Global cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase has launched derivatives contracts for eligible Canadian investors seeking to trade and speculate on a trusted platform.

 

 

The derivatives contracts, which will be offered through Coinbase Financial Markets, are the first of their kind from a crypto native platform in Canada, giving investors access to highly liquid and regulated contracts, including 23 perpetual and dated futures covering assets such as Bitcoin, ETH, and SOL; five commodity futures covering gold, silver, and oil; and index futures.

 

Regarding the features of the newly launched derivatives contracts, Coinbase said in a blog post that the contracts are regulated by its financial markets arm, an entity registered with the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). The contracts will also be flexible, with nano sized contracts designed for investors with lower upfront capital requirements.

 

Coinbase’s derivatives contract launch comes at a time when the exchange has rolled out more customizable charting and interface features on Coinbase Advanced.

 

Rather than forcing every trader to use the same chart setup, the rollout is aimed at making it easier for traders to customize their trading screens. Traders can switch between candlestick and line charts, change time frames, adjust chart settings and technical indicators, and use drawing tools.

 

The benefits of these features are that traders can spot market trends faster, identify potential entry and exit points, and analyze market movements more effectively.

 

Bitwise Asset Management, the global crypto asset manager, has launched an automated token portfolio (ATP) that allows non U.S. investors to align their tokenized stock portfolios with Bitwise’s published model portfolios.

 

The portfolio, developed in partnership with Coinbase and Glider, allows investors to maintain full custody of their portfolio assets, eliminating the need to constantly transfer their assets to a pooled vehicle or place them in the hands of a fund sponsor.

 

"For over a century, getting a professional model meant handing your assets to a fund. ATPs mean you can keep the assets in your own wallet, and the model comes to you," said Matt Hougan, CIO of Bitwise. "ATPs unlock a new way for people to access thematic exposures more quickly and precisely than many traditional structures. We're just scratching the surface."

 

Since the stocks will remain in users’ wallets under their control, investors will be able to use them for other yield bearing opportunities, including lending or borrowing against them through DeFi protocols. However, investors will be responsible for any associated risks.

 

According to Bitwise, the tokenized portfolio will be rolled out in the coming weeks and will provide investors with broad exposure to a variety of stocks, which will be categorized into three distinct portfolios.

 

These include the Mag7X ATP, which provides exposure to the seven largest U.S. technology companies, and the Robotics and AI Leaders ATP, which will provide exposure to leading AI and robotics companies.

 

Bitwise’s launch of its automated tokenized portfolio comes at a time when crypto exchange Coinbase has also launched tokenized stocks of Nvidia, Apple, Meta, and Alphabet on Base. The tokenized stocks, which are supported by about 50 protocols, including Aave, Morpho, and Euler, will only be made available to eligible users outside the United States.

 

Coinbase has announced the launch of a new suite of derivatives that will be available exclusively to eligible traders in the United Kingdom.

 

 

Announcing the rollout, Coinbase said the launch of these derivatives aligns with its goal of building a unified, borderless, and fully transparent derivatives ecosystem that gives professional traders the tools they need to navigate any market.

 

“The launch continues our effort to launch the ‘Everything Exchange’ in the UK. Our vision is to make Coinbase a single place where everyone from first-time crypto investors to the most sophisticated traders can access and manage all of their assets.”

 

As part of its rollout plans, Coinbase revealed that eligible professional traders will gain access to these derivatives in the coming months, including perpetuals, dated futures, and crypto options.

 

According to the exchange, eligible traders will have 24/7 access to more than 170 supported assets across crypto, commodities, equities, and foreign exchange, with leverage of up to 50x for perpetuals and up to 20x for dated futures.

 

The rollout of these derivatives comes shortly after Coinbase secured a Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID) investment services authorisation from the UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). The authorisation provides Coinbase with the regulatory permissions needed to offer derivatives to eligible UK clients.

 

As Coinbase continues to pursue its goal of becoming an “Everything Exchange” that serves users globally, the company has also received regulatory approval to expand its operations in Australia and Abu Dhabi.

 

It has also expanded access to more than 4,000 tokenised US stocks and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) for non-US residents.

 

 

A São Paulo state court has ordered cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase to refund nearly $100,000 that a user alleged was deposited into their wallet but later went missing.

 

According to the complainant, about 507,000 reais, or nearly $100,000, deposited into their Coinbase wallet disappeared without authorization. However, Coinbase claimed it had nothing to do with the missing funds, arguing that the user’s private key was fully under the user’s control.

 

Although Coinbase contended that it had no access to users’ wallet private keys and could not control blockchain transactions, it failed to prove that the compromised wallet was equipped with essential security features, such as two-factor authentication. As a result, Coinbase was unable to prove that the complainant had authorized the transactions.

 

The court, presided over by Judge Ju Hyeon Lee, ruled that Coinbase must reimburse the full amount of the missing funds in accordance with Brazil’s Customer Protection Code. The exchange was also ordered to cover court costs, which amounted to 10% of the claim, as well as any applicable legal fees.

 

Responding to the court ruling, Raphael Souza, a cryptocurrency-specialized lawyer, spoke to Portal do Bitcoin, one of Brazil’s leading cryptocurrency news platforms, highlighting the significance of the decision and its potential impact on crypto companies operating in Brazil.

 

Souza said the ruling dismantled two common arguments used by crypto companies. “The first is that a self-custody portfolio does not generate liability. Anyone who develops and puts a product on the market is responsible for its security, regardless of how the technical architecture works behind it.” According to Souza, this applies to Coinbase because it is a registered entity in Brazil.

 

The second argument Souza said the ruling challenged is that technical documents alone are insufficient in cases like this if companies fail to provide a thorough, understandable explanation.

 

“Coinbase had every opportunity to prove that the investor authorized the transaction, explain the technical records, and inform where the funds went. It chose not to do any of that,” Souza asserted.

 

While Coinbase has not suffered any major security breach in recent times that resulted in the loss of customer funds, some of the company’s rogue overseas employees were allegedly bribed by attackers to gain access to its internal support systems.

 

The unauthorized access allowed the attackers to obtain customers’ sensitive data, including names, contact information, and account details. Although the attackers demanded a $20 million ransom, which Coinbase refused to pay, the company said the incident cost it between $180 million and $400 million, largely due to remediation efforts and customer reimbursements.

 

 

Coinbase, Visa, and Stripe have joined the Open Standard consortium, which comprises more than 140 companies working to support the development of the OpenUSD (OUSD) stablecoin.

 

 

Announced on June 30, 2026, OpenUSD (OUSD) is a United States dollar-pegged stablecoin developed by Open Standard, a consortium that includes BlackRock, Google, Ripple, Solana, Aave, and more than 140 companies.

 

Although the OpenUSD token has not yet launched, it is expected to go live later this year. According to the core development team, the OUSD stablecoin will be backed on a one-to-one basis by the United States dollar and U.S. Treasuries. Because it is designed to scale, businesses can mint and redeem the stablecoin at no cost, with no volume caps for founding partners.

 

"Existing stablecoins have great strengths, but to use them at scale, businesses need something that is open, low cost, high throughput, broadly accessible, and aligned with their interests," Open Standard CEO Zach Adam said.

 

"We are thrilled to bring together more than 140 businesses to launch OpenUSD. It is a stablecoin built for the internet economy and designed by the businesses growing it."

 

Another distinguishing feature of the OpenUSD stablecoin is its shared yield model. After the operating costs of running the stablecoin infrastructure are deducted, users and participants will share almost all of the earnings generated from the stablecoin's reserves based on network activity.

 

Shortly after the announcement of the OpenUSD stablecoin, Circle's CRCL stock fell more than 16%, with many analysts attributing the decline to the launch of OUSD. Despite the sharp drop, Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire welcomed competition in the stablecoin sector, saying that USDC remains the most widely adopted stablecoin for institutional use while reiterating the company's expansion plans. Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino also welcomed the launch of OUSD in a post on X, saying, "Player 2 has entered the game."

 

 

Robinhood Markets, Inc. will cut its staff by 10 percent as the company seeks to operate more efficiently and achieve greater impact from a lean workforce.

 

In a note shared by Robinhood’s communications team on behalf of chief executive officer Vlad Tenev, the company said it can no longer continue operating as a heavily layered organization.

 

“We must be a lean, hyper-focused team where every single individual is empowered to make a massive impact,” Tenev said in the note. “Our execution is strong today, but our ambitions require us to continuously raise our own bar. To achieve that, today we are flattening our organizational structure and reducing our overall team size by 10 percent of headcount.”

 

About 290 employees are expected to be affected. According to a Form 8-K filing with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission, the restructuring will cost 20 million dollars in cash severance benefits and 8 million dollars in equity-based compensation.

 

Robinhood’s layoff comes as the cryptocurrency industry continues to see workforce reductions. Last month, Kraken reduced its staff by about 5 percent, or roughly 150 employees. Coinbase cut its global workforce by about 14 percent, resulting in the loss of approximately 700 jobs. Some reports have linked recent restructuring efforts in the sector to a broader shift toward AI initiatives, though companies have also cited cost-control and efficiency goals.

 

Several other cryptocurrency-focused companies have also carried out layoffs, including Crypto.com, Dune, Algorand, and Block. According to an industry tracking report, more than 5,000 jobs have been cut across dozens of companies.

 

Despite the reduction, Robinhood’s chief executive said the company will continue to hire strategically and invest in top-tier talent. Robinhood recently acquired WonderFi, expanding its presence in the Canadian market. The company’s growth metrics remain strong, reporting net revenue of $1.07 billion in the first quarter, up approximately 15% from $927 million in the same period a year earlier.

 

 

Decentralized finance protocol Ethena Labs has partnered with Anchorage Digital, a digital asset infrastructure provider, to expand its presence in institutional lending through Anchorage Digital's Atlas Collateral Management platform, which manages institutional-grade digital asset collateral.

 

 

As Ethena Labs seeks to deepen its involvement in institutional lending, the partnership will see Anchorage Digital act as collateral manager for Ethena's institutional lending activities. This arrangement allows Ethena to focus on deploying capital for loans, while Anchorage Digital manages and safeguards the associated collateral under its custody.

 

"Institutions want access to crypto native capital, but not at the cost of custody, controls, or operational rigor. Atlas Collateral Management lets protocols like Ethena Labs meet institutional borrowers where they are, combining the speed of DeFi with the standards institutions require," said Nathan McCauley, Co-Founder and CEO of Anchorage Digital.

 

Through the Atlas Collateral Management platform, Anchorage can monitor collateral and loan thresholds in real time, support margin processes, and execute rules-based actions when necessary. Because the collateral remains under Anchorage's custody and does not move on the chain, Ethena can access traditional institutional lending markets without requiring institutions to adopt blockchain native custody solutions or interact directly with DeFi smart contracts.

 

For borrowers, the collaboration provides access to crypto native credit while allowing them to maintain their existing custodial, compliance, and risk management frameworks. Atlas offers protocols a streamlined way to expand into institutional lending without building and maintaining their own collateral management, monitoring, and liquidation infrastructure.

 

The partnership between Ethena Labs and Anchorage Digital builds on an existing relationship. In July 2025, Ethena partnered with Anchorage Digital Bank, the first federally chartered crypto bank in the United States, to become the primary issuer of USDtb, Ethena Labs' institutional-grade stablecoin.

 

As part of its broader push into institutional lending, Ethena recently partnered with Solana-based DeFi platform Jupiter and Bitwise Asset Management to launch an institutional-grade USDe lending market on Jupiter's lending platform.

 

The partnership between Anchorage Digital and Ethena Labs comes at roughly the same time as Coinbase's investment in Ethena Labs, which included the purchase of an undisclosed amount of ENA tokens. Coinbase and Ethena are working together to launch on-chain savings and finance products for Coinbase's more than 100 million users.

 

 

Global cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase has launched direct Indian Rupee (INR) rails for users in India following approval from one of the country's main financial regulators.

 

 

With the launch of the INR rails, Indian users can now directly deposit and withdraw Indian Rupees on Coinbase using the Immediate Payment Service (IMPS) from their Indian bank accounts, without relying on peer to peer rails or intermediaries.

 

Using Indian Rupees, customers will be able to access spot trading across a range of assets, alongside perpetual futures contracts covering major crypto assets.

 

“We have built local INR order books that provide dedicated liquidity for Indian customers, while maintaining continued access to our global exchange,” John O'Loghlen, Coinbase's Regional Managing Director for APAC, wrote in a blog post.

 

Coinbase has also rolled out advanced features for users seeking additional functionality, including professional grade trading tools, built in institutional grade APIs, WebSocket order book streaming, and an integrated TradingView charting tool that allows traders to analyse price movements, trends, and technical indicators.

 

Coinbase Deepens Its Presence in India

With this expansion, Coinbase aims to continue contributing meaningfully to India’s growing crypto ecosystem. It is one of the leading investors in CoinDCX, India’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, which currently serves over 22 million users.

 

Through Base, its Ethereum layer two network, Coinbase has contributed over 1 million dollars to the Indian builder community through hackathons, direct grants, and fellowships, with more than 4,000 builders in India already building on Base and 150 of these projects growing into real startups.

 

To demonstrate its commitment to the growth of the Indian crypto ecosystem and reaffirm its long term presence in India, Coinbase says its latest rollout complies with the Financial Intelligence Unit India regulatory framework and other taxation laws.

 

As a result, Indian users can deposit Indian rupees directly from their bank accounts onto the exchange, trade in both spot and futures markets, and withdraw their funds back to their bank accounts whenever they choose, without any additional steps or workarounds.

 

Coinbase’s expansion in India comes shortly after the exchange received approval from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the CFTC, to offer offshore crypto perpetuals and options to users in the United States.

 

Coinbase also recently partnered with Flipcash, a digital payments app, to launch the app’s first stablecoin using its custom stablecoin platform.

 

 

For years, perpetual futures have been crypto's most traded instrument and almost none of that volume has touched U.S.-regulated infrastructure. Until now. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) formally approved KalshiEX to list BTCPERP, a no-expiry Bitcoin perpetual futures contract tied to spot BTC prices. On the same day, the agency's Market Participants Division issued a staff-level interpretation clearing Coinbase Financial Markets to route U.S. customers to certain derivatives on Deribit, its offshore affiliate. Two very different regulatory moves, made on the same morning, pointed at the same underlying problem: American traders have been effectively locked out of the largest segment of global crypto markets.

 

CFTC Chairman Mike Selig framed the Kalshi order as delivery on a specific commitment to onshore crypto perpetuals, describing the move as a path for one of the most liquid segments of the crypto asset markets to exist inside the U.S. regulatory framework. Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong put a number to the problem his company says it is solving: until now, U.S. users have been locked out of roughly 80% of global crypto markets, which includes perpetual futures and options. Coinbase cited Deribit's more than $185 billion in July 2025 trading volume and approximately $60 billion in open interest at the time of acquisition to illustrate the scale of what domestic traders could not legally access through regulated channels.

 

What the CFTC Actually Approved

BTCPERP is a cash-settled contract referencing the U.S. dollar spot price of one Bitcoin, as tracked by the CF Benchmarks Bitcoin Real Time Index. It trades in units of one ten-thousandth of a BTC, runs 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and has no fixed expiry date.  Traditional futures converge toward their underlying asset at expiration because physical delivery or final cash settlement pulls the contract to spot. A perpetual has no such date, so the convergence mechanism operates continuously through periodic funding payments between long and short holders. If the contract trades above spot, longs pay shorts. If it trades below, shorts pay longs. The economic pressure keeps the perpetual price tracking Bitcoin in real time.

 

The CFTC's approval leans heavily on Bitcoin's specific market structure as its justification. The order notes Bitcoin's deep, active, and continuous spot trading across broadly distributed venues, with pricing observable around the clock. That depth is what makes the funding rate mechanism credible: arbitrageurs can act while the perpetual is live, since the underlying spot market never closes. The agency was explicit that this reasoning applies to Bitcoin and to similarly structured digital commodities with comparable market depth. Other assets will need to go through a separate review. Bitnomial had previously received certification for a product labeled a perpetual futures contract, but that contract carried a 25-year term limit and is considered a different structure. BTCPERP is the first true no-expiry perpetual to receive a Commission-level order.

 

Two Paths, Very Different Weight

The distinction between the Kalshi approval and the Coinbase staff letter matters more than it might look at first glance. Kalshi's BTCPERP is a Commission-issued order under Section 5c(c)(4) of the Commodity Exchange Act and Regulation 40.3. That is formal product approval, with binding legal weight and a clear compliance framework. Coinbase's route is different in kind. The Market Participants Division issued an interpretation and a no-action position in response to Coinbase Financial Markets. Staff confirmed that certain Deribit digital commodity derivatives may be categorized as foreign futures under Regulation 30.1, and said it would not recommend enforcement action under specified conditions tied to how customer digital assets and stablecoins are handled as margin through Coinbase affiliates.

 

Staff letters are conditional by design. The CFTC was clear: these positions represent the Market Participants Division only, are not binding on the Commission, and can be modified, suspended, or terminated. The Coinbase path is useful for reaching scale quickly because it connects U.S. clients directly to Deribit's existing liquidity pool, which is among the largest in global crypto derivatives. But it carries a thinner precedential footprint. Coinbase said institutional onboarding to Deribit options has already begun, with perpetual futures access and broader retail availability described as coming later, without a hard timeline. Retail access is expected to carry additional eligibility criteria and risk disclosure requirements.

 

The Liquidity Question Nobody Can Answer Yet

Regulatory clearance is the easy part. Getting traders to use a U.S. regulated perpetual when Binance, Bybit, and OKX offer the same exposure with deeper order books and, in most cases, higher leverage, is the actual test. Offshore exchanges process billions of dollars in Bitcoin perp volume on a slow day. The CFTC has been working toward this moment for over a year, issuing a formal request for comment in April 2025 on perpetual derivatives, their benefits, risks, market integrity implications, and customer protection questions. The approvals are, in that sense, the policy answer to the RFI. The market answer comes when Kalshi's BTCPERP goes live and traders decide whether regulated access at U.S. leverage limits is a compelling enough trade-off.

 

The CFTC's case-by-case stance on future perpetual approvals means the template is now set, but the runway is not yet cleared. Ethereum perps, Solana perps, and other digital assets with sufficient spot market depth could follow, but each application needs to clear the same review process independently. Kalshi separately indicated it plans to launch perpetual contracts on more than a dozen currencies pending additional regulatory reviews. CME's parallel push toward 24/7 crypto futures and options trading adds another dimension to the picture: traditional derivatives infrastructure is adapting to match crypto's always-on market structure, while crypto-native exchanges now have a formal path to operate inside U.S. regulatory boundaries. Whether the liquidity follows is a question of product quality, margin efficiency, and distribution reach, and none of that gets answered in an approval order.

 

The next signals are practical: Kalshi's launch terms and funding rate performance, Coinbase's timeline for rolling out perpetual futures through CFM, how retail access gets structured, and whether formal rulemaking eventually hardens the current agency posture into something more durable. For now, U.S.-regulated Bitcoin perps exist. Whether they can actually compete is the harder question, and the market will answer it faster than any regulator. It usually does.

 

Flipcash, a digital payment app founded by Ted Livingston, the founder of messaging app Kik, has partnered with Coinbase to launch USDF, a stablecoin pegged to the U.S. dollar.

 

 

According to Coinbase, the launch aims to make stablecoin issuance more accessible. Through the partnership, Flipcash can leverage Coinbase’s custom stablecoin platform to create its own stablecoin asset without having to handle much of the underlying technical complexity itself. As a result, Flipcash does not need to build an entire stablecoin infrastructure from scratch.

 

The USDF stablecoin will be issued on the Solana blockchain and will be 1:1 backed by USDC. It will also serve as Flipcash’s native currency. Since Flipcash allows users to create their own digital currencies, USDF will be the asset in which those currencies are priced and settled. It will serve as the settlement asset for trading digital currencies within the Flipcash app.

 

Coinbase’s Custom Stablecoin Platform 

Coinbase custom stablecoin, or stablecoin as a service, is a platform launched by Coinbase in 2025 that allows businesses to easily create and issue their own branded stablecoins backed by the United States dollar.

 

As the stablecoin market continues to grow and gain institutional adoption, Coinbase launched its stablecoin platform to make it easier for businesses to enter the stablecoin market, reducing the technical and compliance work associated with issuing stablecoins.

 

Stablecoins launched on Coinbase’s custom stablecoin platform, including USDF, which is the first stablecoin created on the platform, will maintain a 1-to-1 backing with USDC and will be supported across multiple chains, including Base and Solana.

 

About Flipcash 

Flipcash is a Solana-based non-custodial mobile wallet and digital payment app created by Canadian entrepreneur Ted Livingston in 2021.

 

It was created to digitize cash and make peer-to-peer payments as frictionless as possible. Through its “Currency Creator” feature, which officially went live last month, Flipcash allows anyone to create a fixed supply of digital currencies.

 

 

Senator Elizabeth Warren is not letting up. Not after the GENIUS Act. Not after the CLARITY Act. Not after nine crypto firms got federal trust charters. And certainly not after the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency spent the better part of five months quietly waving through some of the biggest names in digital assets.

 

On Monday, the Massachusetts Democrat and ranking member of the Senate Banking Committee fired off a sharply worded letter to OCC Comptroller Jonathan Gould, accusing his agency of violating the National Bank Act by granting trust charters to at least nine crypto companies, including Coinbase, Ripple, Paxos, BitGo, Circle, Fidelity Digital Asset Services, Crypto.com, Stripe subsidiary Bridge, and Protego. The letter, dated May 18, demands a full accounting of the approvals, along with any communications between OCC officials and the White House or Trump family members, by June 1.

 

Regulatory Arbitrage, or Smart Business?

At the core of Warren's complaint is a fairly pointed argument: these companies are behaving like banks while holding charters that do not require them to operate like banks. National trust companies are, by design, more limited than full-service institutions. They cannot take FDIC-insured deposits. They do not engage in traditional commercial lending. They are supposed to focus on fiduciary work, managing assets on behalf of clients.

 

But Warren says the business plans she reviewed tell a different story. Several of the approved firms appear to be pursuing stablecoin issuance, custodial services, payments processing, and lending activities that resemble full-scale banking operations more than traditional trust work. She argues this creates systemic risk and amounts to regulatory arbitrage, writing: “These companies are effectively crypto banks that want to evade the fundamental safeguards and obligations that come with being a bank.”

 

That argument becomes harder to justify with how the modern banking system already operates. Under fractional reserve banking, traditional banks are permitted to lend out the vast majority of depositor funds while holding only a fraction in reserve, prioritizing leverage, liquidity, and profit generation over true one-to-one custody of customer assets. Critics argue that Warren is defending a legacy system built on counterparty risk while attacking crypto firms that, in many cases, are attempting to offer more transparent and fully reserved financial infrastructure.

 

The OCC has not responded to requests for comment. Gould, for his part, has been publicly bullish on the move toward crypto integration. When the agency announced its first wave of five conditional charter approvals back in December 2025, he framed it as a win for consumers and competition. "New entrants into the federal banking sector are good for consumers, the banking industry and the economy," he said at the time.

 

The Trump Angle Warren Will Not Ignore

There is a political dimension here that Warren has been pushing hard, and it involves the Trump family directly. World Liberty Financial, the crypto venture backed by President Donald Trump and his family, is reportedly in the final stages of receiving a conditional OCC approval of its own. Warren and Gould clashed over the pending application at a Senate hearing in February, when Gould declined to commit to delaying or denying it. Warren, visibly frustrated, called him an accomplice to what she described as presidential corruption.

 

In her latest letter, Warren went further, requesting all emails, text messages, meeting summaries, and call transcripts between OCC staff and Trump, his immediate family, or anyone acting on their behalf, specifically as they relate to any of the nine approved charters. It is a broad ask, and one that almost certainly will not be met without a fight.

 

Industry Momentum Has Not Slowed Warren Down

The crypto industry has had a genuinely strong stretch in Washington. The GENIUS Act, which created a federal framework for stablecoin issuance, passed into law last year and was hailed across the industry as a landmark moment. The SEC under Chair Paul Atkins has signaled major regulatory relief, including a potential innovation exemption for tokenized securities. Crypto-friendly appointments have reshaped several key agencies.

 

And still, Warren keeps pushing back. Her office has framed the GENIUS Act as legislation that creates "light-touch regulation for crypto banks" while weakening the consumer protections that took decades to build. The trust charter campaign fits neatly into that critique. From Warren's perspective, every charter granted to a Coinbase or a Ripple is another step toward a two-tiered financial system, where traditional banks operate under strict rules while crypto firms get a cheaper, faster path into the same market.

 

What Happens Next

The June 1 deadline Warren has set is more political theater than hard deadline. The OCC is not legally obligated to respond on her timeline. But the letter sets up a paper trail, and if the agency stonewalls or the World Liberty Financial approval comes through before then, expect Warren to take that back to the committee floor.

 

The broader question, one that neither side has fully answered, is whether the OCC's chartering activity actually violates the National Bank Act or whether it represents a reasonable interpretation of existing authority. The agency has defended the charters as consistent with prior interpretive letters, some dating back to 2021. Lawyers on both sides will be watching the OCC's formal response closely, assuming one comes.

 

For crypto firms, the political noise is mostly background at this point. Charters have been granted. Business plans are moving forward. But Warren's sustained pressure does carry real risk, particularly if Democrats gain ground in 2026 midterms or if any of the chartered institutions runs into trouble. In this regulatory environment, one high-profile failure could reframe the entire debate very quickly.

 

Fredrik Haga, CEO and co-founder of crypto analytics firm Dune, has revealed the firm’s plan to lay off a quarter, or 25%, of its staff, citing AI investments as the reason for this decision.

 

 

“We’re restructuring Dune to sharpen our focus around the core data products thousands of customers across the crypto industry rely on. That unfortunately means we’ve let 25% of the team go this week. These are exceptional people I can wholeheartedly recommend. Ping me if you’re hiring top crypto talent,” Haga wrote in a post on X.

 

The decision to lay off some of its staff, according to Haga, is driven by the firm’s plan to accelerate more quickly with AI, with Dune positioning itself as the only firm to have built an end to end stack for crypto data. Its stack performs key roles in data ingestion, quality assurance, storage, cleaning, normalizing, and querying.

 

“With Dune MCP, teams and agents can now build dashboards and workflows without needing to know anything about SQL or data infrastructure and associated costs,” Haga said. Dune Model Context Protocol, or MCP, is an open protocol that allows AI tools to connect to external data sources in a structured way. It automates much of the manual work associated with data use.

 

By cutting its workforce, Dune aims to double down on AI and its end to end crypto data stack, including its model context protocol, which is already being used by some of the industry’s biggest players such as Polygon Labs, 1inch, Base, OP Labs, Blockworks, and COW Protocol.

 

Tech Layoffs Continue to Rise

Layoffs, especially in the tech and crypto sectors, continue to rise. According to a recent survey, about 81,000 layoffs were recorded in the first quarter of 2026, the highest since 2023, with the number reaching more than 100,000 by early May.

 

Several crypto companies have reduced their workforces in recent months. Coinbase most recently cut 14% of its workforce, laying off about 700 employees. The company cited a volatile crypto market and a strategic shift toward artificial intelligence focused operations as reasons for the layoffs.

 

Other companies, including Crypto.com, Gemini, Algorand Foundation, and Block, have also reduced their workforces. Many of these firms have pointed to a volatile crypto market and a broader strategic pivot toward artificial intelligence as contributing factors to the cuts.