Then the regulator stepped in. On June 22, the CFTC opened a request for comment on extending perpetual contracts to physically-delivered crude oil; 67 questions on reference prices, liquidity, position limits, and customer protection. And when the CME tried to self-certify its 24/7 oil contract in July, the CFTC stayed it, blocking the fast track and forcing a full review first.

This story – the market sprinting toward round-the-clock leveraged access to everything, and the rule-writers trying to decide how fast is safe – will keep repeating as the U.S. works to onshore derivatives flow and exchanges push for a level playing field with their offshore counterparts. When the biggest U.S. derivatives exchange is shrinking oil contracts for 24/7 retail access, and the U.S. derivatives regulator is drafting the rules for perpetual oil, you can stop debating whether the model won. It won.

So the interesting conversation isn’t “are perps spreading.” It’s three sharper questions: which asset classes get perpetuals next, where the leverage actually concentrates, and what breaks along the way.

On what’s next, follow the friction. Perps are most valuable precisely where the traditional market is most annoying, where it closes at night, gates you by geography, demands accreditation, or settles at a crawl. That’s why commodities, pre-IPO equities, and hard-to-reach foreign stocks got perpetuals first: enormous latent demand, hopelessly constrained access. The same logic points straight at private credit, carbon, freight, and the long tail of real-world assets coming onchain. Anything with a reference price and a frustrated audience is a candidate. The underlying almost doesn’t matter; the demand to trade it freely does.

MoonPay has launched PayBox, a noncustodial payment vault that lets users prepare and execute crypto transactions or online purchases through ChatGPT and Claude.

MoonPay PayBox turns AI conversations into transactions

PayBox allows users to connect a payment vault to ChatGPT or Anthropic’s Claude and describe a transaction in plain language. The AI assistant can then research available options, prepare the transaction, and execute it under permissions set by the user.

Supported crypto actions include buying digital assets with fiat currency, swapping tokens, moving assets between blockchains, and depositing funds into decentralized finance protocols. PayBox can also complete commercial transactions such as booking flights, reserving restaurant tables and purchasing goods from online retailers.

The launch extends AI assistants beyond research and transaction preparation by giving them limited authority to act on a user’s behalf. However, that authority depends on the security settings attached to the PayBox account.

MoonPay said the product is live through the PayBox website. Users must connect it to a supported AI platform through a custom connector before issuing payment instructions.

Passkeys and spending rules limit AI access

PayBox offers two authorization models. Under the “Always Ask” setting, every transaction requires the user to approve the action with a passkey. The approval applies to only one transaction and expires after use, preventing the AI from applying it to a different payment.

The “Autonomous” model allows the connected assistant to operate within spending limits and other rules chosen by the user. This option removes the need to approve each eligible transaction separately, but it does not give the assistant unrestricted control over the vault.

Any change to the permission model or transaction rules requires another passkey authorization. Users can therefore define how much the assistant can spend and the types of actions it can perform before enabling autonomous execution.

PayBox supports both crypto wallets and payment cards. For wallet transactions, private keys are divided using multiparty computation and stored across secure hardware environments. MoonPay said neither it nor the connected AI assistant can independently reconstruct the complete key or authorize an asset transfer.

Card payments use Visa’s agentic commerce protocol, allowing the assistant to complete approved purchases without receiving or storing the underlying card number.

PayBox supports Solana and major EVM networks

MoonPay has added support for Solana and several Ethereum Virtual Machine-compatible networks. The initial list includes Ethereum, Hyperliquid, Tempo, Base, Robinhood Chain, Arbitrum and Polygon.

The vault also integrates with x402, an open payment standard designed for services that accept transactions initiated by AI agents. MoonPay said its first x402 integrations cover travel bookings, restaurant reservations and purchases from major online retailers.

The network coverage lets users carry out several steps through one conversation. An assistant could, for example, help a user acquire an asset, bridge it to another blockchain and deposit it into a supported DeFi protocol, provided every step falls within the account’s permissions.

The product relies on security technology developed by Sodot, a key-management company MoonPay acquired earlier in 2026. MoonPay said Sodot’s infrastructure secures more than $50 billion in assets across over 10 million wallets.

MoonPay expands from institutional trading into AI payments

PayBox follows MoonPay’s recent expansion into tokenized financial products. As crypto.news reported in June, Franklin Templeton added its BENJI tokenized money market fund to MoonPay Trade.

That integration allows institutional users to exchange USDC, USDT and other stablecoins for BENJI through MoonPay’s on-chain trading platform. It also gives BENJI holders access to stablecoin liquidity and supports uses such as treasury management, portfolio rebalancing, collateral and liquidity provision.

PayBox targets a different part of the market by connecting consumer and crypto payments directly with conversational AI. MoonPay describes the vault as noncustodial because users retain control of their assets and neither MoonPay nor the AI provider can move funds alone.

For US users, PayBox’s use of Visa’s agentic commerce framework could make AI-assisted card payments more practical, while passkey controls may help address concerns over unauthorized purchases. Access to individual crypto assets, DeFi protocols, and payment services may still depend on location and the rules applied by each provider.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer introduced legislation to create a new US government agency focused entirely on addressing corruption at the federal level, noting President Donald Trump’s gains from “various, and extremely lucrative, cryptocurrency ventures.”

In a Thursday notice, Schumer said that he had introduced a bill called the Anti-Corruption Bureau Creation Act, which, if passed, would have the authority to “investigate, enforce, and prevent executive branch corruption.” The text of the bill addressed Congress’ findings that Trump had disclosed earning more than $2 billion from investments in 2025, including $1.4 billion tied to crypto, and his family had more than $1 billion in a crypto fund tied to foreign governments.

In a Public Citizen forum describing the bill, Schumer described the anti-corruption agency as having “real teeth” with enforcement authority, and consisting of a bipartisan group of seven members to be confirmed by the Senate. The legislation also provided mechanisms for private citizens and state authorities to recover funds that Schumer said had been stolen from Americans “through corruption.“

“This new bureau is one where these institutions work in symbiosis, strengthening each other and eliminating barriers between them which often got in the way,” said Schumer. “It replaces a broken patchwork of watchdogs, none of which were built for this moment, with one, powerful anti-corruption agency, ready to act anywhere, anytime corruption strikes.”

Senator Chuck Schumer announcing the Anti-Corruption Bureau Creation Act on Thursday. Source: Public Citizen

Trump’s ties to the cryptocurrency industry have been a sticking point for many Democrats in Congress considering their support for a comprehensive market structure bill called the Digital Asset Market Clarity (CLARITY) Act. Although the White House agreed to certain ethics provisions in the bill, many lawmakers say the measures do not go far enough to address the president’s potential conflicts of interest.

Related: Ethics remain sticking point as crypto market structure bill goes to markup

Notably, the proposed anti-corruption agency would place the US Federal Election Commission, Office of Government Ethics and Office of Special Counsel “under one roof“ within the new bureau. Cointelegraph reached out to the White House for comment on the proposed legislation but did not receive an immediate response.

Senators Andy Kim, Alex Padilla and Jeff Merkley cosponsored the bill with Schumer. The introduction of the bill also came the same week Senators Richard Blumenthal and Chris Van Hollen held a public forum to address Trump’s ties to the crypto industry.

The bill would require Republican support to pass in the US House of Representatives and Senate, where the party holds a slim majority. If it were to advance in both chambers before 2028, Trump could still veto the legislation and send it back to Congress, where it would need a two-thirds majority to override the president’s action.

Crypto bill is still under consideration in Senate

The US Senate has just over a week left before lawmakers break for a month-long state work period, leaving many scrambling to pass bills before the 2026 US midterms potentially complicate discussions on their return.

“The big question at this very minute is where the CLARITY Act stands,“ said former US Securities and Exchange Commission official John Reed Stark following his appearance at Blumenthal’s and Van Hollen’s Monday forum. “Of all the experts and political insiders I spoke with yesterday, not one could say for sure what happens this week with the CLARITY Act. There is enormous drama surrounding this legislation.“

As of Thursday, the Senate had not scheduled a vote on the bill, despite pushes from many Republican lawmakers and industry leaders. Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said on Wednesday that the bill was at the “one-yard line,“ and Senator Cynthia Lummis, who has long advocated for the market structure legislation, has continued to push for a vote.

Magazine: Will the crypto lobby’s $189M campaign get CLARITY over the line?

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In a post on X, CEO Brian Armstrong pointed to the company’s expanding businesses beyond spot trading, including stablecoins, Base and prediction markets, noting that Coinbase reached a record 10.3% share of global crypto trading volume during the quarter.

CFO Alesia Haas struck a more measured tone, saying crypto market conditions were challenging as industry spot trading volumes fell more than 20% and the total crypto market capitalization declined by double digits. She said those conditions contributed to a 14% quarter-over-quarter decline in Coinbase’s total revenue.

Several Wall Street firms lowered estimates ahead of earnings and trimmed EBITDA forecasts as lower crypto prices weighed on institutional trading, blockchain rewards and retail activity.

Investors remained focused on Coinbase’s efforts to reduce its dependence on transaction fees.

Subscription and services revenue, which includes USDC interest income, staking, custody, Coinbase One memberships and institutional services, has become a key measure of whether the company can generate more stable revenue through crypto market cycles.

Analysts also watched for updates on newer businesses, including derivatives, prediction markets and Base, Coinbase’s Ethereum layer-2 network.

The company will host a call with investors at 5pm E.T.

Crypto exchange Coinbase reported mixed second-quarter results on Thursday, missing Wall Street expectations on profitability as weaker trading activity weighed on results despite the company capturing a record share of the crypto market.

In the second quarter, Coinbase generated roughly $1.2 billion in net revenue, broadly in line with expectations but down 19% from a year earlier. The company reported a GAAP net loss of $359 million, significantly wider than analysts’ expectations for a roughly $122 million loss. Transaction revenue, subscription and services revenue, and adjusted EBITDA also fell short of consensus estimates.

Despite the losses, the exchange posted an all-time-high 10.3% share of global crypto trading volume, up from 9.1% in the first quarter, even as industry-wide trading activity weakened.

Transaction revenue totaled $599 million, below analyst expectations of $636 million, while subscription and services revenue came in at $555 million, missing the $590 million consensus estimate.

Coinbase attributed the decline in transaction revenue to weaker consumer and institutional trading activity amid a 25% quarter-over-quarter drop in total crypto spot trading volume, lower market volatility and weaker crypto prices.

The results come as Coinbase continues to position itself as an “Everything Exchange,” broadening its business beyond spot cryptocurrency trading into derivatives, prediction markets, tokenized assets and payments. 

Coinbase shares fell more than 5% in after-hours trading.

Magazine: CLARITY hopes fade, BitMEX shuts as lawsuit looms: Hodler’s Digest, July 26

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