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Nigerian Scammer Posing as Trump Ally Steve Witkoff Stole 250K in Crypto From One Political Donor

A Nigeria-based scammer posing as Steve Witkoff, a long-time ally of U.S. President Donald Trump and co-chair of the Trump-Vance Inaugural Committee, stole approximately $250,000 in crypto from a would-be political donor, according to a recent press announcement from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia.
According to court documents, the scammer created a spoofed email address that closely resembled Witkoff’s legitimate Trump-Vance Inaugural Committee email address, and was able to trick at least one donor into depositing $250,000 worth of USDT.ETH into the scammer’s wallet. Though the scammer then took steps to launder their ill-gotten gains, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) was able to recover and freeze 40,300 USDT.ETH, half of which was found in a Binance account in the name of Ehiremen Aigbokhan, a Lagos-based fraudster or “yahoo boy.”
The U.S. Attorney’s Office has moved to return the recovered funds to the victim. Over $210,000 in crypto sent to the scammer has not yet been recovered.
“All donors should double and triple check that they are sending cryptocurrency to their intended recipient,” U.S. Attorney Jeanine Ferris Pirro said in a statement. “It can be extremely difficult for law [enforcement] to recoup lost funds due to the extremely complex nature of the blockchain. Nevertheless, my office and our law enforcement partners stand ready to go toe-to-toe with criminals and make victims whole.”
According to multiple local media outlets, U.S. officials are seeking a formal arrest warrant for Aigbokhan.
Witkoff and his son Zach have close ties to the Trump family’s main crypto project, World Liberty Financial.
Binance and Tether both cooperated with the government’s investigation, the DOJ said.
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Elon Musk’s xAI Partners With Kalshi to Bring Grok to Prediction Markets

Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence startup xAI is partnering with regulated prediction market Kalshi to bring its chatbot Grok into the world of real-money event forecasting, the companies said Thursday.
The collaboration will allow Grok to analyze news, historical data and economic indicators in real time to support users trading on Kalshi’s federally regulated platform. Kalshi traders can place bets on specific outcomes of events like Federal Reserve interest rate decisions, Senate control, or monthly inflation figures — making Grok’s ability to summarize information quickly a potential edge.
“Kalshi and xAI are partnering to bring Grok to prediction markets. Two of the fastest growing companies in America are now on the same team,” xAI said in a post on X.
The deal brings together Musk’s latest AI venture, known for its irreverent chatbot Grok, and Kalshi, the only U.S.-regulated prediction market that offers tradable event contracts. While details of how Grok will be integrated weren’t disclosed, Bloomberg previously reported (and then retracted) in May that both companies are committing “significant engineering resources” to the project.
The announcement also adds complexity to xAI and Musk’s broader prediction market strategy.
Earlier this year, xAI and X named Polymarket — an unregulated crypto-based competitor to Kalshi — as their official prediction market partner. Now, with Kalshi and Polymarket effectively operating in parallel under Musk’s orbit, the market appears to be a testing ground for Grok’s AI capabilities across different regulatory frameworks.
Grok’s most recent version, Grok 4, was unveiled earlier this month, promising major upgrades in reasoning and information retrieval.
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Polkadot’s DOT Bounces After 7% Decline

Polkadot’s DOT staged a strong recovery after slumping as much as 7%, bouncing from $3.91 to $4.08 amid high trading volumes, according to CoinDesk Research’s technical analysis model.
The model showed that DOT navigated substantial price swings during the 24-hour period from July 23 19:00 to July 24 18:00, oscillating between $3.91 and $4.20 before settling at $4.08.
Earlier this week, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) withdrew its accelerated approval for a Bitwise crypto exchange-traded fund (ETF) that plans to include DOT among its top holdings by market cap.
The bounce in Polkadot came as the wider crypto market also rose, with the broader market gauge, the Coindesk 20, recently up 1.4%.
In recent trading, DOT was 2% lower over 24 hours, trading around $4.09.
Technical Analysis:
- Overall trading range of $0.28 representing 7% volatility between $4.20 maximum and $3.91 minimum.
- Critical support level established at $3.96 with high volume confirmation exceeding 4.28 million average.
- Resistance zone identified at $4.10 level showing price rejection patterns.
- Volume spike of 73,061 during decline phase indicating institutional selling pressure.
- Recovery pattern suggests potential continuation toward $4.13 target level.
- Net decline of 2% from opening despite strong bounce from overnight lows.
Disclaimer: Parts of this article were generated with the assistance from AI tools and reviewed by our editorial team to ensure accuracy and adherence to our standards. For more information, see CoinDesk’s full AI Policy.
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Yuga Labs Bored Ape Yacht Club $9M Win Against Ryder Ripps Overturned, Must Better Prove Trademark Infringement

The creator of the Bored Ape Yacht Club non-fungible tokens (NFTs) needs to better prove that a «satirical» version of these tokens was meant to mislead would-be buyers, a U.S. appeals court said Wednesday, overturning a lower court ruling and sending the case back to that lower court for a new trial.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that a District Court finding that Ryder Ripps’ NFT collection harmed Yuga Labs’ trademarked NFTs needs to be reconsidered, though without weighing in on whether there was indeed trademark infringement — only that Yuga needed to do a better job of demonstrating that under the law at a new trial, a court document said.
Ryder Ripps and Jeremy Cahen, the duo behind the RR/BAYC NFT collection, had previously argued that their tokens were meant to be a satirical response to the actual BAYC. Yuga Labs sued in 2022, alleging trademark infringement and cybersquatting.
A partial summary judgement by a district judge found that Yuga does own trademarks to its Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT collection and that Ripps’ RR/BAYC NFT collection did cause confusion as the images did look similar. Ripps appealed the final ruling, which included an over $8 million fine to be paid to Yuga. The appeals court said that while Yuga does have priority on the trademark due to being the first to use «the Bored Ape Yacht Club marks,» it had not proven that Ripps’ NFTs were causing confusion.
Nevertheless, Yuga Labs must return to trial. «Yuga may ultimately prevail on these claims, but to do so it must convince a factfinder at trial,» the filing said.
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