Prediction market platform Polymarket is reportedly in talks with investors to raise 400 million dollars. If successful, this would place the prediction market company at a valuation of 15 billion dollars, up from its current $9 billion.

 

While there is still no official confirmation from Polymarket regarding this news, the fundraising is expected to drive Polymarket’s growing influence in the expanding prediction market sector, giving it a competitive advantage over its competitors, particularly Kalshi.

 

This move comes a few weeks after Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), invested 600 million dollars into Polymarket. This followed an earlier investment of 1 billion dollars into the prediction market company a few months prior.

 

So far, Polymarket has raised over $2 billion across several fundraising rounds from venture capital firms and investors, including Intercontinental Exchange, Blockchain Capital, Polychain Capital, Dragonfly Capital, Coinbase Ventures, 1789 Capital, Ethereum co founder Vitalik Buterin, Aave founder Stani Kulechov, among several other investors.

 

Prediction Market Firms Grapple With Regulatory Uncertainty

Despite how remarkable the global prediction market sector has grown in recent times, prediction market companies still face several regulatory challenges, ranging from state level lawsuits to nationwide bans.

 

Several U.S. states, including New Jersey, Maryland, Massachusetts, and Arizona, have taken strict regulatory action against prediction market companies, with many state regulators alleging that these companies offer illegal sports event contracts. At least 12 states in the U.S. have filed civil lawsuits against prediction market companies.

 

Outside the U.S., prediction market companies have also faced strict regulatory scrutiny. Just this year alone, about four countries in Europe, Portugal, the Netherlands, Bulgaria, and Hungary, have imposed nationwide bans on Polymarket’s activities.

 

However, despite this harsh regulatory landscape, the global prediction market continues to grow. In the most recent quarter, global trading volume across prediction market companies exceeded $ 26 billion, a 90 percent increase from the previous quarter. This volume, according to the global equity research firm Bernstein, is expected to reach $1 trillion by 2030.

 

 

For more than two decades, the $25,000 minimum equity requirement loomed over retail like a barrier to the VIP section of the presitgious Day Traders Club. You either had the cash or you didn't get in. On April, 2026, the SEC quietly pulled that barrier down. The club is now open to all, but with some risks to entry.

 

The commission approved FINRA's sweeping overhaul of Rule 4210, formally eliminating the Pattern Day Trader (PDT) designation that has governed margin accounts since 2001. Under the old framework, any trader who executed four or more same-day round-trips within a rolling five-business-day window got slapped with the PDT label, and with it, a mandatory $25,000 account minimum. Miss that threshold and your broker locked you out until your balance recovered. It was deeply unpopular among smaller retail participants.

 

A Relic From the Dot-Com Era

The rule traces its origins to the wreckage of the dot-com bust. In 2001, regulators watched retail traders pile into overvalued tech stocks on margin, and when the bubble popped, the losses were severe. The $25,000 requirement was meant as a capital buffer, a way of ensuring that anyone placing rapid, leveraged bets had enough cushion to absorb the blowback. And the logic made some sense.

 

What it didn't account for was what markets would look like 25 years later. Commission-free trading arrived. Fractional shares went mainstream. Zero-day-to-expiration options exploded in popularity. According to Cboe Global Markets, 0DTE SPX options averaged 2.3 million contracts daily in 2025 and accounted for 59% of total S&P 500 index options volume, a fivefold jump in three years. Retail traders now represent roughly 50 to 60% of that activity. The old PDT rule wasn't built for any of this. The market has evolved and the rules need to evolve with it.

 

What Replaces It

The new framework ditches the trade-counting approach entirely and moves to a risk-based intraday margin model. Rather than flagging accounts based on how many trades they execute, brokers will now be required to maintain real-time margin calculations tied to a trader's actual position exposure. The SEC has essentially acknowledged what critics argued for years: a trader with $5,000 taking modest, well-hedged positions isn't necessarily more dangerous than one with $50,000 swinging leveraged concentrated bets.

 

FINRA's updated standards mandate that member firms implement algorithmic circuit breakers capable of blocking or liquidating trades the moment an account's margin deficit exceeds its available collateral. It's a more sophisticated system, arguably better calibrated to modern risk than a fixed dollar threshold written when broadband internet was still a luxury.

 

Full rollout across all brokerage platforms is expected to take time, with industry observers projecting implementation timelines stretching from mid-2026 into 2028 for some firms. That said, several retail-focused platforms have already signaled plans to debut PDT-free account structures as early as May 2026. Robinhood shares jumped roughly 7.8% and Webull climbed around 8.9% in the immediate aftermath of the SEC's announcement.

 

The Bitcoin Angle

The PDT rule never technically applied to crypto markets. Bitcoin trades 24/7 on venues that operate outside the traditional brokerage framework, which is why many retail crypto traders have never encountered it. But the practical implications of this regulatory shift for digital assets are hard to ignore.

 

The same retail cohort that speculates in 0DTE options and meme stocks is also the crowd most active in Bitcoin. With the $25,000 barrier removed from traditional markets, that capital doesn't necessarily stay put. Traders newly freed to day trade equities aggressively might also rotate liquidity into crypto, particularly during periods when Bitcoin's intraday swings regularly exceed 3 to 5%. The asset currently trades around $74,500 and commands roughly 59% dominance across a $2.54 trillion crypto market cap.

 

There's also a broader structural point. The PDT elimination signals a new regulatory positioning that favors market access over capital gatekeeping. That's a big shift that is worth watching, particularly as the SEC and other agencies continue to shape how crypto products, broker-dealers, and retail custody arrangements get regulated in the years ahead.

 

Risks Haven't Gone Away

Critics of the rule change aren't hard to find. Consumer protection advocates point out that the $25,000 threshold, whatever its flaws, did filter out inexperienced traders who might otherwise blow up small accounts on leveraged intraday positions. The dynamic margining model is more nuanced, but it also places more responsibility on brokers to enforce risk controls in real time, and on traders to understand what they're actually doing.

 

For firms with institutional-grade margin infrastructure already in place, this is a competitive advantage. For consumer apps that bolted on trading features as an afterthought, meeting the new real-time risk monitoring requirements is going to require meaningful investment. Not every platform is going to get this right immediately.

 

But for retail traders themselves, the opportunity is real, but so is the downside. The PDT rule never stopped people from losing money. It just slowed down how fast some of them could do it. The new framework removes a structural barrier, not the underlying risk of trading frequently in volatile markets with leverage.

 

Most Fed chair nominations generate debate about interest rate philosophy, inflation targets, and balance sheet management. Kevin Warsh's confirmation is going to involve a lot of that, sure, but it is also going to involve a fairly lengthy conversation about DeFi lending protocols, Ethereum Layer 2 networks, and a Bitcoin Lightning Network startup.

 

Warsh, President Trump's nominee to chair the Federal Reserve, cleared the last bureaucratic hurdle before his Senate confirmation hearing when he submitted his required financial disclosure to the U.S. Office of Government Ethics. The filing reveals combined assets with his wife of at least $192 million. But it's the crypto positions scattered throughout the document, held through a web of venture fund structures, that are drawing the most attention from the digital asset industry right now.

 

Not Just A Casual Holder

Warsh did not just pick up some bitcoin through a Coinbase account during the 2021 bull run and forget about it. Through two fund structures, DCM Investments 10 LLC (via a vehicle called Abstract Holdings) and a series of funds labeled AVF I, AVF II, AVF III, and AVGF I and II, he holds equity positions in more than two dozen blockchain and digital asset companies. The breadth is notable: DeFi lending, decentralized derivatives, Layer 1 and Layer 2 networks, prediction markets, crypto neobanks, and Bitcoin payments infrastructure.

 

On the DeFi and trading side, the portfolio includes Compound, one of the foundational algorithmic crypto lending protocols, alongside dYdX, a decentralized derivatives exchange, and Lighter, a decentralized exchange protocol. On the infrastructure side, he has exposure to Solana, the high-throughput Layer 1 blockchain, Optimism and Blast, two Ethereum scaling networks, and Zero Gravity, a Layer 2 AI blockchain platform. Bitcoin-specific holdings include Flashnet, a Lightning Network trading platform, and a direct position in the Lightning Network itself.

 

There are also positions in Polychain and Scalar Capital, two prominent crypto investment firms, plus Polymarket, the prediction market platform, and several crypto-enabled neobanks including OnJuno and Lemon Cash. Rounding it out: Dapper Labs (best known for NBA Top Shot), Friends With Benefits, a Web3 community platform, and Crossmint, an NFT developer tools company. Warsh also previously held a stake in Bitwise Asset Management, the issuer of one of the spot Bitcoin ETFs, though that position does not appear in the current filing.

 

Selling liquid token positions is straightforward. Unwinding LP stakes in Polychain or venture fund structures is not, and federal ethics rules generally impose a one-year cooling-off period on matters directly affecting recently divested financial interests. That creates a potentially awkward situation given what the Fed has on its plate.

 

Congress is actively working through stablecoin legislation that would define which institutions can issue and custody stablecoins, directly affecting DeFi protocols and crypto neobanks of the type in Warsh's portfolio. The Fed's supervisory stance on whether banks can custody digital assets remains one of the most contested open questions in the industry. And while political appetite for a U.S. CBDC has cooled considerably, the Fed's ongoing research in that area intersects with the payment network infrastructure Warsh holds exposure to through Lightning Network and Solana.

 

Could Be Some Complications

The broader financial profile adds another layer. Warsh earned $10.2 million in consulting fees from Duquesne Family Office, the investment arm of Stanley Druckenmiller, one of the more prominent macro investors in the crypto space. Additional consulting income came from GoldenTree Asset Management ($1.55 million), Cerberus Capital Management ($750,000), and Brevan Howard ($750,000), all firms with meaningful digital asset trading operations. His speaking fee circuit in just the first half of 2025 alone topped $780,000 from firms including TPG, State Street, and Warburg Pincus. Combined with spouse Jane Lauder's estimated $1.9 billion net worth, Warsh would enter the Fed as one of the wealthiest chairs in the institution's modern history.

 

Senate Banking Committee chair Tim Scott said Tuesday that a confirmation hearing is scheduled for next week. However, Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina is blocking any final vote until the Justice Department drops its criminal investigation of current Fed Chair Jerome Powell, whose term expires May 15. The crypto portfolio will almost certainly come up in questioning.

 

On one hand, a Fed chair who has personally sought out exposure to DeFi protocols and blockchain infrastructure is unlikely to approach crypto with the indifference or hostility that has characterized past leadership. On the other, the mandatory divestiture and recusal obligations could actively limit his ability to influence policy in the industry's favor during his first year in office, precisely when some of the most consequential regulatory decisions are expected to land. It is a double-edged sword, and the confirmation hearing will be the first real test of how Warsh plans to navigate it.

 

The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA), Hong Kong’s primary banking regulator, has issued its first stablecoin issuer licenses to the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC) and Anchorpoint Financial Limited, in line with the city’s new stablecoin framework.

 

The licenses, which were granted on April 10, represent the first batch issued under Hong Kong’s Stablecoins Ordinance framework. The process was competitive, involving 36 applicants, with selections based on several factors, including risk management, credible use cases, and compliance readiness.

 

With these licenses granted, HSBC, one of Hong Kong’s largest and oldest banks, and Anchorpoint Financial Limited, a joint financial venture led by Standard Chartered Bank, Hong Kong Telecommunications (HKT), and Animoca Brands, are now a step closer to achieving their stablecoin plans.

 

HSBC plans to launch a Hong Kong dollar-denominated stablecoin by the second half of 2026. The stablecoin will maintain a one-to-one peg with the Hong Kong dollar and will be backed by high-quality liquid assets held in segregated accounts. It will also be integrated into two of HSBC’s consumer applications, the PayMe app, which already has more than 3.3 million users, and the HSBC HK Mobile Banking app.

 

With this integration, HSBC users will be able to perform peer-to-peer transfers and peer-to-merchant payments using the Hong Kong dollar-backed stablecoin directly within HSBC applications.

 

Anchorpoint Financial Limited also plans to launch a Hong Kong dollar-pegged stablecoin, with its first rollout expected this quarter. While the stablecoin is intended to support the digital economy, including cross-border and local payments, Anchorpoint’s initial focus will be on institutional investors and business partners, with retail users to follow at a later stage.

 

With this first batch of stablecoin issuer licenses and additional approvals underway, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority aims to address financial challenges in Hong Kong and support the development of the city’s digital asset industry.

 

“The granting of stablecoin issuer licenses is an important milestone for the development of digital assets in Hong Kong. We look forward to the issuers launching their businesses according to their plans, exploring growth opportunities while properly managing risks,” said Eddie Yue, Chief Executive of the HKMA. “We hope their promotion of regulated stablecoins will address pain points in financial and economic activities, create value for both individuals and businesses, and support the healthy development of digital assets in Hong Kong.”

 

Hong Kong Stablecoin Ordinance

The Hong Kong Stablecoin Ordinance is a regulatory framework passed into law by Hong Kong's Legislative Council in August 2025. The framework establishes a comprehensive licensing and supervisory regime specifically for fiat-backed stablecoins.

 

Under this framework, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority sets standards for stablecoin issuers seeking licenses in the jurisdiction. These include requirements related to financial resources, reserve assets, risk management, and anti-money laundering and counter-financing of terrorism compliance, among others.

 

Although Hong Kong’s stablecoin regime is considered one of the strictest in the world, it is designed to promote trust and support the long term adoption of stablecoins rather than allow unregulated growth that could ultimately lead to systemic risks.

 

 

Polymarket just announced what it is calling the biggest infrastructure change in its history. The on-chain prediction market platform is rolling out a rebuilt trading engine, a new smart contract architecture, and its own stablecoin, Polymarket USD, over the next two to three weeks. Whether you follow prediction markets closely or just heard about Polymarket during the last election cycle, this is a huge shift on how the protocol operates.

 

A New Stablecoin Built for the Platform

The centerpiece of the upgrade is Polymarket USD, a new collateral token that will replace the platform's current use of USDC.e. If you're not familiar, USDC.e is a bridged version of Circle's USDC stablecoin. It works fine, mostly, but it relies on cross-chain bridge infrastructure to exist on Polygon, which adds friction and a layer of risk that a platform handling this much trading volume probably shouldn't be comfortable with.

 

Polymarket USD will be backed 1:1 with Circle's native USDC, giving the company direct control over its settlement infrastructure for the first time. That's a bigger deal than it sounds. Control over your own collateral token means tighter liquidity management, more predictable settlement, and a foundation for whatever the company wants to build next.

 

For most regular users, the transition is supposed to be seamless. The platform's frontend will handle the conversion automatically with a one-time approval. Advanced users and developers running bots or API integrations are a different story. Those folks will need to update their SDKs and manually call a wrap function on the new Collateral Onramp contract to convert funds into Polymarket USD. The team says it will give at least a week's advance notice before any order book cancellations happen.

 

The Exchange Itself Is Getting a Full Rebuild

Beyond the stablecoin, Polymarket is launching CTF Exchange V2, a redesigned matching engine that processes orders faster and at lower gas costs. The updated Central Limit Order Book blends off-chain order placement with on-chain settlement.. The new order structure trims should reduce complexity for developers and improve execution across the board.

 

One notable addition is EIP-1271 support, which lets smart contract wallets, such as multi-signature wallets, interact with the platform directly without needing intermediaries.

 

The POLY Token Question

The announcement has predictably reignited speculation about POLY, Polymarket's long-rumored native governance token. The platform's chief marketing officer confirmed back in October 2025 that a POLY airdrop is in the works, contingent on completing a strong U.S. relaunch. But Monday's announcement makes no mention of POLY at all, and ironically... the odds on Polymarket itself currently put the chance of a POLY launch before May at just 11%

 

The speculation isn't really unfounded. Polymarket has historically relied on UMA's optimistic oracle system to resolve market outcomes, a setup where token holders vote to settle disputes. That system has faced criticism, particularly during geopolitically sensitive markets, where large token holders can exert outsized influence. A native governance token could eventually allow Polymarket to bring dispute resolution in-house, separating trading activity from outcome validation. Whether that's still  the plan remains unclear.

 

What's Next For Polymarket

The company, founded in 2020, is reportedly seeking a new funding round at a valuation near $20 billion. Last month, Intercontinental Exchange, the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange, made a $600 million direct cash investment in the platform. That type of institutional backing puts a lot of pressure on the infrastructure to perform like a proper exchange.

 

Polymarket also registered with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission in July 2025 after shutting down U.S. operations in 2022. An invite-only U.S. version of the platform has since launched under a regulatory no-action letter. The migration to a CFTC-registered model, combined with building settlement infrastructure around a regulated stablecoin issuer like Circle, is consistent with a company that wants to operate in the U.S. long-term, not just avoid regulators.

 

The rollout is expected to happen over the next two to three weeks. But there are some real risks here: any smart contract migration carries execution risk, and there could be liquidity fragmentation as traders straddle two collateral systems during the transition window. Whether Polymarket USD will face third-party reserve audits comparable to what Circle applies to native USDC is also an open question.

 

Still, if the upgrade goes smoothly, Polymarket will emerge with a cleaner technical foundation, lower transaction costs, and better tools for institutional participants. All of that should translate into significantly higher trading volume and a broader institutional footprint. But these next few weeks should tell us a lot.

 

NYSE Arca filed a rule change with the Securities and Exchange Commission to strip out the 25,000-contract position and exercise limits that had been capping options tied to 11 spot Bitcoin and Ether exchange-traded funds. NYSE American submitted an identical proposal the same day. The SEC did not bother with its usual 30-day review window. The changes went live immediately.

 

That kind of regulatory speed is not something markets see often, and it tells you something about where things stand right now.

 

The products covered read like a who’s who of the crypto ETF space: BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT), Fidelity’s Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund (FBTC), ARK 21Shares Bitcoin ETF (ARKB), Grayscale Bitcoin Trust, Grayscale Bitcoin Mini Trust ETF, Bitwise Bitcoin ETF, Grayscale Ethereum Trust, Grayscale Ethereum Mini Trust, Bitwise Ethereum ETF, iShares Ethereum Trust, and Fidelity’s Ethereum Fund. Together they represent hundreds of billions in assets under management and the bulk of institutional Bitcoin and Ether exposure in the U.S. market.

 

 

What Does This Mean?

The 25,000-contract cap was put in place when crypto ETF options first launched, partly as a precaution against volatility, partly as a way for regulators to ease into unfamiliar territory. It made sense at the time. It does not make much sense anymore.

 

Under the new framework, position limits for these products will be set under the same standard rules that govern other equity options, a formula tied to each fund’s trading volume and shares outstanding. For something as liquid as IBIT, that could mean position limits north of 250,000 contracts. The practical effect is that institutions can now build and hedge far larger positions without running into hard ceilings.

 

The other big change is FLEX options. These are customizable contracts where traders can set their own strike prices, expiration dates, and exercise styles rather than being locked into standardized terms. FLEX options have long been available for commodity ETFs like the SPDR Gold Trust (GLD) and iShares Silver Trust (SLV). Bringing that same capability to crypto ETFs is not a minor footnote. It opens the door to the kind of structured product engineering that institutional desks have been waiting to apply to digital assets.

 

For a hedge fund running a long Bitcoin position through an ETF, the ability to hedge efficiently via options is not optional. It is a basic operational requirement. The old 25,000-contract cap was not just a theoretical constraint, it was the kind of friction that makes compliance officers nervous and portfolio managers frustrated.

 

Removing it changes the calculus. Risk systems that already handle equity options can now be applied to crypto ETF products using the same logic. Legal teams work within a rulebook they already understand. That reduction in operational overhead is not trivial for large-scale participants.

 

FLEX options matter for a slightly different reason. They are what you need to build structured products, overlay programs, and basis trades at scale. Banks and asset managers have been doing this with gold and silver ETFs for years.

 

 

Moving In One Driection

NYSE Arca and NYSE American are not doing anything in isolation here. MEMX filed comparable changes in February. Cboe did the same in March. With Monday’s filings, every major U.S. options exchange has now completed the same transition. That kind of synchronized movement across competing venues is a signal, not a coincidence.

 

Separately, Nasdaq ISE has a proposal still under SEC review that would push the position limit for IBIT options specifically to one million contracts. If that goes through, it would put IBIT options in the same tier as the largest traditional equity products in the market.

 

None of the core investor protections have been removed. Large position holders still face reporting requirements. Exchanges continue to monitor for manipulation. Broker-dealer capital requirements for carrying options positions remain in place. The architecture of oversight has not changed, only the room to operate within it.

 

 

The Big Picture

It was not long ago that getting a spot Bitcoin ETF approved in the United States felt like it might never happen. Then in January 2024, it did. Since then, the market has moved faster than most people expected. Options launched. Volume grew. Institutional flows came in. And now the plumbing is being upgraded to handle what those institutions actually need.

 

The crypto ETF options market is not just a retail product anymore, if it ever really was. The rule changes this week confirm what the trading data has been suggesting for a while: serious money is here, and the infrastructure is catching up to meet it.

 

What comes next is worth watching. With FLEX trading unlocked and position limits tied to real liquidity metrics rather than arbitrary caps, the product design possibilities open up considerably. Yield-generating strategies, principal-protected notes, volatility overlays, all of it becomes more viable when the options market can actually absorb the size.

 

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Wednesday approved Nasdaq’s proposal to launch a pilot program for tokenized stock trading.

 

The proposal, first filed in September 2025, sought SEC approval to allow trading of both traditional and tokenized versions of high-volume stocks on the Nasdaq exchange. With the program now approved, traders will be able to trade both traditional stocks and their tokenized counterparts on the Nasdaq. 

 

 

 

These tokenized stocks, according to the approval filing, will trade on the same order book at the same price, under the same ticker, with the same identifying number and rights as their traditional counterparts.

 

The pilot program will not be open to everyone. According to the SEC approval filing, participation will be limited to eligible participants. While Nasdaq has not disclosed the criteria, participants are likely to include Nasdaq-approved broker-dealers and firms approved by the Depository Trust Company (DTC).

 

It is also important to note that these tokenized stocks will be limited to securities in the Russell 1000 index, which tracks the 1,000 largest publicly traded companies in the United States, as well as exchange-traded funds that track the S&P 500 and Nasdaq-100 indices.

 

 

The Booming Tokenized Stocks Market

The tokenized stocks and equities market has experienced a remarkable surge over the past few months, growing from around $32 million at the start of 2025 to $963 million by January 2026, an increase of approximately 3,000%. 

 

This growth has been attributed to the wider accessibility and faster settlement times offered by tokenized stocks compared with their traditional counterparts.

 

A wave of large fintech and crypto companies has also entered the tokenized equity market. In 2024, the cryptocurrency exchange Robinhood built a custom layer-2 blockchain for tokenization and began offering tokenized U.S. stocks to European users the following year.

 

Other cryptocurrency exchanges, including Kraken, Gemini, and eToro, have also begun offering tokenized U.S. stocks across multiple blockchains, such as Solana, BNB Chain, Arbitrum, and Ethereum. Most recently, Kraken, in partnership with Backed Finance, launched xChange, an on-chain trading engine for tokenized equities.

 

With the rapid attention and growth the tokenized equities market has seen, its market capitalization is projected by multiple research reports to reach trillions of dollars in the coming years.

 

 

Eric Halem, a former Los Angeles Police Department officer, has been found guilty of kidnapping a 17-year-old and stealing $350,000 worth of crypto after invading his home in 2024.

 

Halem, who served with the LAPD for 13 years but retired in 2022, was said to have illegally invaded the home of the teen, named Daniel, alongside three co-conspirators.

 

Upon gaining entrance into the teen's home under the guise of carrying out a search warrant, Halem subdued both the teen and his girlfriend, threatening to shoot him if he didn't hand over a hard drive containing Bitcoin. Apparently, the teen did have a significant amount of crypto.

 

Although Halem has been found guilty by the court, his sentencing is scheduled for March 31. And since he's been tried for kidnapping and robbery, which fall under California's aggravated statutes, Halem risks spending a long time in prison.

 

 

The Rise of Wrench Attacks

A wrench attack, also known as the $5 wrench attack, involves physical threats or violence to force a person to hand over their crypto private keys.

 

There has been an increase in the number of wrench attacks within the last few years. According to a 2025 security report from blockchain security firm CertiK, there were 72 recorded incidents of wrench attacks, a 75% increase from 2024.

 

     

 

Certik also reported a loss of more than $40.9 million from these attacks, with Europe accounting for 40% of these attacks worldwide, and kidnapping being the most common method used by assailants.

 

Jameson Lopp, Co-founder and Chief Security Officer of crypto security firm Casa Inc, has also been documenting these crypto wrench attacks from 2014 to date in a GitHub repository named "physical-bitcoin-attacks."

 

Based on tracked incidents in the GitHub repo, there have been 16 documented crypto-wrench attack cases this year alone, with France recording the most cases, with kidnapping being the most common method used by attackers. 

 

 

 

Washington's stablecoin standoff just got a whole lot more personal.

 

Patrick Witt, the executive director of the President's Council of Advisors for Digital Assets, publicly fired back at JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon on Tuesday, calling his arguments about stablecoin yields misleading and, in Witt's own word, a "deceit."

 

The exchange marks one of the sharpest moments yet in a months-long tug-of-war between Wall Street and the White House over the future of digital asset regulation in America.

 

Dimon Draws a Line in the Sand

It started Monday, when Dimon went on CNBC and didn't mince words. His position was simple, if uncompromising: any platform holding customer balances and paying interest on them is functionally a bank, and should be regulated like one.

 

"If you do that, the public will pay. It will get bad," Dimon warned, arguing that a two-tiered system where crypto firms operate with fewer restrictions than banks is unsustainable.

 

Dimon suggested a narrow compromise: platforms could offer rewards tied to transactions. But he drew a clear line at interest-like payments on idle balances, saying, "If you're going to be holding balances and paying interest, that's a bank."

 

The list of obligations Dimon believes should apply is long, FDIC insurance, capital and liquidity requirements, anti-money laundering controls, transparency standards, community lending mandates, and board governance requirements. "If they want to be a bank, so be it," he said.

 

For Dimon, it's fundamentally about fairness. JPMorgan uses blockchain in its own operations, and the CEO was careful to frame his argument not as anti-crypto but as pro-competition on equal terms. "We're in favor of competition. But it's got to be fair and balanced," he said.

 

 

The White House Fires Back

Witt wasn't going to let that stand. In a post on X late Tuesday, he went directly at Dimon's framing, calling it deliberately misleading.

 

"The deceit here is that it is not the paying of yield on a balance per se that necessitates bank-like regulations, but rather the lending out or rehypothecation of the dollars that make up the underlying balance," Witt wrote. "The GENIUS Act explicitly forbids stablecoin issuers from doing the latter."

 

The argument gets at something technically important. What makes a bank risky, and therefore subject to heavy regulation, isn't that it pays interest. It's that banks take deposits and lend them back out, creating credit and the systemic risk that comes with it. If too many people want their money back at once, that's a bank run. Stablecoin issuers operating under the GENIUS Act must maintain reserves at a 1:1 ratio. There is no fractional reserve lending, no rehypothecation, no credit creation.

 

In Witt's view, stablecoin balances aren't deposits, and treating them as such misrepresents what's actually happening. He closed with a pointed equation: "Stablecoins ≠ Deposits."

 

President Donald Trump didn't stay quiet either. On Tuesday, he took to Truth Social with a message that made his position unmistakably clear.

 

"The U.S. needs to get Market Structure done, ASAP. Americans should earn more money on their money. The Banks are hitting record profits, and we are not going to allow them to undermine our powerful Crypto Agenda that will end up going to China, and other Countries if we don't get the Clarity Act taken care of," Trump wrote.

 

Senator Cynthia Lummis quickly reposted Trump's message, adding her own call to action: "America can't afford to wait. Congress must move quickly to pass the Clarity Act."

 

The same day Trump posted, a Coinbase delegation led by CEO Brian Armstrong visited the White House for talks. The timing was not subtle.

 

The Real Stakes: The CLARITY Act

To understand why this debate matters so much right now, you need to understand the legislation being held hostage by it.

 

The GENIUS Act, signed into law in July 2025, established the first federal framework for payment stablecoins. The CLARITY Act is its sequel: a broader market structure bill that would assign clear regulatory jurisdiction to the SEC and CFTC over the crypto industry, and is widely seen as the piece of legislation needed to unlock large-scale institutional participation in digital assets.

 

The bill cleared the House comfortably but has been mired in Senate gridlock since January, when the Senate Banking Committee indefinitely postponed a planned markup vote. The trigger was Coinbase withdrawing support over a proposed amendment that would have restricted stablecoin rewards for users.

 

That withdrawal, announced by CEO Brian Armstrong in a post on X the night before the scheduled committee vote, split the crypto industry. a16z crypto's Chris Dixon publicly disagreed, posting "Now is the time to move the Clarity Act forward." Kraken's co-CEO Arjun Sethi also pushed back, writing that "walking away now would not preserve the status quo in practice" and warning it "would lock in uncertainty and leave American companies operating under ambiguity while the rest of the world moves forward."

 

The stakes for Coinbase are concrete. Stablecoins contribute nearly 20% of Coinbase's revenue, roughly $355 million in the third quarter of 2025 alone, and most of USDC's growth is occurring on Coinbase's platform. Coinbase currently offers 3.5% yield on USDC, a figure most traditional bank accounts can't come close to matching.

 

 

Banks Are Scared, and They Have the Numbers to Show It

The banking lobby's concern isn't hypothetical. Banking trade groups, led by the Bank Policy Institute, have warned that unrestricted stablecoin yield could trigger deposit outflows of up to $6.6 trillion, citing U.S. Treasury Department analysis. Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan put a similar figure forward, reportedly suggesting as much as $6 trillion in deposits, representing roughly 30-35% of all U.S. commercial bank deposits, could be at risk.

 

Stablecoins registered $33 trillion in transaction volume in 2025, up 72% year-over-year. Bernstein projects total stablecoin supply will reach approximately $420 billion by the end of 2026, with longer-run forecasts from Citi putting the market at up to $4 trillion by 2030. Those aren't niche numbers anymore. At that scale, deposit competition becomes a serious macroeconomic question.

 

The American Bankers Association and 52 state bankers' associations explicitly urged Congress to extend the GENIUS Act's yield prohibitions to partners and affiliates of stablecoin issuers, warning of deposit disintermediation.

 

The Bottom Line

What's playing out right now is a genuine philosophical disagreement about what money is and how it should be regulated, wrapped inside a very consequential legislative fight, a prize fight with Banks in one corner and Crypto in the other.

 

Dimon's argument is not frivolous. Banks are regulated as heavily as they are because of what they do with deposited money, and a world where consumers move trillions into yield-bearing crypto instruments held at lightly regulated platforms carries real risks. The history of financial crises is largely a history of regulatory arbitrage gone wrong.

 

But Witt's counter is also not frivolous. The GENIUS Act was designed specifically to prevent stablecoin issuers from doing the things that make banks dangerous. A fully reserved, non-lending stablecoin issuer is structurally different from a fractional reserve bank, and applying the same regulatory framework to both risks conflating two fundamentally different business models.

 

What's harder to square is that the banking lobby's intervention in the CLARITY Act seems, to many in the crypto world, less about prudential regulation and more about protecting market share. President Trump has not been subtle about that read, accusing banks of holding the CLARITY Act hostage to protect incumbent interests against crypto competition.

 

With the legislative window narrowing, Armstrong back at the White House, and Trump openly calling out the banking lobby by name, this standoff has reached the kind of inflection point where someone is going to have to blink. The question is whether either side is willing to do it before time runs out entirely.

 

 

 

More than two years after FTX collapsed and reshaped the crypto industry, Sam Bankman-Fried is still fighting.

 

The former FTX CEO, now serving a 25 year federal prison sentence, has formally moved for a new trial in Manhattan federal court. The filing argues that key evidence was excluded, important testimony never reached the jury, and that the original proceedings did not present the full picture of what was happening inside the exchange before its implosion.

 

It is a long shot. But it keeps one of crypto’s biggest scandals squarely in the headlines.

 

 

A Quick Reset: How We Got Here

FTX was once valued at $32 billion and marketed itself as the responsible face of crypto trading. Bankman-Fried cultivated relationships in Washington, testified before Congress, and presented himself as a regulator-friendly industry leader.

 

That narrative unraveled in November 2022.

 

After a liquidity crunch exposed a multibillion-dollar hole in FTX’s balance sheet, the exchange halted withdrawals and filed for bankruptcy. Prosecutors later alleged that customer deposits were secretly routed to Alameda Research, Bankman-Fried’s trading firm, where the funds were used for speculative bets, venture investments, loans to executives, and political donations.

 

The case moved quickly. By late 2023, a jury found Bankman-Fried guilty on seven counts including wire fraud, securities fraud, and conspiracy. Several former executives, including Caroline Ellison and Nishad Singh, testified for the government. In 2024, Judge Lewis Kaplan sentenced him to 25 years in prison.

 

It was one of the most significant criminal convictions in crypto’s short history.

 

 

The Argument for a New Trial

Bankman-Fried’s latest filing hinges on a legal mechanism that allows courts to grant a new trial if newly discovered evidence could materially affect the verdict, or if there were serious procedural errors.

 

His motion makes a few central claims.

 

First, that certain testimony from former FTX and Alameda insiders was either excluded or not fully presented to the jury. According to the filing, that testimony could challenge the government’s portrayal of FTX as hopelessly insolvent and operating as a straightforward fraud.

 

Second, the defense argues that FTX’s collapse was more akin to a bank run than an inevitable implosion. In this telling, the exchange had assets and would have recovered if not for the sudden withdrawal panic that followed public reporting about its balance sheet. That argument goes directly to intent, which was central to the prosecution’s case.

 

Third, the motion questions the credibility of cooperating witnesses. Bankman-Fried claims some testimony evolved under government pressure and suggests that early statements made by insiders painted a more ambiguous picture of events than what jurors ultimately heard.

 

The filing also calls for Judge Kaplan to step aside from reviewing the request, alleging bias in evidentiary rulings during trial.

 

None of this is easy to prove. Courts rarely grant new trials once a conviction has been secured and upheld through sentencing. The legal threshold is high, particularly in complex financial cases where juries have already weighed extensive testimony.

 

 

The Broader Legal Strategy

The new trial motion is separate from Bankman-Fried’s ongoing appeal. That appeal focuses on whether the trial court made reversible legal errors, including limiting certain lines of defense.

 

Appeals courts typically give trial judges considerable leeway in managing evidence and courtroom procedure. Overturning a conviction requires demonstrating more than disagreement. It requires showing that errors materially affected the outcome.

 

For now, the new filing appears to be part of a layered strategy. Preserve every argument. Challenge every ruling. Keep procedural options open.

 

 

The Bottom Line

FTX’s collapse triggered one of the most severe credibility crises crypto has faced. Billions in customer assets were trapped. Venture capital firms wrote down massive stakes. Regulators in the U.S. and abroad accelerated enforcement and oversight efforts.

 

Even as the industry shifts toward ETF approvals, institutional adoption, and regulatory frameworks, the FTX saga remains a reference point. It is cited in congressional hearings, enforcement actions, and investor debates about custodial risk.

 

Bankman-Fried’s continued legal maneuvers keep the story alive, even if the odds of a successful retrial remain slim.

 

For many in crypto, the question is less about whether he gets a second trial and more about what the case ultimately represents. Was FTX an isolated failure of governance and internal controls, or proof that parts of the industry scaled too quickly without guardrails?

 

The courts will decide the narrow legal questions. The market, as always, is deciding the broader narrative in real time.

 

For now, one of crypto’s most infamous founders is still arguing that the story jurors heard was incomplete. Whether a judge agrees is another matter entirely.

 

Tether is writing another big check, and this one says a lot about where stablecoins are headed.

 

The company behind USDT has made a $100 million equity investment in Anchorage Digital, valuing the U.S. crypto bank at around $4.2 billion. It is not a flashy deal by crypto standards, but it is an important one, especially now that stablecoin regulation is no longer theoretical in the United States.

 

The investment deepens a relationship that has been building quietly for years. It also puts Tether right alongside one of the few crypto firms operating fully inside the U.S. banking system.

 

 

This Was Not a Sudden Move

Tether and Anchorage have been working together long before this deal.

 

Anchorage Digital runs one of the most unusual businesses in crypto. Through Anchorage Digital Bank N.A., it operates as a federally chartered crypto bank under U.S. regulators. That status lets it custody digital assets and support stablecoin activity within a traditional banking framework, something very few firms can offer.

 

For Tether, that matters more than it used to.

 

As regulators sharpen their focus on stablecoins, the days of issuing dollar tokens without close oversight are coming to an end, at least in the U.S. market. Anchorage gives Tether a partner that already lives in that regulatory world.

 

 

Regulation Has Changed the Math

The backdrop to this deal is the GENIUS Act, passed in 2024, which finally laid out clear rules for payment stablecoins in the U.S. The law introduced tighter requirements around reserves, disclosures, custody, and governance.

 

Soon after, Tether and Anchorage revealed plans to launch a U.S.-focused stablecoin, often referred to as USA₮. Unlike USDT, which operates globally, this token is designed specifically for the U.S. regulatory environment and would be issued through Anchorage’s federally regulated bank.

 

That announcement made it clear the two companies were getting closer. The $100 million investment makes that commitment financial as well as strategic.

 

 

Why Tether Is Investing Like This

Tether has been more active as an investor than many people realize.

 

Over the past couple of years, the company has put money into everything from infrastructure and mining to agriculture and commodities. The strategy seems straightforward: reduce reliance on stablecoin fees alone and build exposure to assets and systems that can last through market cycles.

 

Anchorage fits that strategy neatly.

 

This is not a bet on a new token or a speculative protocol. It is a bet on regulated plumbing, the kind institutions actually use. As more banks, funds, and corporates step into crypto, that plumbing becomes more valuable.

 

Tether’s leadership has consistently framed these investments as long-term positioning, not short-term trading. This deal feels very much in that category.

 

 

What Anchorage Gets Out of It

For Anchorage Digital, the money is helpful, but the signal may matter even more.

 

The firm has been expanding its stablecoin operations, adding staff focused on compliance, engineering, and product development. It has also been linked to plans for a major funding round and a potential IPO, possibly as early as 2026.

 

Having Tether as a strategic shareholder strengthens Anchorage’s credibility with both institutional clients and regulators. It also ties the company more closely to the largest stablecoin issuer in the world at a moment when stablecoins are becoming core financial infrastructure.

 

 

The Bottom Line

There is nothing flashy about this deal. No new token, no rebrand, no sudden pivot.

 

But it says a lot about where crypto is right now.

 

Stablecoins are drifting away from their roots as trading tools and toward something closer to regulated digital cash. That shift pulls crypto firms toward banks, charters, audits, and long-term capital, whether they like it or not.

 

Tether’s $100 million investment in Anchorage Digital is a clear sign it understands that reality. The future of stablecoins, at least in the U.S., is going to look a lot more institutional than the past.

 

I came into Bitcoin in mid-2017. Not early, not late, but early enough to catch the euphoria and late enough to feel the consequences. I watched that cycle go vertical, then watched it unwind in slow motion through 2018. I stayed through the 2020–2022 cycle, including the November 2021 peak and the long grind down that followed.

 

So when Bitcoin slipped back toward $70,000 this week, the feeling wasn’t panic..well, maybe some panic. But there certainly was some recognition. The same quiet tension I’ve felt before, when the market shifts from confidence to defense and nobody is quite ready to admit it.

 

This move looks familiar on the surface. Risk assets are under pressure, equities are shaky, and Bitcoin is once again trading like the most volatile expression of risk in the room. But the environment around it feels very different than it did the last two times I lived through this.

 

 

Why $70,000 Matters More Than Most Want To Admit

 

For anyone who lived through 2021, $70K isn’t just a number. November of 2021 marked the prior cycle’s peak near $69,000. For years, that level symbolized excess. More recently, trading above it felt like proof that the market had finally moved on.

 

Once Bitcoin slipped back into that zone, the mood shifted fast. Selling stopped being about opinions and started being about mechanics. Stops were hit. Leverage came out. Liquidations took over. That transition is something I’ve learned to respect. When the market turns mechanical, it usually overshoots.That is obvious on both sides, euphoria and near depression.

 

I saw the same thing in early 2018 and again in 2022. Different triggers, same behavior.

 

 

BTC Still Trades Like A Risk Asset

 

As much as I want Bitcoin to be treated differently, moments like this remind me that it still trades like a high beta risk asset when macro pressure shows up.

 

Equities, especially tech, have been weak. Volatility is up. Liquidity feels tighter. In that environment, Bitcoin rarely resists. It amplifies. Crypto trades 24/7, it’s easy to exit quickly, and it’s deeply intertwined with leverage. When investors want to reduce risk immediately, Bitcoin is often first in line.

 

Once liquidations start cascading, fundamentals stop mattering in the short term. Exchanges sell into weakness, bids step away, and price pushes through levels that felt solid just days earlier.

 

ETF flows add a new dynamic I didn’t have to think about in 2018 or even 2021. Institutional money can now enter and exit Bitcoin daily. That can support price over time, but during drawdowns it can also accelerate downside when outflows cluster.

 

 

What Past Cycles Taught Us

 

Living through the 2017 peak and the 2018 bear market changed how I think about Bitcoin permanently. Support can fail. Narratives can break. Time can do more damage than price. And something always happens that you least expect.

 

The 2020–2022 cycle reinforced that lesson. After peaking in November 2021, Bitcoin fell roughly 75 percent into the November 2022 lows. That wasn’t just a crash, it was a year of slow erosion that wore people down.

 

Those experiences make it hard for me to assume this cycle can’t get uglier. Bitcoin has always been good at humbling people who think they’ve seen it all.

 

At the same time, I can’t ignore what’s different now.

 

 

Will This Cycle Be Different?

 

In 2017 and 2021, regulation was mostly noise. Institutions were cautious or absent. Spot ETFs didn’t exist. Bitcoin lived largely outside traditional markets

 

That’s no longer true.

 

Efforts like the Clarity Act and broader moves to define digital commodities give Bitcoin something it’s never really had during a downturn, a clearer legal and regulatory framework. That matters more when prices are falling than when they’re rising.

 

Institutions also behave differently than retail traders. They don’t buy because of excitement or belief. They buy because mandates allow them to. That can create steadier demand when prices fall far enough.

 

But they also sell without emotion. When risk models say reduce exposure, they reduce it. No attachment, no narrative. That means drawdowns can still be sharp, but they may resolve differently than in prior cycles.

 

This is the tension I’m trying to navigate in this cycle. Regulation and institutional access could limit the worst outcomes we’ve seen before. They could also change the character of both rallies and declines in ways we haven’t fully experienced yet.

 

 

Is This The Bottom?

 

Honestly, It feels rough out there and I know I wish this was the bottom. Maybe we see some relief before more pain? Or, in true crypto fashion, we rip the band-aid off and go even further down today, but I don’t think it’s safe to assume it’s the bottom of this cycle.

 

Liquidations have already done some eal damage. Sentiment has flipped quickly. Price is sitting near a level that matters historically and psychologically. If ETF flows stabilize, forced selling fades, and equities stop sliding, a bottoming process could start soon.

 

But I’ve been around long enough to know that real bottoms don’t feel relieving. They feel boring. They form through time, failed breakdowns, and long stretches where nothing seems to happen. This is happening fast so...the chop is still going to come. We may some moves up soon, and even more quick crashes, but the long boring bottom of the market has yet to reveal its face.

 

If conditions continue to deteriorate, Bitcoin will grind lower. Slow declines have always been more dangerous than fast crashes. They exhaust conviction. People just get complacent and leave.

 

 

 

What I’m Watching

 

Rather than trying to call the exact low, I’m focused on a few things.

 

Whether ETF flows stabilize over weeks, not days
Whether liquidation events shrink instead of cascade
Whether equities, especially tech, stop dragging crypto lower
Whether Bitcoin can reclaim broken levels and hold them, not just tag them

 

And time, true reversals don't happen fast. Those things just take time. That is true when the market is up and when the market is down.

 

I came into Bitcoin in 2017 thinking it was all about price. Staying through multiple cycles taught me it’s really about structure, psychology, and time.

 

This drop toward $70K feels familiar for a reason. What’s different is the environment around it. Institutions are here. Regulation is evolving. The market is more connected to traditional finance than it’s ever been.

 

I don’t know if that makes the outcome better or just different. What I do know is, that this fourth chapter I’m living through doesn’t feel like a clean repeat of the last one, and that alone is worth paying attention to. I also don't know if I made you feel better about this whole thing or not. Or maybe, I was just trying to make myself feel better in the end.