In comments Thursday, SEC Chair Paul Atkins doubled down on his vision for tokenized US financial markets and onchain settlement. Traditional financial markets are moving rapidly onchain as the US Securities and Exchange Commission chair doubled down on the idea of an “innovation exemption” to accelerate tokenization. “U.S. financial markets are poised to move on-chain,” wrote Paul Atkins, chair of the SEC, in a Friday X post, adding that the agency is “embracing new technologies to enable this onchain future.” His comments come shortly after the SEC issued a “no action” letter to a subsidiary of the Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation (DTCC), enabling it to offer a new securities market tokenization service. Read more
Binance quietly rolled out API endpoints pointing to stock perpetual futures, potentially signaling a renewed push into stock trading after a failed 2021 launch. Crypto exchange Binance has added new features to its application programming interface (API), indicating that the platform is preparing to introduce stock trading capabilities. Binance’s changelog notes that on Thursday, the exchange introduced three new API endpoints, one of which — with a URL including stock/contract — allows users to “sign [a] TradFi-Perps agreement contract.” The two other endpoints introduced on the same day allow users to query “trading session schedules for a one-week period” or “current trading session information.” Together, this suggests that Binance is planning to introduce perpetual futures trading on its platform. The existing trading schedule endpoints also suggest trading will likely occur in sessions, as in traditional finance, rather than following crypto’s 24/7 nature. Read more
Bitcoin miners Marathon Digital Holdings, Riot Platforms and Hut 8 are already in the top ten largest public companies holding Bitcoin. Bitcoin miners, which can acquire the cryptocurrency at below-market costs, could be in the best position to shape corporate adoption as accumulation by crypto treasury companies slows, says BitcoinTreasuries.NET. Bitcoin (BTC) treasury companies are projected to buy 40,000 BTC in the fourth quarter, the lowest since Q3 2024, BitcoinTreasuries.NET President Pete Rizzo said in a corporate adoption report released on Thursday. Despite the slowdown, Rizzo said Bitcoin mining companies continue to “anchor public‑market Bitcoin holdings” and accounted for 5% of new additions and 12% of aggregate public company balances in November. Read more