The trenches are feeling somewhat euphoric again.
Bitcoin ran from roughly $64,400 to nearly $72,000 in under a day, catching a lot of shorts offside and triggering the largest wave of crypto short liquidations on record.
We rarely dwell on price here. But this move is worth a second look.
On Wednesday, the U.S. Treasury said it would at least double its buybacks of long-dated government debt, stepping in to take pressure off long-term yields, which had just hit their highest level since 2007. When yields started creeping back up the next day, Bessent doubled down: the buybacks could get bigger still.
Why does Washington care? Because long-term Treasury yields help set the price of borrowing across the economy. If they go up, borrowing gets more expensive. Mortgages rise, companies pay more to issue debt, the government's own financing costs climb over time, and stocks look less attractive next to suddenly-juicier bonds.
So rather than leave the long end to the Fed and the open market, the Treasury ramped up its buyback program.
The signal markets took from it:
Treasury buys long-term bonds → long-term yields pushed down → financial conditions ease → the dollar can weaken → scarce assets like Bitcoin become more attractive.
And as you know, narrative follows price, and the technology somehow suddenly looks much more capable again.
IN TODAY’S BRIEFING:
Bitwise explores fund tokenization
SEC unveils new framework for token fundraising
WITH INSIGHTS FROM
Larry Florio
Ethena Labs
Balder Bomans
Maven 11
HIGH SIGNAL NEWS
Bitwise explores fund tokenization. Through a partnership with Superstate, the crypto asset manager is exploring the tokenization of its Solana Staking ETF (BSOL), with additional ETFs potentially to follow. Shareholders could then choose to hold their shares either in traditional book-entry form through The Depository Trust Company or as tokens recorded on a blockchain and maintained through Superstate's transfer agency infrastructure. 🪙
Neuberger Berman tokenizes its first fund. In partnership with tokenization platform Securitize, the $600 billion investment firm brought tokenized shares of its fixed income fund, HINC, to Ethereum mainnet. The firms also plan to onboard the asset as collateral on Aave Horizon, enabling holders to borrow stablecoins against their shares. 💰
Rain introduces Agentic Payments Alliance. Bringing together 26 founding members, including Visa, Mastercard, Circle, and Solana, the organization aims to advance the development of agent-driven commerce. Initial efforts will focus on shared research and frameworks, testing emerging standards for agent identity and authorization, and advocating around the regulatory questions raised by agentic commerce. 🤝
CFTC to bring Hyperliquid onshore. In a speech on Wednesday, President Trump said CFTC Chair Michael Selig is working to bring the world’s largest decentralized perpetual exchange into the U.S. under a fully compliant framework. The protocol currently blocks U.S. users from accessing its front end to comply with regulatory restrictions. 🇺🇸
Gnosis Chain votes to join Ethereum Economic Zone. With the move, the Layer-1 network will work toward becoming an Ethereum rollup based on the EEZ L2 framework, more closely integrating with Ethereum mainnet's liquidity and security. 🗳
TOP STORY
SEC Unveils New Framework for Token Fundraising
The SEC’s first token rulebook: On Tuesday, the SEC introduced Regulation Crypto Assets, a 402-page proposal that would give token offerings their first dedicated set of rules in the U.S. It lays out how crypto projects can legally raise capital through token sales, including to U.S. retail investors, and when the securities status tied to those sales can end.
Why it matters: Until now, public token sales in the U.S. had to fit within securities rules designed for conventional companies, with no dedicated framework for crypto firms or decentralized protocols. That uncertainty pushed launches offshore and produced the common split between a foundation abroad that holds the tokens and a labs entity that builds the product. The SEC wants to give those projects a reason to come to the U.S., moving ahead while Congress has yet to pass the Clarity Act.
A decade-old question: For ten years, one question has divided the SEC and the industry: when is a token a security? The proposal's answer is a split. For tokens covered by the framework, the token itself is not a security. What the law regulates is the promise behind it, made when a team takes investors' money to build something it has yet to deliver.
A token’s new lifecycle: That promise has a beginning and an end. A team states upfront what it plans to build. Once that work is finished, or permanently stopped, it files a public report with the SEC, and from that date the token trades free of securities law. Until then, however, the status travels with the token, and even ordinary secondary trades generally remain securities transactions.
How it works: To raise the money, teams can choose between two routes. The more they raise, the more the SEC asks in return.
For smaller projects, the startup exemption lets projects raise up to $5 million over four years. Issuers file a notice with the SEC, publish information on the project, token, team, and the work they promise to complete, and commit to delivering within those four years. No financial statements are needed, and investors can put in as much as they want.
Larger projects can raise up to $20 million or $75 million per year. The offering has to be qualified by the SEC before sales can start, financial disclosures and ongoing reporting become mandatory, and the $75 million tier also requires audited financials. Only U.S.-based issuers qualify, and non-accredited individual investors can commit at most 10% of their annual income or net worth, whichever is greater.
A regulated return of the ICO: In practical terms, it amounts to a regulated return of the ICO. Nearly a decade after the SEC effectively shut the first era down, projects could again sell tokens straight to the public, this time within set limits and with filings and fraud rules attached.
Outlook: All of this is still a proposal. A 60-day comment period starts with its publication in the Federal Register, after which the SEC can revise the rules before voting on a final version. And because the framework would rest on SEC rulemaking rather than legislation, a future Commission could reverse it, leaving the industry's need for more durable certainty through the Clarity Act unresolved.
Larry Florio is Deputy General Counsel at Ethena Labs, the company behind one of the industry’s largest U.S. dollar stablecoins.
The SEC’s proposal would give token fundraising its first real path in the U.S. From a project’s perspective, what does it unlock, and what still stands in the way?
The biggest unlock is straightforward: for the first time, projects would have a clear path to raise through tokens in the U.S., including from retail investors. Until now, many projects simply geoblocked U.S. investors and airdrops because the securities-law risk was too high. Greater certainty could also bring in the VCs and funds beyond the crypto-native circle, even if many of them still need to learn how token systems differ from the companies they usually underwrite.
Still, important questions remain around how financial institutions treat an asset whose regulatory status can change over its lifecycle, including whether custody requirements differ while it is subject to an investment contract.
The bigger obstacle, though, may end up being tax. When a company raises through equity, the proceeds get specific tax treatment. Token sales do not, which means an issuer can lose roughly 35% of what it raises straight to taxes. That could remain a major deterrent even if the securities-law framework becomes much clearer.
Balder Bomans is CIO at Maven 11 Capital, one of Europe’s earliest blockchain-focused investment funds.
From an investor’s seat: How are crypto startups structuring their raises today, and will the SEC's proposal change that?
While the market has recently been shifting toward pure equity, the dual equity-plus-token structure remains the default for many crypto startups. Pure token-based raises, meanwhile, have become marginal. That partly reflects a broader change in the market itself: crypto-native projects are increasingly giving way to more mature, revenue-generating businesses that look and operate more like traditional companies.
The dual structure, however, creates a persistent problem for public-market investors. It is often unclear where the economic value is meant to accrue: to the token, to the equity, or to both. Tokenholder rights can also be poorly defined, as the recent Venice controversy highlighted.
The SEC proposal would not solve value accrual directly, but it could create a cleaner separation:
Protocols where the token is integral to the product and captures the underlying economics would gain a clearer path to raise through it and decentralize, potentially encouraging more crypto-native projects to build in the U.S.
More centralized businesses, by contrast, would have less reason to add a token to a conventional corporate structure and would likely remain equity-first.
Bitpanda: Senior Product Manager - Securities & Commodities, Vienna 🇦🇹
Circle: Senior Counsel, Arc, Global 🌐
Ethereum Foundation: Project Manager, Academic Engagements, Global 🌐
Ethereum Institutional: Head of Marketing, Global 🌐
Keyrock: Head of Marketing (Director), Europe 🇪🇺
OKX: Head of Strategic Institutions, Europe 🇪🇺
Revolut: Strategy & Operations Manager (Crypto), Europe 🇪🇺
Tribe: Product Manager (Crypto), Valencia 🇪🇸
River Markets | $8.5 million | Seed : Prediction-market infrastructure company that allows trading firms to execute and manage risk across venues through a single platform.
Entravel Group | $7.5 million | Undisclosed : B2B travel-infrastructure company which allows digital businesses to offer hotel bookings under their own brand.
Twyne | $2.5 million | Seed : DeFi credit protocol which allows lenders to earn yield on unused borrowing capacity and borrowers to access higher leverage across existing lending markets.
The Anatomy of a Stablecoin Card Swipe (Rain) — This explainer breaks down how stablecoin settlement can reduce the hidden costs of card payments and make programs easier to launch globally.
Correlated Pairs: How AMMs Win the Biggest Markets (Hayden Adams) — Uniswap's founder makes the case that automated market makers, not traditional trading firms, will end up running the world's largest financial markets as stocks and other assets move onchain.
You Were Lied to About Stablecoins (Blockchain Capital) – This article argues that stablecoins do not necessarily make cross-border payments faster or cheaper than modern fintechs like Wise. Instead, they lower barriers to entry by unbundling closed payment networks and enabling open competition between local on- and off-ramps, particularly in underserved corridors.
→ Want more? Visit Blockstories Library for a curated selection of 120+ reports on digital assets.
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Disclaimer: The information provided in the Crypto Briefing by Blockstories does not constitute investment advice. Accordingly, we assume no liability for any investment decisions made based on the content presented herein.
