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The Division 2 kicks off 10th anniversary year with The Division 2: Survivors, “an updated take on the survival extraction experience”

by admin August 23, 2025

The Division 2: Survivors is “an updated take on the survival extraction experience” coming to The Division 2.

At a panel at Gamescom, the company confirmed that though development is currently “in the early stages” under the watchful eye of creative director and “veteran of the Division from the early days of the original game”, Magnus Jansén, the team is keen to involve the community from the off.

The Division 2: The Pact – Official Launch Trailer.Watch on YouTube

“The Division 2: Survivors is as much your baby as it is ours, and we strive for transparency during its development. Clear communication and community involvement are a focus as we build the new experience, and we will be closely involving you as we move forward on the development journey,” said executive producer, Julian Gerighty.

There was no in-game artwork or screenshots to share, but Ubisoft did reveal a handful of concept art pieces, which you can see below.

Image credit: Ubisoft

We don’t quite know when to expect it – it’s still labelled as TBA for now – but we did get a little update on what else players can expect over the course of this year and next:

Image credit: Ubisoft | Image credit: Ubisoft

Interested in trying before you buy and maybe giving a little feedback as you go? Ubisoft is looking to refresh its Elite Task Program, so sign up now if you’re a “committed player [looking] to engage directly with the development team and assist in guiding the future of the Division”.

The Division Resurgence – the free-to-play mobile RPG shooter that picks up a few months after the events of the original game – is also looking for participants for closed tests on both iOS and Android. Ubisoft says it offers “the same gameplay experience as the Division games adapted to mobile gaming”, and “with a familiar map updated to reflect the passage of time, the Division Resurgence will bridge the narrative gap between the Division 1 and 2, adding to the existing lore with additional story beats over time.”

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August 23, 2025 0 comments

Game Updates

Assassin’s Creed Mirage to get surprise free story DLC later this year

by admin August 23, 2025

Ubisoft has confirmed new DLC is on the way later this year for 2023’s Assassin’s Creed Mirage.

The free new content will feature a new story chapter and an unspecified number of missions set in 9th century AlUla, an ancient Arabian city.

Ian goes hands-on with Assassin’s Creed Mirage.Watch on YouTube

Ubisoft also confirmed the update will bring gameplay improvements for the base game, as well as the new location, “all for free”.

Assassin’s Creed Mirage players, we have a surprise coming your way later this year!

📖 New story chapter & missions set in 9th century AlUla
🎮 Gameplay improvements for the base game and the new location
🎁 All for free

Stay tuned! pic.twitter.com/8CjB3MRvfR

— Assassin’s Creed (@assassinscreed) August 23, 2025

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The new content follows reports Ubisoft received investment from Saudi Arabia’s controversial Public Investment Fund (PIF) specifically to develop additional content for Assassin’s Creed Mirage. The PIF is an initiative designed as a way to diversify the country’s revenues via investment in foreign companies, with a large arm focused on the video games industry. It’s chaired by Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the controversial ruler blamed by the CIA for the assassination of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who has upheld the country’s notoriously poor human rights record. Ubisoft declined to comment on the report at the time.

Despite this, the PIF holds a notable stake in a swathe of gaming companies, including Grand Theft Auto publisher Take-Two Interactive, Nintendo, EA, Embracer, Nexon, and Capcom.

We had a good time with Assassin’s Creed Mirage when we reviewed it, awarding it four stars, calling it “a fascinating new city and the embrace of a classic formula”.

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August 23, 2025 0 comments

NFT Gaming

4 Explosive Cryptos ChatGPT Says Could Go Parabolic This Year

by admin August 21, 2025

Trusted Editorial content, reviewed by leading industry experts and seasoned editors. Ad Disclosure

If you’re tired of Wall Street analysts, mainstream investors, and major publications recycling the same 7-10 big-name cryptos as the ‘must-haves’ for your portfolio, maybe it’s time to spice things up and try a fresh approach – one powered by AI.

To put it to the test, we asked ChatGPT for its top picks for the next cryptos to explode.

And to our delight, the AI dug deep into social sentiment, online chatter across platforms like X and Reddit, and recent performance data from sources like CoinMarketCap to churn out a mix of utility-driven altcoins and pure community-backed meme coins.

Each of these has the potential to deliver returns strong enough to outshine the mainstream picks combined. That’s the true power of an altcoin season.

Keep reading to discover ChatGPT’s top altcoins to buy right now, including what they bring to the table, their past performance, and their explosive potential ahead.

1. Maxi Doge ($MAXI) – Dogecoin on Steroids, Built for 1000x Gains

Maxi Doge ($MAXI) is ChatGPT’s top pick for the best crypto to buy now, so right off the bat the AI is backing projects with low-cap, high-upside potential. Exactly the kind of explosive plays you want in this altcoin cycle.

Think of Maxi as Dogecoin on steroids. On paper, he looks a lot like Doge, but under the hood, he’s a different beast altogether. While Doge thrives on wholesome, cutesy vibes, Maxi flips the script. He’s the anti-Doge.

His aura is built around lifting heavy at the gym, chugging protein shakes and caffeine, and pulling all-nighters staring at charts hunting the next 1000x crypto. That’s what $MAXI represents: raw, unfiltered, wild degen energy.

The crypto community has rallied around Maxi’s mindset of never skipping leg day, never skipping a pump.

In their eyes, there’s no point chasing 5-10% gains when the real opportunity is in 1000x returns, i.e., if you’re bold and knowledgeable enough to take the bet.

So how does $MAXI plan to turn this vision into reality? By going viral. The roadmap is built around heavy marketing and community engagement.

$MAXI holders, for instance, gain access to exclusive weekly trading competitions, leaderboards, prizes, and events designed to drive demand and hype.

On top of that, a huge 40% of the token’s supply is reserved for PR events, paid campaigns, and influencer collaborations, all aimed at cementing $MAXI as a top trending crypto.

And the degen energy doesn’t stop there. The devs also plan to push Maxi onto major futures platforms, giving loyal $MAXI traders the perfect chance to crank up their leverage and shoot for sky-high gains.

Why chase safe plays when you can go 1000x long! That’s the $MAXI ethos: life is short, crypto is wild, and the only way forward is full throttle.

Currently in presale, Maxi Doge has already raised over $1.3M from early investors, with each token available at just $0.000253. Get in while it’s still under the radar!

For more information, check out $MAXI’s official website.

2. Snorter Token ($SNORT) – Leveling the Playing Field in Meme Coin Trading

Snorter Token ($SNORT) is one of the hottest new altcoins in presale, offering the perfect opportunity to ride the explosive growth of the meme coin market.

Over the past year, meme coins have surged, with market capitalization climbing more than 81% and trading volume skyrocketing 165%, proving that this segment is attracting fresh participants and spawning thousands of new tokens daily.

So how does Snorter plan to capture this momentum? By powering the Snorter Bot, a next-generation Telegram trading bot built to give retail traders the same edge as institutions.

Unlike other bots in the industry, Snorter Bot offers automated execution of buy/sell limit/stop orders, enabling retail participants to snipe liquidity in newly listed meme coins – something that was once nearly impossible because institutions dominated with advanced tools.

Even better, Snorter makes this power accessible to everyone. While beating institutional whales might sound complicated, Snorter keeps things simple.

Since it runs directly on Telegram, using it is as easy as sending a regular message. Place orders, monitor your crypto portfolio, or even copy trades from seasoned pros, all with straightforward chat commands.

And Snorter is just as secure as it is easy to use. The bot is designed with top-tier safeguards to protect you from on-chain threats like rug pulls, honeypots, and MEV (Maximal Extractable Value) attacks.

With Snorter, you can dive into the meme coin arena with confidence, knowing you won’t lose your funds to malicious actors.

Interested? Buy $SNORT, which, by the way, won’t just allow you to ride the bot’s growth but also unlock a bunch of exclusive perks, including:

No daily sniping limits
Lowest trading fees in the industry – just 0.85%
Advanced analytics
Staking rewards – currently yielding 135%

The best part? Since Snorter Token is currently in presale ($3.2M+ raised), you can grab it for an ultra-low price of $0.1019.

Visit $SNORT’s official website for more information.

3. Tutorial ($TUT) – AI-Powered Crypto Educator Turned Market Star

Launched in February this year, Tutorial ($TUT) has quickly become one of the steadiest performers in the altcoin market.

Since its debut, $TUT has surged over 23,300%, with most of that explosive growth credited to its massive rally in March.

As the name suggests, Tutorial isn’t just another meme or speculative token; it’s built with a mission to educate users on the fundamentals of cryptocurrency, blockchain, and especially the BNB Chain ecosystem.

At the heart of this project is the Tutorial Agent, an AI-powered educational tool designed to simplify complex crypto concepts, like trading on the best decentralized exchanges (DEXs), creating a crypto wallet, or writing smart contracts.

After two months of virtually no action, $TUT surged over 9% yesterday alongside a significant spike in trading volume.

This move could signal the end of its consolidation phase and the start of renewed upward momentum, fueled by growing participation in the broader crypto market.

4. Comedian ($BAN) – Chaos, Controversy, and a Fresh Breakout

If you’re looking for a proven performer that has just kicked off a new rally, Comedian, alongside Tutorial, is a fantastic choice.

The token recently broke out of a long-standing consolidation zone that had been in place since early May. Even better, it did so with a fat green candle, surging 34% in a single day.

Now, Comedian looks set to retest its recent all-time highs of around $0.20, which would mean another 130% upside from current levels.

So, what exactly is Comedian? At its core, it’s a hype-driven meme coin built on irony and social commentary. Its inspiration comes from the infamous modern art piece featuring a banana taped to a wall.

If you’ve been on the internet long enough, you might remember how this work sparked heated debates about whether modern art was genius or just plain ridiculous.

As a good community-driven meme coin, Comedian doesn’t take sides. Instead, it thrives on the chaos of internet culture, using controversy and conversation as fuel for massive investor gains.

And while that might sound nonsensical to a traditional Wall Street analyst, it’s exactly this raw, unpredictable momentum that meme coins use to rocket portfolios in today’s market.

Conclusion

When asked to ditch the obvious choices and pick a high-risk, high-reward portfolio, ChatGPT cut through the noise and spotlighted high-upside plays with return potential no top-of-the-shelf crypto guru list will ever give you.

That said, kindly keep in mind that none of the above is financial advice. The crypto market is highly volatile, so you must always do your own research before investing.

Editorial Process for bitcoinist is centered on delivering thoroughly researched, accurate, and unbiased content. We uphold strict sourcing standards, and each page undergoes diligent review by our team of top technology experts and seasoned editors. This process ensures the integrity, relevance, and value of our content for our readers.

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August 21, 2025 0 comments

Game Reviews

No Path of Exile 2 1.0 release this year, as DDOS attacks blamed for server issues and huge new update revealed

by admin August 20, 2025

Path of Exile 2 developer Grinding Gear Games had previously and optimistically said a 1.0 full release might happen this year. GGG gave it a 65 percent chance of happening when I spoke with the studio in March. But those ambitions have now been ruled out.

Speaking after a presentation for the incoming Third Edict update, also known as 0.3.0, and answering a question asked by me, game director Jonathan Rogers said: “Yes I believe that we probably aren’t going to hit 1.0 this year.

“What it currently comes down to is there are two things we need to make sure of before we can have a release. The first one is that we have to have a campaign finished – that’s obviously important – and the second one is that we have to be in a balance-state where people are actually happy and things are going well. Until we’ve had a release where we’re sure both of those things are true, then we can’t release.

“It could be March [2026],” he added. “We release things every four months so December would be the next one and then March after that, so I would certainly hope that March could happen, but I’m not going to promise anything. Because ultimately it just comes down to: have we met those two criteria? At this point it would be quite hard to get Act 5 in December but we’ll see about that, and as for getting good balance: we have a little way to go with that. But I’m hoping things will be a lot better for this release.”

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The release he’s referring to is the Third Edict, the enormous incoming update for the Early Access version of Path of Exile 2, due 29th August. It will bring, among other things, the fourth act of the game, temporary interlude acts, the game’s first League, a new trading system, a crafting overhaul, a sprinting mechanic, an overhaul for Support Gems and a considerable rework of the existing classes and their skills. Note that there’s no new character class this time around but balance changes took precedence.

I’ll outline some of those changes but before I do there are two other pieces of more urgent news. One is in relation to server issues Path of Exile 2 has been having, which Rogers said were down to DDOS (distributed denial of service) attacks. “I’m very aware of the server problems and this has been a major thing that our server admins have been looking into over the last three months,” he told our congregated group of press. “It’s basically all down to DDOSing; we’re getting DDOSed continuously.”

Grinding Gear Games has, in response, gotten rid of server hosts that couldn’t deal with the problem and added DDOS protection to those that remain. “By the time we do the 0.3.0 launch,” he said, “everything should have DDOS protection in front of it. We’ve done a lot of work in this area. Right now the servers shouldn’t be having any problems because all of that infrastructure’s in place, so as far as I’m concerned, that problem should be fixed.”

Shark monsters, check; octopus-armed pirate captain monster bosses, check…

The other urgent piece of news concerns a free weekend for Path of Exile 2, which will coincide with the Third Edict update on 29th August. For that weekend, you won’t need the £24 Starter Pack in order to play. And I heartily recommend you do play.

Now, to the Third Edict update. The long-awaited fourth act of the game – the penultimate act – takes place across a Polynesian kind of archipelago which you can sail around in any order you please. There are eight islands, 16 new areas, 12 new bosses and more than 100 new monster types. And when you’re done with them, instead of being funnelled back to replaying the existing acts, as you are currently, you will now play new interlude acts. Three of them. These are bespoke versions of the existing acts designed to offer a new experience, meaning yet more new areas and bosses and ideas. But these are temporary; when Act 5 does arrive, they will go.

The big change to Support Gems comes via removing the restriction of having one Support Gem type per character, and from introducing higher tiers of them. There’s also a brand new kind of uber Support Gem called a Lineage Support, which drops from bosses and has the power and potential to redefine your entire character build.

Sprinting is available to all classes and lets you hold down a button to get to places quicker and to outrun enemies, which sounds useful, but if you’re hit while sprinting you will be knocked down, so there’s some risk to it.

…monkey bosses, check. | Image credit: Grinding Gear Games

The myriad class changes are too exhaustive to list, but every class has been looked at and quite significantly altered and buffed. Arguably the most important addition, I say completely without bias as a monk player, is the ability for monks to fight with their bare hands, rather than with a staff, courtesy of the new Hollow Palm Technique. Thank you Grinding Gear Games.

The new, fully asynchronous trade system, meanwhile, gives you a personal merchant – a nice lady called Ange – who’ll stand in your hideout and sell your wares for you. Your items will be listed on the trade website and when someone wants them, it will teleport them directly to your Ange who’ll sell to them, even when you’re not around.

The crafting changes have made it easier to transform and augment items into super-items. Essences and orbs have been reworked and higher tiers of them added, and there’s a brand new Exceptional base item to collect and apply all these juicy bonuses too.

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Elsewhere, blocking and parrying have been reworked, more passive skills have been added to the already ridiculous passive tree – and passives with interesting abilities at that, not just percentage bonuses – plus attribute requirements for items have been lowered by a quarter across the board.

On top of all that we’re getting the game’s first seasonal League – the hope is to have one with each major update – called Rise of the Abyssal. This places you (a new you, I think) in a world plagued by abyssal invaders, and has you closing fissures and pits to the abyss that appear. It’s got some clever procedural ideas about the kinds of boss creatures that crawl out of the pits, and there’s the chance of finding a pit you can jump into, which will lead you to an abyssal city.

In other words: there’s a lot, and there’s more I haven’t covered here. It’s a significant effort by Grinding Gear Games to about-turn mixed recent reactions to the game. We’ll have to wait and see if it works.

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August 20, 2025 0 comments

Game Updates

Warhammer 40K: Dawn of War 4 Announced, Coming Next Year To PC

by admin August 19, 2025

The next entry in the Warhammer 40K series was announced at Gamescom Opening Night Live today, with Warhammer 40K: Dawn of War IV getting unveiled and set for a 2026 released on PC.

German developer King Art Games s producing Dawn of War IV, and it will be published by Deep Silver. The original Dawn of War games were made by Relic Entertainment. You can wishlist Dawn of War IV on Steam now. This is the first game in the series not made by Relic.

“Return to the RTS series’ roots with deeply satisfying strategy gameplay. Take command of four unique Warhammer 40,000 factions, including the Adeptus Mechanicus in their series debut! Fight through 70+ epic campaign missions, as well as the replayable Last Stand, Skirmish and multiplayer modes,” reads the game’s official description.

“In solo or co-op play, command each faction through its own dedicated campaign, supported by spectacular CGI intros and fully animated cutscenes,” the game’s description continues.

The story was written by John French (Black Library).

Dawn of War IV supports matches against AI enemies in the Skirmish mode, along with 1v1, 2v2, and 3v3 multiplayer against other humans.

The announcement of Dawn of War IV comes not long after a remaster of the original Dawn of War was released earlier this year.

Dawn of War IV was one of many announcements at Gamescom Opening Night Live. Check out the gallery below to see more of the big news and reveals.

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August 19, 2025 0 comments

Product Reviews

WIRED Tests Dozens of Air Purifiers a Year. Here’s What We Look For (2025)

by admin August 18, 2025

If I put a box on its side and cannot grasp the product to lift it from its box, then that’s the first strike. WIRED considers accessibility, and this means handles and wheels on heavier air purifiers. When I review a unit, I think about those with less upper body strength moving the appliances, and whether they’d be able to maneuver it around their home. I move air purifiers all around my apartment; I shouldn’t have to bend at the knees to adjust a purifier’s location.

Photograph: Lisa Wood Shapiro

I was able to move the 50-pound ProX using its hidden handles and built-in lockable wheels.

After an air purifier is unboxed, it’s time to pair it with its app. Not all the air purifiers WIRED tests have an app, but if one does, the pairing process should not be complicated, nor should it require a lot of time. The best user experience is when an air purifier has a QR code that opens the app and adds the device. An app with a simple dashboard, graph that corresponds to the AQI color codes, and a smart remote is usually all that’s needed, though it’s a bonus if the app gives the filter life expectancy.

I prefer a simple power bar design that shows the percentage of filter life used. And while air purifier models give recommendations for when to replace the filter, like every six months, or when the replace filter indicator light glows on the appliance, nothing beats the heads-up of knowing exactly how much filter life has been used.

Internal Air Sensors, Lights, and Scores

While some air purifiers had internal air sensors when I first started testing in 2018, the majority of current purifiers we test now have them. If the purifier has internal sensors, there is usually an indicator light. Next question: Does the air purifier have an easy-to-see or read indicator light or air quality index (AQI) score? If it’s a smart air purifier, then the sensor’s readings feed into the device’s app. And I prefer an indicator light that follows the EPA’s color codes for the air quality index. That means green for good air, yellow for moderate, orange for unhealthy for sensitive groups, red for unhealthy, purple for very unhealthy, and maroon for hazardous. There are some companies, like Coway, that have their own take on the color codes, which can be confusing.

Photograph: Lisa Wood Shapiro

While Coway’s air purifiers are consistently WIRED’s top-rated picks, if I could change one thing about them, it would be their custom color scale, where blue means good and green means moderate. More and more air purifiers are also displaying their internal sensors’ air quality numbers. Most times, air purifiers will show a reading of PM 2.5. If the internal sensor senses an uptick in PM 2.5, the auto mode will trigger a higher fan speed, the indicator light might show orange and red along with the PM 2.5 number like 100. I should be able to see that light across the room, and the numbers should be easy to read.

Then there are some models, like those from Shark, that use their own scoring system. A score of 100 represents good air on the display of Shark’s NeverChange, for example, but 100 PM 2.5 would be considered unhealthy.

Photograph: Lisa Wood Shapiro

Shark

NeverChange Air Purifier

Noise and Size Matter

I think the labeling on air purifiers is confusing on purpose. Often the square footage listed on a product is for one air exchange per hour at the purifier’s highest setting. An air exchange is how many times an air purifier can clean the air of a room in an hour. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends five air exchanges an hour. If you have a 200-square-foot room, your air purifier needs to be able to pull the air of the room into the filter using the fan. That air runs through the filter, PM 2.5 and VOCs are captured by the filter, and the clean air is released back into the air at least five times in an hour. Often, WIRED won’t recommend air purifiers that can only clean unusually small spaces. And while those cute tabletop or miniature air purifiers seem like an easy solution, they are usually too tiny to effectively clean the air in an average-size room.

WIRED also uses a decibel meter to check the manufacturer’s decibel claims. Most of the time, the decibels are close to those listed on the purifier’s user manual. Sometimes they are louder. What’s too loud? The hum of a refrigerator is somewhere between 40 and 50 decibels; a conversation is around 60 decibels. Ideally, an air purifier should be able to clean the air in your room five times an hour without sounding like a conversation. And if an air purifier is louder—a lot louder—than the manufacturer claims, we’ll include that in our review or won’t recommend it.

If an air purifier is too loud at its highest fan setting, users are likely to turn down that fan speed to a quieter and less effective setting, rendering the air purifier into nothing more than a wellness prop. Another issue WIRED takes into account is when the air intake overpowers the external vents, causing unsightly clumps of pet hair to accumulate on the outside of the air purifier.

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August 18, 2025 0 comments

NFT Gaming

New York Crypto Tax Could Generate $158 Million a Year, Says Lawmaker

by admin August 18, 2025

In brief

New York State Assemblymember Phil Steck proposed a 0.2% excise tax on cryptocurrency transactions.
He estimates that the tax would generate $158 million annually, based on Chainalysis data from 2022 to 2023 and recent GDP statistics.
The revenue would help combat substance abuse in upstate New York.

New York Assemblymember Phil Steck introduced legislation on Wednesday that would generate sweeping tax revenues from cryptocurrency transactions across the state.

Under Bill A0966, the Empire State would immediately impose a 0.2% excise tax on crypto transactions, using the proceeds to help schools combat substance abuse in upstate New York, where the opioid epidemic has severely impacted communities for years.

In a bill memo shared with Decrypt on Friday, Steck estimated that the levy would generate $158 million in annual revenue from “crypto investors [that] are driven by a single motive: the desire for quick and instant wealth.”

“The funding shall be used to expand the substance abuse prevention and intervention program to schools in upstate New York,” a separate description of the bill states.

Steck, a Democrat, chairs New York’s Standing Committee on Alcoholism and Drug Abuse, and the group oversees the state’s Office of Addiction Service and Supports, which serves over 730,000 individuals per year, according to an annual report. In 2023, 33 out of every 100,000 New Yorkers lost their lives to drug overdoses, the report notes.

The legislation comes as some states push forward with other crypto-related initiatives to assist schools as well, like Wyoming, where cash generated by the reserves of its soon-to-be-released stablecoin will get swept into the Cowboy State’s education fund.

As of 2023, cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin were treated as cash equivalents for tax purposes in New York, among seven other states, including California, according to Bloomberg Tax. A more recent tax guide from crypto accounting software firm Bitwave says that digital assets are already subject, like other assets, to capital gains tax, gift tax, and estate tax in New York.

In its initial form, the scope of Steck’s bill is broad, with tax implications for NFTs, digital assets obtained through mining and staking, as well as stablecoins, based on its text.

The New York Department of Financial Services, which regulates crypto firms through its BitLicense regime, would not provide Steck with data on the volume of crypto transactions, his memo notes. In a quarterly report, the regulator said it supervised 845 million transactions across 20 total institutions in 2024, but did not include the dollar amount.

The data likely doesn’t capture residents’ crypto transactions as well, so Steck found a workaround: He took the dollar-value of cryptocurrency that crypto analytics firm Chainalysis said was sent to the U.S. between July 2022 and June 2023, roughly $1 trillion, and adjusted that based on New York’s share of U.S. GDP in 2024, yielding $79 billion.

That number could be higher, with New York City serving as the epicenter of the financial world and home to a growing number of crypto-native firms like stablecoin issuer Circle, crypto exchange Gemini, and institutional firm Galaxy Digital.

Steck highlights scrutiny that the digital assets industry faced following the collapse of crypto exchange FTX in 2022, saying it has been “vulnerable to fraud and scams.” The memo lists Gemini, among other firms, as companies that were accused of defrauding clients.

Decrypt reached out to Gemini for comment, but did not receive a response.

New York State Attorney General Letitia James recovered $50 million worth of digital assets from Gemini through a settlement last year, after accusing the exchange of misleading investors about risks associated with its Earn platform.

In 2023, James brought a lawsuit against the exchange, bankrupt crypto lender Genesis, and crypto conglomerate Digital Currency Group for allegedly defrauding 230,000 investors out of more than $1 billion.

Steck’s memo also highlights the enormous amount of energy that computers consume when participating in the process of mining, or validating Bitcoin transactions, describing the environmental impacts of cryptocurrencies as “another downside.”

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August 18, 2025 0 comments

Crypto Trends

Cryptojacker Gets 1 Year For $3.5M Fraud Sceme

by admin August 18, 2025

A crypto influencer has been sentenced to just over a year in prison for what US prosecutors called a large-scale cryptojacking operation that defrauded two major cloud computing providers.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) said on Friday that a Brooklyn federal court sentenced Charles O. Parks III, who also went by “CP3O,” to one year and one day in prison for the scheme that defrauded the computing providers of more than $3.5 million in resources.

Parks used fake corporate identities such as “MultiMillionaire LLC” and “CP3O LLC” to trick two unnamed cloud providers into granting him elevated computing privileges, which he exploited to mine nearly $1 million worth of Ether (ETH), Litecoin (LTC), and Monero (XMR) between January and August 2021, prosecutors said.

Cryptojacking is when resources such as computing power or electricity are used without permission to mine crypto. Parks pleaded guilty to wire fraud in December after also facing charges of money laundering and unlawful transactions that carried a potential 50-year maximum prison sentence.

“Charles Parks manipulated technology, stole millions in computer resources, and illegally mined cryptocurrency — and today’s sentencing holds him fully accountable for his deceitful actions,” said New York City Police Department commissioner Jessica S. Tisch.

Parks lied to misuse computing resources: DOJ

According to the DOJ, Parks told one provider he would use the computing resources to build an online training firm focused on media, tech and business strategy.

He told the company that he aimed to serve 10,000 students — but prosecutors said “in reality, there was no training company, and there were no students,” and the resources were used to mine crypto.

Parks deflected when the providers started inquiring about “questionable data usage and mounting unpaid subscription balances,” the DOJ added.

Crypto laundered to buy luxury items

According to prosecutors, Parks laundered the crypto mined through the providers through crypto exchanges, a non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace, online payment processors and banks, converting them into cash to fund luxury purchases, including a Mercedes-Benz, jewelry, and first-class travel.

An indictment from April 2024 said Parkes created multiple accounts with a subsidiary of “cloud computing and consumer electronic device headquartered in Seattle, Washington,” and a firm that makes “personal computers and related services headquartered in Redmond, Washington.”

He was ordered to forfeit $500,000 and the Mercedes-Benz, with a court to decide restitution at a later date.

Parks used crypto gains to build a reputation

Prosecutors said Parks had boasted about his profits online in an attempt to earn credibility as a crypto influencer, sharing tips for achieving what he called a “MultiMillionaire Mentality” in a September 2022 YouTube video.

Related: Bitcoin miners and AI firms compete for cheap sustainable energy

His website, which is still online, promoted a subscription-based self-improvement and wealth coaching program for $10 a month, with optional one-on-one consulting at $150 per month and rewards paid in his crypto token.

Parks (pictured) also went by the moniker “CP30,” a humanoid robot from the Sci-Fi franchise Star Wars. Source: MultiMillionaire LLC

But US Attorney Nocella Jr said that Parks wasn’t the innovator and thought leader he had branded himself to be.

“In the end he was merely a fraudster whose secret to getting rich quick was lying and stealing.”

Magazine: Altcoin season 2025 is almost here… but the rules have changed

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August 18, 2025 0 comments