Crypto news

This week, I analyzed several key events that are reshaping the landscape of the crypto industry: from the ambitions of the convicted FTX founder to Tether's tricks in Europe and the global assault on privacy. These stories are not just news, but signals of how power and money are rewriting the rules of the game.

Sam Bankman-Fried's Ambitions: A Startup from Prison

Sam Bankman-Fried, serving a 25-year sentence for the largest financial fraud, is already making plans for life after release. As it became known, he told his cellmate about the need for $50–100 million in startup capital to launch a new crypto project that, in his words, "everyone will flock to." Simultaneously, he appealed to Donald Trump for a presidential pardon, and his parents hired lobbyists.

The topic of FTX's venture investments resurfaced in the community—stakes in SpaceX, Anthropic, and Solana, which were collectively valued at $114 billion but were sold off by bankruptcy administrators for a much smaller sum. Most commentators agree on one thing: SBF may be a genius investor, but his illegal use of client funds negates any prospects. Even if he wasn't joking about the future project, regaining trust will be nearly impossible.

Tether's Strategy in Europe: Bypassing MiCA

The European regulator ESMA demanded that by July 1, all crypto platforms obtain a license under the MiCA regulation, or else they must cease servicing clients from the EU. Tether's management refused the license, deeming the requirement to hold 60% of reserves in European banks as risky for financial stability. Instead, the company chose a strategy of indirect presence: investing in partners who already have legal status. Fully legitimate stablecoins will be issued through them, allowing Tether to maintain influence in the European market without direct compliance with local regulators.

The forced delisting of USDT in Europe will hit professional participants: market makers will have to split liquidity pools, cross-exchange arbitrage will become more complicated, and spreads will widen. This will create serious problems for market liquidity.

Ban on the Digital Dollar in the US

The US is moving toward a legislative ban on issuing a digital dollar (CBDC) at least until the end of 2030. The provision prohibiting the Federal Reserve from issuing a CBDC is embedded in the affordable housing bill—such packaging allowed overcoming the resistance that had stalled a separate anti-CBDC document. American lawmakers fear total surveillance of transactions, control over spending (with the possibility of freezing without a court order, as in the digital yuan), and the displacement of commercial banks.

Private stablecoins, however, are exempt from the ban. This means the world's largest economy is officially exiting the global CBDC race, and stablecoins are becoming an alternative that the state is willing to tolerate.

Consequences of the Meme Coin Hype

Revenue on the Pump.fun platform has plummeted by more than 70%. This platform allowed anyone to issue their own token for a few dollars, leading to an explosive increase in the number of new coins, but nearly 96% of traders either lost money or earned no more than $500. To prevent a price drop, developers announced the burning of tokens worth about $370 million (36% of the supply).

The situation reflects a massive process of capital redistribution: investors are locking in losses, withdrawing liquidity from unregulated instruments that major players consider gambling, and returning funds to TradFi. The practice of buying assets without fundamental value has stopped working—traders must return to basic rules and seek digital assets with real-world applications, making the market safer.

CME Group Defends Its Monopoly

The operator of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, CME Group, will sue the regulator CFTC over permission for the Kalshi platform to launch perpetual futures. CME CEO Terrence Duffy formally appeals to investor protection (comparing high leverage to the 2008 mortgage crisis) and the Dodd-Frank Act. However, CME holds exclusive licenses for all major benchmarks on which futures contracts are built. Duffy's logic is simple: we control the benchmarks, so new instruments based on these indices should be traded with us. A similar pattern is observed with ICE, demanding "equal rules" due to the growth of the Hyperliquid platform.

Destruction of Communication Privacy

The UK government is preparing a law that will completely ban the use of social media (Instagram, TikTok, YouTube) for citizens under 16. In France and the EU, an initiative is being pushed for mass scanning of personal messages on smartphones before they are sent. A global trend is emerging: under the pretext of fighting terrorism or protecting children, governments are forcing citizens to give up the basic right to privacy.

As Pavel Durov noted, a forced abandonment of end-to-end encryption will not stop real criminals—they can easily write their own closed applications. Ultimately, ordinary law-abiding citizens will be affected. Weakening encryption systems makes corporate networks of banks and funds vulnerable to hacker attacks, and users will have to switch to decentralized services to maintain privacy.

My conclusion: These events are not a coincidence but part of a systemic shift. SBF and Tether show how, even in a crisis, one can manipulate the system, while states, in fighting threats, risk destroying the very essence of decentralization. Investors should prepare for stricter regulation and a revision of strategies—the era of easy money and anonymity is ending.