South Korea focuses on OTC crypto regulations as unlawful deals reach $4B

US federal prosecutors and the co-founders of the crypto mixer Samourai Wallet have asked a court for more time to consider potentially dismissing the case after the Justice Department rolled back its crypto enforcement.Lawyers for Samourai Wallet CEO Keonne Rodriguez and chief technology officer William Hill said in an April 28 letter to Manhattan federal judge Richard Berman that they jointly requested with the government “for a continuance of the pretrial motions schedule by 16 days.”The Samourai executives’ lawyers said on April 10 that they wrote to Acting Manhattan US Attorney Jay Clayton to request the dismissal of the case after an April 7 memo from Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche shuttered the Justice Department’s crypto team.“On April 24, 2025, defense counsel met with the prosecutors and their supervisors in person at the U.S. Attorney’s Office to discuss this request,” the lawyers said.“The Defendants believe that a continuance of the pretrial motions schedule is warranted to permit Defendants to avoid the significant expense of preparing their motions while the Government determines its position,” the letter stated.It added that prosecutors agreed to adjourn “without expressing any views on the merits.”Samourai Wallet’s Rodriguez and Hill were charged with conspiracy to commit money laundering and operating an unlicensed money transmitting business in April 2024, to which they both pleaded not guilty.Blanche’s memo said, “The Department of Justice is not a digital assets regulator,” and it would abandon enforcement and investigations besides those which “focus on prosecuting individuals who victimize digital asset investors, or those who use digital assets in furtherance of criminal offenses.”An excerpt of the letter to Judge Berman. Source: PACERCurrently, motions in the Samourai executives’ case are due May 13, responses are due on June 10, and replies on June 24. The letter proposes to put this back to May 29 for motions, June 26 for responses, and July 10 for replies.The continuance would not affect the trial date, which is slated for early November. Quashing crypto litigation list lengthens The move is the latest in a long list of court actions to have prosecutors’ crypto cases quashed under the Trump administration’s favorable stance toward the industry. Related: SEC says it won’t re-file fraud case against Hex’s Richard Heart On April 9, SafeMoon CEO Braden John Karony, who is charged with wire fraud and money laundering, cited Blanche’s directive in a bid to get his case dismissed. Meanwhile, on April 28, the DeFi Education Fund petitioned the White House to drop charges against Tornado Cash co-founder Roman Storm and requested immediate action to “discontinue the Biden-era Department of Justice’s lawless campaign to criminalize open-source software development.” Magazine: Bitcoin $100K hopes on ice, SBF’s mysterious prison move: Hodler’s Digest

The crypto lobby group, the DeFi Education Fund, has petitioned the Trump administration to end what it claimed was the “lawless prosecution” of open-source software developers, including Roman Storm, a creator of the crypto mixing service Tornado Cash.In an April 28 letter to White House crypto czar David Sacks, the group urged President Donald Trump “to take immediate action to discontinue the Biden-era Department of Justice’s lawless campaign to criminalize open-source software development.” The letter specifically mentioned the prosecution of Storm, who was charged in August 2023 with helping launder over $1 billion in crypto through Tornado Cash. His trial is still set for July, and his fellow charged co-founder, Roman Semenov, is at large and believed to be in Russia.The DeFi Education Fund said that in Storm’s case, the Department of Justice is attempting to hold software developers criminally liable for how others use their code, which is “not only absurd in principle, but it sets a precedent that potentially chills all crypto development in the United States.”The group also called for the recognition that the prosecution contradicts the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) guidance from Trump’s first term, which established that developers of self-custodial, peer-to-peer protocols are not money transmitters. Source: DeFi Education Fund“This kind of legal environment does not just chill innovation — it freezes it,” they argued. The letter added that it also “empowers politically-motivated enforcement and puts every open-source developer at risk, regardless of industry.”In January, a federal court in Texas ruled that the Treasury overstepped its authority by sanctioning Tornado Cash. Stakes could not be higherThe group thanked Trump for his support of the industry and his stated goal to make America the “crypto capital of the planet.” They added, however, that his goal can’t be realized if developers are prosecuted for building tools that enable the technology.“We ask President Trump to protect American software developers, restore legal clarity, and end this unlawful DOJ overreach. The job’s not finished, and the stakes could not be higher.”Related: Tornado Cash dev wants charges dropped after court said OFAC ‘overstepped’Variant Fund chief legal officer Jake Chervinsky said the Justice Department’s case against Storm is “an outdated remnant of the Biden administration’s war on crypto.” “There is no justification in law or policy for prosecuting software developers for launching non-custodial smart contract protocols,” he added. At the time of writing, the petition had attracted 232 signatures from industry executives and developers, including Coinbase co-founder Fred Ehrsam, Paradigm co-founder Matt Huang, and Ethereum core developer Tim Beiko, among others.Magazine: Bitcoin $100K hopes on ice, SBF’s mysterious prison move: Hodler’s Digest

Despite growing competition from emerging issuers, the stablecoin market remains largely dominated by a few key players. According to data from Web3 research firm Nansen, Tether’s USDt continues to lead among US dollar-pegged stablecoins, even as competition intensifies.As of April 25, Tether (USDT) has a roughly 66% market share among stablecoins, compared to around 28% for USDC (USDC), Nansen said in the April 25 report. Ethena’s USDe stablecoin ranks a distant third, touting a market share of just over 2%. Nansen expects Tether’s lead to endure even as rivals such as USDC clock faster growth rates. “With nearly 3x as many users as Uniswap and 50+% more transactions than the next app, Tether is by and far the largest use case of onchain activity,” Nansen said.“Despite the potential dispersion in stables, we inevitably believe this is a ‘winner-takes-most’ market dynamic,” the Web3 researcher added. Tether has 66% of stablecoin market share. Source: NansenTether is also the most profitable stablecoin issuer, clocking nearly $14 billion in 2024 profits. The company earns revenue by accepting US dollars to mint USDT and subsequently investing those dollars into highly liquid, yield-bearing instruments such as US Treasury bills. “Given the growth of USDT and USDC, the users are clearly expressing that they do not necessarily care about the yield as they are forgoing it to Tether and Circle -they simply want access to the most liquid and ‘stable’/ least-likely-to-depeg stablecoin out there,” Nansen said.USDC has seen faster growth than USDT since November. Source: NansenCompetitive landscapeAdoption of USDC has accelerated since November, when US President Donald Trump’s election victory ushered in a more favorable US regulatory environment for crypto, Nansen said. Circle’s US-regulated stablecoin has been “particularly attractive to institutions requiring regulatory clarity,” the report said. But USDC now faces “intensifying competition as major traditional financial institutions (i.e., Fidelity, PayPal, and banks) enter the market,” Nansen said, adding that stablecoins, including PayPal’s PYUSD and Ripple USD, are “rapidly gaining traction.” On April 25, payment processor Stripe tipped plans to create a new stablecoin product of its own after buying stablecoin platform Bridge last year. Despite its smaller market share, Ethena’s yield-bearing USDe stablecoin remains “competitive on most fronts moving forward,” partly because of integrations across centralized exchanges (CEXs) and decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols, the report said.Since launching in 2024, Ethena’s stablecoin has generated an average annualized yield of approximately 19%, according to Ethena’s website. Magazine: Bitcoin payments are being undermined by centralized stablecoins