Lummis Pledges $150M Crypto-Fraud Fund as Coinbase Targets Equities, India Seizes Assets

Crypto News

US Senator Cynthia Lummis confirmed that the CLARITY Act would allocate $150 million in law-enforcement funding to pursue crypto fraudsters and malicious actors, pushing back against critics who warn the bill could weaken industry compliance oversight. Lummis argued the opposite, saying the measure would strengthen investigations into digital-asset fraud. Debate has centered on whether developers, node operators and validators should be classified as money transmitters. Solana Institute President Kristin Smith urged that Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act protections be fully preserved, shielding technical actors who never control customer funds. Lawmakers, regulators and investors are set to discuss the bill’s future at a Chicago summit expected to draw Representative Dusty Johnson.

India’s Enforcement Directorate filed a prosecution complaint and seized assets worth roughly 64.55 crore rupees, over $20 million, in a sweeping crypto-fraud case. Investigators named Chirag Tomar and several associates, alleging the scheme ran through fake websites impersonating Coinbase, including a counterfeit Coinbase Pro portal, to harvest victims’ login and verification data. On-chain data shows the stolen funds were moved across numerous wallets and converted into different digital assets to obscure the trail before peer-to-peer conversion into rupees. US court records show Tomar was arrested at Atlanta airport in December 2023 and later sentenced to 60 months in prison for wire-fraud conspiracy.

Coinbase widened its ambition to become an “everything exchange,” opening stock and ETF trading to US users through Coinbase Advanced and letting them transfer existing brokerage portfolios directly onto the platform. The migration runs through the Automated Customer Account Transfer Service, moving securities and cash between brokerages without selling. The exchange paired the rollout with zero-commission trading, fractional shares, charting tools and up to 3.5% rewards on eligible USDC balances. The move positions Coinbase against traditional brokerages and fintech rivals, letting users manage equities, ETFs and tokens from one account as the firm diversifies revenue beyond volatile crypto trading cycles.

In the same update, Coinbase detailed plans for options trading on both crypto and equities, tokenized stocks backed one-for-one by US shares with automatically paid dividends, and the ability to borrow against staked Solana. CEO Brian Armstrong framed the tokenized shares as real 1:1 backed instruments rather than derivatives or IOUs. The exchange also unveiled thematic and pre-IPO perpetual futures referencing private firms such as SpaceX, with OpenAI and Anthropic contracts expected later, plus expanded prediction markets. Coinbase introduced an SEC-registered advisory tool and automated AI trading bot agents, leaning on artificial intelligence to court more sophisticated traders.

President Donald Trump dismissed reports of a $300 billion US payout to Iran as fake news, yet crypto speculation around a proposed reconstruction fund refused to fade ahead of a preliminary memorandum expected on June 19. Vice President JD Vance said Gulf states, not American taxpayers, would supply any money, contingent on Tehran honoring nuclear commitments. Traders questioned whether funds could route through Bitcoin or stablecoins, echoing Iran’s history of using crypto to evade sanctions. On June 2, the US Treasury blacklisted four Iranian platforms, including Nobitex, which it said processed more than half of Iran’s crypto inflows in 2025.

Retail demand for faster market intelligence is reshaping how investors track a 24/7 market, with monitoring tools promising near-instant price feeds and customizable alerts. One such app refreshes thousands of asset prices at five-second intervals, consolidating watchlists, portfolios, alarms and personalized news on a single dashboard, functioning much like a lightweight AI crypto wallet companion. Its standout feature is multi-currency portfolio tracking, valuing holdings simultaneously across USD, TRY, EUR, JPY and other fiats, so a trader holding both Bitcoin and an altcoin priced in different currencies sees one unified total. Such tools reflect rising appetite for real-time data as volatility intensifies.

Taken together, these threads trace a market maturing on two fronts at once — institutional infrastructure expanding while enforcement and fraud risk sharpen. COINOTAG’s aggregate market data frames the mood: the Fear and Greed Index sits at 23, deep in Extreme Fear, Bitcoin dominance holds at 69.8% and total crypto market capitalization stands near $1.89 trillion. With Bitcoin trading around $66,000 and Ether near $1,800, capital is rotating defensively even as Coinbase’s everything-exchange pivot and the CLARITY Act’s $150 million enforcement line signal that regulation and traditional finance are converging on crypto. For now, our data points to a cautious, liquidity-tight tape favoring established assets over a broad bear market rebound.