SBF plans a $100 million prison startup, Tether challenges MiCA, and the US bans CBDCs: this week's top stories
This week, the crypto world once again found itself at the crossroads of high-profile scandals, regulatory maneuvers, and tectonic shifts. As an analyst, I highlight six key events shaping the new landscape of the industry: from the ambitions of the convicted FTX founder to Tether's strategic circumvention of European regulations and the US's complete abandonment of the digital dollar.
Sam Bankman-Fried's Plan: A $100 Million Prison Startup
Sam Bankman-Fried, serving a 25-year sentence for the largest financial fraud, is not wasting time. He is already making plans for life after release: to "earn serious money," he will need between $50 and $100 million in startup capital. He told his cellmate that he will launch a crypto project that "everyone will flock to." Simultaneously, SBF has appealed to Donald Trump for a presidential pardon, and his parents have hired lobbyists. The topic of FTX's venture investments has resurfaced in the community—stakes in SpaceX, Anthropic, and Solana, collectively worth $114 billion, were sold off by bankruptcy administrators for a fraction of that amount. However, most experts agree: even if SBF is a genius investor, his crimes (illegal use of client funds) have permanently undermined trust in him. Restoring his reputation will be nearly impossible.
Tether vs. MiCA: A Strategy of Circumvention Without Direct Compliance
The European authority ESMA requires that by July 1, all crypto platforms obtain a license under the MiCA regulation or leave the EU market. Tether deliberately refused a license, deeming the requirement to hold 60% of reserves in European banks risky for its financial stability. Instead, the company chose a clever strategy: investing in partners that already have legal status and issuing fully legitimate stablecoins through them. Thus, Tether will indirectly maintain its presence in the EU without directly submitting to local officials. 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 Officially Exits the CBDC Race: Ban Until 2030
America is moving toward a legislative ban on the digital dollar, at least until the end of 2030. The provision prohibiting the Fed from issuing a CBDC is embedded in a bill on affordable housing—this packaging allowed it to overcome the resistance that had stalled a separate anti-CBDC document. Lawmakers fear total surveillance of every transaction, control over spending (as in the digital yuan), and the displacement of commercial banks. Private stablecoins are exempt from the ban. For the global CBDC race, this means the world's largest economy is officially exiting it, and stablecoins are becoming an alternative that the state is willing to tolerate.
The Collapse of the Meme Coin Hype: Pump.fun Loses 70% of Revenue
Revenue for the Pump.fun platform, which allowed anyone to issue their own token for a few dollars, has plummeted by more than 70%. 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 view as 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 practical applications, making the market safer.
CME Group Defends Its Monopoly: Lawsuit Against CFTC
The operator of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, CME Group, will sue 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 based. Duffy combined investor protection and monopoly defense in the lawsuit. The logic goes something like this: we control the benchmarks, so new instruments on these indices must trade with us. A similar pattern is seen with ICE, demanding "equal rules" due to the growth of the Hyperliquid platform.
Global Trend Toward Destroying Communication Privacy
The UK government is preparing a law that would completely ban 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. 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, forced abandonment of end-to-end encryption (embedding backdoors) will not stop real criminals—they can easily write their own private 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 Expert Conclusion: This week shows that the crypto industry is entering a phase of intense regulatory struggle. Tether demonstrates how to circumvent rules without breaking them, and the US is betting on private stablecoins instead of CBDCs. However, the main lesson is that trust and fundamental value are becoming key assets. SBF, Pump.fun, and CME's monopolies—all are links in the same chain: the market is clearing out speculative junk and moving toward maturity.