Crypto news

This week, the crypto industry once again demonstrates its unique ability to combine grand ambitions, tough regulatory games, and market bubbles. In the spotlight are Sam Bankman-Fried's plans for a comeback, Tether's strategy to circumvent European rules, the ban on the digital dollar in the US, as well as the collapse of meme coins and exchange monopoly wars.

SBF's Ambitions: From Prison to a $100 Million Startup

Sam Bankman-Fried, serving a 25-year sentence for fraud, is not wasting any time. He shared with a cellmate his plans for life after release: for "serious money," he would need between $50 and $100 million in startup capital, and he has already outlined a crypto project that, he claims, will attract everyone. Simultaneously, he appealed to Donald Trump for a presidential pardon, while his parents hired lobbyists. The community once again recalled FTX's venture investments, including stakes in SpaceX, Anthropic, and Solana, which were collectively valued at $114 billion but were sold by bankruptcy administrators for a much smaller sum. Despite SBF's potential investment genius, most experts agree: regaining trust after the illegal use of client funds will be nearly impossible.

Tether vs. MiCA: A Strategy of Circumvention

The European regulator ESMA requires all crypto platforms to obtain a license under the MiCA regulation by July 1, otherwise they face a complete ban on serving clients from the EU. Tether's management deliberately refused the license, citing the risky requirement to hold 60% of reserves in European banks. Instead, the company chose a more flexible strategy: investing in partners who already have legal status. Fully legitimate stablecoins will be issued through them, allowing Tether to indirectly maintain its presence in the EU market without directly submitting to local regulators. However, the forced delisting of USDT in Europe will hit professional market participants: market makers will have to split liquidity pools, cross-exchange arbitrage will become more complicated, and spreads will widen.

US: Ban on the Digital Dollar Until 2030

The US is moving toward a legislative ban on the digital dollar (CBDC) at least until the end of 2030. The provision prohibiting the Federal Reserve 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. American lawmakers fear total surveillance of every transaction, control over spending (programmable money with the ability to freeze without a court order, as in the digital yuan), and the displacement of commercial banks. Private stablecoins are explicitly excluded from the ban. For the global CBDC race, this means the world's largest economy is officially stepping out of it, and stablecoins are becoming a government-approved alternative.

Meme Coin Collapse: The Bubble Burst

Revenues of the Pump.fun platform have plummeted by more than 70%. The platform allowed anyone to issue their own token for a few dollars, leading to an explosive increase in the number of new coins, but ultimately nearly 96% of traders either lost money or earned no more than $500. To prevent a crash, developers announced the burning of tokens worth about $370 million (36% of the supply). The situation reflects a large-scale process of capital redistribution: investors are massively locking in losses, withdrawing liquidity from unregulated instruments, and returning funds to TradFi. The practice of buying assets without fundamental value has stopped working, and traders are forced to return to basic rules, seeking digital assets with real-world applications.

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 and the Dodd-Frank Act, but in reality, CME holds exclusive licenses for major benchmarks. The logic of the lawsuit is simple: we control the benchmarks, so new instruments based on these indices should trade with us. A similar pattern is observed with ICE, demanding "equal rules" due to the growth of the Hyperliquid platform.

Global Attack on Privacy

The UK government is preparing a law banning the use of social media for citizens under 16, while in France and the EU, an initiative is advancing to mass-scan 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 criminals, as they can easily write their own closed applications. Ultimately, ordinary law-abiding citizens will be affected, and the weakening of encryption systems makes corporate networks of banks and funds vulnerable to hacker attacks.

My professional perspective: This current week confirms that the crypto market is entering a phase of strict regulation and reassessment. SBF, Tether, and meme coins are different facets of the same process: the industry is shedding illusions, but simultaneously creating new tools for survival. The ban on CBDC in the US is not just a political move, but a signal that private stablecoins, despite all their ambiguity, are becoming the de facto standard for the global economy.