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The CBI has arrested Darwin Labs co-founder Ayush Varshney, one of the main accused in the Rs 20,000 crore Gain Bitcoin currency scam case, officials said on Wednesday. The agency had issued a Look Out Circular against Varshney. His attempt to flee the country on Monday triggered an alert, leading to his detention at the Mumbai airport, they said. Varshney was formally arrested on Tuesday. According to the CBI, Darwin Labs designed and developed the digital infrastructure which formed the operational backbone of the alleged fraudulent enterprise Gain Bitcoin. During the investigation, the agency detected the alleged involvement of Darwin Labs Private Limited and its co-founders -- Varshney, Sahil Baghla and Nikunj Jain, the chief capital officer and founder at Vaomi AI -- in the design, development and deployment of a cryptocurrency token known as MCAP and its associated ERC-20 smart contract. In a statement, it said that Darwin Labs allegedly played a central role in building the
Asian shares were mixed Wednesday after stocks on Wall Street held steadier as both bond yields and bitcoin stabilised. US futures rose and oil prices edged higher. Tokyo's Nikkei 225 jumped 1.6% to 50,063.65 on big gains for technology shares like Tokyo Electron, which jumped 5.6%. Adventest, a maker of computer chip testing equipment, surged 6.9%. Technology and telecoms giant SoftBank Group Corp. surged more than 8% following reports that its founder, Masayoshi Son, regretted having to sell shares in computer chip maker Nvidia to help pay for other investments. The company's share price sank after it announced last month that it had sold the shares for $5.8 billion. South Korea's Kospi also got a lift from tech shares, gaining 1.2% to 4,042.40. Shares in Samsung Electronics, the country's biggest company, rose 1.8%. But Chinese markets declined following the release of data showing weaker factory activity. Hong Kong's Hang Seng fell 1.1% to 25,797.24, while the Shanghai Compo