court

According to Jinshi, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review the constitutionality of a now-repealed policy of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).The policy previously required individuals and companies that reached enforcement settlements with the SEC not to publicly criticize or question the allegations made by this Wall Street regulatory agency. The U.S. Supreme Court justices did not provide any explanation on Monday when they rejected the challenge regarding whether the SEC's so-called "gag order" infringed on individual constitutional rights.

According to Bloomberg, the Singapore International Commercial Court ruled that Terraform Labs and its founder Do Kwon committed fraud in a case related to the 2022 TerraUSD stablecoin collapse, and ordered them to pay over $3 million to 40 claimants.This ruling is part of the second phase of a case involving claims from 275 investors, with the compensation amount calculated based on the number of UST held by the claimants and the duration of their holdings.

The Hebei High Court released typical cases of cracking down on illegal fundraising. A certain man packaged an investment project with the concept of "metaverse" to promote the virtual goods investment project of the "Newmateworks" platform under the "Yishang United Community" to the public, inducing the masses to participate in the investment. He directly introduced 19 investors who invested a total of 15.3936 million yuan in the platform, of which 1.1014 million yuan has been returned, while 14.2922 million yuan has not been returned. The court found that this case used emerging technology concepts such as "metaverse" as a cover to implement fraudulent marketing, violating national financial management laws and regulations, with a huge amount involved. The behavior constituted the crime of illegally absorbing public deposits, and Chen was sentenced to five years and four months in prison and fined.

According to The Block, the High Court of Australia unanimously ruled that the fixed income digital asset product Earner launched by Block Earner is classified as a regulated financial product, and providing this product requires holding an Australian financial services license. The court supported the appeal of the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) and overturned the previous ruling by the lower court that was more favorable to Block Earner.

According to The Rage, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York (SDNY) has approved the government's pre-trial plan, confirming that a retrial of Tornado Cash developer Roman Storm for conspiracy to commit money laundering and conspiracy to evade sanctions will take place this fall.Meanwhile, the Rule 29 post-trial motion filed by Storm is still awaiting a court ruling. This motion challenges the evidence and legal theories that were the basis for last August's conviction, and if the ruling is favorable to Storm, it may prevent the retrial from proceeding.

Former CFTC and SEC Chairman Gary Gensler submitted an amicus brief to the appellate court, arguing that federal law does not grant his former agency, the CFTC, the authority to regulate sports-related prediction markets.Several other entities have submitted similar amicus briefs, stating that sports-related prediction markets violate state and tribal regulatory provisions. Courts in various parts of the United States are currently deliberating whether sports-related prediction markets should be regulated at the state or federal level, with related rulings involving tax collection and other regulatory matters.

According to The Block, New York Supreme Court Judge Kathy J. King signed an order to suspend the litigation seeking to claim ownership of 39,069 dormant Bitcoin wallets, with a hearing scheduled for July 14 on a key amicus brief.The plaintiffs in the case are known as "Noah Doe" and two shell companies, seeking to claim these wallets under New York State's lost property law. Attorney Ian R. Cohen submitted an amicus brief opposing the plaintiffs' claims. He argues that the lost property law pertains to tangible items, while blockchain addresses are always visible to the world; if the original owner cannot access their assets due to a security breach, it constitutes a passive loss of access rather than a voluntary relinquishment.Cohen emphasized that the plaintiffs do not have the private keys, and the blockchain network "structurally disregards" judicial rulings; the court's declaration cannot truly transfer ownership of the assets and may instead be used by the plaintiffs to mislead exchanges and custodians.Previously, on May 26, it was reported that a U.S. man and two companies filed a lawsuit seeking ownership of over 39,000 dormant Bitcoin addresses.

According to IOL, the High Court of Gauteng Province in South Africa ruled that Bitcoin falls under "capital" and "currency" within the South African foreign exchange control system, and ordered the confiscation of nearly 6 million rand worth of Bitcoin assets. The court determined that a trader transferred nearly 1,680 Bitcoins to a wallet accessible only through an overseas registered cryptocurrency exchange via their Luno account between January 2018 and March 2020, which amounted to exporting capital abroad without approval from the Treasury, violating foreign exchange control regulations.Meanwhile, the South African Treasury released a draft consultation on capital flow management for 2026 last month, aimed at modernizing the management of cross-border capital flows by reducing pre-approval for transactions, strengthening reporting, and monitoring high-impact, high-risk cross-border transactions.

Privacy Agreement Zama founder Rand posted on platform X that the freezing measures against the cUSDC contract under Zama have been lifted, and all systems have returned to normal operation.According to his introduction, a U.S. court previously ordered Circle to temporarily freeze a contract worth $12.5 million in USDC held by Zama without prior notice. The court has now determined that the freezing measure was unreasonable and has lifted the temporary restraining order (TRO), and the related cUSDC contracts and assets have been fully restored. Rand stated that this incident did not affect the team's trust in USDC, and Zama still plans to launch the cUSDC product later this month.

Galaxy stated that in March this year, the New York State Supreme Court quietly accepted a lawsuit aimed at confirming the ownership of over 3.7 million bitcoins (approximately $27.4 billion) associated with 39,069 bitcoin addresses, including addresses belonging to bitcoin founder Satoshi Nakamoto (a total of 21,744 addresses holding 1.09 million bitcoins, valued at $83.7 billion at current prices).The plaintiffs are Noah Doe (a pseudonym) and two unnamed limited liability companies from Wyoming. Noah Doe requests the New York State Supreme Court to declare their ownership of these dormant addresses through a declaratory judgment action under New York State's lost property law (Section 7-B of the Personal Property Law) as per the New York Civil Practice Law and Rules Section 3001.In short, they are trying to have the New York court rule that the bitcoins of bitcoin founder Satoshi Nakamoto (and many other lost address bitcoins) belong to lost property, and they claim the right to legally own them because they "found" these cryptocurrencies. From June 30 to July 10, 2025, they sent "abandonment notices" via OP_RETURN to each found address. However, even if they win completely, they will only receive a court statement; they will not obtain any private keys and will not be able to transfer any bitcoins from these addresses.But Galaxy indicated that the real value of the New York ruling lies in its potential to serve as a "title defect." If these bitcoins appear in any regulated venue, the plaintiff Noah Doe can use this document to raise objections with exchanges or custodians.

Zama protocol founder Rand posted on the X platform that, with the assistance of on-chain detective ZachXBT, the root cause of the cUSDC contract freeze has been identified. This freeze was caused by a court-issued injunction against addresses related to the Overnight Finance hacker, which had deposited approximately $12.5 million USDC into the cUSDC contract, accounting for over 99% of the funds within the contract, leading to the entire contract being frozen.Rand emphasized that this freeze is unrelated to the protocol itself or privacy technology, and it is not a sanction against Zama, but rather a typical DeFi judicial restriction scenario. The project adheres to compliance and privacy principles, not confusing the parties involved in transactions, only hiding balances and amounts. Currently, Zama is communicating with multiple parties to advance a resolution, has suspended the cUSDC, cUSDT, and cWETH contracts, and will restore them after completing the investigation and handling of the involved addresses, and will release a detailed review report as soon as possible.

The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) announced on Tuesday that it has jointly filed a motion with Gemini Trust Company LLC in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, requesting the dismissal of a previous judgment against Gemini.The case was originally filed in June 2022, and the parties reached a consent order in January 2025. After a comprehensive review, the CFTC concluded that the lawsuit should not have been filed and would not be filed under current enforcement standards.The review identified six major issues: the complaint was primarily based on statements from a whistleblower of questionable credibility; the investigation targeted Gemini as a victim of fraud rather than the alleged fraudster; there were serious doubts about the strength of the evidence against Gemini; relevant supporting materials were concealed and not submitted to the commissioners during the CFTC's vote on the complaint; the litigation team invoked deliberative process privilege to prevent Gemini from obtaining evidence necessary for its defense; and personnel improperly used CFTC regulatory power to create leverage for settlement.The CFTC determined that continuing to enforce the forward-looking provisions of the consent order is neither consistent with its mission nor in the public interest, and that the non-forward-looking provisions of the consent order (such as civil penalties) have been fulfilled. The parties jointly request the court to vacate the remaining forward-looking provisions.

The State Council Information Office held a series of themed press conferences titled "Starting Off the 14th Five-Year Plan," introducing the situation regarding "Promoting Comprehensive Rule of Law." Liu Guixiang, a deputy-level full-time member of the Judicial Committee of the Supreme People's Court and a second-level chief judge, stated that the Supreme Court will conduct in-depth research on the adjudication rules for new types of cases such as virtual currencies and cross-border finance, and will formulate judicial interpretations on civil compensation related to insider trading and market manipulation as soon as possible, to ensure the stable operation of the capital market and protect the legitimate rights and interests of small and medium-sized investors.In addition, he also mentioned that in response to the new business models of the digital economy, the Supreme Court will study and formulate normative documents regarding judicial protection of artificial intelligence cases and data property rights, improving the adjudication rules concerning data ownership, data transactions, and AI generation.

According to Bitcoin.com, the High Court of Windhoek, Namibia, revoked the bail of 8 absent defendants in a cryptocurrency fraud and human trafficking case and confiscated approximately $29,800 in bail money. The prosecution stated that the 8 individuals include 6 Chinese nationals, 1 Vanuatu national, and 1 Singaporean national, with 6 Chinese suspects tracked down to China. Namibian authorities have requested assistance from Interpol to locate them.The criminal group operated under a front company called Raylon Investments from December 2022 to October 2023. The group is suspected of recruiting unemployed Namibians and forcing them into labor. The state government stated that these employees were compelled to create fake social media accounts impersonating women from Europe and the United States to lure international victims into romantic relationships. Once trust was established, victims were manipulated into transferring money to cryptocurrency accounts controlled by the criminal group. Investigators estimate that the group stole approximately $267,800 from victims worldwide.

The Fuzhou City Cangshan District People's Procuratorate disclosed that a man was sentenced to 12 years and 7 months in prison for theft after stealing 4 Bitcoins from others and illegally profiting about 900,000 yuan, with a fine of 300,000 yuan. The second instance upheld the original verdict.The case shows that at the end of 2020, Wang entrusted Lin to assist in cashing out the Bitcoins he held. During the process of accessing Wang's Bitcoin wallet hard drive and computer, Lin stole the wallet's "private key" and related data, transferring 4 Bitcoins into his own name, and subsequently sold them for profit. In 2024, after Wang discovered abnormal asset activity, he reported it to the police, and Lin was subsequently arrested.The procuratorial authority stated that although current regulations clearly indicate that virtual currencies do not have the status of legal tender, Bitcoins possess value, manageability, and transferability, meeting the general characteristics of "property" in criminal law, and are subject to property crime. Relevant infringement actions will also be held criminally accountable.

According to Bloomberg, the U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that the enforcement lawsuits by Nevada and Washington against the prediction market platforms Kalshi and Polymarket can continue in state court, and rejected the companies' request to pause the related cases during the appeal.The court stated that Kalshi and Polymarket failed to demonstrate that the state court lawsuits would cause irreparable harm, nor did they prove that their claims regarding federal question jurisdiction had a high likelihood of success. This ruling involves the enforcement actions by Nevada against Kalshi and Polymarket, as well as the case against Kalshi by Washington.

According to Bloomberg, Galaxy Digital founder and billionaire Michael Novogratz confronted BitGo Holdings CEO Mike Belshe in court this week over a four-year merger dispute.BitGo is seeking at least $100 million in damages from Galaxy, stemming from Galaxy's proposed $1.2 billion acquisition in 2021—at the time the largest merger deal in the history of the crypto industry—which ultimately fell through due to the collapse of the crypto market. BitGo alleges that Galaxy failed to make reasonable efforts to push the deal to completion and concealed relevant details about investigations by U.S. authorities, which could significantly impact the completion of the merger.

According to the Korea Herald, a South Korean court partially approved Samsung Electronics' request for an injunction against the union's planned strike. Samsung turned from a decline to an increase, and the South Korean KOSPI index turned positive, reversing a previous decline of 4.68%.

On May 5, the Hong Kong High Court approved the application of the Department of Justice to issue an injunction against 42 individuals and companies, including Chen Zhi, the founder of the Prince Group, who are suspected of operating a scam park in Cambodia, freezing a total of HKD 8.938 billion in assets. The frozen assets include deposits in bank and securities accounts, stocks, and properties. Among them, Chen Zhi's personal assets in Hong Kong exceed HKD 6.36 billion. Zhou Yun, who assists in managing his assets, has total assets exceeding HKD 2 billion, and her personal accounts hold the equivalent of HKD 15.92 million in Hong Kong dollars, euros, and Bitcoin. In addition, related personnel from the Prince Group, Hu Xiaowei and Li Tian, have approximately HKD 400 million and HKD 172 million in assets frozen, respectively. The court will reconvene on August 3 to decide whether to extend the injunction.

According to official news, based on the update from the Arbitrum DAO proposal, a judgment creditor in an unrelated case served a restraining order to Arbitrum DAO regarding the ETH frozen after the rsETH incident. A few days later, Aave LLC filed an emergency motion to vacate. The court modified the restraining order, allowing for on-chain Arbitrum voting and transferring the frozen ETH to Aave LLC.After the transfer, the restraining order will attach to Aave LLC. The revised constitutional AIP retains the asset recovery intent approved by Arbitrum DAO, and ETH will still be used for the recovery of the rsETH incident. Aave LLC will comply with all court obligations during the litigation process.