As the Russian government is considering a ban on cash-to-cryptocurrency transactions, some major local crypto exchange platforms have experienced police raids.

Mosca, a crypto-to-cash exchange located in the Moscow International Business Center, was raided on April 23 in connection with fraud by one of its customers, Mosca’s development head Dmitry Titarenko confirmed to Cointelegraph.

“Law enforcement agencies have carried out a standard procedure of checking our customer data,” Titarenko told Cointelegraph at the local crypto event Blockchain Forum 2025.

The Mosca office raid followed online reports linking several arrests of some Mosca customers to a crypto robbery involving a victim reportedly giving fraudsters a massive cash deposit worth millions of dollars.

Cash-to-crypto ban to protect investors?

The police raid on Mosca came the next day after Evgeny Masharov, a member of the Russian Civic Chamber, proposed banning crypto exchangers from accepting cash from their customers to buy cryptocurrencies like Tether USDt (USDT).

A potential ban on cash-to-crypto transactions would be a “massive blow to fraudsters,” Masharov said, adding that phone scammers were “often using crypto exchangers for withdrawing cash funds.”

Olga Serova, a former adviser to the head of the government of Samara region, claims to have lost up to $5 million to crypto fraudsters. Source: Baza

Subsequently, local news channel Baza reported on the Mosca raid, linking the event with a “record-breaking fraud” against Olga Serova, a former government adviser in Russia’s Samara region.

Serova, 71, reportedly fell victim to scammers in late 2024, cashing out her bank accounts to pass the fraudsters about 421 million Russian rubles ($5.1 million). According to Baza, at least seven people were arrested, allegedly in connection with the case.

Mosca clients can buy up to 100,000 USDT with cash daily

Mosca, which allows investors to deposit up to 100,000 USDT ($100,000) daily, was unaware whether Serova’s incident was connected to its office raid, Titarenko said.

“Maybe it was another client,” he said, adding that the raid was the first criminal-case-related office raid at Mosca in the past three months.

Titarenko also said that Mosca has been actively beefing up its Anti-Money Laundering and Know Your Customer checks, including maintaining a blacklist of suspicious users.

Related: Russia’s central bank, finance ministry to launch crypto exchange

The raid caught Mosca during a major local event, Blockchain Life, returning to Moscow for the first time since October 2021. The company was one of the main guests at the conference, taking two center stands and winning a title of the “best crypto exchange service.”

One of Mosca’s stands at the Blockchain Forum 2025. Source: Cointelegraph

According to Sergey Mendeleev, a prominent figure in the Russian crypto community, the proposal to ban cash-to-crypto transactions is an alarming development for the community.

Speaking at the event, Mendeleev suggested that the Russian government might be turning away from crypto adoption if it approves such a ban.

He also mentioned that raids are a common situation for crypto exchange services located at the Moscow International Business Center, also known as Moscow City.

Garantex, a crypto exchange that halted trading after Tether froze $27 million in USDT due to sanctions, was also among the exchangers located in Moscow City.

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The crypto industry is bracing for a significant shift in regulatory tone following Paul Atkins’ swearing-in as chair of the US Securities and Exchange Commission on April 21. A former SEC commissioner with deep roots in deregulatory philosophy, Atkins replaces Gary Gensler, whose combative stance toward crypto defined much of the agency’s recent legacy.

In the latest episode of Byte-Sized Insight with Cointelegraph, key industry figures weigh in on the implications of this leadership change and what it might unlock for innovation, investment and clarity for digital assets.

Crypto’s “golden age” continues

Chris Perkins, president of CoinFund, spoke with host Savannah Fortis and described his excitement regarding the new SEC chair, predicting a reduction in regulatory uncertainty under the new administration. 

“We were under this regulatory reign of terror, you know, under the Biden administration,” said Perkins. “Investors in assets, they’re very comfortable taking market risk… but they’re not comfortable taking reputational risk, and along with that is regulatory risk.”

He pointed out how it was not only investors and companies who were nervous under the last administration, but also developers in the crypto space who had been targeted for their work.

Perkins highlighted how a shift in the regulatory climate could catalyze growth.

“Now, again, you’re taking that personal liability off… So in a way, you have this perfect storm of new institutional capital coming in and new developers coming in. And I think the this is going to be a golden age for venture and value creation.”

Related: Paul Atkins’ loosely linked RSR token rises 13% after Coinbase listing

Katherine Dowling, general counsel and chief commercial officer at Bitwise Asset Management, agreed that change is already visible. 

“The mood has already changed,” she said. “We’ve seen a flurry of activity around certain legal cases… being dismissed, dropped… not because all regulation is going away… but because more work needs to be done to define what these digital assets are.”

Dowling emphasized that the shift is about clarity, not deregulation. 

“It’s a signal shift towards let’s take a step back and define what these are, what they look like, and how they should be regulated.”

What to expect from the Atkins era

James Gernetzke, chief financial officer of Bitcoin and crypto wallet Exodus, added that “the promise of being able to engage with a regulator on a reasonable basis… is going to be very helpful.” 

Gernetzke said he expects a return to “more normal time frames” for IPOs and access to capital markets. 

“I think the IPO rush… you will see probably towards the end… maybe months 10, 11, 12… it’s coming for sure.”

Perkins captured the broader sentiment, calling the incoming market structure bill a potential unlock. 

“This market structure bill is going to have a really big impact… because then I know what my asset is, and I have a process for capital formation. I have a process for disclosures… It’s going to be awesome.”

Listen to the full episode of Byte-Sized Insight for the complete interview on Cointelegraph’s Podcasts page, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And don’t forget to check out Cointelegraph’s full lineup of other shows! 

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Decentralized AI startup Nous Research has raised $50 million in a Series A round led by crypto venture giant Paradigm, marking one of the largest investments at the intersection of blockchain and artificial intelligence to date.

According to an April 25 report from Fortune, the funding round values Nous at a $1 billion token valuation. Previous investors include Distributed Global, North Island Ventures, and Delphi Digital, who contributed to Nous’s earlier $20 million seed rounds.

Operating since 2022, Nous Research is stepping into the spotlight with the latest fundraising to develop open-source AI models powered by decentralized infrastructure.

The company leverages the Solana blockchain to coordinate and incentivize global participation in training its AI models, aiming to challenge centralized giants like OpenAI and DeepSeek.

Nous Research announcing Nous Psyche on Solana. Source: Nous Research

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Nous harnesses global idle compute power for AI training

Founded by AI researchers, including collaborators like Diederik Kingma (co-inventor of the Adam optimizer), Nous is taking a different approach from typical crypto-AI projects.

Instead of relying on centralized data centers, it enables individuals worldwide to contribute idle computing power for AI training.

Blockchain technology underpins this model, ensuring secure, incentivized participation while mitigating risks like data poisoning through features such as Byzantine fault tolerance.

“We very much came from a mentality that we want to create and serve the world’s best AI,” co-founder Karan Malhotra told Fortune.

Per the report, the 20-person team at Nous Research will allocate much of the new capital toward scaling compute resources and advancing research.

In December 2024, Nous told Venture Beat that it is pre-training a 15-billion-parameter LLM in a decentralized manner, livestreaming progress to showcase transparency and performance.

Meanwhile, Paradigm’s backing signals a deepening interest in AI within crypto venture circles.

“This open, community-oriented approach is a powerful contrast to the closed, centralized efforts from incumbent labs,” Paradigm partner Arjun Balaji reportedly told the outlet.

Related: Crypto users cool with AI dabbling with their portfolios: Survey

Paradigm becomes top-performing crypto VC

Paradigm is one of the biggest and most successful crypto venture capital firms.

In March, Web3 data platform Kaito AI ranked Paradigm as the top-performing crypto VC over the past year, posting an impressive 11.80% performance metric, outperforming other major players like Alliance (10.64%), Dragonfly (8.32%), a16z (6.94%) and Multicoin Capital (5.86%).

Source: Rory

Founded by Coinbase’s Fred Ehrsam and ex-Sequoia partner Matt Huang, Paradigm has built a strong reputation for spotting high-potential crypto projects early.

Its portfolio includes leading DeFi platforms like Uniswap (UNI) and dYdX, as well as consistent backing for Ethereum scaling solutions such as Optimism.

Paradigm also led a $255 million round for StarkNet, a key player in zero-knowledge rollup technology.

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