How is this memorandum different from other regulatory actions discussed on this site before, like the CFTC's lawsuit against Goliath Ventures?
These are fundamentally different tiers of action. The CFTC's lawsuit against Goliath Ventures targets a specific fraud case that has already occurred, pursuing accountability from a specific defendant through civil litigation, seeking restitution and penalties. This presidential memorandum, by contrast, is establishing an institutional mechanism meant to apply on an ongoing basis going forward, letting private-sector capability outside government — under vetting and contractual constraint — take proactive disruptive action against foreign criminal networks. Its target isn't any single specific case; it's raising the overall capacity and speed of the government (plus authorized private partners) in dealing with this type of transnational crime. The former is a case-specific judicial pursuit, the latter is an institutional-level capacity expansion — neither replaces the other, and both can run in parallel.
Letting private companies conduct "cyber effects operations" against foreign criminal networks sounds like it carries real risk — does the memorandum include any safeguards?
The memorandum does contain clear thresholds and procedural requirements: a company must first sign a contract with the Justice Department or Homeland Security, meet technical and personnel standards, disclose related commercial agreements, and may be required to post a bond or escrow of at least $1 million, subject to forfeiture for contractual noncompliance — these requirements exist precisely to screen out participants who aren't reliable enough or might abuse the authorization. More critically, officials are required to establish, within 60 days, concrete procedures covering eligibility standards, target-review rules, and safeguards for U.S. persons' interests. The memorandum explicitly states that no mission can be approved until these procedures comply with constitutional, statutory, and international obligations, meaning in theory that signing the memorandum doesn't immediately greenlight any action. But exactly how these procedures will be implemented in practice, and how rigorous the review will actually be, remains something to watch — worth continuing to track the concrete rules published within the 60-day window.
Looking at this memorandum alongside the other cross-border enforcement actions from April and June this year, what trend does it reflect?
Looking at all three actions together reveals a clear Escalation Path: April's operation relied on conventional cross-national law enforcement cooperation (U.S., Chinese, and Dubai police coordinating arrests and dismantling scam centers); June's action against the Huione Group and Prince Group further combined a more diverse toolkit — sanctions, expanded financial restrictions, cloud infrastructure seizure; and by August, the presidential memorandum represents the first attempt, at an institutional level, to partially open up "proactive disruption" — previously entirely within government's exclusive authority — to private-sector participation. This trajectory shows that relying solely on conventional law enforcement to arrest individual suspects and dismantle individual scam centers, facing the continuously growing scale of transnational fraud, has led the government itself to conclude its own capacity may not be sufficient to keep up — prompting an attempt to expand who participates, rather than continuing to simply pour more of the government's own resources in.
Does this news actually require me to adjust anything about how I personally use cryptocurrency right away?
There's no need to immediately adjust any daily operations because of this news — the concrete implementation procedures won't be finalized for another 60 days, and the direct impact on ordinary users, if any, still isn't clear. But the mindset shift genuinely worth taking from this news is treating it as a reminder to re-examine whether you've already put in place the most basic self-protection habits — the ones that require no government action to wait for at all. The memorandum itself mentions verifying a website's actual URL, staying alert toward unsolicited contact, and rejecting any "guaranteed to double" investment promise — principles that align exactly with the judgment logic this site has repeatedly emphasized. Government-level enforcement capacity expansion takes time to genuinely take effect, but the judgment habits a user builds themselves take effect immediately, starting today, with no approval process to wait on at all.
On August 12, U.S. President Trump signed a National Security Presidential Memorandum titled "Expanding Capabilities to Combat Transnational Cyber-Enabled Crime." The document itself isn't crypto-specific, but among the problems it addresses — ransomware, phishing, financial fraud, sextortion, impersonation schemes — cryptocurrency fraud happens to be the single largest category by dollar volume. This article breaks down what the memorandum actually authorizes, how large the loss figures behind it are, and what kind of shift this represents for ordinary cryptocurrency users.
The core mechanism of this memorandum is establishing a program managed by a National Coordination Center, letting vetted U.S. private companies — once a program approves them — perform "cyber surveillance" and "cyber effects operations": not just passively gathering evidence, but taking direct disruptive action against foreign criminal networks. Appointees from the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security will serve jointly as co-executive directors, coordinating approvals. Companies wanting to participate must sign a contract with one of these two departments, meet technical and personnel standards, and disclose related commercial agreements; implementation guidance may even require companies to post a bond or escrow of at least $1 million, subject to forfeiture for contractual noncompliance. This represents the U.S. government attempting to partially open up the "active disruption" function — previously the exclusive domain of law enforcement agencies — to contractually bound, vetted private-sector operators.
Patrick Witt, executive director of the President's Council of Advisors for Digital Assets, directly linked the memorandum to cryptocurrency fraud on X, writing: "This action, while not crypto-specific, is a major step toward shutting down the scammers who exploit crypto to prey on Americans." That statement is backed by concrete figures: according to the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) 2025 annual report, the year saw over 1 million internet crime complaints filed, totaling $20.877 billion in losses, a 26% increase from 2024; complaints categorized under "cryptocurrency" numbered 181,565, with $11.37 billion in losses — more than half of the total loss figure — and cryptocurrency investment fraud alone generated $7.2 billion in reported losses, the largest single source of cryptocurrency investment-fraud losses in 2025. These figures don't establish that every dollar actually vanished through an on-chain transfer (IC3's own descriptors can span multiple crime or payment categories), but they're enough to explain why digital assets sit near the center of the federal government's concern over this type of transnational scam problem.
This August memorandum isn't an isolated event — it's the next step following a series of cross-border enforcement actions earlier this year. This past June, the U.S. Treasury launched a coordinated action against the Huione Group and Prince Group, combining sanctions, a proposed expansion of financial restrictions, a cloud infrastructure seizure, and blockchain analysis targeting infrastructure U.S. officials linked to overseas scam compounds; an April cross-border operation arrested at least 276 people and dismantled at least nine alleged scam centers accused of running cryptocurrency investment fraud. Those earlier cases relied on conventional law enforcement, sanctions, and cross-border cooperation; the August memorandum opens up a new channel that lets contractually vetted private companies also propose and execute federally approved missions — an element that never appeared in these earlier cases.
For an ordinary user, this memorandum by itself won't change anything about your everyday operations immediately, since officials must finalize the relevant operating procedures, eligibility standards, and review rules within 60 days from August 12, and no mission can be approved until those procedures comply with constitutional, statutory, and international obligations. But the layer genuinely worth noting in this story is that it reflects the scale of cryptocurrency fraud losses having grown large enough that the U.S. government now believes existing conventional law enforcement capacity isn't sufficient to keep up, prompting an attempt to bring private-sector capability into the fold — that's usually a signal that a meaningful shift in the regulatory and enforcement environment is coming, worth continuing to watch as the 60-day procedure-setting window unfolds. At the same time, the memorandum also directly mentions that "basic wallet precautions" can Block common deception tactics at their source before any government operation ever gets involved — specifically, verifying website addresses, distrusting unsolicited contacts, and rejecting any promise to "double" deposited funds. These recommendations align exactly with the judgment principles this site has repeatedly emphasized — reaffirming that no matter how the regulatory environment evolves, a user's own judgment always remains the first, and closest, line of defense.