North Dakota is the latest U.S. state to consider including Bitcoin in its balance sheets. On Friday, the North Dakota State Legislature introduced a resolution aimed at investing “select state funds in digital assets and precious metals.”

Resolution 3001 aims to curb the impact of inflation on North Dakota’s finances by diversifying the assets the state invests in. North Dakota Representatives Nathan Toman, Matthew Heilman, Jared Hendrix, Daniel Johnston, SuAnn Olson, and Todd Porter, along with Senators Jeff Barta and Bob Paulson, introduced the resolution.

“Whereas changing economic conditions and emerging investment opportunities require prudent investment of the state’s financial resources,” the resolution said.

If passed, the North Dakota Legislative Assembly would direct the State Treasurer and Investment Board to allocate portions of key state funds to invest in digital assets. Notably, however, while encouraging digital asset investments, the resolution did not name Bitcoin specifically.

Also Friday, legislation for a state Bitcoin reserve was introduced in New Hampshire, and while that proposed bill also didn’t mention Bitcoin by name, Bitcoin would be the only coin eligible for the New Hampshire reserve based on market cap stipulations. The North Dakota resolution doesn’t have the same criteria, however.

“The resolution is simply encouraging the State Treasurer and the State Investment Board to look at investing in different types of assets rather than what they currently do,” North Dakota Legislative Council Director John Bjornson told Decrypt. “It doesn’t hold the force of law, so it doesn’t include definitions about what those may include that would be something that would be more appropriate for a bill.”

Resolution 3001 is expected to be voted on Tuesday, but until then, the move is mostly symbolic. Other states considering strategic Bitcoin reserves include Florida, Texas, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and New Hampshire. In September, Louisiana began accepting payments for services with Bitcoin and the USDC stablecoin.

“The state that is last to build Bitcoin reserves will lose,” New Hampshire Rep. Keith Ammon told Decrypt earlier Friday. “It’s urgent that states act sooner than later, and that takes some education on the part of state officials.”

Edited by Andrew Hayward

A Pakistani cryptocurrency trader, Mohammed Arsalan, was kidnapped in a scheme that involved local law enforcement officers and released after paying his captors $340,000 in crypto.

Investigation into the case led to seven arrests so far, according to a recent report by local English-language news outlet Dawn. Per the report, a suspected policeman is still at large and an officer of the Pakistani Counter-Terrorism Department was among the arrested.

The kidnappers reportedly forced the 30-year-old trader to pay $340,000 from his Binance account balance. After multiple contacts with the kidnappers pretending to be looking to buy U.S. dollars from the victim, five men in civilian clothes forcibly abducted the trader after gagging him in a police vehicle on Dec. 25.

The news follows November reports that a Ukrainian man was coerced into transferring 250,000 worth of stablecoin USDT after a group of criminals got hold of him. Also in November, police started investigating the high-profile abduction of Dean Skurka, CEO of Toronto-based crypto firm WonderFi Technologies, who was abducted and released after the payment of a $720,000 ransom.

Jeremiah O’Connor, chief technology officer and co-founder at crypto cybersecurity firm Trugard, told Decrypt that the news “underscores a troubling, though not unprecedented, trend of kidnapping and extortion targeting individuals for their digital assets.” Byron Boston, former Dallas police officer and CEO of crypto firm Crypto Track, agreed and notedthat “cryptocurrency-related kidnappings are increasingly common.”

O’Connor’s recommendations include minimizing public exposure, using multi-signature wallets and time-locked transactions, and practicing general situational awareness.

“The rise in crypto-related extortion and kidnappings calls for stronger international collaboration among law enforcement agencies, improved regulatory frameworks, and enhanced education on operational security for those engaged in the crypto space,” he added.

The people involved in the crime were habitual offenders who had previously committed similar crimes, according to the local report. An inspector reassured reporters that the law enforcement officers connected to the kidnapping would see no leniency.

Boston noted that “the involvement of corrupt law enforcement officials in kidnappings further complicates investigations.” He explained that “criminals with access to sensitive information or investigative methods can undermine efforts to trace and recover stolen funds.”

Arsalan expressed his anger in a Dec. 31 Facebook post. He wrote that he is “ashamed to be a citizen of this country.” He ended the message by saying: “Don’t bother me by calling or messaging me. I am very depressed, mentally dead.”

Edited by Stacy Elliott.

American banks seeking to offer customers services built on public blockchain networks appear to have been discouraged from doing so by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, documents released Friday revealed. 

The disclosure came courtesy of a trove of newly unredacted crypto-related correspondences between the FDIC and member banks. San Francisco-based cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase obtained the documents via the Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA. Last month, Coinbase secured heavily redacted versions of 23 such letters. 

Thanks to a court order, the contents of those letters—and two new ones—were revealed today in their (near) entirety. 

One of those letters, sent in March 2022 from the FDIC’s New York office to a member bank, detailed how the federal agency had learned that the bank planned to roll out a “Bank Digital Deposit” program built to run on a public blockchain. The name of that public blockchain remains redacted. 

In the letter, the FDIC appears to take issue with the bank opting to use a public blockchain instead of a private, permissioned network. Blockchains like Ethereum and Solana are decentralized and permissionless, meaning that activity on them is fully public and cannot be overridden by third-party human administrators. By contrast, private blockchain networks, like those used by nation states to issue central bank digital currencies, place limits on who can use them and for what purpose.

The FDIC is apparently not a fan of member banks launching products on anything-goes, fully transparent networks. The regulator instructed the New York bank in the March 2022 letter to submit to a new, detailed review process before launching any products on public blockchains. 

Other letters disclosed Friday show the FDIC ordering member banks to halt the implementation of services related to the buying and selling of Bitcoin. Sections of the same letters unredacted last month showed the FDIC instructing member banks to “pause all crypto asset-related activity.”  

Coinbase Chief Legal Officer Paul Grewal touted today’s revelations as further proof of an alleged Biden administration initiative waged against the crypto industry via banking regulations that’s become known as “Operation Chokepoint 2.0” (borrowing the name from the Obama era scheme that targeted firearms dealers and payday lenders).

“They show a coordinated effort to stop a wide variety of crypto activity,” Grewal said on X (formerly Twitter) of Friday’s FDIC letters.