- Week in Review
- The crypto market remained largely range bound this week, characterized by heightened volatility. Bitcoin briefly rallied above $69K following news of a lawsuit against Jane Street. The litigation alleges a pattern of insider trading and strategic selling at 10:00 ET, followed by late-day buybacks-a pattern that reportedly ceased immediately upon the announcement of legal action. However, these gains were erased as the sector sold off sharply in response to reports of U.S. military action against Iran.
- The U.S. SEC’s updated guidance last week stating it will not object to broker-dealers applying a 2% haircut to stablecoins drew optimistic reactions from market participants with some calling it one of the most consequential moves the SEC has made for integrating digital assets into mainstream finance. Prior to the guidance, some broker-dealers were choosing to fully discount stablecoins in capital calculations by applying a 100% haircut, making it costly to maintain holdings. Stablecoins are now treated on par with money market funds, significantly improving its capital efficiency for broker-dealers.
- U.S. lawmakers introduced the Promoting Innovation in Blockchain Development Act, a bipartisan measure designed to protect blockchain developers from certain criminal prosecutions. The bill clarifies that the prohibition on operating illegal money transmitting businesses would apply only to those with control over others’ digital assets. This would allow developers who do not take custody of or exercise control over users’ funds to build technology without fear of being prosecuted as financial intermediaries. Market commentators supported the proposed legislation, noting that it would help prevent cases like the prosecution of Tornado Cash developer Roman Storm or the creators of Samourai Wallet.
- Circle Internet Group and Tether are currently focusing on expansion and infrastructure integration. Circle recently reported a 77% y/y revenue increase to $770M, with its USDC stablecoin now accounting for ~50% of stablecoin transactions on Visa. Simultaneously, Tether has invested $200M in the digital marketplace Whop to integrate USDT and USAT stablecoins, allowing 18.4M users to bypass traditional banking intermediaries for payments and DeFi services. In contrast.
- Meta is reportedly considering a fresh entry into the stablecoin market in H2, following its earlier attempt to launch Libra in 2019 which faced hurdles in a much less favorable regulatory climate. This time, Meta plans to integrate a vendor to help administer stablecoin-backed payments and implement a new wallet, having issued requests for proposals to third-party firms with financial infrastructure platform Stripe emerging as a likely candidate.
- Highlights
- Bitcoin/DLT/DeFi
- US Strategic BTC Reserve could fall ~30% if court orders return of assets linked to the 2016 Bitfinex hack as restitution (CryptoSlate )
- Market cap of tokenized US Treasurys rose by more than $1B since 1-Jan climbing to over $10.8B (Cointelegraph )
- Ethereum announces strawmap, a holistic breakdown on L1 protocol upgrades (Ethereum )
- StarkNet introduces new BTC wrapped strkBTC, giving BTC transactions built-in privacy capabilities (StarkNet )
- Uniswap proposal to turn on protocol fees across multiple chains live (Uniswap )
- Spot Bitcoin ETFs record fifth consecutive week of outflows (TheBlock)
- TRON DAO’s academic blockchain initiative now adopted by additional prominent universities (The Block)
- AI crypto trading bot mistakenly sends entire memecoin holding to X user (TheBlock)
- Solana-based LOBSTAR token experiences surge amidst SOL AI agent token distribution mishap (crypto.news)
- Delphi digital shares Hyperliquid (HYPE) research (Delphi )
- Backpack exchange to offer users equity via one-year token staking contract (TheBlock )
- Corporate
- GD Culture Group sells BTC to fund share buyback (Cointelegraph )
- Bloomberg partners with Kaiko to bring Data License offerings on-chain (Bloomberg)
- Barclays reportedly considering blockchain platform for payments and deposits (Bloomberg )
- Saylor reiterates confidence in Bitcoin following an additional purchase (TheBlock )
- Kraken launches Flexline, a new crypto-backed loan product for its Pro users, APRs 10-25% (Cointelegraph )
- Binance partners with Ondo Finance to bring tokenized stocks and ETFs to platform (Binance )
- Near launches confidential GPU marketplace (near )
- Stablecoins/CBDCs
- Trumps USD1 suffers de-peg amidst “coordinated attack” (CoinDesk )
- Revolut selected to test real-world stablecoin applications in the UK alongside other companies (The Block)
- Bank of Korea pushes for bank control of KRW-pegged stablecoins (eToday)
- Wallet in Telegram launches on-chain yield vaults for Bitcoin, Ethereum and USDT (TheBlock)
- Politics/Regulation
- OCC provides final ruling allowing national trust banks to operate without traditional banking functions (PR )
- OCC seeks public comments on proposed rulemaking in relation to GENIUS Act (OCC)
- Dutch authorities issue cease and desist order to prediction market Polymarket (Kansspelautoriteit)
- Crypto.com obtains conditional approval for national trust bank charter from OCC (PR)
- Federal Reserve seeks input for proposal to remove “reputation risk” from its bank supervisory framework (TheBlock)
- White House reiterates no plans for President Trump to pardon FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried (Fortune)
- U.S. Senator Blumenthal probes Binance over alleged money laundering tied to Iran and Russia’s sanctions evasion network (PR)
- Bitcoin/DLT/DeFi
Crypto Weekly Summary
