Circle (CRCL) sank about 22%, its worst drop since June 2025, after a tougher CLARITY Act draft threatened to ban stablecoin yield, clashing with booming USDC growth.

Circle Internet Group shares plunged on Tuesday after fresh reports that U.S. lawmakers are tightening a key stablecoin bill to restrict yield and rewards, triggering an aggressive sell-off in one of the market’s highest-beta crypto stocks.

Real-time data shows Circle trading at about $98.71 on the NYSE under ticker CRCL, down $27.93 or 22.05% on the day, with intraday lows near $98.31 after opening at $126.35 and closing Monday at $126.64. Intellectia.ai and other market trackers said the drop reached roughly 18% by midday, marking Circle’s largest one-day percentage decline since June 2025.

Circle’s slump came alongside a broader crypto-equities sell-off, with Coinbase (COIN) down more than 7% to roughly $178.10 and Robinhood (HOOD) off 4.7%, after a draft of the CLARITY Act circulated in Washington. According to summary of the draft, the latest language would “ban yield on stablecoins across exchanges,” effectively prohibiting interest-style rewards on tokens like USDC, a core revenue lever for both Circle and Coinbase. The bill is being viewed as a direct threat to Circle’s stablecoin-payments and rewards infrastructure, calling the proposed limits on yield “critical” to its platform economics and a key driver of Tuesday’s 22% intraday fall.

The price action is striking because it collides with still-strong fundamentals for USDC. Yahoo Finance recently noted that Circle’s stock nearly tripled from its $31 IPO price on June 5, 2025 and at one point almost touched $299, buoyed by optimism around U.S. stablecoin legislation. Circle’s own “Internet Financial System in 2026” report highlighted that USDC in circulation has expanded sharply alongside rising reserve income, while Intellectia.ai cited Baird as telling clients that USDC outstanding averaged $75.2 billion through March 15, up 6% since the firm’s last earnings report. Baird raised its price target on Circle to $138 from $110 and reiterated an Outperform rating, arguing there is a “real path” to new revenue via products like Circle Payments Network and Arc Blockchain.

Reuters reported in February that Circle beat Wall Street expectations for fourth-quarter revenue on the back of stronger stablecoin circulation and higher interest income on reserves, sending the stock up nearly 30% in a single session at the time. Yet CRCL now trades below $100, roughly 35% below last week’s peak near $150 and more than 20% off the intraday highs it set earlier in March, even as USDC leads 2026 stablecoin flows and on-chain usage has jumped 600% year-to-date. That disconnect between booming token metrics and a stock that has just erased nearly a fifth of its value in one day captures the core investor dilemma: as long as U.S. lawmakers treat stablecoin rewards as quasi-banking, Circle’s equity seems to know be trading as much on the Hill’s mood as on USDC’s growth curve.

BitGo Prime (BTGO) and Susquehanna Crypto said they are partnering to provide institutional clients with over-the-counter (OTC) access to prediction market trades, using digital assets held on BitGo’s platform as collateral.

The offering targets hedge funds, family offices and high-net-worth investors, allowing them to transact in event-driven contracts without relying on retail platforms or converting crypto holdings into cash, the companies said in a press release Tuesday.

Liquidity will be provided by Susquehanna Crypto, with trades executed bilaterally through BitGo’s OTC desk. The firms said transactions will follow standard derivatives documentation frameworks. Investors use over-the-counter desks mainly to trade large or complex positions without disrupting the market or exposing their strategy.

The structure mirrors how institutions already trade traditional derivatives, where assets remain in custody and positions are collateralized rather than fully funded upfront. In contrast, most prediction market activity today takes place on retail platforms that require pre-funding and offer limited integration with institutional custody systems.

Institutional investors are increasingly using prediction markets as a hedging tool, taking positions on event outcomes, such as elections, policy decisions or macroeconomic shifts, to offset risks in their broader portfolios. By pricing discrete, real-world events, these markets offer a way to hedge tail risks that are difficult to capture with traditional instruments such as equities, rates, or options.

Prediction markets have seen rapid growth, with trading volumes topping roughly $40 billion–$45 billion in 2025, up several-fold year over year as retail participation surged and platforms like Polymarket and Kalshi gained traction.

At the same time, institutional interest has begun to build, with hedge funds and banks increasingly using these markets for price discovery around political and economic events, even as infrastructure and regulatory uncertainty continue to limit broader adoption.

Regulatory fragmentation has also slowed adoption. In the U.S., platforms like Kalshi operate under Commodity Futures Trading Commission oversight, while others, such as Polymarket, remain offshore, limiting access for domestic institutional capital. That has pushed many firms to explore alternative structures that better align with existing compliance frameworks.

The companies said the new offering is designed to address those gaps by combining custody, collateral management and OTC execution into a single workflow. By allowing investors to trade against crypto collateral without moving assets off-platform, the model aims to bring prediction markets closer to the infrastructure institutions already use in other asset classes.

Read more: AI agents are quietly rewriting prediction market trading

Balaji Srinivasan’s viral X post argues libertarianism only works with Lee Kuan Yew‑style order, using Singapore to link his crypto, network‑state and U.S. debt theses.

Balaji Srinivasan (@balajis), former chief technology officer of Coinbase and former general partner at Andreessen Horowitz, posted a terse but widely discussed political and philosophical argument on X on March 24, contending that libertarianism as an ideology can only function when paired with the kind of disciplined, order-driven governance associated with Singapore’s late founding prime minister Lee Kuan Yew — a post that generated 60.6K views and 185 reposts within hours of publication.

“Libertarianism in theory requires Lee Kuan Yew in practice,” Srinivasan wrote. “Order and borders are prerequisites for liberty and prosperity. Tolerance and internationalism enables trade and capitalism. Pragmatism about the scope of the state minimizes the scope of the state.” The four-sentence formulation is a deliberate compression of a political philosophy Srinivasan has developed across years of writing and public speaking, and one that sits at the intersection of his views on crypto, network states, and sovereign city models.​

Who Was Lee Kuan Yew — and Why Does It Matter to Crypto?

In a reply to the thread, Srinivasan elaborated, pointing to Singapore as a state that operates across all four quadrants of conventional political mapping. “Singapore does things like HSAs and HDB flats (top left) and also restricts behavior likely to cause ethnic resentment (bottom left),” he wrote. “I think of political paradigms as akin to programming paradigms. Often you use” — with the remainder visible only upon expanding the post — the implication being that pragmatic governance, like good code, selects the best tool for each problem rather than adhering dogmatically to a single ideology.​

The framing echoes ideas Srinivasan has been developing publicly for several years. In December 2025, the Financial Times reported on Srinivasan’s efforts to build self-governing network states and experimental cities — initiatives backed by venture capital and cryptocurrency funding — describing him as a central figure in a movement to create new governance structures outside the traditional nation-state framework.

A Philosopher-Investor With Stakes in the Crypto Future

Srinivasan is not merely a commentator. He has repeatedly argued that the U.S. faces an unfixable $175 trillion in fiscal obligations when future entitlement promises are included, calling it “a national bankruptcy” to be resolved through money printing — a thesis that directly underpins his conviction in Bitcoin and hard-capped digital assets as exit vehicles from fiat debasement. He has also argued that crypto is the foundational currency of AI economies, positioning decentralized financial infrastructure as the rails on which autonomous agents will eventually transact.

That the post garnered more than 60,000 views and drew responses ranging from memes to academic political theory charts suggests Srinivasan has touched a live nerve — not only in crypto circles, but among a broader audience wrestling with the gap between libertarian ideals and the institutions required to make them work.

• Mantle’s DeFi TVL surges, surpassing major rival networks.
• Mantle (MNT) price lags despite strong ecosystem growth.
• The key MNT price levels to watch are the $0.75 resistance and the $0.65 support.

Mantle (MNT) network’s DeFi ecosystem has expanded rapidly and overtaken Sui in total value locked (TVL).

The milestone reflects a sharp increase in capital flowing into Mantle, even as broader market conditions remain uncertain.

In just one month, Mantle’s ecosystem has recorded a significant surge in locked assets, signalling rising confidence from both users and developers.

According to data obtained from DeFiLlama, Mantle’s total value locked in DeFi is currently valued at around $632.17 million, while that of Sui stands at $589.5 million.

This kind of growth is rarely accidental and often points to deeper structural strength within a network.

Mantle’s DeFi expansion

The surge in Mantle’s DeFi activity has been driven by a combination of strategic positioning and ecosystem development.

One major factor behind the growth is its focus on real-world assets, which continues to attract institutional interest.

By integrating traditional financial instruments into blockchain systems, Mantle is positioning itself for long-term adoption rather than short-term speculation.

Another key driver is its connection to centralised exchange infrastructure, which helps onboard liquidity more efficiently.

This hybrid model allows users to move seamlessly between centralised and decentralised finance, reducing friction that often limits adoption.

At the same time, integrations with major DeFi protocols have boosted activity across lending and borrowing markets.

These developments have helped create a steady inflow of capital rather than relying on temporary incentives.

Such consistency is often a sign of a maturing ecosystem rather than a hype-driven spike.

Despite this strong growth, the price of MNT has not followed the same upward trajectory.

This divergence between fundamentals and price action is becoming increasingly noticeable.

MNT price struggles to reflect strong fundamentals

While the network’s DeFi metrics continue to improve, MNT remains significantly below its previous highs.

The token is still trading far from its peak, reflecting broader weakness across the altcoin market.

Short-term price action has also been mixed, with recent declines interrupting what appeared to be a recovery phase.

This suggests that traders are still cautious, even in the face of improving fundamentals.

Market sentiment continues to play a dominant role, especially with altcoins reacting closely to movements in Bitcoin.

Without a strong catalyst, MNT has struggled to build sustained upward momentum.

This creates a situation where the asset shows promise on paper but remains technically fragile.

Such conditions often lead to periods of consolidation before a clearer trend emerges.

Mantle price forecast

The near-term outlook for MNT is defined by a tight range that is likely to determine the next major move.

The $0.75 level stands out as the most important resistance zone, acting as a barrier that bulls have yet to overcome.

A confirmed move above this level would signal a shift in short-term momentum and could open the door for further upside towards $0.8642 and even $0.9223 as projected by CoinLore.

On the downside, the $0.65 level is providing immediate support and remains critical for maintaining stability.

A break below this support would reinforce the current bearish structure and increase the risk of further declines.

For now, the price remains trapped between these two levels, creating a clear decision zone for traders.

Until a breakout or breakdown occurs, the current bounce should be treated with caution.

If buyers manage to push the price above resistance, it could mark the beginning of a recovery phase supported by strong fundamentals.

However, failure to hold support would likely confirm that bearish pressure is still dominant in the short term.

The New York Stock Exchange and real world asset (RWA) tokenization platform Securitize have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to collaborate on tokenized securities infrastructure, the two companies announced on Tuesday.

Under the deal, Securitize will become the first digital transfer agent — a transfer agent that uses a blockchain-based ledger and smart contracts to process transactions — eligible to mint tokenized securities for issuers on NYSE’s upcoming Digital Trading Platform.

Per the release, NYSE plans to work with Securitize as a premier design partner to develop a digital transfer agent program supporting on-chain settlement of tokenized securities transactions. The two firms will also collaborate on setting regulatory, operational, and technology standards for the emerging digital transfer agent category — effectively writing the rulebook for institutional-grade tokenized securities infrastructure.

“As we explore how tokenization can enhance capital markets, it is critical that new infrastructure is developed in a way that preserves the trust, transparency, and protections investors expect,” said NYSE Group president Lynn Martin in the announcement.

Securitize CEO Carlos Domingo framed the tie-up as proof that tokenization is maturing beyond experimentation. “This is about building tokenization in a way that works within real market structure,” he said.

As part of the broader collaboration, Securitize Markets is expected to join the NYSE’s Digital Trading Platform as a broker-dealer participant, supporting liquidity for issuer-sponsored tokenized securities.

The deal comes amid a period of rapid growth for the wider tokenized RWA sector. RWAs became Wall Street’s gateway to crypto in 2025, with on-chain tokenized assets tripling to nearly $19 billion over the course of the year — a figure analysts project could reach $2 trillion by 2030.

Securitize is the tokenization platform behind BUIDL, the U.S. Treasuries fund from BlackRock, with a market cap of over $2 billion. Securitize is the tokenization platform for RWAs totaling over $3 billion in distributed asset value across ten blockchain networks, with over $1 billion on Ethereum per RWAxyz. Last year, the firm partnered with risk manager Gauntlet to bridge private credit funds into DeFi protocols.

NYSE first announced it was planning to launch a platform for 24/7 tokenized securities trading in January, as The Defiant reported.

This article was written with the assistance of AI workflows. All our stories are curated, edited and fact-checked by a human.

TLDR

• The CFTC has launched an Innovation Task Force to oversee crypto, artificial intelligence, and prediction markets.
• CFTC Chair Michael Selig announced the new initiative at the Digital Asset Summit in New York City.
• Michael J. Passalacqua will lead the task force as part of the agency’s regulatory efforts.
• The task force will coordinate with the Securities and Exchange Commission and its crypto unit.
• The SEC and CFTC recently issued joint guidance to clarify jurisdiction over digital assets.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has created an Innovation Task Force to oversee crypto, artificial intelligence, and prediction markets. Chair Michael Selig announced the initiative on Tuesday at the Digital Asset Summit in New York City. He said the group will draft clear rules and coordinate with federal agencies to guide emerging financial products.

CFTC Sets Framework for Crypto and Artificial Intelligence Oversight

CFTC Chair Michael Selig introduced the Innovation Task Force to advance regulatory clarity for digital assets and artificial intelligence tools. He said the agency will use the group to support responsible product development and structured market growth.

Selig stated, “By establishing a clear regulatory framework for innovators building on the new frontier of finance, we can foster responsible innovation at home and ensure American market participants are not left on the sidelines.”

He said the task force will give innovators direct access to agency staff for structured discussions and policy feedback.

Selig told attendees, “The idea behind our innovation task force is to really create a space where innovators and builders can come in and talk with the staff.”

The agency confirmed that Michael J. Passalacqua, a senior advisor to Selig, will lead the new group and oversee its operations.

The task force will coordinate with the Securities and Exchange Commission and its existing crypto task force. The SEC formed its crypto task force last year and held roundtables on DeFi and tokenization topics. Both agencies issued joint interpretive guidance last week to clarify jurisdictional boundaries and confirm that most cryptocurrencies are not securities.

Interagency Coordination and Focus on Prediction Markets

Selig said the Innovation Task Force will also work with the CFTC’s innovation advisory committee, created in February. The advisory committee includes more than 30 executives from financial and technology firms. Members include Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour and Nasdaq CEO Adena Friedman, according to agency records.

The CFTC has increased oversight of prediction markets over the past year and asserted its jurisdiction in this sector. Selig has stated that the agency regulates derivatives linked to future events, including sports outcomes. Several states have opposed certain platforms, arguing that sports-related contracts may conflict with local gaming laws.

The agencies have aligned their regulatory stance through joint statements and coordinated guidance over the past year. Last week’s interpretive release outlined how each agency determines whether a digital asset falls under securities or commodities law. The CFTC said the Innovation Task Force will continue collaborating with federal partners as it refines oversight for crypto products, artificial intelligence applications, and prediction markets.

The New York Stock Exchange (ICE) is teaming up with tokenization specialist Securitize to help design the infrastructure behind tokenized securities trading, according to a Tuesday press release shared with CoinDesk.

Securitize is aiming to go public this year via a SPAC deal with Cantor Equitize Partners (CEPT). CEPT shares are higher by 6% premarket. ICE shares are flat.

The two firms signed a memorandum of understanding to build NYSE’s planned Digital Trading Platform. Securitize will serve as a design partner, focusing on how transfer agents — the entities that track ownership and handle corporate actions — operate when securities are issued and settled on blockchain rails.

Securitize, backed by large asset managers like BlackRock and Ark Invest and registered with the SEC as a transfer agent, is expected to be among the first firms eligible to mint tokenized versions of stocks and ETFs on the platform, subject to regulatory approvals.

The firm’s broker-dealer arm could also take part in trading, giving it a foothold across both issuance and market activity.

The move comes as traditional exchange behemoths like NYSE and Nasdaq are doubling down on tokenization efforts to bring blockchain rails into stock trading. That tech would enable around-the-clock trading and near-instant settlements, similar to crypto markets.

Recently, NYSE-parent Intercontinental Exchange invested in crypto exchange OKX to develop tokenized stocks and derivatives products. Rival exchange Nasdaq obtained regulatory approval for its tokenized stock trading framework and has tapped Kraken to distribute stock tokens globally.

“As we explore how tokenization can enhance capital markets, it is critical that new infrastructure is developed in a way that preserves the trust, transparency, and protections investors expect,” NYSE Group President Lynn Martin said.

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

Viral “predictive historian” Jiang recasts Bitcoin as a CIA war‑surveillance tool and hinge of U.S. imperial decline, mixing sharp geopolitical reads with conspiratorial leaps.

Beijing-based teacher Jiang Xueqin, the self-styled “predictive historian” who shot to fame for forecasting Donald Trump’s return to the White House and a disastrous U.S.–Iran conflict, is now recasting Bitcoin (BTC) as a tool of American empire and a hinge of a looming new world order. In recent lectures and clips circulating across YouTube, TikTok and X, Jiang argues that the world is witnessing “the end of U.S. imperial overextension” and that the monetary fallout will drive Bitcoin into “a structurally different regime” rather than another cyclical boom. He frames his analysis as “predictive history,” a fusion of structural geopolitics and game theory designed, in his words, to “test models against reality, just like artificial intelligence systems.”

In a widely shared breakdown of his Bitcoin thesis, Jiang claims that the cryptocurrency was not the work of a lone cypherpunk, but a Pentagon project engineered as “the ultimate surveillance technology,” echoing variations of the line that “Bitcoin was created by the CIA and the Deep State.” He tells audiences that Satoshi Nakamoto’s anonymity is “institutionally suspicious,” arguing that only an agency-backed team would have “the time, money, servers, and technical expertise” to deploy a global monetary network. At the same time, he leans on a factual point that mainstream analysts and chain‑forensics firms agree on: Bitcoin’s public ledger enables authorities to trace flows of illicit funds with far more granularity than cash.

Jiang’s crypto worldview is tightly bound to his geopolitical script. In multiple interviews and classroom talks repackaged online, he links U.S. “imperial overreach” in the Persian Gulf to a sequence of events in which military failure accelerates dollar erosion, pushes capital out of Treasuries and into hard assets and ultimately sends Bitcoin “nuclear.” One popular YouTube macro-finance explainer built around his framework describes Bitcoin as “the most liquidity-sensitive asset on the planet,” noting that “every dollar of monetized conflict cost is a dollar that enters the global financial system searching for hard assets with fixed supply,” with Bitcoin’s 21 million cap presented as the end of that chain. In that scenario, the video argues, the Bitcoin cycle is “not driven by the halving” but “by the fiscal response to imperial overextension,” applying Jiang’s method directly to BTC’s trajectory.​​

That framing has resonated with traders already treating Bitcoin as a barometer of war risk. Bloomberg recently reported that “crypto markets are once again serving as the only open window into how traders are pricing the continuing conflict” in Iran, as spot and derivatives flows react in real time to escalation headlines. Bitcoin has traded around the mid‑$60,000 to low‑$70,000 range in March, with some market forecasts projecting a possible move toward roughly $73,000–$79,000 this month while volatility remains high. Even mainstream price coverage now routinely situates BTC within a matrix of war risk, dollar policy and ETF‑driven institutional demand.

Jiang’s rise has been turbocharged by the perception that he “called” both Trump’s 2024 victory and the subsequent U.S.–Iran war, predictions that have been amplified by crypto traders, TikTok creators and even long‑form podcasts. An in‑depth profile notes that his YouTube channel, Predictive History, consists largely of unedited classroom lectures in which he maps great‑power cycles and “world order changes” for Beijing high‑school students. But academic critics and archaeologists have pushed back hard, warning that his method replaces evidence with grand narrative. In a recent debunking video, archaeologist Flint Dibble described Jiang as “a wacko who spreads insanely harmful conspiracy theories,” stressing that “his predictions about the future are mostly not accurate… a broken clock is right twice a day.”​

The same tension defines his Bitcoin work. A detailed breakdown of “Professor Jiang’s Theory on Bitcoin’s Origins” acknowledges that he “mixes verifiable facts with baseless leaps of logic,” conceding that while DARPA did seed the early internet and Bitcoin’s transparency does aid law enforcement, there is “no public evidence linking Bitcoin’s creation to DARPA, the Pentagon, or the CIA.” Instead, Jiang’s narrative slots crypto into a larger story about the end of U.S. hegemony, the rise of a multipolar order and the search for new monetary anchors—a story that is shaping how a growing slice of retail traders interpret every tick in Bitcoin’s price chart, whether or not his “predictive history” ultimately passes its own reality test.