Senate Banking's CLARITY Showdown Hits Thursday

Hi! In today’s edition:

• 🏛️ The CLARITY Act faces its biggest Senate test Thursday as banks try to torch the stablecoin compromise

• 🏦 Kraken's parent goes for a federal bank charter, joining Coinbase, Circle, and Ripple

• 🟧 Saylor reframes Strategy's bitcoin sell talk: 10 to 20 BTC bought for every 1 sold

• 📊 BlackRock files for two more tokenized funds, eyeing idle stablecoin capital

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CLARITY Act Heads to Senate Banking Thursday as Bank Lobby Goes Scorched Earth

The Senate Banking Committee will mark up the Digital Asset Market CLARITY Act on Thursday, May 14, at 10:30 a.m. ET, the long-awaited next step for the bill that would split crypto oversight between the SEC and CFTC.

The fight is already nasty. On Friday, the three largest U.S. banking trade groups, the ABA, BPI, and ICBA, formally rejected the Tillis-Alsobrooks compromise that bans passive stablecoin yield but allows activity-based rewards. Banks worry the carve-out lets stablecoins siphon checking-account deposits.

Chairman Tim Scott has not budged. Polymarket recently pegged passage in 2026 at roughly 75%, and the White House is pushing for a July 4 signing.

Kraken Parent Payward Goes for a Federal Bank Charter

Payward, the parent of crypto exchange Kraken, filed Friday for a national trust company charter with the OCC, joining a growing list of crypto firms gunning for federal banking status.

The proposed Payward National Trust Company would offer federally regulated custody for institutional clients. It complements Kraken Financial, the firm's Wyoming SPDI that already has a Federal Reserve master account.

The timing matters. Kraken has been on an acquisition tear, agreeing to buy stablecoin firm Reap Technologies for $600 million this week and derivatives venue Bitnomial for $550 million last month. The firm is also chasing an IPO at a $20 billion valuation.

Saylor Reframes Bitcoin-Sell Talk: 10 to 20 Bought for Every 1 Sold

Michael Saylor offered more clarity after last week's earnings call comment rattled bitcoin maximalists.

In weekend interviews, the Strategy chairman said any bitcoin sales to fund the firm's STRC preferred stock dividends would be tactical. "Even if we were to sell one bitcoin, we'd be buying 10 to 20 more bitcoin," he said. CEO Phong Le added on CNBC that the company believes in "math over ideology."

Strategy currently holds 818,334 BTC worth roughly $66.2 billion at an average cost of $75,537 per coin. JPMorgan projects buying could hit $30 billion this year at the current pace. Saylor posted "Back to work. BTC" Sunday, his usual pre-buy signal.

BlackRock Files for Two More Tokenized Funds Aimed at Stablecoin Money

BlackRock, which manages $14 trillion in assets, filed two SEC applications Friday to expand its onchain product line.

The first is a brand-new fund, the BlackRock Daily Reinvestment Stablecoin Reserve Vehicle, which would hold cash, short-term Treasuries, and overnight repo, and issue "OnChain Shares" across multiple blockchains. Minimum investment: $3 million.

The second tokenizes the firm's existing $6.1 billion BlackRock Select Treasury Based Liquidity Fund as a new share class on Ethereum, with BNY Mellon maintaining shareholder records using the ERC-20 standard. The target is clear: idle stablecoin capital. Tokenized Treasury products now top $14 billion, with Ethereum holding more than $8 billion.

📢 DON’T MISS BITS + BIPS TODAY 🎧️ 

On today's Bits + Bips, Austin, Ram, and Chris dig into why Bitcoin keeps grinding higher even as Iran tensions re-escalate and broader markets wobble, and whether the catchup trade still has legs.

They also unpack Coinbase's earnings against the backdrop of fresh layoffs and an AI push, the Arbitrum order clearing the way for funds to be returned, the E11even controversy, and chatter that MSTR could actually trim its Bitcoin stack.

Streams at 3:40pm ET. 

Join us on X, YouTube or PumpFun.

• 🏛️ SEC Chair Paul Atkins signaled new rulemaking for onchain trading systems, blockchain settlement, broker-dealer definitions, and crypto vaults at the AI+ Expo in Washington. The Friday speech marked the clearest signal yet that the SEC's Gensler-era enforcement playbook is being replaced with a notice-and-comment rulebook for DeFi and AI-driven finance.

• 🔥 Tether burned 2 billion USDT on the Ethereum network this weekend after minting $5 billion USDT since April 18, reflecting aggressive supply rebalancing by the stablecoin giant. The burn permanently removes the tokens from circulation and follows Tether's $515 million blacklisting action last week.

• 📺 Trump Media reported a $405.9 million Q1 net loss on just $871,200 in revenue, driven by $244 million in unrealized losses on its bitcoin holdings and a $108.2 million investment loss. The Truth Social parent holds 9,542 BTC at a $1.13 billion cost basis and 756 million CRO tokens currently worth $53 million.

• ⚖️ Judge Margaret Garnett cleared the path for Aave to move $71 million in ETH linked to the Kelp DAO exploit, modifying a restraining notice to permit an Arbitrum DAO governance vote transferring 30,766 ETH to Aave's recovery wallet. The terrorism judgment creditors' $877 million claims against North Korea remain attached to the funds after the transfer.

• 🤖 TeraWulf reported $21 million in HPC leasing revenue in Q1, surpassing its $13 million in bitcoin mining revenue for the first time and confirming a strategic shift toward AI infrastructure. The miner's $427.6 million net loss came largely from non-cash warrant revaluations, with the AI business now generating 62% of total revenue.

• ⛏️ Seven major bitcoin mining pools representing 75% of global hashrate joined the Stratum V2 working group, marking the biggest decentralization shift in mining in years. Foundry, AntPool, F2Pool, SpiderPool, MARA Pool, Block Inc, and DMND will adopt the open standard, letting individual miners build their own block templates rather than pool operators.

• 🇰🇷 South Korea's National Tax Service launched a pilot program to entrust seized virtual asset management to private custody institutions like KODA and KDAC after recent security lapses. The shift follows a February incident where the NTS published a press release containing an unredacted recovery phrase, leading to $4.8 million in stolen tokens.

• 💸 Circle raised $222 million in a presale of its ARC token at a $3 billion fully diluted network valuation, from a consortium including BlackRock, Apollo, a16z crypto, ARK Invest, ICE, and Standard Chartered Ventures. The raise landed alongside Circle's Q1 2026 results, which showed USDC in circulation up 28% to $77 billion and onchain transaction volume up 263% to $21.5 trillion.

• 🏦 Digital Asset Holdings is raising $300 million at a $2 billion valuation, with a16z crypto expected to lead the financing for the Canton Network developer, per Bloomberg. The round comes as Canton has attracted institutional participants including Visa, Goldman Sachs, and DTCC, with over $6 trillion in tokenized assets processed on the network.

• 📊 Hyperion DeFi closed a $10 million public offering at $3.60 per share, with the HYPD Nasdaq-listed firm planning to deploy the capital strictly toward its HYPE treasury strategy. The company is the first U.S. publicly listed firm building a long-term strategic treasury of Hyperliquid's native token.

• ⚽ Sportix raised $3.2 million in a seed round led by Animoca Brands to power its AI sports intelligence infrastructure ahead of the 2026 FIFA World Cup. The platform combines real-time match data processing, predictive analytics, and blockchain-based verification, with participation from Coininvestor Ventures, Becker Ventures, X21 Digital, and Alpha Capital.

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