After US Military Attack, Iran's Nobitex Crypto Exchange Sees 700% Surge in Funds Outflow
March 2: Elliptic data shows outflows from Iran’s cryptocurrency exchange Nobitex surged 700% within minutes of the U.S.’s first-ever airstrike.
Since January, similar outflows have coincided with new U.S. sanctions and nationwide internet shutdowns amid protests—reflecting how digital assets are increasingly used to bypass Iran’s banking system.
Nobitex processed $7.2 billion in crypto transactions in 2025, with over 11 million users. It’s a key part of Iran’s crypto ecosystem and linked to financial activities tied to the Revolutionary Guard. In January, Elliptic also revealed Iran’s Central Bank used Nobitex to back a sharp rial devaluation.
The sharp outflow spike last Saturday (March 2) may signal capital flight. Nobitex lets users convert rials to crypto and withdraw to external wallets, allowing funds to skirt some global banking system scrutiny when leaving Iran. Preliminary tracking shows recent outflows are heading to overseas crypto exchanges that have historically
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TRM Labs Report: 2025 AI-Driven Crypto Scam Cases Increase by 500% YoY
March 2nd — Blockchain analytics firm TRM Labs’ latest report finds artificial intelligence is deeply reshaping digital financial crime. By 2025, annual illicit cryptocurrency flows could hit $158 billion, with AI-driven fraud cases surging ~500% year-over-year.
The report notes autonomous AI agents can automatically split funds, select cross-chain bridges, and trade on decentralized platforms in seconds—slashing money laundering timeframes and rendering traditional monitoring methods ineffective.
TRM Labs warns AI has not created new criminal motivations, but it has drastically lowered barriers to large-scale evasion. Attackers can launch attacks via malicious prompt injection, data tampering, or key hijacking—even building dedicated agents to evade sanctions. Meanwhile, well-intentioned agents chasing high returns may funnel funds to risky entities, triggering compliance crises.
The report stresses accountability remains a challenge: AI lacks legal personality, shifting resp
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Decentralized Cloud Infrastructure Akash Completes $6.65 Million Financing Round with Avalanche Foundation Among Investors
March 2 — Akave, a decentralized enterprise cloud infrastructure firm, has closed a $6.65 million funding round led by Protocol Labs, No Limit Holdings, Blockchange, Lightshift, Blockchain Builders Fund, Big Brain Holdings, the Avalanche Foundation and the Filecoin Foundation.
Akave’s decentralized cloud storage platform, Akave Cloud, is built on the Avalanche L1 blockchain and targets an S3-compatible decentralized storage solution for AI applications. The platform offers on-chain verifiability, programmable access controls, and no data egress fees. It integrates with tools like Snowflake and Apache Iceberg, plus an option to long-term archive data to the Filecoin network.
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BitMine increased its ETH holdings by 50,928 coins last week, Tom Lee stated that the current market is in the "late bear" phase.
March 2 — BitMine announced Thursday that its total holdings of cryptocurrencies, cash, and high-risk, high-return investment projects are valued at $9.9 billion, per official sources.
As of 2:00 PM ET on March 1, 2026, the company’s holdings include:
- 4,473,587 ETH
- 195 BTC
- $200 million in Beast Industries equity
- $14 million in Eightco Holdings equity
- $868 million in cash
BitMine’s ETH holdings represent 3.71% of the total ETH supply.
BitMine CEO Thomas “Tom” Lee noted: “As we move past the latter stages of the ‘mini crypto winter,’ we’re steadily executing our Ethereum-focused financial strategy. Geopolitical uncertainty has escalated in recent days — the U.S. has launched military action against Iran, and its impact will show up in financial and digital asset markets in the coming weeks. We’re continuing to accumulate ETH steadily and optimize returns on our holdings.”
Lee added that BitMine boosted its ETH holdings by 50,928 tokens last week. “We see t
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