The jokes wrote themselves.

On Wednesday, the U.S. Department of Justice declared ominously that it would hold a live press conference at noon to announce an "International Cryptocurrency Enforcement Action."

Crypto Twitter panicked, and so did crypto prices. Bitcoin and Ethereum each fell nearly 5% in just a few minutes, amounting to a flash crash. Which big player was caught in the DOJ's crosshairs? Binance was a popular bet, and CZ didn't help matters by tweeting just "4," which he announced on January 2 is his new signal for incoming "FUD, fake news, attacks, etc."

Then the press conference happened. It wasn't Binance. It wasn't Celsius, or Voyager, or Blockfi, or any other bankrupt crypto lender that screwed over its customers. It was a Hong Kong-based, Russian-owned crypto exchange called Bitzlato.

Bitz-what? Bitzlatte? I've been writing about crypto since 2011, and never heard of it.

Bitzlato, the DOJ said, processed more than $700 million in illicit funds, including millions in proceeds from ransomware.

Okay. But as of January 18, Bitzlato customer wallets had... $11,000 in them, according to a Coinbase operations director. At Bitzlato's peak, customer wallets held $6 million—a trifle. And yet DOJ Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco touted the enforcement action as "a significant blow to the cryptocrime ecosystem." She said Bitzlato, "fueled a high-tech axis of cryptocrime."

The crypto market quickly rebounded.

I could embed a bunch more of the best memes on this, but let's move on to the Why, and the What This Means.

The DOJ is attempting to flex.

People in crypto laughed at it, but those outside crypto probably didn't. The U.S. government wants to make crystal clear—especially after the massively scrutinized collapse of FTX—that it is aware of CRYPTO CRIME (!) and is taking decisive action.

The DOJ has reportedly been investigating Binance since 2018, and according to Reuters is split over whether to bring charges. It's been rumored that the DOJ is also investigating Digital Currency Group, owner of crypto lender Genesis, which filed for bankruptcy this week.