Nick Oulette of Vancouver is one of the millions of video game players around the world anxiously awaiting the release of Grand Theft Auto VI.

“The hype is so real with this one,” he told CBC News. “I do think it’ll be the game of the decade.”

GTAVI, the latest in the long-running series of open-world crime simulators by Rockstar Games, is predicted to be the biggest release in video game history — and not just by hardcore gamers or streamers.

Earlier this month, Steven Adams of the Houston Rockets told media he expects the performance of elite athletes in all major sports leagues to “plummet” as they spend most of their time playing the game instead of training.

Here are some of the reasons why the anticipation for GTAVI has reached a fever pitch.

A mega-popular series

The raw numbers are staggering by any measure.

The series has sold more than 470 million units since 1997, with Grand Theft Auto V alone selling more than 230 million. It remains one of the most-played games on Xbox and PlayStation consoles, thanks to its GTA Online multiplayer mode, according to Circana games industry analyst Mat Piscatella.

According to leaked data released by hackers earlier this year, GTA Online makes Rockstar about $500 billion US every year, or $1.3 million every day.

Piscatella says 29 per cent of U.S. gamers with a PC or console intend to buy GTAVI at some point, whether at launch or later on down the road. 

“If a game gets in the teens-percentage in purchase intent, it’s going to be a hit. If it’s in the high single digits, it’s still really good. But when you’re approaching nearly one-in-three, that’s kind of off the charts,” he told CBC News.

The long wait

GTAVI comes with more than a decade of pent-up anticipation.

Grand Theft Auto V first launched on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox One more than 13 years ago. Development for GTAVI reportedly began around eight years ago. Rockstar only released one major game in the meantime: Red Dead Redemption 2, in 2018.

Rockstar has said very little about the game itself, fuelling a cottage industry of speculation and fake videos purporting to be leaked footage online.

We know the game features two playable characters: Jason and Lucia, a couple juggling their romantic relationship and burgeoning criminal careers in Leonida, the GTA world’s satirical version of Florida. But little else about the story, or what players will be able to do, have been teased.

“There is still a lot we don’t know about GTAVI, and it’s kind of mysterious … including its budget,” said Toronto-based games writer and podcaster Nadia Oxford. 

Open-world games with the ambition of GTA are rare, Oxford notes, because they are “horrendously expensive to make” at the production levels expected in today’s industry.

Rumours this fall suggested…

The massive $6.3 billion cryptocurrency hack at Binance is a warning of potentially devastating cyberattacks ahead, according to a financial and reputation management expert who cautioned that the worst may be yet to come.

Eric Schiffer, chairman of Patriarch and Reputation Management Consultants, told FOX Business the scale of the theft underscores the growing cybersecurity challenges facing major financial institutions.

“I look at this as one of the world’s greatest thefts of all time, and it’s sad,” Schiffer said.

Schiffer warned that this week’s incident could be an early sign of a broader wave of increasingly sophisticated cyberattacks, particularly as artificial intelligence becomes more powerful.

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“I think the bloodbath of AI hacking is to come,” he said. “And there’s going to be a lot more pain.”

He cautioned that businesses can no longer afford to treat cybersecurity as a problem they can address after an attack occurs.

Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, confirmed Thursday that hackers had stolen approximately $6.3 billion in digital assets. The company later said it had reserved more than $6.34 billion in company funds to cover the losses, including $5 billion already held in the same cryptocurrencies that were stolen.

The exchange said it was purchasing additional tokens through market and over-the-counter transactions to replace the remaining affected assets.

Binance also said approximately $3 billion in stolen assets had been frozen on-chain with the help of industry partners, with recovery efforts continuing. The exchange temporarily suspended withdrawals while conducting security checks.

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The company pledged to cover customer losses, saying it would “absorb the financial impact of these stolen funds, not our users.”

Despite the scale of the theft, which one market analyst described as the “biggest hack in history,” Schiffer predicted that Binance would recover financially, but he warned that restoring investor confidence could prove more difficult.

“For a company like Binance that allegedly has a balance sheet that far exceeds the hit, they’re going to recover,” Schiffer said. “It’s painful. It certainly is a hit on credibility. They’re going [to] lose a…

The man behind one of the biggest bitcoin thefts in history this week pleaded guilty.

Malone Lam, 22, a Miami resident from Singapore, on Tuesday admitted his role as ringleader of the international crime group which stole 4,100 bitcoins — worth over $230 million at the time — to fund a life of luxury. 

The U.S. Department of Justice said that from October 2023 and through at least May 2025, Lam and others hacked databases to steal crypto users’ information and con them into providing user logins and private keys. Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies worth $245 million were taken in the theft. 

On one occasion, a co-defendant broke into a residence in New Mexico and stole a hardware wallet while Lam monitored the victim’s movements by hacking their iCloud account.

“This defendant led an international network that preyed on victims through deception, invaded their privacy, and stole hundreds of millions of dollars in cryptocurrency,” U.S. Attorney Jeanine Ferris Pirro said in a statement. 

“If you build a cybercrime empire, we will find you, dismantle your operation, and hold you accountable,” Attorney Pirro added. 

The DOJ said: “The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act conspiracy used social engineering and occasional home break-ins to obtain information that allowed the conspirators to drain their victims’ cryptocurrency wallets.” 

The crimes started after a group of online gamers became friends before working together to commit the cybercrimes, the indictment read.

Lam and co-defendants laundered the stolen bitcoin and spent it on bottle service parties, private jet rentals, security guards, luxury handbags and watches, and properties in Los Angeles, the Hamptons, and Miami. 

The defendants would spend up to $500,000 a night on parties and give away designer handbags worth tens of thousands of dollars, Tuesday’s announcement read. 

Lam was arrested in 2024 at his rental home in Miami. 

A Miami man faces multiple felony charges after police say he stole nearly $2 million worth of Bitcoin from a former employer — a theft that went undetected for years while the cryptocurrency sat locked in a safe.

Nahum Reynaldo Castro, 40, was arrested Tuesday on charges of grand theft, money laundering, unlawful use of a communications device, and offenses against computer users, according to an arrest report obtained by NBC 6.

The case stretches back to December 2017, when the victim began purchasing Bitcoin as a long-term investment. He bought a hardware wallet to store the digital currency, and turned to Castro — a trusted employee since 2013 and an IT specialist — to handle the wallet’s setup and security, the report said.

By the end of January 2018, Castro had secured more than $217,000 worth of Bitcoin on behalf of his employer. The hardware wallet was then locked in a safe inside the victim’s home, where it remained untouched for years.

That changed in July 2025. While in the middle of a move, the victim opened the safe and accessed the wallet — only to find it empty. The Bitcoin was gone. At the time of the discovery, the stolen holdings had grown to a value of more than $1.9 million, according to the arrest report.

Investigators determined the theft had taken place in 2020, more than five years before the victim realized anything was missing. Castro continued working for the victim until 2024, the report said.

The wallets seed phrase gave away Castro

Central to the investigation was the wallet’s seed phrase — a master recovery key that grants full access to a cryptocurrency wallet. According to the report, only two people had knowledge of that phrase: the victim and Castro.

Bank records proved critical in building the case. Deposits into Castro’s accounts aligned with withdrawals from the Bitcoin wallet, providing investigators with the financial corroboration needed to connect him to the theft, NBC 6 reported.

The case highlights a risk in the cryptocurrency space that security experts have long flagged: placing complete trust in a single person during the setup of a digital asset wallet. 

Because Bitcoin transactions are recorded on a public blockchain but are not reversible, stolen funds are nearly impossible to recover without law enforcement intervention.

Castro was booked into jail following his arrest and was set to appear in bond court Wednesday. He has not entered a formal plea in the case.

John Daghita, an alleged U.S. government contractor accused of stealing more than $46 million in cryptocurrency from the U.S. Marshals Service (USMS), was arrested last night on the island of Saint Martin in a coordinated operation between the FBI and French authorities. 

The arrest, confirmed via tweet by FBI Director Kash Patel, involved the French Gendarmerie’s elite tactical unit and the International Cooperation Team Serious Crime Unit.

“Thanks to the International Cooperation Team Serious Crime Unit of the French Gendarmerie National in Saint Martin, and the Groupe d’intervention de la Gendarmerie nationale of Guadeloupe for the outstanding coordination,” Patel wrote. “The FBI will continue working 24/7 with our international partners to track down, apprehend, and bring to justice those who attempt to defraud American taxpayers—no matter where they try to hide.”

The case centers on allegations that Daghita, identified online by blockchain investigator ZachXBT as “Lick,” exploited insider access to siphon digital assets from government-linked wallets. 

Daghita is the son of Dean Daghita, president and CEO of Command Services & Support (CMDSS), a Virginia-based technology firm contracted by the USMS to manage and dispose of certain categories of seized cryptocurrency.

CMDSS was awarded the contract in October 2024 to handle digital assets not supported by major exchanges, including funds tied to complex criminal cases and high-profile seizures, such as the 2016 Bitfinex hack. 

Daghita had access to millions in crypto

According to ZachXBT, Daghita demonstrated the ability to move millions of dollars in real time during a dispute recorded in a private Telegram chat. Subsequent on-chain analysis linked those wallets to addresses known to hold government-seized assets.

ZachXBT reported that one wallet allegedly controlled by Daghita held 12,540 ether, valued at roughly $36 million at current prices. 

Other transaction trails suggest approximately $20 million was removed from USMS-linked wallets in October 2024, most of which was returned within a day, though roughly $700,000 routed through instant exchanges was not recovered. 

Estimates of total suspected thefts may exceed $90 million when accounting for activity observed in late 2025.

U.S. officials have not publicly detailed how Daghita allegedly accessed the crypto or the wallets, nor whether CMDSS’s internal controls were bypassed or exploited. 

The case follows heightened scrutiny of the U.S. Marshals Service’s cryptocurrency holdings, which some analysts estimate at over 198,000 BTC, worth tens of billions of dollars. 

Allegations of insider theft and improper management have intensified calls for reform in how federal agencies secure and track digital assets, especially those seized from criminal cases.

Three Silicon Valley engineers were arrested and charged with stealing trade secrets from Google and other U.S. technology firms and transferring sensitive data to unauthorized locations, including Iran, federal prosecutors announced Thursday.

Samaneh Ghandali, 41, Soroor Ghandali, 32, and Mohammadjavad Khosravi, also known as Mohammad Khosravi, 40, all of San Jose, were arrested Thursday, according to the Department of Justice (DOJ).

A federal grand jury indicted the engineers on charges of conspiracy to commit trade secret theft, theft and attempted theft of trade secrets, and obstruction of justice.

“We have enhanced safeguards to protect our confidential information and immediately alerted law enforcement after discovering this incident,” Google spokesperson José Castañeda said in a statement to FOX Business. “Today’s indictments are an important step towards accountability and we’ll continue working to ensure our trade secrets remain secure.”

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The defendants gained employment at technology companies focused on mobile computer processors, according to the indictment unsealed Thursday.

According to prosecutors, sisters Samaneh Ghandali and Soroor Ghandali worked at Google before moving to another technology company identified as “Company 3,” headquartered in Santa Clara, California. Khosravi, who is married to Samaneh Ghandali, worked at a separate company identified in the indictment as Company 2, headquartered in San Diego.

The DOJ alleges the defendants used their positions to access confidential and sensitive information as part of a scheme to steal trade secrets.

The defendants “exfiltrated confidential and sensitive documents, including trade secrets related to processor security and cryptography and other technologies, from Google and other technology companies to unauthorized third-party and personal locations, including to work devices associated with each other’s employers, and to Iran.” 

“As alleged, the defendants exploited their positions to steal confidential trade secrets from their employers,” United States Attorney Craig H. Missakian said in a statement. “Our office will continue to lead the way in protecting American innovation and we will vigorously prosecute individuals who steal sensitive advanced technologies for improper gain or to benefit countries that wish us ill.”

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