Texas | Crypto

The SEC charged Texas man Nathan Fuller with raising $12.3 million from 150 investors through a crypto fraud scheme built around fake AI trading bots. The Securities and Exchange Commission has charged a Texas man with running a crypto fraud scheme that raised $12.3 million from roughly 150 investors by falsely claiming to use AI-powered trading bots to generate guaranteed returns. Nathan Fuller, a resident of Cypress, Texas, operated the scheme through his company Privvy Investments, LLC, and under the assumed business name Gateway Digital Investments between at least October 2022 and mid-2024, according to the SEC’s complaint filed in the US District Court for the Southern District of Texas. Fuller allegedly promised investors returns of 40% to 50% within 30 to 45 days, with some told they could make guaranteed profits exceeding 100% in as little as 21 days. To back up the pitch, he claimed investor funds were secured by a surety bond, insured by the  Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and protect...

While crypto-backed candidates won runoffs in Texas on Tuesday, industry PACs have less of a stake in California races next week. After six Republican and Democratic candidates supported by cryptocurrency-backed interest groups won primaries for US House of Representatives and Senate seats in Texas, one of the biggest political action committees (PACs) said it would “aggressively back leaders” supporting crypto policies in the future. On Tuesday, candidates notched six wins for congressional runoff primaries in Texas, supported by media spending and endorsements by the crypto industry-affiliates Fairshake, Defend American Jobs, Protect Progress, Blockchain Leadership Fund and Fellowship PACs. Democrat Christian Menefee primaried incumbent Al Green for Texas’ 18th congressional district and Republican state Attorney General Ken Paxton won against incumbent Senator John Cornyn with more than 63% of the vote. Four other Republican candidates — Tom Sell, Alex Mealer, Jon Bonck and Carlos De La Cruz — also won in ...

Crypto PACs threw serious money behind a handful of Texas runoffs, helping oust a senior Democrat and boost Republican hopefuls as lawmakers hammer out new US crypto rules. [Clarification (17:49 UTC 5/27/2026) In the fourth paragraph, both Alex Mealer and Jon Bonck were the winners in their respective Republican runoffs.] Crypto-backed political groups supported several winning candidates in Texas primary runoffs Tuesday, highlighting the digital asset industry’s growing role in US elections as Congress debates new rules for crypto markets. Attorney General Ken Paxton won the Republican US Senate runoff against four-term Senator John Cornyn by a wide margin, according to Texas primary runoff results, and will face Democratic state Representative James Talarico in November. Read more

The crypto-aligned Protect Progress PAC reported spending another $750,000 on media for a Democratic candidate over Representative Al Green, whom it described as “actively hostile” to digital assets. Two Texas Congressional candidates supported by millions of dollars in spending from interest groups aligned with the cryptocurrency industry are headed for runoffs this week in races for the US Senate and House of Representatives. On Tuesday, Democratic voters in Texas’ 18th congressional district will decide between incumbent Al Green and challenger Christian Menefee to run in November's general election. Statewide, voters will choose between Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and incumbent John Cornyn for the Republican primary for US Senate. Both Tuesday races are runoffs after none of the candidates failed to secure a majority in Texas’ March primaries. The crypto industry, through spending on media by political action committees (PACs), has stakes in both races, which could influence policy and the makeup of...

After reporting more than $1.7 million to election officials, a crypto-aligned political action committee has reportedly backed out of advertising for a Texas Senate candidate. The Fellowship political action committee (PAC), which launched claiming to have more than $100 million from crypto-aligned backers, has reportedly backed out of an advertising deal to support Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in a crucial US Senate race. According to a Thursday report from Axios, Republican leaders contacted US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick on his connections to Fellowship, which has been partially funded by Cantor Fitzgerald. Lutnick, as the former president and CEO and whose sons are now in charge of the financial services company, reportedly faced questioning from Republicans about Fellowship’s support of Paxton, whom on Tuesday the PAC reported spending $1.75 million in supportive advertising. Read more

Meta-1 Coin was sold and marketed from 2018 to 2023 as an investment backed by $44 billion in gold and $1 billion in artworks, which turned out to be fictional. A Texas man found guilty of helping orchestrate a cryptocurrency scam project that defrauded $20 million from nearly 1,000 investors has been sentenced to 23 years behind bars by a US judge on Tuesday. US District Judge LaShonda Hunt sentenced Robert Dunlap, who served as a trustee of the project that sold the fictional token Meta-1 Coin, to prison and ordered him to pay restitution to victims of the fraud, according to the Illinois US Attorney's office. Assistant US attorneys Jared Hasten and Paige Nutini said in the government’s sentencing memorandum that Dunlap was “unrepentant” and that his lies grew “over the years.” Read more

The #2 Texas state official called on lawmakers to study “the sudden inundation of prediction market gambling“ as other jurisdictions take the platforms to court. Dan Patrick, Lieutenant Governor and President of the Senate in Texas, has included a study of prediction markets and crypto and blockchain as part of legislative priorities for the state’s next legislative session, scheduled to begin in January. In a Friday announcement, the lieutenant governor’s office issued 2026 interim charges for Texas Senate committees to study in preparation for the next legislature. Patrick said that the charges were intended to “advance the priorities of Texas’ conservative majority,” including an analysis of prediction markets and digital assets. According to the charges, Patrick wants lawmakers to focus on “closing gambling loopholes” by studying “the sudden inundation of prediction market gambling and the exploitation of federal law to circumvent Texas gambling prohibitions” on elections. Read more

Canaan Buys Cipher Mining Assets: Is $200K Bitcoin Next? The post Bitcoin Price Prediction: Major Miner Just Expanded in Texas: Is a Massive BTC Production Surge Coming? appeared first on Cryptonews.

Al Green is running against Christian Menefee in the Democratic Party primary elections next month, with Texas one of the first states to vote. The pro-crypto political action committee (PAC) Protect Progress will reportedly spend $1.5 million opposing Texas representative Al Green in the upcoming Democratic Party primary over his past opposition to crypto. “As a member of the Financial Services Committee, Representative Al Green has decided to try and stop American innovation in its tracks,” Protect Progress, an affiliate of the major crypto PAC Fairshake, told The Hill on Thursday. Green, a Democrat who has represented Texas's 9th congressional district in the House since 2005, opposed the stablecoin regulating GENIUS Act and the CLARITY Act, two crypto-focused bills that the House passed last year. Read more

The deal followed Riot announcing last week that it sold more than $160 million of its Bitcoin holdings as part of a strategy shift, to broaden use of its data centers. Shares of Riot Platforms jumped more than 11% after the crypto miner said it sold Bitcoin to help finance a land acquisition in Texas. In a Friday notice, Riot said the $96 million deal for 200 acres of land in Rockdale, Texas was funded entirely by the sale of about 1,080 Bitcoin (BTC). The miner also signed a data center lease and services agreement with semiconductor company Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), initially deploying 25 megawatts (MW) of “critical IT load capacity.” “These results mark a pivotal moment that cements Riot’s position as a leading data center developer, less than twelve months since the launch of our formal process to evaluate our assets for AI/HPC use,” said Riot CEO Jason Les. Read more

The company’s move closer to artificial intelligence and high-performance computing followed many others repurposing some of their infrastructure away from mining crypto. Bitcoin mining company CleanSpark reached an agreement to buy land in Texas as part of a strategy to move deeper into AI and high-performance computing (HPC). In a Wednesday announcement, CleanSpark said it had entered a definitive agreement to buy 447 acres of land in Brazoria County, Texas as part of plans to develop a 300 megawatt (MW) data center, which could potentially be expanded to 600 MW. Combined with another initiative in the area, the data centers are “designed for artificial intelligence and high-performance computing workloads.” ”The demand for scaled, AI-native compute continues to accelerate, and access to transmission-level power in strategically advantageous regions has become increasingly constrained,” said CleanSpark chairman and CEO Matt Schultz. Read more

ERCOT reported a record surge in large-load requests, with AI data centers surpassing Bitcoin miners and reshaping Texas’s grid planning and reliability outlook. Texas is rapidly emerging as an epicenter of artificial intelligence-driven energy demand, with an unprecedented surge in large-load power requests, a wave now dominated by AI data centers rather than Bitcoin miners. The figures, highlighted in The Miner Mag’s latest newsletter and drawn from ERCOT’s new System Planning and Weatherization Update, point to a grid facing a fundamentally different kind of growth. ERCOT, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which operates the state’s independent power grid and oversees reliable electric service for about 90% of Texans, reported that its large-load interconnection queue has ballooned to 226 gigawatts of new requests, roughly 73% tied to AI facilities. Read more

Crypto majors were slightly red, with BTC down 1% at $86,600 and ETH down 1% at $2,910, while BNB gained 1% to $856 and SOL held steady at $136. Among top movers, MON (+24%), SPX (+13%), and IP (+7%) led the market. In policy and institutional developments, Texas launched its Bitcoin reserve with a $5 million purchase of BlackRock’s IBIT ETF, marking the first deployment of its approved $10 million BTC budget. U.S. Bank completed a test of issuing a proprietary stablecoin on the Stellar network, and MoonPay secured a New York trust charter, joining firms like Coinbase and Ripple to expand institutional custody and service capabilities. Polymarket received CFTC approval to reenter the U.S., enabling it to onboard domestic users, brokers, and intermediaries, while Kalshi was blocked in Nevada from offering sports and election markets after a judge reversed an earlier ruling. Klarna introduced its own stablecoin, KlarnaUSD, on Tempo. Meanwhile, the Department of Homeland Security has reportedly been investigatin...

Coinbase has announced it will leave Delaware and reincorporate in Texas, framing the shift as a move toward regulatory efficiency. The decision has reflected wider competition among states and has aligned with Texas’ appeal to technology and digital finance firms. The post Coinbase Leaves Delaware, Reincorporates in Texas as State Rivalry Heats Up appeared first on Cryptonews.

The US-based cryptocurrency exchange has not had a brick-and-mortar headquarters amid adopting its “remote-first” policy, but maintains offices in San Francisco and New York City. Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase will reincorporate to Texas from Delaware, a move highlighting the respective states’ legal and regulatory environments. In a Wednesday X post, Coinbase Chief Legal Officer Paul Grewal said the crypto exchange would move its incorporation to Texas. In a Wall Street Journal op-ed, Grewal wrote that the climate in Delaware’s courts had become “rife with unpredictable outcomes,” while Texas offered “efficiency and predictability.”  “This decision was not made lightly, but we’ll always do what’s best for our customers, our employees, and our shareholders,” said Grewal. Read more

CleanSpark expanded its power capacity and secured a Texas site for its new AI campus, reflecting a broader shift among Bitcoin miners toward high-performance computing. Bitcoin miner CleanSpark expanded its power capacity by 28% in October as part of a broader push beyond crypto mining into artificial intelligence and high-performance computing (HPC). The US-based company said it had acquired 271 acres near Houston, Texas, securing 285 megawatts of long-term power for a dedicated AI data center. The move marks one of CleanSpark’s largest steps yet to diversify its operations as demand for energy-intensive computing continues to surge. CleanSpark’s AI move also led to a new partnership with Submer, a company that offers cooling solutions for data centers. “While Bitcoin remains an integral part of our business, we’re equally focused on developing large-scale data centers that will power the next generation of innovation across the digital world,” said Matt Schultz, CleanSpark’s CEO and chairman. Read more

The cryptocurrency with the second-largest market cap was on its way to meeting requirements under Texas' crypto reserve law until a price drop on Friday. This year, Texas’ legislature passed a law to establish a strategic Bitcoin reserve in the state, opening the door for other cryptocurrencies in the future. According to the original sponsor of the bill, Ether could be the next reserve asset. Speaking to Cointelegraph on Thursday, Texas state Senator Charles Schwertner discussed the implementation of the Bitcoin (BTC) reserve bill signed into law by Governor Greg Abbott in June. Though the text of the bill allows Texas to hold other cryptocurrencies in a “special fund outside the state treasury,” Bitcoin was the only one to meet the requirements at the time of passage. “I’m really interested to see the speed at which they establish the reserve and how it acts from a returns standpoint,” said Schwertner. ”If Ethereum maintains its market cap over 24 months, I think it’s reasonable and prudent to give directi...

Look! In the sky! It's a flying burrito! Chipotle's drone test with Zipline starts this week in Rowlett, Texas, promising faster food deliveries.

A new More Perfect Union video sheds light on what life is like for Granbury, Texas, residents living with the near-constant noise of a Bitcoin mining operation. Many residents of a Texas town southwest of Dallas, facing health problems allegedly associated with constant noise, don’t seem to have anything good to say about a crypto mining facility run by MARA Holdings. In a video released Thursday by the nonprofit advocacy organization More Perfect Union, reporter Dan Lieberman spoke to residents of Granbury, Texas, some of whom lived less than a mile from MARA’s 300-megawatt Bitcoin (BTC) mining facility. Many long-term residents and retirees described life as “hell” under the near-constant noise of the mining operation, which lies in an unincorporated area of Hood County.  “It never goes away, headaches never go away,” said one elderly resident on camera, with the sound of the facility easily heard in the background. Read more

Governor Greg Abbott signed a bill into law allowing Texas residents to use the precious metals for “day-to-day financial transactions” starting in May 2027. Some Texas residents are already expressing skepticism about a recently passed law recognizing gold and silver as legal tender in the state, as well as “the establishment of a transactional currency” based on the precious metals. In a Sunday X post, Texas Governor Greg Abbott announced that he had signed House Bill 1056 into law after passage in the state House of Representatives and Senate. The bill, expected to take effect on May 1, 2027, amends the state government code to recognize gold and silver as legal tender and for residents to use them in everyday transactions based on the comptroller’s determined value at the time. Abbott cited a clause of the US Constitution stating no state shall “make any thing but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts,” though the law would not prohibit Federal Reserve notes or other US currency for use as leg...