FBI agent arrested for stealing $1 million in crypto from bureau wallets

An FBI agent with top secret clearance stole $1 million in crypto from bureau-investigated wallets. BlackRock debuts two blockchain-based money market funds. And Bitmine keeps buying ETH.  ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ SPONSORED BY Monday, August 3, 2026 U.S. FBI intelligence agent arrested in connection with theft of $1 million in crypto A senior FBI supervisory special agent with "top secret" clearance has been arrested and charged with stealing more than $1 million in cryptocurrency from wallets belonging to foreign individuals his unit had investigated. Patrick Steven Yarmoch, who worked in counterintelligence at FBI headquarters in Washington — specifically in a unit focused on an unnamed adversary nation — allegedly used access to FBI systems to extract private keys and made as many as a dozen transfers to himself, then routed the funds through Kraken and Suilend, a DeFi protocol on the Sui blockchain. Court filings say Yarmoch walked into the FBI himself and disclosed what he had done, before being suspended, fired, and arrested on July 31. Investigators who searched his devices found AI chat logs in which he asked how to move $1 million to Europe, which app recommended Portugal. He had also recently made unreported trips to Germany, Portugal, and Grenada in violation of FBI rules, and had booked travel for his family to Portugal next month. He is now in detention in Alexandria, Virginia. Read more → A message from CME Group We are proud to announce that Nasdaq CME Crypto Index futures are now live and available to trade 24 hours a day, seven days a week.   Combining Nasdaq's expertise in world-class indexing with our liquid, transparent and CFTC-regulated marketplace, this launch continues to deepen our partnership.   The result is a groundbreaking new way for you to gain exposure to a significant portion of the cryptocurrency market – including bitcoin, ether, XRP, Solana, Cardano, Stellar, Chainlink and newly added Bitcoin Cash – all within a single, financially settled transaction.   Why trade Nasdaq CME Crypto index futures? Broad exposure, simplified: Instead of trading multiple assets, you can access a basket of the world's leading cryptocurrencies in one trade. Capital efficiency: Control a larger position with a smaller capital outlay and benefit from potential margin offsets. Right-sized trading: Choose between larger- or Micro-sized contracts to precisely scale your strategy – anywhere, anytime. Find out more Finance BlackRock expands tokenized cash with new blockchain-based money market offerings BlackRock launched two new blockchain-based money market products on Monday: the BlackRock Select Treasury Based Liquidity Fund (BSTBL), a tokenized share class of an existing money market fund running on Ethereum, and the BlackRock Daily Reinvestment Stablecoin Reserve Vehicle (BRSRV), a new fund with daily dividend reinvestment accessible across multiple blockchains. Both are designed to qualify as eligible reserve assets for stablecoin issuers under the GENIUS Act, signaling BlackRock's ambition to be the dominant reserve manager for the stablecoin industry — a position its CFO Martin Small made explicit last quarter, noting the firm already manages $60 billion of reserves for Circle, roughly a quarter of the entire $300 billion stablecoin market. Securitize serves as BRSRV's transfer agent and tokenization provider. The moves follow the 2024 launch of BUIDL, BlackRock's first tokenized money market fund, which has grown to about $2.5 billion in assets and is widely used as collateral in crypto markets. The tokenized real-world asset market has grown more than 200% in the past year to over $30 billion. Read more → Finance Tom Lee's Bitmine bought more ether, added to stock buyback last week Bitmine Immersion (BMNR), the largest Ethereum treasury company, purchased 10,399 ETH last week for roughly $19.1 million, lifting its holdings to nearly 5.8 million ETH — about 4.8% of Ethereum's circulating supply. The company also bought back 4.5 million shares, bringing total recent repurchases to 16 million shares. Chairman Tom Lee framed the purchases around ether's July performance: ETH outperformed the Nasdaq 100 by 2,500 basis points last month, the largest such gap since July 2025 — which preceded a rally from $2,375 to over $4,000 the following month. Bitmine has staked 4.9 million ETH, roughly 85% of its holdings, projecting about $247 million in annualized staking revenue through its MAVAN platform. The update came the same day that Strategy disclosed selling another 1,638 BTC worth $105 million — a contrast that underscores the diverging conviction between the largest bitcoin and ether treasury companies. Read more → Know someone who should be reading this? Share this newsletter See all of CoinDesk’s newsletters    CoinDesk, Inc., 61 9th Avenue, 5th Floor, New York,NY,10011,USA, Unsubscribe Manage Preferences   Copyright © 2026 CoinDesk, All rights reserved.