Crypto news

This week, I'm breaking down several landmark events that will reshape the crypto industry landscape: from Sam Bankman-Fried's ambitious plans to Tether's cunning strategy to circumvent European regulations. Add to that the ban on the digital dollar in the US, the collapse of meme coins, and exchange legal battles — and you get a picture of a market that has stopped being chaotic and has begun to structure itself under top-down pressure.

Sam Bankman-Fried's Ambitions: A Prison Startup

The founder of the collapsed FTX, serving a 25-year sentence for the largest financial fraud, is already making plans for life after release. As it became known, SBF confessed to a cellmate that to "make serious money," he would need between $50 million and $100 million in startup capital. He mentioned some cryptocurrency project that "everyone will flock to," and simultaneously appealed to Donald Trump for a presidential pardon — his parents have already hired lobbyists.

The topic of FTX's venture investments resurfaced in the community: stakes in SpaceX, Anthropic, and Solana, collectively valued at $114 billion, were sold off by bankruptcy administrators for a fraction of that amount. However, despite SBF's possible genius as an investor, his crimes — the illegal use of customer funds — make restoring trust virtually impossible. I'd say that even if this isn't a joke, the market is unlikely to forgive his past.

Tether's Strategy in Europe: Bypassing MiCA

The European authority ESMA has issued an ultimatum: by July 1, all crypto platforms must obtain a license under the MiCA regulation, or face a complete exit from the EU. Tether deliberately refused the license, deeming the requirement to hold 60% of reserves in European banks as risky for its financial stability. Instead, the company chose a workaround: investing in partners who already have legal status and will issue fully legitimate stablecoins. Thus, Tether maintains its presence in the EU market without direct subordination to local officials.

However, the forced delisting of USDT in Europe will hit professionals: market makers will have to split liquidity pools, inter-exchange arbitrage will become more complicated, and spreads will widen. This will create additional costs for all market participants.

Ban on the Digital Dollar in the US

The US is moving towards a legislative ban on the digital dollar (CBDC) at least until 2030. The norm prohibiting the Fed from issuing a CBDC is embedded in a bill on affordable housing — this packaging allowed it to bypass the resistance that had stalled a separate anti-CBDC document. Lawmakers fear total transaction surveillance, control over spending (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. For the market, this is a signal: regulators are betting on private solutions, not government-issued digital currencies.

Aftermath of the Meme Coin Hype

Revenues of the Pump.fun platform have plummeted by over 70%. The platform, which allowed anyone to issue their own token for a few dollars, led to an explosive increase in the number of new coins, but nearly 96% of traders either lost money or earned no more than $500. Developers announced the burning of tokens worth $370 million (36% of the supply) to prevent a price drop.

The situation reflects a massive process of capital redistribution: investors are locking in losses, withdrawing liquidity from unregulated instruments that major players view as gambling, and returning funds to TradFi. The practice of buying assets with no fundamental value has stopped working — traders now have to look for digital assets with real-world applications, making the market safer.

CME Group Defends Its Monopoly

The operator of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, CME Group, is suing the regulator CFTC over its 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. The logic of the lawsuit is simple: "We control the benchmarks, so new instruments based on these indices must 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, the forced abandonment of end-to-end encryption technology (embedding backdoors) will not stop real criminals — they can easily write their own closed applications. Ultimately, ordinary law-abiding citizens will be the ones affected. Weakening encryption 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: The cryptocurrency market is undergoing a phase of structural restructuring, where regulators and major players are pushing out chaotic and unregulated instruments. Investors should prepare for stricter rules of the game, but it is precisely this that creates the foundation for long-term growth.