Garantex, a Russian crypto exchange popular with ransomware gangs and darknet markets, has been taken down in an international law enforcement operation, according to a Friday announcement from the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ).

On Thursday, a coalition of law enforcement agencies from the U.S., Germany and Finland seized Garantex’s domains and servers, and froze nearly $28 million in crypto tied to the exchange with the help of stablecoin issuer Tether.

The U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC) sanctioned Garantex in 2022, accusing the exchange of knowingly facilitating money laundering for ransomware actors, including Conti and Black Basta, and darknet markets like Hydra, which, before its 2022 shut down, was once the largest darknet market in the world.

The sanctions had little to no effect on Garantex – according to data from blockchain sleuthing firm Elliptic, which aided the U.S. in its investigation, the exchange processed more than $60 billion in crypto transactions after being sanctioned. In total, the exchange has transacted over $96 billion.

According to court documents, Garantex collected virtually no know-your-customer (KYC) information about its clients, allowing criminals to use its services unchecked, and accounts were registered to customers using names like “Drug,” “hacker,” “taliban,” “Cashout, cleancoins” and “God.”

In addition to ransomware actors and darknet markets, Garantex’s clientele allegedly included North Korea’s state-sanctioned hacking squad, the Lazarus Group, which was behind the massive $1.5 billion Bybit heist last month, as well as Russian oligarchs, who used the service to evade international sanctions tied to the war in Ukraine. Sophisticated international sanctions evasion companies, like TGR Group, which cater to Russian elites, have been tied to Garantex.

Following the seizure of Garantex’s servers and domains, two of its operators have been criminally charged in the U.S. for their connections to the exchange.

Lithuanian national and Russian resident Aleksej Besciokov, 46, has been charged with money laundering conspiracy, conspiracy to violate sanctions, and conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business. Aleksandr Mira Serda, 40, a Russian citizen currently residing in the United Arab Emirates, has been charged with money laundering conspiracy.

Several U.S. states are getting closer to putting public money into cryptocurrencies effort, spurred by President Donald Trump since he announced plans to do the same on a federal level. And Texas is now among the leading contenders.

On Thursday, the Texas state senate passed the so-called SB 21 bill which would allow the state to invest some of the public’s money into digital assets, specifically bitcoin (BTC).

Bitcoin, according to a statement from Texas Senator Charles Schwertner last week, “has proven itself through multiple boom and bust cycles,” making it a great reserve asset in times of a “devastating national deficit” along with “inflation and uncertainty,” as Schwertner described.

New Hampshire also passed a bill on Wednesday through a state house committee, the House Bill 302 by a 16-1 vote, that would allow the state to invest up to 5% of public funds into bitcoin as well as other precious metals. So, it’s moving forward, though it’s a few votes away from the finish line.

Almost a dozen states have made strong efforts to pass a bill that would allow similar allocations, while at least five states ran into setbacks or no votes that tanked their bills.

Utah has so far been the frontrunner in a variety of efforts and remains just one senate approval away from sending a bill to its governor’s desk. However, the legislative session expires this week, leaving little time to get the senate to join the state house in approving an investment of as much as 5% of certain public accounts in a digital asset with more than $500 billion in assets. (So far, that’s just bitcoin.)

If the Utah senate acts by Friday, the final word goes to its Republican governor, Spencer Cox, who has supported blockchain policy in the past. If not, Utah’s effort gets put off another year, and other states such as Arizona and Texas could take the spotlight.

The recent action comes after President Trump on Sunday again discussed his own plan for a strategic crypto reserve. Trump said that a U.S. strategic crypto reserve could hold XRP, Solana (SOL) and Cardano (ADA) as well as Bitcoin and Ethereum (ETH), though many details of the effort and how it would be executed remain uncertain.

Many industry leaders have criticized Trump’s decision to hold other cryptocurrencies beyond bitcoin, as it is the one that best fits the characteristics of other reserve assets such as gold. The president, however, hasn’t provided clear guidelines on how such a strategy would work — for example, how the government would source the tokens.

Read More: Utah One Vote Away, But Some States Fail to Break Through on Crypto Stakes

The President of Belarus, Aleksandr Lukashenko, raised the possibility yesterday that the Eastern European country could begin mining cryptocurrencies.

“Look at this mining. More and more people are turning to me. If it is profitable for us, let’s do it. We have excess electricity. Let them make this cryptocurrency and so on,” Lukashenko told Alexei Kushnarenko, the nation’s new minister of energy, according to Belarusian media outlet Belta.

The news comes as the U.S. government is studying the possibility of creating a national strategic crypto reserve that could include cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin (BTC), ether (ETH), solana (SOL), ripple (XRP) and cardano (ADA).

Lukashenko mentioned the White House’s interest in crypto. “You see the path the world is going. And especially the largest economy in the world. They announced yesterday that they will keep [a crypto] reserve,” he said.

“Therefore, there will be demand for them. Well, maybe we should do it ourselves,” Lukashenko said.

Belarus wouldn’t be the first nation to mine cryptocurrencies. The Kingdom of Bhutan, with its abundance of hydropower, already has more than 100 megawatts (MW) of operational bitcoin mining infrastructure and is set to get another 500MW worth of power online. The country currently holds $950 million in bitcoin, according to Arkham Intelligence

El Salvador, for its part, uses geothermal energy to mine bitcoin, though in smaller quantities.
Disclaimer: The information in this article was translated using Google Translate from a foreign language source.