Scams

South Korea is advancing regulations to hold major cryptocurrency exchanges to bank-level liability standards following a November 27 hack at Upbit that resulted in $30.1 million in losses. The Financial Services Commission is reviewing provisions that would require platforms to compensate users for security breaches and system failures regardless of fault. The proposed framework mirrors existing rules applied to traditional banks under the country's electronic financial transactions law.

Federal prosecutors have requested a 12-year prison sentence for Do Kwon, co-founder of Terraform Labs, following his guilty plea to fraud charges in August. Kwon admitted to orchestrating schemes between 2018 and 2022 that deceived cryptocurrency investors and led to TerraUSD's $40 billion collapse in 2022. His defense team has proposed a reduced five-year term, and sentencing is set for December 11.

Blockaid, a crypto security firm, detected malicious code on the official Pepe website on December 4, 2025. The site harbors Inferno Drainer software that targets connected wallets to extract funds. PEPE has dropped over 75% year-to-date and trades near $0.0000040.

Cybersecurity firm Hudson Rock identified an infected device linked to suspected North Korean state-sponsored hackers in the $1.4 billion Bybit cryptocurrency theft in February 2025. The device was central to establishing infrastructure that supported the theft, with domains registered before the attack and used in phishing operations. The incident underscores sophisticated cyber threats targeting digital financial platforms and raises concerns about vulnerabilities in centralized exchanges.

On-chain investigator ZachXBT reported on December 5 that a British individual allegedly connected to the $243M Genesis creditor Bitcoin theft may have been apprehended in Dubai. Approximately $18.58M in cryptocurrency has reportedly been seized and held in a single Ethereum wallet. Dubai authorities have not issued official confirmation of any arrest or seizure.

Federal prosecutors have requested a 12-year prison term for Terraform Labs founder Do Kwon in connection with the 2022 collapse of Terra USD and Luna tokens that wiped out $40 billion in value. The sentencing recommendation was filed Thursday with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. Prosecutors cited the unprecedented scale of the fraud and Kwon's conduct in artificially inflating asset values while enriching himself.

The PEPE memecoin's official website has been compromised, redirecting visitors to phishing pages designed to steal wallet credentials. Cybersecurity firm Blockaid detected malicious code linked to the Inferno Drainer toolkit embedded in the site's front end. Meanwhile, the PEPE/DOGE trading pair is on track to close its second consecutive weekly gain, marking the first back-to-back weekly advance since June.

A British individual allegedly connected to the theft of $243 million from a Genesis creditor may have been detained in Dubai, blockchain investigator ZachXBT stated on December 5. Approximately $18.58 million in cryptocurrency was reportedly seized from addresses linked to the suspect. UAE authorities have not publicly confirmed any arrests or asset seizures related to the case.

SpaceX moved 1,083 BTC worth approximately $99.81 million to Coinbase Prime Custody addresses, data show. The USPD stablecoin suffered a $1 million exploit through a CPIMP attack that compromised proxy-layer logic during deployment on September 16, 2025. A Cloudflare outage disrupted access to major exchanges including Coinbase, Kraken, and Upbit.

The official Pepe memecoin website has been infiltrated through a front-end exploit involving Inferno Drainer malware. Cybersecurity firm Blockaid issued an alert on December 4, 2025, warning users that malicious code was injected into the site. The attack aims to redirect visitors to phishing pages designed to steal wallet credentials and drain digital assets.