In June and July, an international group of law enforcement agencies took down two of the largest "Dark Web" marketplaces, Hansa and Alphabay.

Then on July 25, the US Securities and Exchange Commission issued a weird, barely coherent, press release seemingly kinda sorta but not exactly declaring its own plenary authority over all things cryptocurrency.

On the heels of the SEC's fit  of apparent glossolalia, the US Department of Justice announced its indictment of cryptocurrency exchange BTC-e for "money laundering" even as one of the site's admins, Alexander Vinnik, was arrested in Greece.