DeFiance Capital CEO Arthur warns that Middle East tensions and possible action around Iran’s Kharg Island and the Strait of Hormuz could deepen supply shocks and rattle risk assets, including crypto.

Arthur, CEO of crypto-focused venture firm DeFiance Capital, issued a stark warning on March 20 regarding the trajectory of geopolitical tensions in the Middle East, cautioning that a near-term de-escalation is unlikely and that the consequences for global supply chains — and by extension, financial markets — could intensify in the weeks ahead.

Writing on X, Arthur dismissed the possibility of a so-called “TACO” moment — a term that has gained traction in market circles to describe a Trump last-minute retreat from confrontational policy positions. In his assessment, neither the United States nor Israel shows any sign of pulling back from their current posture toward Iran, and the pressure on Tehran is likely to continue building rather than easing.

The remarks came in the context of a broader geopolitical flashpoint centered on Iran’s Kharg Island and the Strait of Hormuz. According to a prior report by Axios, the Trump administration has been actively considering occupying or blockading Kharg Island — Iran’s primary oil export terminal — as leverage to force the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s most critical chokepoints for energy shipping. Approximately 20% of global oil supply passes through the strait, and any sustained disruption to traffic through the waterway would send shockwaves through commodity markets and the broader global economy.

For crypto markets, the implications are indirect but real. Geopolitical risk of this magnitude tends to drive capital toward perceived safe havens and away from risk assets — a category that Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have historically occupied during periods of acute uncertainty. A spike in oil prices driven by Hormuz disruptions would also feed inflationary pressure globally, complicating central bank policy and further weighing on risk appetite.

Arthur’s warning lands at an already delicate moment for digital asset markets. Bitcoin has been struggling to establish directional momentum, with open interest data suggesting the recent rebound lacks genuine bullish conviction. Ethereum is hovering near key liquidation thresholds. Equity markets are showing signs of strain, with the Nasdaq, Dow, and S&P 500 all logging pre-market losses, and the VIX fear index climbing to 25.44 — a level that signals elevated investor anxiety.

The DeFiance CEO did not offer specific price targets or trading recommendations, but the broader message was clear: macro conditions are deteriorating, and crypto traders who are not accounting for geopolitical tail risk in their positioning may be caught off guard. In an environment where global supply chains are already fragile and institutional confidence is cautious, a further escalation in the Middle East could prove to be the catalyst that tips risk markets into a more pronounced correction.

The SEC and CFTC’s landmark crypto taxonomy has been widely hailed as a decisive break from years of regulatory limbo but legal experts say one of its most consequential provisions raises more questions than it answers, with no formal process for issuers to find out if they’ve gotten it right.

At issue is the guidance’s framework for when a token initially sold as part of an investment contract can “separate” from that contract and trade freely.

Under the release, a non-security token becomes subject to an investment contract when an issuer sells it with promises to undertake “essential managerial efforts.” That investment contract ends when the issuer either fulfills those promises or publicly abandons the project.

But the document provides no mechanism for an issuer to obtain a definitive determination, leaving founders to make the call themselves, with enforcement as the backstop.

“This is the biggest open question in the entire 68 pages,” said Mike Katz, partner at law firm Manatt, Phelps & Phillip. “You are left to make that judgment yourself, and if the SEC disagrees, you find out in an enforcement action.”

Consider a team that launches a token promising a decentralized exchange, a governance module, and a cross-chain bridge. Two years later, the DEX and the governance module are live, but the bridge is still in development. Are the promises fulfilled? Partially? Does partial delivery count?

“The guidance does not say,” Katz said, “and there is no application process, no safe harbor letter, no bright-line test.”

Promising Less

Steve Yelderman, General Counsel of Etherealize, argues the provision inverts the incentive structure of the prior regime, where detailed roadmaps could be weaponized against founders in enforcement actions, and tokens could be stuck in regulatory limbo with no path out.

“Promising less can be a good thing,” he said. “A big point of the securities laws is to discourage managers from making false promises to investors,” Yelderman said. “If the law is making people think twice before making difficult promises, that’s not perverse, that’s the law working as intended.”

Yelderman also flagged a widely misread nuance in the provision.

“It’s not that the token sheds its security status,” he clarified. “We’re talking about when and how non-security tokens might be sold subject to an investment contract. The token itself was always a non-security — what changes is whether the surrounding transaction is a securities transaction.”

DeFi’s Hard Question

The guidance’s most notable silence is on fully permissionless DeFi protocols, platforms with no identifiable issuer, no pre-sale, and governance controlled entirely by on-chain token holders.

The SEC’s entire investment contract framework is built around an identifiable issuer making identifiable promises through official channels. That framework does not map when there is no one to hold responsible for “essential managerial efforts.”

Katz was direct.

“The SEC built a framework for the cases it knows how to analyze, centralized launches with identifiable actors. and deferred the cases it does not.” he said. “Silence from a regulator is not the same as approval.”

He expects a forthcoming rulemaking to include an “innovation exemption” that Chair Paul Atkins has referenced publicly, but said DeFi’s hard questions may not be resolved until that rulemaking arrives.

Yelderman said the document provides extensive characteristics for what constitutes a digital commodity, the category most mature DeFi governance tokens aspire to, and the 16 named examples give projects a concrete benchmark.

“Early on, a new DeFi protocol might need to navigate the investment contract guidance, depending on how it was initially funded and launched,” he said. “But the end game would be for the governance tokens to be recognized as a digital commodity. And there is a lot of guidance on the characteristics of digital commodities, which a project could use to get there with reasonable precision.”

Fractionalized NFTs

The guidance formally classifies NFTs and digital collectibles as non-securities, while flagging fractionalization as a potential securities offering.

Dividing a single NFT into fungible fractional shares, the document said, can constitute a securities offering because it introduces elements of shared investment and reliance on managerial efforts.

Yelderman said he thinks the market has overread the section. “Owning a digital collectible isn’t a security, any more than owning a physical Pokémon card would be,” he said. “But if you start doing things like fractionalizing the ownership, outsourcing management, and creating a fund to invest in collectibles, you need to do the full analysis. That’s all they’re saying, in my opinion.”

Katz was less sanguine.

“For protocols that have been offering fractionalization as a core product, this guidance is not ambiguous,” he said. “The SEC is saying: we see what you are doing, we get it, and it is a securities offering.”

Both Reg D and Reg A+ registration pathways exist, he noted, but represent a substantial compliance lift that most of these platforms have not taken on.

A Watershed Moment

Against that backdrop of open questions, experts were emphatic that the guidance represents a watershed moment for the industry. The core shift, according to Katz, is that the SEC has effectively reversed the presumption that defined the Gensler era.

“The Gensler-era position was that virtually every token was a security until proven otherwise,” Katz said. “This guidance inverts that presumption. Three of the five categories in the taxonomy are explicitly non-securities. The Commission is telling the market: we are regulating securities, not regulating crypto.”

For Yelderman, having any guidance at all is already significant.

“For years some in the government very openly used ambiguity and uncertainty to their strategic advantage,” he said. “It’s very good to see that era fully brought to a close.”

Arguably more important than any single classification, Katz said, is the fact that both agencies co-signed the taxonomy. It’s the first time the SEC and CFTC have publicly agreed on which assets belong to whom. “

David Carlisle, VP of Policy and Regulatory Affairs at Elliptic, said the guidance carries particular weight for traditional financial institutions that have been sitting on the sidelines.

“A more consistent taxonomy and aligned oversight give firms a clearer foundation to engage with digital assets in the US,” he said, “especially traditional financial institutions that have been reluctant to undertake certain activities owing to regulatory ambiguity.”

What Comes Next

The guidance is an interpretive release, not a formal rulemaking, which means it carries persuasive authority but does not bind future administrations. Chairman Atkins has signaled that formal rulemaking is forthcoming. Until that happens, Katz said, “this is a strong signal, not a guarantee.”

The SEC has invited public comment on the taxonomy and indicated it may refine the framework based on feedback, leaving open the possibility that some of the gray zones identified by legal experts could be addressed before the ink dries on a final rule.

For Carlisle, the shift in dynamic is already meaningful regardless of what comes next.

“The challenge now shifts to applying the SEC/CFTC interpretation in practice,” he said. “But there is now a more meaningful conceptual framework they can use to do so.”

The SEC’s fresh approval of Nasdaq’s tokenized securities framework marks a key turning point for how stocks could trade in the future: it brings blockchain into the core of U.S. equity markets, but on Wall Street’s terms.

The regulatory green light allows Nasdaq to test a system where certain stocks and ETFs can be issued and settled as blockchain-based tokens while trading alongside traditional shares. In practice, investors could hold tokenized versions of securities in digital wallets, with clearing and settlement handled by the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC).

However, the effort isn’t a sweeping overhaul of market operations; rather, it focuses on post-trade plumbing.

DTCC executive Brian Steele said the firm aims to build “safe, secure tokenization services to advance a more resilient, inclusive, cost-effective and efficient financial system,” while working with exchanges and market participants to scale adoption.

Read more: Here is why Nasdaq and owner of NYSE are putting the $126 trillion equity market on blockchain

‘Biggest beneficiaries’

One of the main reasons Wall Street giants are moving to tokenizing stocks is that they can offer traders around-the-clock trading.

Traditional equity markets operate within fixed trading hours and rely on multi-day settlement cycles. Creating tokens of stocks on blockchain rails brings the possibility of near-instant settlement and, eventually, around-the-clock trading.

Val Gui, general manager at Kraken’s tokenized stock platform xStocks, called the approval “a clear signal the $126 trillion equity market will be shifting onto blockchain rails,” pointing to a future where stock ownership becomes “24/7 and global.”

“This builds on the SEC’s work with the DTC, and it’s an encouraging one,” said Ian De Bode, president of tokenization firm Ondo. “Progress toward 24/7 markets, even in permissioned form, is positive.”

“The biggest beneficiaries will be global investors… who have long lacked seamless, around-the-clock access to U.S. equities,” he added.

For that connection, Nasdaq said it is tapping crypto exchange Kraken to distribute stock tokens globally.

Wall Street keeps control

Still, Nasdaq’s model does not replace the old financial system. It only extends it to onchain securities.

Tokenized shares will still trade through brokers and settle via DTCC, with blockchain used mainly as an alternative record of ownership.

“Nasdaq is effectively ring-fencing the benefits of blockchain within the existing TradFi [traditional finance] stack,” said Maylea Ma, deputy general counsel at 1inch, a decentralized exchange (DEX) aggregator.

Investors may see faster settlement or more flexible ownership features, she said, but only inside a permissioned system that still relies on intermediaries.

“If tokenized equities cannot connect to broader onchain liquidity and non-custodial execution, the efficiency gains will be incremental rather than transformational,” Ma said.

‘Still a step behind’

While the move is a step towards the future of trading, U.S. is still lagging behind other jurisdictions.

Jesse Knutson, head of operations at Bitfinex Securities, who has worked on tokenized issuances in frontier markets like Kazakhstan and El Salvador, said the approval reflects regulatory progress but also highlights how far U.S. efforts still have to go.

“The flexibility of tokenization is what markets really want” offering 24/7 trading, fractionalization, real-time settlement and the ability to self-custody, he said.

In places like Kazakhstan’s Astana International Financial Centre (AIFC) and El Salvador, regulators have already allowed tokenized securities to be issued and traded with fewer legacy constraints, including more direct investor access and blockchain-native settlement. Other hubs such as Switzerland and the UAE also moved faster to establish frameworks for digital asset issuance and trading, giving firms room to experiment.

“It’s an encouraging move… but it’s still a step behind more progressive jurisdictions,” Knutson said.

To be fair, U.S. regulators oversee the world’s largest and most dominant equity market — worth roughly $62 trillion — which leaves less incentive and flexibility to overhaul the existing systems in favor of newer blockchain-based models. Any changes must fit within a deeply entrenched market structure built around investor protection, intermediaries and centralized clearing.

But for now, the SEC’s decision suggests a clear direction: Tokenization is coming to public markets, and it will be shaped, at least initially, by the same institutions and rules that define them today.

Over $3b in leveraged Bitcoin and Ethereum longs sit just above key support levels, with Coinglass data showing a liquidation cascade risk in either direction.

Leveraged long positions across Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) are sitting on a knife’s edge, with more than $3 billion in combined exposure at risk of forced liquidation if prices slip to critical support levels, according to data published by Coinglass on March 20.

For Bitcoin, the figures are stark. If BTC falls below $66,827, the cumulative long liquidation intensity across major centralized exchanges would reach $1.878 billion. That would represent one of the more significant cascading liquidation events in recent months, as stop-losses and margin calls trigger a wave of automatic selling that could further accelerate any downward move. On the upside, a break above $73,757 would flip the pressure onto short sellers, with $1.062 billion in short positions vulnerable to a squeeze.

Ethereum presents a similarly precarious picture. A drop below $2,029 would trigger $1.204 billion in long liquidations on mainstream CEXs, while a rally above $2,240 would put $881 million in short positions at risk of being unwound.

The data arrives at a sensitive moment for both assets. Bitcoin has been trading in a narrow range around $69,700 following a recent dip that attracted bearish interest. Notably, open interest data tracked by Coinglass showed that during yesterday’s price decline, BTC’s open interest actually increased as prices fell — a sign that short sellers were actively adding positions rather than covering. The subsequent rebound has done little to change the OI picture, suggesting the recovery lacks conviction from new buyers and that the market remains range-bound rather than in the early stages of a trend reversal.

Ethereum has likewise struggled to find direction, hovering near $2,130 with traders watching the $2,029 floor closely. With ETH already under moderate selling pressure on the day, the proximity to that liquidation threshold is not lost on market participants.

Liquidation maps of this kind serve as a window into the market’s structural vulnerabilities. When large clusters of leveraged longs accumulate just above key support levels, they can create a self-reinforcing dynamic: a price drop triggers liquidations, which push prices lower still, triggering more liquidations in turn. This “liquidation cascade” effect has been behind some of crypto’s most violent short-term price dislocations.

For traders navigating the current environment, the message from the data is clear: the market is coiled tightly around these levels, and a decisive move in either direction could trigger outsized volatility. With macro headwinds persisting — including rising geopolitical tensions in the Middle East and a risk-off mood in traditional equity markets, where the Nasdaq fell 0.88% in pre-market trading — the path of least resistance for crypto in the near term remains highly uncertain.

Stablecoin issuers and fintech-linked firms are launching payment-focused blockchains as they try to control more of the settlement infrastructure behind US digital-dollar transfers.

Some stablecoin issuers and fintech-linked companies are building a new wave of blockchain networks designed for institutional payment flows rather than the broader token issuance and smart-contract activity associated with general-purpose layer-1 networks, according to Delphi Digital.

These include stablecoin giant Tether-backed Plasma, a public L1 network optimized for cross-border USDt (USDT) transactions, which launched on mainnet on Sept. 25, 2025 after it raised $24 million in February. A month later, stablecoin issuer Circle launched the public testnet for Arc, which it describes as an open L1 blockchain purpose-built for stablecoin finance.

The developments add to signs of a structural shift from generic blockchain infrastructure toward payment-focused networks, as companies compete to control the rails underpinning stablecoin settlement, which Delphi Digital described as one of crypto’s clearest real-world use cases.

Fintech companies have also joined the payments infrastructure push, seeking to carve out a market share of the growing stablecoin payments sector.

Owning the payment rails is becoming “strategically important,” Ran Goldi, senior vice president of payments and network at digital asset custody platform Fireblocks, told Cointelegraph. He said:

“Instead of relying on external networks and paying fees to ecosystems like Ethereum, companies are looking to capture more of that value themselves by building or controlling the settlement layer.”

For payment companies, owning the underlying rails means they avoid being “taxed” for the mint and burn operations of the stablecoin, added Goldi.

Fintech companies are also joining the stablecoin chain wars

Tempo said Wednesday that its mainnet is live, describing the network as a merchant-focused settlement layer built for high-throughput stablecoin transactions. The project says it is incubated by Paradigm and Stripe.

In October 2024, Stripe acquired stablecoin infrastructure startup Birdge for $1.1 billion. In June 2025, it acquired crypto wallet infrastructure provider Privy and later bought billing platform Metronome on Jan. 14.

Delphi Digital said those deals positioned Stripe to control more of the issuance, wallet and billing layers around stablecoin payments alongside settlement infrastructure.

Stablecoin payment infrastructure is increasingly seen as a new “revenue layer,” positioning entities controlling the end-to-end payment workflow to capture fees on every transaction, according to Alvin Kan, chief operating officer at Bitget Wallet.

“As settlement costs at the protocol level trend lower, value capture shifts to the orchestration layer around the rail: compliance, FX conversion, wallet infrastructure, on- and off-ramps, local payout connectivity and merchant integration,” he told Cointelegraph.

Related: Stablecoins to replace old FX rails, but off-ramps remain a chokepoint

Controlling the settlement infrastructure behind stablecoins is the next battleground among crypto and fintech firms, according to Irina Chuchkina, chief growth officer of Wallet in Telegram. She said:

“Stablecoin payment rails could become the defining revenue driver of this cycle, for the same reason Visa and Mastercard became indispensable: not because they issued currency, but because they owned the pipes.”

Companies building settlement rails interoperable with agentic artificial intelligence stand to “capture a disproportionate share of the value flowing through these networks,” she added.