Blockchain Press Releases
UAE, UN, INTERPOL and EUROPOL Join Forces to Tackle Environmental Crime and Climate Crisis
- UAE Ministry of Interior will take charge of data-driven global preparedness assessment with the support of ESRI. The Ministry will also lead the establishment of the Global Training Hub in close partnership with the UNODC, and in collaboration with the UN Joint Environment Unit and other partners at I2LEC.
- IINTERPOL-led Joint Operations unit, with the support of UNODC, EUROPOL, and the UAE Ministry of Interior, will target environmental crimes across the world, whereas the United Nations Police will aim to train police experts to help build capacities to address environmental crimes and climate-related threats in the countries where they are deployed.
ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates, July 24, 2023 /PRNewswire/ — The International Initiative of Law Enforcement for Climate (I2LEC), a joint initiative led by the UAE Ministry of Interior in close partnership with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), launched today its roadmap for the years 2023 to 2025 focusing on five major initiatives aimed at tackling environmental crime and the climate crisis at large.
The launch followed a meeting of the I2LEC’s Steering Committee, which discussed the need for global action, including increased training and joint operations to address climate challenges and combat crimes against the environment. The roadmap will guide the actions and areas of work of I2LEC in the years ahead.
The Steering Committee gathered I2LEC partners and representatives from international bodies including UNODC, INTERPOL, the UNEP/OCHA Joint Environmental Unit, EUROPOL, ESRI, UNPOL and the UAE Ministry of the Interior, who unanimously agreed to the importance of international cooperation and coordination in addressing the challenges brought about by climate change, on a global scale.
The 2023- 2025 Roadmap encompasses a number of global initiatives, spearheaded by various members of the Steering Committee. These initiatives include a White Paper on crimes that affect the environment in addition to a global gaps and needs assessment, a UN Climate Incident Observers, a Global Training Hub, and Interpol-led Joint Climate Operations Unit targeting crimes that affect the environment and climate change. Each of these initiatives will be led by an organization member of the I2LEC Steering Committee.
Lt. Col. Dana Humaid, Director General of the International Affairs Bureau of the UAE Ministry of Interior, highlighted the importance of having a roadmap in place to ensure all relevant partners are proactively enhancing the ability of law enforcement agencies to address the challenges brought about by climate change:
“Global challenges require global solutions. This productive Steering Committee meeting has once again highlighted that not only is it critical that law enforcement is prepared for climate change, but that we also have the means and understanding to prevent and prosecute crimes against the environment. At the Ministry, we will be leading the I2LEC global preparedness assessment, allowing us to gain an authoritative understanding of the gaps and needs of global law enforcement in relation to climate change. Following this, we will also be establishing a global training hub in Abu Dhabi, to support law enforcement agencies around the world in this endeavor”, said Lt. Col. Humaid.
Dr. Hatem Aly, UNODC Regional Representative for the Gulf Cooperation Council Region, reiterated UNODC’s support to I2LEC as the co-chair of the initiative.
“On behalf of UNODC at large, I reaffirm our utmost commitment to the technical and strategic support at all levels for the implementation of this joint initiative. To this end, UNODC will embark on a comprehensive research paper on crimes that affect the environment, with the aim of presenting these findings at COP28 under the I2LEC banner. Initiatives and projects adopted within the framework of the I2LEC will tap into the existing data platforms and specialized expertise of our partners members of the initiative towards increased public awareness and strengthening technical capacities of law enforcement addressing crimes that affect the environment and climate. In this context, UNODC pledges to avail the integrated technical capacities of its relevant regional and global instruments and programmatic platforms.”
Steven Kavanagh, Executive Director for Police Services at INTERPOL commented: “Tackling environmental crime has become a key mission of law enforcement agencies. For the past 100 years, INTERPOL has played a leading role in developing international law enforcement operations according to the most prevalent threats. As the stakes of climate change raise, our environmental security strategy must reflect the scale of the threat we all face. We are passionate about this mission, and we are and determined to leverage our expertise in environmental enforcement to deliver a stronger response and global joint operations together with I2LEC partners. “
United Nations Police Adviser Faisal Shahkar added, “A comprehensive response to address the climate crisis is urgently needed. I applaud the launch of this two-year roadmap, which will help strengthen our support to police in host countries that are tackling climate challenges and crimes against the environment. Mainstreaming environmentally responsive policing through critical partnerships such as this contributes towards building a United Nations Police force that is better prepared for a future of rising temperatures, increased food and water insecurity, climate-related crime and conflict. We look forward to contributing to the I2LEC initiative, including through the training and deployment of United Nations Police experts”.
Guilhem Soulie, Esri’s Lead for National Security in Middle East & Africa, highlighted the importance of having access to diverse datasets and enabling their joint management in order to enable I2LEC-relevant analytics to be performed:
“Crimes against climate have second, third order consequences, or ripple effects, that demand proper intelligence workflows to be dealt. This in turns demands full collaboration between a very diverse base of national and international organizations. Esri is humbled in leveraging its technological expertise to such an amazing array of international law enforcement agencies and is committed to providing its technology and expertise, particularly in the creation of the global preparedness assessment and interactive dashboard to massively increase our access to real-time climate intelligence.”
The first Steering Committee meeting took place after several important milestones since the establishment of the initiative, including the I2LEC pledge, which was presented at the 32nd session of the Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice (CCPCJ) in Vienna where it gained the support of more than 20 countries.
As of today, the UAE Ministry of Interior and the UNODC together with I2LEC’s other partners will join forces towards the implementation of the 2023-2025 Roadmap. This includes several I2LEC-owned events taking place at COP28 in Dubai later this year, with the aim of driving further international awareness and support for the initiative.
I2LEC is a global initiative, aimed at awareness-raising, capacity-building and research concerning crimes that affect the environment and climate change, as well as the response of law enforcement to the changing climate.
View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/uae-un-interpol-and-europol-join-forces-to-tackle-environmental-crime-and-climate-crisis-301884020.html
Blockchain Press Releases
MEXC Announces Listing of Hyperlane (HYPER) with a 165,000 HYPER and 50,000 USDT Prize Pool
VICTORIA, Seychelles, April 21, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — MEXC, a leading global cryptocurrency exchange, announced the Hyperlane (HYPER) listing on April 22, 2025(UTC).To celebrate this significant addition to the exchange, MEXC is launching a special event with a prize pool of 165,000 HYPER and 50,000 USDT for new and existing users.
Hyperlane is the first permissionless, universal interoperability protocol dedicated to building a truly open and decentralized cross-chain communication infrastructure. As “The Open Interoperability Framework,” it enables anyone to freely expand, utilize, and customize the network, allowing developers to easily and securely build cross-chain applications and token bridges. To date, Hyperlane has connected over 140 blockchains, processed nearly 9 million cross-chain messages, and bridged more than $6 billion in volume through its Warp Routes.
$HYPER is the native token of the Hyperlane ecosystem, with an initial total supply of 1 billion tokens. It plays a critical role in securing the protocol through staking, rewarding validators for verifying cross-chain messages, incentivizing user-driven activity, and enabling community governance over protocol development.
To celebrate the listing, MEXC will launch an Airdrop+ event with substantial rewards for users:
Event Period: April 21, 2025, 10:00 – May 01, 2025, 10:00 (UTC)
Benefit 1: Deposit and share 120,000 HYPER (New user exclusive)
Benefit 2: Spot Challenge — Trade to share 15,000 HYPER (For all users)
Benefit 3: Futures Challenge — Trade to share 50,000 USDT in Futures bonus (For all users)
Benefit 4: Invite new users and share 30,000 HYPER (For all users)
MEXC has established itself as a leading exchange by consistently offering users early access to high-potential crypto assets. In 2024 alone, the platform listed 2,376 new tokens, including 1,716 initial listings. According to the latest TokenInsight report, MEXC led the industry with 461 spot listings between November 1, 2024, and February 15, 2025. During this period, the exchange maintained a high listing frequency, consistently ranking among the top six platforms, demonstrating its agility in capturing emerging market trends. MEXC will continue to expand its asset offerings and help users seize timely opportunities in the fast-moving crypto market.
For full event details and participation rules, please visit here.
About MEXC
Founded in 2018, MEXC is committed to being “Your Easiest Way to Crypto.” Serving over 36 million users across 170+ countries, MEXC is known for its broad selection of trending tokens, everyday airdrop opportunities, and low trading fees. Our user-friendly platform is designed to support both new traders and experienced investors, offering secure and efficient access to digital assets. MEXC prioritizes simplicity and innovation, making crypto trading more accessible and rewarding.
MEXC Official Website｜ X ｜ Telegram ｜How to Sign Up on MEXC
Risk Disclaimer:
The information provided in this article regarding cryptocurrencies does not constitute investment advice. Given the highly volatile nature of the cryptocurrency market, investors are encouraged to carefully assess market fluctuations, the fundamentals of projects, and potential financial risks before making any trading decisions.
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Blockchain Press Releases
Introducing Clementine Bridge: Citrea Deploys First Complete BitVM Bridge Design on Testnet
Citrea’s Clementine Bridge marks the first time that a fully programmable layer is tested for settling on Bitcoin.
GEORGE TOWN, Cayman Islands, April 21, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — Citrea, the first ZK rollup to enhance capabilities of Bitcoin blockspace and enable Bitcoin applications (₿apps), has successfully deployed its Clementine Bridge, the first complete BitVM bridge design on Bitcoin Testnet. Citrea has also recently revealed Clementine’s whitepaper, marking the first real-world implementation of a BitVM-based bridge which extends BTC’s utility to decentralized finance in the most Bitcoin-secured and native way possible. With Clementine’s testnet deployment, Bitcoin is for the first time tested for optimistically verifying a fully programmable layer. The Clementine whitepaper is currently the only documentation of how to use BitVM in a bridge design with clear solutions toward a secure and efficient bridge implementation.
Despite being the world’s largest digital asset, BTC has struggled to build relevance in decentralized finance. A secure bridge between Bitcoin and a secondary layer has always been a bottleneck for using BTC in a programmable environment. This problem has forced users to either keep Bitcoin as a passive store of value or rely on custodians for using BTC in financial activities. Citrea’s BitVM-based Bitcoin bridge Clementine solves this by enabling the safest and most trust-minimized way to bridge BTC and extend its utility to decentralized finance.
Citrea’s Clementine bridge marks a historic moment for Bitcoin and a new beginning for BTC’s utility. “It felt like magic when we saw all the bridge components work smoothly in our internal tests and that any malicious act is stopped by a single honest actor,” said Ekrem Bal, Co-Creator of Citrea. “We’re now ready to test Clementine in a real Bitcoin Testnet environment and make it more battle-tested for Citrea mainnet.”
With the introduction of BitVM by a Bitcoin developer Robin Linus, verifying computations on Bitcoin and building Bitcoin-secured bridges became a possibility. Very soon after its introduction, Citrea team became a core contributor of BitVM and later a founding member of BitVM alliance, where BitVM’s fundamental technology of executing a fraud proof of a zero-knowledge (ZK) proof on Bitcoin was developed collaboratively. Although accomplishing a ZK proof verification on Bitcoin was a prerequisite, there were still critical problems to address to implement this fundamental technology securely and efficiently into a Bitcoin bridge design. A detailed breakdown of this can be found in Clementine’s whitepaper.
Clementine’s design and whitepaper introduce novel solutions to two main research topics in BitVM-based bridge implementation, namely Bitcoin chain fork selection and capital efficiency of operators. These topics have been critical to solve as they ensure both the bridge’s security and efficiency. Citrea’s Clementine bridge offers clear solutions to both of these problems:
- Bitcoin Chain Fork Selection: This is related to ensuring that the bridge follows the longest Bitcoin chain. It has been an open research topic where the BitVM creator introduced superblocks approach but its security was later found to be broken. Citrea introduces a new Bitcoin Light Client design that uses succinct Header Chain Proofs of Bitcoin. These proofs are aggregated by operators into a single BitVM proof.
- Capital Efficiency of Operators: This has been another limitation of implementing BitVM efficiently into a bridge design. With Citrea’s approach to non-standard Bitcoin transactions, operators can now process hundreds of withdrawals in parallel with a single collateral. Disproving only one withdrawal is enough to stop other malicious withdrawal processes.
Clementine’s design relies on zero-knowledge proofs, Bitcoin data availability, a novel Bitcoin Light Client design and BitVM. In the case of a malicious act, an honest watchtower provides a proof of the longest Bitcoin chain. Then the operator generates a proof verifying Citrea’s state, watchtowers’ challenges and payout for the withdrawal. If the operator is malicious, it won’t be able to generate such proof, resulting in slashing the operator. Clementine has three main bridge actors to ensure the system’s integrity:
- Signers enforce BitVM spendings by managing peg-ins through presign transactions
- Watchtowers are tasked with monitoring operators and challenging any malicious behavior by sending a proof of longest Bitcoin chain
- Operators, a group of profit-seeking entities, temporarily cover users’ withdrawals and are later reimbursed with presigned transactions.
Citrea: Bitcoin’s Application (₿app) Layer
Citrea extends Bitcoin’s utility without sacrificing its security. With zero-knowledge technology, Citrea enables Bitcoin to function as a fully programmable layer. With its Bitcoin bridge Clementine, Citrea offers the safest and most trust-minimized way to bridge BTC to a fully programmable secondary layer.
For the first time in its history, Bitcoin Network will be able to support diverse on-chain applications and its utility will be extended to decentralized finance.
Apply to Citrea’s unique incubation program ‘Citrea Origins‘ to build ₿apps.
For more information, please visit: Citrea website | Citrea X Account
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PANAMA CITY, April 21, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — BingX, a global leading cryptocurrency exchange, announces the listing of EPT, the native token for Balance.fun, for both spot trading and also on the BingX Xpool. The spot listing will commence on April 21 at 12:00 (UTC) while the Xpool launch will start on April 22 at 10:00 (UTC). BingX users can stake BTC and EPT in Xpool, though new users will have an additional option to stake USDT to win a bigger share of the reward pool that includes 2,000,000 EPT Points. The first 1000 new users who stake a minimum of 100 USDT will also be able to earn an additional bonus voucher worth 100 USDT.
EPT is the governance token of Balance, an AI-powered web3 experience infrastructure designed for the masses. This new digital asset will fuel the new Balance Platform to create an open and inclusive gaming ecosystem for both gamers and developers with fairness at its core. With the integration of AI and blockchain technology, games can be built and marketed more easily while allowing players to benefit from the enhanced and diversified gaming experience.
Users of the existing Epal platform can transfer their EPT tokens to BingX, enabling a reliable method to trade EPT or, alternatively, purchase EPT for governance purposes. Having a solid exchange to further explore the vast world of cryptocurrencies, this new listing further empowers both Epal and Balance users in the process.
Vivien Lin, Chief Product Officer of BingX, shared her thoughts on the new trading option and Xpool listing: “I think providing users with these new trading and early investment options is our responsibility as a responsible cryptocurrency exchange since some of our users rely on us to introduce such projects with such numerous functions across multiple subcategories”.
Visit bingx.com to join the Xpool starting April 22 and start trading EPT on spot from April 21. Whether you’re a gamer, builder, or crypto enthusiast, this is your chance to be part of a new decentralized chapter in entertainment.
About BingX
Founded in 2018, BingX is a leading crypto exchange, serving over 20 million users worldwide. BingX offers diversified products and services, including spot, derivatives, copy trading, and asset management – all designed for the evolving needs of users, from beginners to professionals. BingX is committed to providing a trustworthy platform that empowers users with innovative tools and features to elevate their trading proficiency. In 2024, BingX proudly became the official crypto exchange partner of Chelsea Football Club, marking an exciting debut in the world of sports.
For more information, please visit: https://bingx.com/
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