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Key Takeaways
- The Virtual Asset Technical Exchange, capped at roughly 50 private-sector vendors, drew attendance from firms like TRM Labs and Chainalysis alongside FinCEN and law enforcement officials.
- Sessions covered cartel and terrorist financing, state-linked hacking, and a detailed presentation on the $270 million Drift exploit.
- The event’s growing industry presence reflects how heavily law enforcement now relies on blockchain analysts to trace stolen funds, amid a 694% surge in crypto flowing to sanctioned entities in 2025.
While major crypto industry conferences compete for celebrity speakers and elaborate venues, the FBI has spent nine years quietly running an annual gathering of its own.
The Virtual Asset Technical Exchange, formerly known as the Virtual Currency Symposium, brought together law enforcement officials, overseas investigators, and crypto-security professionals in San Antonio this September. This, according to three previous attendees who spoke for this story on condition of anonymity.
An Invitation-Only Event Built Around Intelligence Sharing
The symposium is capped at roughly 50 private-sector vendors and partners, with total attendance running into the hundreds, according to two of the attendees. The three-day program combines keynote speeches, panel discussions and fireside chats with networking sessions and demo rooms where companies showcase their platforms.
Blockchain forensics firms including Chainalysis and TRM Labs are said to have attended this year’s event. Nikhil Raghuveera, co-founder and chief executive of compliance infrastructure provider Predicate, gave a presentation on stablecoin compliance and the GENIUS Act.
Representatives from the Security Alliance, a nonprofit focused on crypto cybersecurity threats, and the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, the Treasury Department bureau responsible for combating money laundering, also attended, according to the sources.
The FBI and Chainalysis declined to comment for this story. TRM Labs confirmed its attendance, and Predicate acknowledged that its CEO presented at the conference.
Discussions Span Cartels, Terrorism and State-Sponsored Hacking
Sessions covered the illicit use of virtual assets by cartels and in terrorist financing, cyber-enabled fraud, scams, child sexual abuse material, human trafficking and violent crime, including so-called wrench attacks in which victims are physically coerced into handing over crypto holdings.
Attendees also examined emerging hacking techniques, North Korean state-linked activity and methods for sharing intelligence between industry and law enforcement, according to one of the sources.
One attendee described the event’s focus bluntly.
“This is not a crypto event.”
The person said the gathering functions as a law enforcement event for law enforcement and the people they work with, distinguishing its purpose from commercial industry conferences built around networking and dealmaking.
Investigators at the symposium discuss active threats, methods for tracing stolen funds and case studies from successful investigations, the person added.
A Gathering That Stays Largely Out of Public View
Although the symposium is not secret, it has drawn little media coverage. Its public footprint consists mainly of occasional social media posts from attendees rather than formal FBI announcements or the publicity campaigns typical of commercial crypto events.
A LinkedIn post from Token Recovery executive Roman Bieda, attending for a third time, confirmed the 2024 edition took place in Austin and described it as convening an international group of public and private sector specialists to discuss money laundering, ransomware, human trafficking and crypto-related scams.
The gathering was once weighted more heavily toward government agencies, according to one of the sources, but has since expanded to include a larger share of crypto industry representatives.
A detailed presentation at this year’s event covered the Drift exploit, a previously reported incident in which hackers gained administrative control of the Solana-based decentralized exchange and used a manipulated token as collateral to steal more than $270 million.
Why Law Enforcement Increasingly Relies on Industry Partners
Unlike the polished venues of major crypto conferences, the FBI symposium is deliberately low-key, according to one attendee. Its growing industry presence reflects how heavily law enforcement now depends on crypto companies, blockchain analysts and security researchers to identify attackers and trace stolen funds across public blockchains.
“It’s not flashy.”
The person said the event centers on understanding who is behind current attacks, what defensive practices are proving effective and which threats are likely to emerge next.
Crypto activity tied to sanctioned states surged last year, with sanctioned entities receiving 694% more cryptocurrency in 2025 than the prior year, according to Chainalysis data. Russia, Iran, and North Korea increasingly used digital assets to support state-backed financial and security operations.
The FBI established its Virtual Assets Unit in February 2022 to centralize the bureau’s cryptocurrency work. It brought together specialists from its criminal and cyber divisions to support investigations, analyze intelligence and trace illicit funds, according to the agency’s own announcement at the time.
The unit was created as digital assets became more frequently tied to crimes including ransomware, child exploitation, murder-for-hire schemes and terrorist financing.
The FBI had investigated virtual-asset cases prior to the unit’s creation and maintained a dedicated investigative team for roughly a decade before it, according to one of the sources.
