Hi! In today’s edition:
📉 Strategy's STRC preferred stock sank below $90 and the company paused its ATM program, stalling the capital-raising flywheel at the center of Michael Saylor's bitcoin strategy
🏦 Morgan Stanley filed amended S-1s for spot ETH and SOL ETFs at a 0.14% fee, the lowest in both markets, with staking through Figment, Galaxy, and Coinbase Canada
⟠ Ethereum Foundation co-executive director Hsiao-Wei Wang stepped down, the latest senior departure in a year of leadership turnover at the EF
⚖️ The CFTC and SEC jointly sought comment on clarifying the definition of "swaps," days after CME sued the CFTC over its approval of Kalshi's perpetual futures
Strategy has paused the at-the-market program it uses to sell STRC preferred shares, after the stock sank below the $100 level it was built to hold, stalling the capital-raising flywheel at the center of Michael Saylor's bitcoin strategy.
STRC fell to an intraday low of $82.50 Thursday before closing at $88.59, on one of its highest-volume days on record, roughly 10.7 million shares against a normal 3.4 million. STRC is designed to trade near $100: above par, it issues shares and buys bitcoin; below par, it can only raise money at a loss, so it has stopped.
The drop and the halt have caused a recent Coindesk interview, where Saylor said he designed the instrument with AI, and went "back and forth with the AI for a few hours." As STRC slid, that admission spread online, with critics treating it as emblematic of the structure's fragility.
Morgan Stanley Files for ETH and SOL ETFs at Lowest Fees
Morgan Stanley filed amended registrations for spot Ethereum and Solana ETFs on Thursday, setting fees that would be the lowest in both markets.
The bank submitted second-amended S-1 statements to the SEC for both funds, originally filed in January, with sponsor fees set at 0.14%. That would undercut the current lowest-cost options: Grayscale's Mini Ethereum Trust at 0.15% and Franklin Templeton's Solana fund at 0.19%.
The filings name Figment, Galaxy, and Coinbase Canada as staking providers; both funds plan to stake a portion of their holdings, with a 5% fee allotted to providers and custodians. The Ethereum fund would trade as MSSE, and the Solana fund as MSOL. The amendments follow Morgan Stanley's bitcoin ETF, MSBT, which launched in April at the same 0.14% fee and has drawn $300.7 million in net inflows.
Ethereum Foundation Loses Co-Director Hsiao-Wei Wang
Hsiao-Wei Wang has stepped down as co-executive director and board member of the Ethereum Foundation, effective Thursday, the latest in a run of senior departures at the nonprofit.
Her exit follows the earlier resignation of fellow co-executive director Tomasz Stańczak, leaving board member Bastian Aue to take a larger role in steering the organization in the interim. At least eight senior figures have left the EF over the past five months.
The turnover has fueled community scrutiny of the foundation's governance, priorities, and strategic direction, even as Ethereum faces intensifying competition from rival blockchains. Wang, who took the role last year alongside Stańczak, said she decided to step back after a sabbatical. Vitalik Buterin credited her with a decade of contributions to Ethereum research and to building the community in Taipei.
CFTC and SEC Move to Define 'Swaps' as CME Sues
The CFTC and SEC jointly asked for public comment Thursday on clarifying the definition of "swaps," the same legal question at the center of CME's new lawsuit against the CFTC.
The agencies said the request aims to address longstanding ambiguities in Title VII of the Dodd-Frank Act around swaps and security-based swaps, including how novel products like prediction-market event contracts and perpetual futures should be treated. CFTC Chair Michael Selig said the effort would clarify jurisdictional lines; SEC Chair Paul Atkins called clarification "long overdue."
The timing is pointed as CME sued the CFTC on Thursday over its approval of Kalshi's perpetual futures as futures rather than swaps, arguing that Selig overrode the swap definition. The CFTC said it will seek to dismiss the suit, calling it contrary to the administration's pro-innovation agenda.
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⚖️ The CFTC permanently banned Alex Mashinsky from trading and registration, closing its case against the imprisoned former Celsius CEO via a consent order. The order resolves the agency's 2023 fraud action over a scheme that touched roughly $20 billion in customer funds; Mashinsky is already serving a 12-year prison sentence.
🏛️ Federal regulators proposed a rule requiring stablecoin issuers to maintain customer identification programs under the GENIUS Act. The bank-style compliance requirement is among the first concrete implementing rules for the stablecoin law and could squeeze smaller issuers out on cost.
📈 Kalshi is in early IPO talks with investment banks after passing $2 billion in annualized revenue, according to a report. A public listing would mark a milestone for the prediction-market sector, which has drawn record volumes and intensifying regulatory attention.
🟣 Kraken integrated Solana DEX trading into its core app, giving customers in the US and more than 100 countries access to roughly 2,500 Solana tokens without a separate wallet. The move brings early-stage onchain assets, including ones not listed on centralized exchanges, into a mainstream exchange interface.
🔐 Algorand unveiled a roadmap to reach quantum resistance by 2028, laying out a phased plan to harden the blockchain against future quantum threats. It joins a small group of networks treating post-quantum security as a near-term engineering priority rather than a distant concern.
🪙 Tether is winding down its aUSDT stablecoin and Alloy platform to sharpen focus on core products. The gold-backed token never gained traction, reaching just $1.27 million in market cap, and holders have until September 17 to redeem their XAUT collateral.
🇲🇹 Malta's financial regulator is exploring bringing parts of DeFi under MiCA, publishing a discussion paper on how the EU's crypto framework might apply to decentralized finance. It is an early move to test where the lines of MiCA's reach should fall as DeFi grows.
🇮🇪 Ireland tightened crypto safeguards in a new financial-crime action plan, folding digital assets into its national money-laundering risk assessment. The plan signals closer scrutiny of crypto activity as part of the country's broader anti-financial-crime push.
🇸🇬 Singapore's MAS added Bybit to its investor alert list, flagging the exchange as not regulated by the authority. Bybit said it is engaging MAS to understand the basis for the listing, noting it geo-blocks Singapore users and does not offer services there.
💥 Aztec is investigating a $2 million exploit of a deprecated payments product after security firm PeckShield flagged about $2.165 million drained from a bridge, including ETH, DAI, and renBTC. The attacker was initially funded through the exchange HitBTC.
🏛️ The son of Senator Kirsten Gillibrand is building a perps exchange that wants dual CFTC and SEC oversight, according to a report. Theodore Gillibrand's venture, backed by Lux Capital, would seek to thread both regulators as Washington fights over who governs perpetual futures.
💳 Alchemy's AI-driven identity and payment service gained access to the Visa network, letting AI agents transact on traditional payment rails through a Visa-powered virtual card. The integration is the latest sign of mainstream payment infrastructure opening up to autonomous, agentic crypto commerce.
🏦 Trace Finance raised $32 million in a Series A led by CoinFund, with the stablecoin-infrastructure firm saying its valuation grew tenfold from its seed round. The capital will scale regulated banking and stablecoin rails across Brazil, the US, and emerging markets.
⛏️ Bitcoin miner HIVE inked a $220 million AI GPU deal with Bell, supplying sovereign AI compute for Cohere and expecting about $70 million in annual revenue. It is the latest bitcoin miner to pivot spare capacity toward AI infrastructure.
🛡️ Range raised $8.3 million from fintech and crypto VCs to unify treasury, risk, and compliance for stablecoins across payment rails. The funding targets the compliance plumbing that issuers increasingly need as stablecoin regulation tightens.
🖼️ Renaiss secured $1.5 million in a first round led by YZi Labs to build trustless infrastructure for real-world collectibles. The startup aims to bring verifiable provenance and ownership to physical collectible markets onchain.
Blocmates.: Introducing: The Holder Multiple
