The crypto market at a crossroads: banking licenses for crypto, a new chapter for Strategy, and SEC stock tokenization
The past night and the morning of August 12 were marked by a series of landmark events capable of radically changing the balance of power in the digital asset market. Regulatory signals from Washington, the aggressive strategy of the largest corporate bitcoin holder, and a move toward tokenization of traditional finance—these are the main drivers the market is closely watching right now.
Market Overview: Bitcoin Holds Its Ground
At the time of writing this review (08:45 Moscow time), bitcoin is trading around $63,794. Overnight volatility was moderate: quotes dipped to $63,200, then attempted to storm $64,450, but met resistance and pulled back to current levels. Ether is showing similar dynamics, consolidating near $1,890 after an overnight drop to $1,853.
In the top 10 by market capitalization, no notable movements are observed, but the leaders in gains and losses stand out. Dogecoin gained 2.91%, BNB strengthened by 2.19%, while Hyperliquid (HYPE) lost 1.47%. Among the top 100 assets, Canton (CC) posted the best result with a 5.52% gain, while the outsider was the Audiera (BEAT) token, which plunged by 10.7%.
Flows into spot ETFs remain mixed. Bitcoin funds attracted $4.89 million, Solana products—$1.43 million, while Ethereum ETFs recorded an outflow of $1.76 million. Over the past day, exchanges liquidated positions of 76,376 traders totaling $175.22 million. The largest liquidation order came from the BTCUSDT pair on Binance and amounted to $2.46 million.
Regulatory Breakthrough: OCC Opens Doors
The head of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), Jonathan Gould, made a bold statement: crypto companies should gain access to the U.S. national banking license. According to him, the agency is "open for business again" and ready to consider applications from anyone conducting lawful activities, including those involving digital assets. Over the past 18 months, the OCC has received 40 applications to create new banks, with decisions on many of them made within 120 days. This is a signal I view as a tectonic shift in the institutional adoption of the crypto industry.
Strategy Returns to Accumulation
Strategy CEO Phong Le confirmed that the company will resume bitcoin purchases before the end of the year. This statement is especially important against the backdrop of recent sales of part of its reserves, which raised questions among market participants. Le explained: since the start of the year, Strategy has acquired about 175,000 BTC and sold only roughly 7,000—meaning the volume of purchases exceeded sales by 25 times. The proceeds went toward dividends on preferred shares and share buybacks, but now the focus is shifting back to building up reserves of the flagship cryptocurrency.
SEC Prepares a Tokenization Surprise
Far more intriguing is the information that the SEC could present an exemption for trading tokenized stocks as early as Friday. The regulator will hold an open meeting to consider a special regime for certain contracts involving crypto assets. If this happens, we will witness the birth of a 24/7 market for tokenized securities on the blockchain. At the same time, public companies will be able to object to third-party digitalization of their securities, and platforms will be required to tighten KYC/AML rules, up to requiring registration in the U.S.
My view: the combination of a banking license for crypto companies, the resumption of purchases by Strategy, and a potential "green light" for stock tokenization forms an extremely positive backdrop for the market in the medium term. If the SEC truly takes such a step, it will become the most powerful catalyst for an influx of institutional capital we haven't seen since the launch of spot ETFs.