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From the ill-fated Aave swap to Binance suing the Wall Street Journal, here are the crypto stories you may have missed this week.
Aave Swap Sends $50M USDT Buyer Home With Only 324 AAVE After Slippage Warning
A crypto user who tried to buy Aave’s governance token using about $50 million worth of USDT via the Aave interface received only around 324–327 AAVE tokens, worth roughly $36,000 at prevailing prices, after proceeding despite an “extraordinary slippage” warning.
Cointelegraph said the order was routed through CoW Protocol and executed against onchain liquidity, where the trade’s size triggered extreme price impact, and added that a maximal extractable value (MEV) bot “sandwiched” the transaction to net about $9.9 million in profit.
CoW DAO said the user explicitly opted into the trade after seeing warnings and that no venue could have filled the full size at a reasonable price, while Aave founder Stani Kulechov said the protocol would try to contact the user and return about $600,000 in fees collected from the swap.
Token2049 Dubai Cancelled
Organizers have postponed TOKEN2049 Dubai to April 21–22, 2027, citing ongoing regional uncertainty affecting safety, travel, and logistics.
Tickets will automatically carry over, with an option for holders to transfer to TOKEN2049 Singapore in October 2026.
FATF: Offshore Crypto Exchanges Create AML Gaps
The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) warned that crypto exchanges and other virtual asset service providers operating “offshore” can create gaps in anti-money laundering and sanctions enforcement by exploiting differences in licensing, supervision, and cross-border cooperation.
In a report titled “Understanding and Mitigating the Risks of Offshore Virtual Asset Service Providers (oVASPs),” the FATF said offshore firms often span multiple jurisdictions—incorporated in one country, hosting infrastructure in another, and serving customers globally. This leaves authorities unclear on who has supervisory responsibility and limiting effective international coordination.
The watchdog urged jurisdictions to tighten oversight of offshore providers serving their domestic markets, including requiring registration or licensing even when firms are based abroad, and improving information-sharing among regulators and law enforcement.
Mastercard Launches Crypto Partner Program With Binance, Ripple and 80-Plus Firms
Mastercard said on March 11, 2026 it launched a new Crypto Partner Program bringing together more than 85 crypto-native companies, payments providers and financial institutions, as the payments giant looks to shape “the next phase of on-chain payments” around cross-border transfers, B2B flows, payouts and settlement tied to its existing global acceptance network.
Mastercard said participants include firms such as Binance, Ripple, Circle, Gemini, PayPal and Paxos, and framed the initiative as an industry forum intended to translate blockchain innovation into “scalable, compliant use cases” that can work across jurisdictions.
Binance Sues Wall Street Journal
Binance said it filed a defamation lawsuit against The Wall Street Journal and its parent company Dow Jones after a Feb. 23, 2026 article alleged the exchange halted or watered down an internal probe into crypto flows linked to Iran-connected networks, with the reporting also suggesting the investigation involved transfers tied to groups under U.S. sanctions.
Reuters reported that Binance is disputing the article’s characterization of its compliance work, arguing the story contained false statements that harmed its reputation and misrepresented what the exchange did after identifying suspicious activity
Binance said it is seeking to “correct the public record” and hold the publisher accountable, after what it described as inaccurate claims triggered “baseless” inquiries, while other coverage noted the lawsuit comes as Binance remains under heightened scrutiny following prior U.S. enforcement actions tied to anti-money laundering controls.
US SEC, CFTC Sign Memo to Regulate Crypto Together
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) said on March 11, 2026 they signed a memorandum of understanding to coordinate oversight across shared areas of the financial markets, including crypto assets, in a bid to reduce duplicative rules, close regulatory gaps, and align approaches to examinations, enforcement, and rulemaking.
The SEC said the agreement is meant to curb “regulatory turf wars” that have created uncertainty for firms operating across securities and derivatives frameworks, while the CFTC described the effort as part of a broader harmonization initiative designed to deliver “seamless” supervision and clearer treatment of products that blur jurisdictional lines, including digital-asset activity
Thailand Freezes Over 10,000 Crypto Mule Accounts as Authorities Intensify Anti-Money Laundering Crackdown
Thai licensed crypto exchanges have frozen more than 10,000 accounts suspected of being used as “mule accounts” to launder illicit funds, after rolling out tighter screening designed to slow higher-risk transfers and trigger additional know-your-customer checks, according to a Bangkok Post report cited by Cointelegraph.
The Thai Digital Asset Operators Trade Association (TDO) said the move builds on a broader anti-scam and anti–money laundering effort coordinated with Thailand’s Securities and Exchange Commission and other agencies, which previously led to tens of thousands of suspicious accounts being frozen in 2025. The crackdown also comes as Thailand tightens oversight of “gray money,” including pushing stricter compliance requirements such as Travel Rule enforcement for certain digital asset transfers, the report said
Iran-Linked Crypto Networks Move $3B in 2025 as Sanctions Drive Digital Asset Use, Chainalysis Says
Crypto activity tied to Iran’s state and sanctions-linked networks topped $3 billion in 2025 as illicit transactions tied to sanctioned entities surged, according to Chainalysis, which said Iran-related flows were increasingly dominated by state actors, with Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)-linked addresses and proxy networks accounting for more than half of the value received by Iranian entities in the fourth quarter.
Chainalysis said sanctioned entities overall drove a sharp jump in crypto-linked illicit finance in 2025, as offshore infrastructure and cross-border routing made enforcement harder.
38% of Altcoins Near All-Time Lows as Liquidity Shifts Toward Bitcoin, Analyst Says
About 38% of altcoins are now trading near their all-time lows, a deeper sector-wide drawdown than the level recorded after FTX collapsed in 2022, according to CryptoQuant analyst “Darkfost,” who said the market backdrop remains “unfavorable” for risk-on assets and that crypto tends to absorb risk-off positioning early.
Cointelegraph reported that the metric has deteriorated beyond the post-FTX reading, pointing to broad weakness across smaller tokens as capital concentrates in fewer, more liquid assets, while separate coverage linked the slump to structural factors such as token oversupply and shifting liquidity patterns since spot Bitcoin ETFs pulled some marginal demand away from the altcoins.
Disclosure: AI is used to help develop this article.
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