Weekly Crypto News: SBF's Prison Startup, Tether's Revolt Against MiCA, and the Digital Dollar Ban
This week, the spotlight is on the ambitious plans of FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, Tether's strategy to circumvent the European MiCA regulation, and the legislative ban on the digital dollar in the US. We also analyze the collapse of meme coins, the legal battles of traditional exchanges, and the global trend toward destroying communication privacy.
Sam Bankman-Fried's Ambitions
The founder of FTX, serving a 25-year sentence for one of the largest financial frauds, is making plans for life after release. He confessed to his cellmate that to "earn serious money," he would need $50–100 million in startup capital and mentioned a cryptocurrency project that "everyone will flock to." Simultaneously, he has appealed to Donald Trump for a presidential pardon, and his parents have hired lobbyists.
The community has again recalled FTX's venture investments—stakes in SpaceX, Anthropic, and Solana, collectively worth $114 billion, but liquidated by bankruptcy administrators for a fraction of that amount. Most commentators agree: while SBF may be a genius investor, his actions were unacceptable—illegal use of client funds. Even if he wasn't joking about the future crypto project, regaining trust will be extremely difficult.
Tether's Strategy in Europe
The European authority ESMA has announced that by July 1, all crypto platforms must obtain a license under the MiCA regulation, or they must cease servicing EU clients. Tether's management deliberately declined the license, deeming the requirement to hold 60% of reserves in European banks risky for financial stability.
The company chose a strategy to bypass direct restrictions: Tether invests in partners with legal status, through whom fully legitimate stablecoins will be issued. Thus, Tether will indirectly maintain a presence in the EU market without direct subordination to local officials. 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.
Ban on the Digital Dollar in the US
The US is moving toward a legislative ban on the digital dollar, at least until the end of 2030. A provision prohibiting the Fed from issuing a CBDC is embedded in the affordable housing bill—this packaging allowed overcoming 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 trial, as in the digital yuan), and the displacement of commercial banks. Private stablecoins 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 from the Pump.fun platform has plummeted by over 70%. The platform allowed anyone to issue their own token for a few dollars, leading to an explosive increase in the number of 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 $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, 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.
CME Group Defends Its Monopoly
The operator of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, CME Group, will sue regulator CFTC over the permission for platform Kalshi to launch perpetual futures. CME head Terrence Duffy appeals to investor protection and the Dodd-Frank Act, comparing high leverage to the 2008 mortgage crisis.
Meanwhile, CME holds exclusive licenses for the main benchmarks on which futures contracts are built. The logic of the lawsuit: "we control the benchmarks, so new instruments on these indices must trade 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 banning the use of social media (Instagram, TikTok, YouTube) for citizens under 16, while in France and the EU, an initiative is advancing to mass-scan personal messages on smartphones before sending. A global trend is emerging: under the pretext of fighting terrorism or protecting children, governments are forcing citizens to abandon the basic right to privacy.
As Pavel Durov noted, a forced abandonment of end-to-end encryption will not stop criminals—they can easily write their own private applications. Ordinary law-abiding citizens will be the ones 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 analysis: The market is undergoing structural changes, from meme coin bubbles to regulatory battles between traditional and decentralized finance. Tether demonstrates that even major players are willing to engage in complex maneuvers to maintain dominance. And the US ban on CBDCs is not just a political gesture but a signal that private stablecoins could become the foundation of the future financial system.