Michael Selig said tokenization could reshape financial markets as the CFTC and SEC continue advancing onchain initiatives despite the CLARITY Act setback. US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) Chair Michael Selig said financial markets should prepare for “mass tokenization” as regulators adapt existing frameworks for blockchain, artificial intelligence and onchain markets. In remarks delivered Tuesday at the US Treasury Market Conference, Selig said tokenization of real-world assets (RWAs) could become the foundation of a more efficient financial system, enabling near-instant settlement and real-time collateral movement between clearinghouses, intermediaries and users. “Just as the transition from hand signals to electronic trading advanced our financial system, I believe token…
BTC price analysis concluded that onchain signals had “confirmed” the new Bitcoin bull market. Bitcoin (BTC) faces its “next real test” at $90,000 as traders continue to return to unrealized profit. Key points:
Bitpanda will provide crypto infrastructure to Raiffeisen network banks, potentially extending digital asset access to about 18 million customers. Raiffeisen Bank International (RBI), an Austrian banking group with operations across Central and Eastern Europe, is expanding its cryptocurrency push through a group-wide partnership with Bitpanda. Bitpanda Enterprise will provide the digital asset infrastructure that RBI’s network banks can use to introduce crypto services, potentially reaching about 18 million customers, according to a joint announcement on Wednesday. Individual banks will determine their offerings and rollout based on local market and regulatory requirements, the companies said. RBI CEO Michael Höllerer said the bank is seeing growing demand for crypto assets across its mark…
BitMEX officially ended exchange operations after more than 11 years, while withdrawals remain open as the crypto derivatives platform urges users to remove their funds. BitMEX ended all exchange operations at 4:00 UTC on Wednesday, two months after the crypto derivatives exchange announced plans to shut down after more than 11 years of operations. The platform no longer allows trading or deposits, but users can still log in and withdraw remaining balances through its website, BitMEX announced in an X post on Wednesday. As part of its gradual phaseout, BitMEX will disable application programming interface (API) withdrawals on Sept. 28, requiring users to process withdrawals through the web platform.
The proposed NU7 change would disable version 4 transactions, leaving ZEC in Zcash’s legacy Sprout shielded pool unspendable. Zcash users holding ZEC in the network’s legacy Sprout shielded pool should move it before the planned NU7 upgrade or risk losing the ability to spend it. Under Zcash Improvement Proposal-2003, NU7 would stop accepting the older transaction format that allows users to spend Sprout funds. ZEC left in the pool would become unspendable after the upgrade. The proposal would not burn Sprout funds and leaves open the possibility of restoring access later. However, it warns that holders may never be able to spend funds left in the pool.
US spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded more than $1.7 billion in net inflows over two days as Bitcoin rose above investors’ estimated average cost basis. US spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds recorded more than $1.7 billion in net inflows over two days as Bitcoin traded above the estimated cost basis of the average ETF investor. The funds had $715 million in net inflows on Tuesday, following a 2026 high of $999 million on Monday, according to SoSoValue data. Total net assets across US spot Bitcoin ETFs reached around $111 billion on Tuesday, up 56% from their 2026 low of roughly $71 billion on June 30. The total remains about 13% below the 2026 high of $128 billion recorded on Jan. 14.
US President Donald Trump previously tapped David Sacks as his AI and crypto czar before Sacks stepped down from the role earlier this year after reaching his service limit as a special government employee. US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is reportedly being considered as US President Donald Trump’s next artificial intelligence czar, days after Trump announced plans for an “AI Force” amid mounting concerns about the technology’s risks. Bessent is a frontrunner for the position, three sources familiar with the matter told Semafor. Other candidates include the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Director Michael Kratsios and Office of Personnel Management Director Scott Kupor, a former managing partner of venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz and National Cyber Directo…
SlowMist said malicious FomoPeek versions distributed through Apple’s App Store used iOS kernel exploits to escape the sandbox and access sensitive data from other apps. A malicious iOS app distributed through Apple’s App Store has been linked to nearly $580,000 in stolen crypto after researchers found it contained multiple kernel exploits capable of escaping Apple’s sandbox and accessing sensitive wallet data. According to an investigation published by blockchain security firm SlowMist, the app, called FomoPeek, introduced two malicious modules that could exploit iOS vulnerabilities, gain elevated privileges and access Keychain data and files belonging to other apps. SlowMist said the affected versions were released on Sept. 9 and Sept. 12, while version 1.3, released Sept. 17, removed t…
BlackRock says AI agents could drive demand for stablecoins and programmable payment rails, while tokenized computing capacity could create another opportunity for digital assets. The world’s largest asset manager, BlackRock, says broad AI adoption could represent an underappreciated source of demand for digital assets. In its latest research paper, “The Machine-Native Economy,” BlackRock said the rise of AI and machine-to-machine payments could increase demand for blockchains and other programmable payment infrastructure, including stablecoins and other on-chain assets. It also sees a potential opportunity for digital assets to support the compute market, allowing claims on computing capacity to be tokenized, traded and used as collateral. “Together, these developments position AI as a…
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman are expected to brief the UN Security Council as it examines AI risks and global security. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman are expected to brief the United Nations Security Council on Wednesday as the body examines artificial intelligence risks and their implications for international security. According to CNBC, the UN confirmed Altman and Amodei’s participation. Hugging Face CEO Clément Delangue and Yoshua Bengio, co-chair of the UN’s Independent International Scientific Panel on AI, are also expected to take part. Reuters reported that the Security Council meeting will examine growing concerns over AI’s impact on international security. Chinese AI companies DeepSeek and Moonshot have been invited to make statemen…
The warning comes weeks after the CFTC fined a former White House teleprompter operator who made more than $107,000 trading prediction contracts tied to President Trump’s speeches. The top US derivatives regulator has warned that prediction market contracts tied to what a person says or does carry a heightened risk of manipulation, putting exchanges on notice as the industry faces increasing scrutiny over market integrity. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s Division of Market Oversight on Tuesday said it issued an advisory to some of its regulated entities, advising that there are only “limited circumstances” in which “mention markets” — event contracts based on whether an individual will say certain words, attend or appear at an event or interact with another person — can be list…
Arch Lending’s Himanshu Sahay said on Cointelegraph’s Chain Reaction podcast that the lender plans to move into tokenized equities as onchain stocks gain traction as collateral. Crypto lender Arch Lending plans to expand into loans backed by tokenized equities as the market for onchain stocks expands and lenders begin exploring new uses for the assets as collateral.
Many Democrats have previously called for investigations into the Trump family’s crypto ventures, but now a Republican is asking for an inquiry based on ties to the presidency. Senator John Curtis, a Republican representing Utah, sent a letter to leaders of the Senate Judiciary Committee calling for an investigation into US President Donald Trump’s and former President Joe Biden’s sons, citing the former’s involvement in the crypto industry. In a Monday letter to Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Chuck Grassley and ranking member Dick Durbin, Curtis said that the body should probe “the use of presidential family relationships for private financial benefit, preferential treatment, or access by domestic and foreign interest.” He also asked for subpoenas for Donald Trump Jr. and Hunter Biden,…
The country’s largest financial institutions are exploring tokenized deposits for interbank payments, just weeks after regulators clarified how they should be treated. Canada’s six largest banks are jointly exploring a system for tokenized Canadian dollar deposits that would allow digital representations of bank deposits to move between financial institutions. The initiative involves Bank of Montreal, CIBC, National Bank of Canada, Royal Bank of Canada, Scotiabank and TD Bank Group, according to a joint announcement from the banks on Tuesday. The first phase will focus on moving tokenized deposits between Canadian financial institutions before potentially connecting with other digital asset systems. The project comes less than two weeks after Canada’s banking regulator provided additional…
21shares listed physically backed ZEC and ETHFI products on Euronext Paris and Amsterdam, as issuers broaden their offerings beyond major cryptocurrencies. European asset manager 21shares has launched the region’s first exchange-traded product tied to Zcash, extending the privacy coin’s reach into regulated markets following its strong performance over the past year. On Tuesday, 21shares listed its physically backed Zcash ETP on Euronext Paris and Amsterdam, allowing investors to gain exposure to ZEC through brokerage accounts without holding the cryptocurrency directly. The asset manager also introduced an ETP tracking ETHFI, the governance and utility token of Ether.fi, a decentralized finance protocol that offers staking and other crypto-based financial services. The ETHFI product is ph…
Bitcoin price action avoided a significant drop below $86,000 as US president Donald Trump pledged a deal with Iran after November’s midterm election. Bitcoin (BTC) fluctuated around $86,000 on Tuesday as crude-oil prices hit their lowest levels in nearly three weeks. Key points:
Control of the US House and Senate is up for grabs in 2026, and some advocates speculate that the crypto industry could ratchet up attempts to sway elections after the CLARITY vote. Last week’s US Senate failure to advance a digital asset market structure bill could light a fire under cryptocurrency industry groups seeking to sway key congressional races in the 2026 US midterm election that‘s just 42 days away. Senators on Sept. 15 voted 49 in favor and 50 against advancing the Digital Asset Market Clarity (CLARITY) Act, significantly reducing the chances of Congress passing the legislation with limited days in session before 2027. While some crypto advocates haven’t ruled out the possibility of CLARITY coming up for another vote before the next session of Congress, at least one of the ind…
Researchers can trace an estimated 1.1 million BTC to a distinctive early mining operation. The harder question is whether that miner was actually Satoshi. One of the first things anyone learns about Bitcoin is that it has a pseudonymous creator — and they’re a billionaire multiple times over. Nearly 1.1 million BTC is widely attributed to Satoshi Nakamoto, but it’s a number that rests on a forensic trail identifying a mining operation, not a person. The estimate also varies by more than 200,000 Bitcoin depending on how strictly a certain “fingerprint” test is applied. When 600 BTC mined in 2010 suddenly moved after 16 years, triggering speculation that “Satoshi’s coins” had awoken, that distinction became more important.
Circle sold Binance $100 million in stock and agreed to pay monthly incentives under an expanded five-year partnership promoting USDC. Binance has invested $100 million in stablecoin issuer Circle as part of an expanded five-year agreement to promote USDC on the crypto exchange. Circle issued Binance 1,237,011 shares of its Class A common stock at $80.84 per share in a private placement on Sept. 17, according to a Tuesday filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. The purchase price reflected a discount to Circle’s market price before the transaction closed. New York Stock Exchange-traded CRCL shares were up more than 1.3% in Tuesday’s premarket activity after closing Monday at $94.29 apiece, according to Yahoo Finance data.
The ECB aims to gain firsthand DLT market experience by buying tokenized public-sector securities and settling the trades through Pontes. The European Central Bank (ECB) is preparing to invest a “small portion” of its own funds in tokenized public-sector securities. The purchases will be settled in central bank money through Pontes, the Eurosystem’s settlement system for distributed ledger technology-based transactions launched Monday. The ECB said in a separate announcement Monday that the initiative will give it firsthand experience across the full investment lifecycle, including trade execution, settlement, systems and portfolio management.
