Skip to content

Topic

US Crypto Market Regulation

The evolving US legal framework—led by the SEC and CFTC—governing crypto trading, custody, and token issuance, including securities disputes.

Current stories

investConfirmed2 publishers

Binance US courts $100 million at about 22% of its 2022 pre-money valuation

Binance US is seeking up to $100 million at about a $1 billion valuation, Bloomberg reported, against $4.5 billion pre-money in 2022. None of the three accounts says whether the $1 billion is pre- or post-money, so the markdown is approximate.

Perspective Coverage

6 publishers
Builder
Builder 15%
Operator
Operator 34%
Investor
Investor 51%

Reality

Evidence42
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+15
Incentives
Not scored
Confidence55
investOne report1 publisher

Clarity Act's Senate stall hands US crypto rulemaking to the SEC and CFTC

With the Clarity Act stalled in the Senate, the SEC and CFTC are writing US crypto rules, but only one of their three measures since September 17 is in force. Executives expect faster deals from that route while lawyers warn its rules stay open to political and legal reversal.

Publishers:coindesk.com

Reality

Evidence55
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+20
Incentives60
Confidence50
investConfirmed14 publishers

The SEC's five-year exemption hands issuers a veto over which stocks a venue may tokenize

A September 17 order lets qualifying platforms trade fully backed tokenized NMS stocks without registering as exchanges or dealers. Every stock takes 30 days of notice to an issuer that is free to refuse it.

Perspective Coverage

14 publishers
Builder
Builder 25%
Operator
Operator 40%
Investor
Investor 35%

Reality

Evidence80
Adoption12
Hype gap+40
Incentives60
Confidence70
investConfirmed5 publishers

CFTC extends Phantom-style broker exemption to crypto software makers meeting strict conditions

Two days after the Senate stalled the CLARITY Act, the CFTC's Market Participants Division opened Phantom's March no-action position to any software provider that stays clear of custody and order routing, on ten conditions.

Perspective Coverage

5 publishers
Builder
Builder 42%
Operator
Operator 29%
Investor
Investor 29%

Reality

Evidence78
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+15
Incentives60
Confidence74
investOne report1 publisher

Crypto's stalled CLARITY Act waits on a Senate that traders give Democrats over 60% odds of winning

Polymarket and Kalshi give Democrats a 61% to 62% chance of winning both chambers of Congress on Nov. 3. For crypto firms, the result decides whether the stalled CLARITY Act comes back on its current terms or is reworked by a new majority.

Publishers:news.bitcoin.com

Reality

Evidence55
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+20
Incentives40
Confidence50
investConfirmed5 publishers

Crypto's market structure bill is now a lame-duck problem, at best

Trump asked Congress again for the CLARITY Act. A mid-September cloture vote, a crowded Senate calendar and an unresolved ethics fight say the clarity is not arriving this year.

Perspective Coverage

5 publishers
Builder
Builder 30%
Operator
Operator 36%
Investor
Investor 34%

Reality

Evidence68
Adoption20
Hype gap+45
Incentives72
Confidence64
investConfirmed9 publishers

Prediction markets get a seat at the crypto table, not the gambling one

Kalshi and its investor Paradigm sat with Coinbase, Ripple and Chainlink at the White House, one day before the CFTC's new advisory committee met. The seating chart is the substance.

Perspective Coverage

9 publishers
Builder
Builder 19%
Operator
Operator 38%
Investor
Investor 43%

Reality

Evidence60
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+35
Incentives65
Confidence55
investConfirmed4 publishers

Coinbase routes US institutions into Deribit through the Prime accounts they already hold

Coinbase opened a CFTC-regulated route for US institutions into Deribit, the $2.9 billion exchange it bought, with Prime options trading due within weeks. Desks that kept offshore entities to reach that market can now use a domestic broker instead.

Perspective Coverage

4 publishers
Builder
Builder 14%
Operator
Operator 49%
Investor
Investor 37%

Reality

Evidence60
Adoption30
Hype gap+15
Incentives70
Confidence62
investConfirmed3 publishers

Bitcoin gained 38% while CLARITY's odds of passing fell from 39% to 18%

Bitwise's Matt Hougan says the Senate's 49-50 cloture failure will not end the crypto rally, and points to a summer in which prices rose as the odds of passage halved. Only Congress can give the CFTC spot authority.

Perspective Coverage

3 publishers
Builder
Builder 7%
Operator
Operator 13%
Investor
Investor 80%

Reality

Evidence50
Adoption40
Hype gap+30
Incentives60
Confidence55
investConfirmed7 publishers

HYPE up 17% on a sentence: Trump says the CFTC wants Hyperliquid onshore, and nothing else

A White House remark about CFTC Chairman Michael Selig repriced HYPE and a Nasdaq treasury stock. No approval, no registration path and no timeline has been put on the record.

Perspective Coverage

7 publishers
Builder
Builder 13%
Operator
Operator 36%
Investor
Investor 51%

Reality

Evidence62
Adoption20
Hype gap+55
Incentives68
Confidence60
investOne report1 publisher

New SEC rule lets one commissioner alone constitute a quorum when all others are disqualified from a matter

Either Paul Atkins or Mark Uyeda can now act alone as the SEC's quorum under a rule effective Oct. 2, but only on matters where the other is disqualified. Decisions on the pending crypto custody and offering proposals therefore sit with a Commission of two people.

Publishers:cryptoslate.com

Reality

Evidence64
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+18
Incentives
Not scored
Confidence60
investConfirmed10 publishers

FinCEN withdraws a crypto mixer rule that would have taken 1.47 million compliance hours a year

FinCEN withdrew its proposal to make about 15,000 institutions report foreign crypto mixer transactions, work it estimated at 1.47 million hours a year. Banks keep their general duty to report suspicious activity, so mixer exposure stays a monitoring job without its own form.

Perspective Coverage

10 publishers
Builder
Builder 25%
Operator
Operator 48%
Investor
Investor 27%

Reality

Evidence70
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+12
Incentives60
Confidence68
investConfirmed3 publishers

OpenPayd lists through Titan to pay for a US launch built on 43 acquired licenses

OpenPayd, a London payments firm with $73 million of revenue, expects its Titan merger to close by year-end and fund a US launch by April 2027. With 43 state licenses already bought, the listing mainly supplies cash and shares for the acquisitions its CEO says come next.

Perspective Coverage

3 publishers
Builder
Builder 17%
Operator
Operator 32%
Investor
Investor 51%

Reality

Evidence62
Adoption40
Hype gap+20
Incentives72
Confidence60
investConfirmed6 publishers

Hester Peirce's Oct. 2 exit leaves two Republicans running the SEC

SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce, head of the agency's Crypto Task Force, resigns Oct. 2, leaving Paul Atkins and Mark Uyeda as its only two commissioners. Neither her seat nor Caroline Crenshaw's has a nominee, so crypto policy now rests on two Republican votes.

Perspective Coverage

6 publishers
Builder
Builder 23%
Operator
Operator 45%
Investor
Investor 32%

Reality

Evidence76
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+10
Incentives60
Confidence74
investConfirmed4 publishers

Citi ties its $113,000 Bitcoin target to $5 billion of slow adviser and brokerage inflows

Citigroup lifted its 12-month Bitcoin target to $113,000 from $82,000 on a forecast of $5 billion in crypto inflows over the next year. A single month like June, when $4.51 billion left spot Bitcoin ETFs, would nearly cancel that forecast.

Perspective Coverage

4 publishers
Builder
Builder 7%
Operator
Operator 28%
Investor
Investor 65%

Reality

Evidence60
Adoption35
Hype gap+20
Incentives
Not scored
Confidence55
productConfirmed2 publishers

Aztec brings zk.money back as a private stablecoin wallet capped at $2,500 a transfer

Aztec Labs is bringing back zk.money as a private DAI wallet that caps every transfer at $2,500 and all users' deposits combined at $50,000 a day. Raising either limit means a new contract that each user must opt into. The caps arrive while US law on privacy wallets remains unsettled.

Publishers:decrypt.co gizmodo.com

Reality

Evidence60
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+30
Incentives55
Confidence62
investConfirmed2 publishers

Token buybacks on working crypto networks fall outside the Howey test, SEC staff say

SEC staff said on September 25 that token buybacks on functioning networks and staking receipts that only record ownership do not create investment contracts. Because they are staff views, live networks can plan repurchases around them while a future SEC or a private plaintiff could still contest them.

Reality

Evidence68
Adoption45
Hype gap+30
Incentives50
Confidence70
investConfirmed2 publishers

CFTC staff let registrants invest customer funds in tokens that carry the original asset's rights

CFTC staff cleared registered firms on September 24 to invest customer funds in tokenized forms of permitted investments and to keep their books on a blockchain. The update came days after the Senate stalled the CLARITY Act, but it only changes the form assets take and leaves the CFTC-SEC split to Congress.

Reality

Evidence74
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+10
Incentives
Not scored
Confidence70
investConfirmed6 publishers

Circle raised $222 million in Arc token presale ahead of mainnet launch

Arc's mainnet went live Wednesday with BlackRock, DTCC, Visa and Mastercard among its founding validators, and the 10 billion ARC tokens Circle minted this week sit behind a presale that valued the network at $3 billion.

Perspective Coverage

6 publishers
Builder
Builder 38%
Operator
Operator 34%
Investor
Investor 28%

Reality

Evidence58
Adoption30
Hype gap+30
Incentives78
Confidence64

Earlier coverage

  1. Bitcoin's squeeze high stopped $409 short of the average ETF buyer's cost

    Invest · September 21, 2026 · Confirmed7 publishers