54% of newly detected crypto scams, with honeypots next at about 22%. It said these schemes often look like normal token launches until hidden contract permissions are used to block selling, pull liquidity, or lock user funds. The firm also cited scam distribution data led by email at 53% and referenced cases including a May fake Uniswap site that drained at least $400,000.

Brazil’s Chamber of Deputies advanced Bill 5819/2025, a proposal that would let judges freeze cryptocurrency wallets and bank accounts linked to suspected electronic fraud. The measure would also lift the maximum sentence for digital-channel fraud from 8 to 10 years and expand precautionary restrictions such as blocking real estate and limiting access to payment systems. The bill must still clear additional committees, pass votes in both chambers of Congress, and be signed by the president.

Google security engineer Michele Spagnuolo, who lives in Switzerland, is accused of using non-public Google search data to profit $1.2 million on Polymarket by betting on Google's "most-searched person" outcome. Prosecutors in Manhattan arrested him in late May 2026 and charged him with commodity fraud, wire fraud, and money laundering. The alleged trades centered on Google's Year in Search 2025 result, which became public on December 4, 2025.

U.S. authorities issued multiple warnings ahead of the 2026 FIFA World Cup about fake ticketing pages, counterfeit merchandise, and crypto-linked fraud, including an FBI public notice on May 27 and a Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department alert on June 3. Separate blockchain reports highlighted scam wallets with combined inflows under $1,700 and raised concerns about World Cup-themed tokens showing concentrated early ownership and low liquidity. The tournament was scheduled to kick off on June 11.

Humanity Protocol said a targeted phishing incident led to stolen director keys that were used in the June 8 $H token exploit, with the BNB Chain deployment now considered permanently compromised. The attacker allegedly upgraded contracts, moved about 141.18 million $H on Ethereum, minted additional tokens on BNB Smart Chain, and sold them via Uniswap and PancakeSwap over roughly eight hours. The project said the Ethereum contract was frozen using a clean multisig, while the canonical Humanity Mainnet bridge was not impacted.

Tether blacklisted a Tron address and froze 72,030,295 USDT on June 12, 2026, after activity tied to a large Monero purchase coincided with a sharp XMR move. The wallet had received 120.2 million USDT on June 11 and then routed funds across exchanges, cross-chain paths, and XMR buys, pushing XMR from around $330 to an intraday peak near $438.