Crypto World
The CFTC has one commissioner and all of crypto
Washington has spent a year arguing about which agency should regulate a $2.2 trillion market. Nobody checked whether that agency has anyone in the building. It has one person, four empty chairs, and a plan involving artificial intelligence.
Summary
- The CLARITY Act would hand the CFTC primary oversight of spot trading in digital commodities. The commission is designed to hold five seats and currently has one confirmed member, Chairman Michael Selig.
- The agency ran fiscal 2025 with roughly 556 staff against the SEC’s 4,200, and has since lost between 21% and 25% of its workforce. Its enforcement division sits around 108 positions, about 23% below the 140 it had on record in 2025.
- While shrinking, its remit has expanded: crypto market structure, exclusive jurisdiction over prediction markets, perpetual futures rules, DeFi guidance, and a joint initiative with the SEC. Each competes for the same attorneys.
- Selig’s answer is automation. The CFTC plans to use artificial intelligence to review registration applications and assist market surveillance.
- The surprise in the data is that a one-person commission is moving faster, not slower, because there is nobody to dissent. Whether speed without dissent produces durable rules is the actual question.
For a year, the entire American crypto policy debate has been a jurisdictional argument. Should the SEC or the CFTC supervise digital asset markets? The CLARITY Act answers CFTC, and the industry has spent enormous energy and money trying to get that answer written into law. Somewhere in that year, almost nobody stopped to ask a more basic question about the agency on the receiving end of the handoff. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission is designed to hold five commissioners. It currently has one. Four seats sit empty, including both minority-party positions. The body that Congress is preparing to make the primary regulator of a $2.2 trillion market is, at this moment, a single person, a shrinking staff, and a plan to have software pick up the difference.
The arithmetic
Start with the headcount, because it is the least arguable part.
The CFTC ran fiscal 2025 with roughly 556 employees. The SEC runs about 4,200. That gap existed before crypto and made sense when the CFTC supervised agricultural futures and interest rate swaps, which are large markets with a small number of sophisticated participants. It makes considerably less sense as a description of an agency preparing to police spot markets for tokens held by tens of millions of retail buyers.
Since January 2025, under the federal workforce reduction drive, the agency has lost somewhere between 21% and 25% of its people. The enforcement division, the part that actually pursues fraud, sits at roughly 108 positions following a budget request for three new hires, which leaves it about 23% below the 140 enforcement employees it had on record in 2025. So the agency shrank the function most relevant to the mandate it is about to receive.
Then leadership. The commission is statutorily five seats. Selig, confirmed in December 2025, is the only sitting commissioner. This is not new: his predecessor, acting chair Caroline Pham, was also the agency’s sole commissioner during her tenure, which means the CFTC has functioned as a one-person body across two administrations’ worth of leadership. Four vacancies, including both seats reserved for the minority party, on a commission designed for bipartisan balance.
Selig himself is not an accidental appointment. He is a former CFTC official who most recently served as chief counsel to the SEC’s Crypto Task Force, which makes him arguably the best-credentialed person in Washington for the job he holds. That is precisely why the vacancy math is worth taking seriously instead of reading as partisan noise. The problem is not the person in the chair. It is the four chairs with nobody in them.
What keeps getting added to the plate
Now the workload, which has moved in the opposite direction from the headcount.
Crypto market structure. CLARITY would give the CFTC primary oversight of spot trading in digital commodities, meaning Bitcoin, Ether, XRP, Solana, and the rest of the assets named in the March joint taxonomy. That is rulebooks, registration, examinations, supervision, and custody standards for an entirely new market.
Prediction markets. The agency is asserting exclusive federal jurisdiction over a sector that has grown from millions of dollars a year to multiple billions, and it is litigating that claim: the CFTC has sued Illinois, Arizona, and Connecticut over state efforts to regulate sports prediction markets. Selig has confirmed numerous ongoing investigations in the space, with lawmakers pressing him about trades on Polymarket and Kalshi in which small numbers of anonymous accounts appear to have profited on bets tied to US military actions and government announcements, a pattern suggesting possible access to non-public information.
Perpetual futures. The agency is writing rules for a product that generated tens of trillions in annual volume offshore and is now arriving onshore, while simultaneously being sued by the CME over what a perp legally is.
DeFi guidance and Project Crypto, the joint initiative with the SEC that produced the March taxonomy.
At an April House Agriculture Committee oversight hearing, Chairman Glenn Thompson put the contradiction to Selig directly, observing that Congress is putting a lot on your plate with digital assets while also pushing the agency down the prediction markets path, and asked him to request more staff if operations required it. Selig agreed he would.
Thompson and Representative Craig then said they would write to the White House encouraging prompt appointment of commissioners from both parties. That letter is the tell: the committee overseeing the agency is publicly lobbying the executive to staff it.
Selig’s public answer to the resource question is technology. He has said artificial intelligence and automation can compensate for the personnel cuts, and that the agency is pushing to use it for reviewing registration applications and assisting market surveillance. He has also warned that enforcement remains a top priority and that participants should be on notice.
Read that plainly. The agency about to inherit crypto plans to review its registration applications with software because it does not have the people.
The bull case: one voice moves faster
Here is the part that inverts the obvious reading, and it comes from the reporting rather than from the agency’s spin.
A one-person commission is not slower. It is faster. Bloomberg Law’s reporting on the CFTC’s recent output describes an agency accelerating its rulemaking on prediction markets and crypto precisely because there is nobody to argue with. No minority commissioners drafting dissents. No negotiating a majority. No scheduling votes around four other calendars. A chairman who wants a proposal out can put it out.
That speed is visible. The agency has moved on prediction market rulemaking with unusual pace, in part as a deliberate strategy to preempt state claims by putting a federal framework in place quickly. It ran a crypto sprint, updated regulatory language for blockchain-based markets, formally approved spot crypto trading, and co-authored the March taxonomy with the SEC, which Selig has called the most important action taken to date, saying simply that now there is clarity. For an agency supposedly paralyzed by vacancies, the output is substantial.
There is a resource argument on the same side. The Trump administration is seeking more money and a larger headcount for the CFTC, so the staffing hole is at least acknowledged and being addressed through the budget process. And the automation case is not absurd on its face: reviewing registration applications is exactly the kind of structured, document-heavy work where software genuinely helps, and an agency that automates intake can point its scarce attorneys at enforcement instead of paperwork.
The strongest version of the bull case is simply this: the CFTC has, over the past year, produced more usable crypto policy than Congress has, with one commissioner and a quarter fewer staff. Whatever the org chart says, the output is real.
The bear case: fast is not durable
The rebuttal is that speed achieved by removing dissent is not a feature of a regulatory body. It is the absence of one.
Multi-member commissions exist because financial regulation benefits from adversarial internal review. A dissenting commissioner forces the majority to answer the strongest objection before a rule publishes instead of after, in court. Remove the dissent and you do not get better rules faster; you get rules that have never been stress-tested by anyone with the standing to stress-test them. Former CFTC leaders have publicly doubted the agency can juggle crypto and prediction markets simultaneously, and Selig’s Democratic predecessor Rostin Behnam argued routinely that the agency lacked the people to police crypto and prediction markets as they spread.
The durability problem is worse, and it connects directly to the wider argument the industry keeps having. A rule written by a single commissioner is a rule a future five-member commission can revisit with ease and with a ready-made rationale: that it was adopted without the deliberative process the statute contemplates. The industry wants permanence. It is currently getting output from the least permanent possible configuration of a regulator. Selig himself acknowledged the point in a different context, noting that the joint taxonomy does not yet carry the full force of permanent policy.
Then the examination gap, which is where the theory meets the market. Writing a rulebook is the cheap part. Supervising a market means examiners: people who visit registrants, review books, test controls, and catch problems before they become enforcement matters. An enforcement division 23% below its 2025 level is not a division that can absorb spot supervision of every crypto exchange, custodian, and broker seeking dual registration.
Crypto-native exchanges, traditional broker-dealers, asset managers building tokenization platforms, custodians, and futures commission merchants would all queue for the same application reviews at an agency of roughly 550 people. Artificial intelligence does not conduct an examination.
And the prediction market investigations sharpen the point. Selig has confirmed the agency is investigating well-timed trades that lawmakers suspect involved non-public information, in a market that has grown into the billions. Those are exactly the labor-intensive cases that a shrunken enforcement division struggles to bring. Asserting exclusive jurisdiction over a sector is a claim about authority. Policing it is a claim about capacity, and the two have diverged.
There is a historical pattern worth naming here, because the industry has watched it before and drew the wrong lesson. Regulators handed a new market without the resources to supervise it do not simply fail quietly. They fail loudly and late, after something breaks, and the political response is invariably an overcorrection that lands harder than the original rules would have. The agency does not have the examiners to catch problems early, so problems surface as scandals instead of as findings, and scandals produce legislation written in anger. An industry that wants light-touch supervision should be the loudest voice demanding the supervisor be adequately staffed, because the alternative to competent oversight is not an absence of oversight. It is delayed oversight, imposed after a failure, by people who are no longer in a listening mood.
That is the argument the crypto lobby has not made and probably will not, because it sounds like asking for a bigger regulator. It is worth making anyway. The industry spent a year insisting that the CFTC is the right home for digital assets, largely on the theory that the agency is smaller, more pragmatic, and less litigious than the SEC. Every one of those qualities is downstream of the same fact: the CFTC is small. The thing that makes it attractive as a regulator is the thing that makes it questionable as a supervisor of a market this size, and nobody has reconciled the two.
The fight over the empty chairs
The vacancies are not an accident of paperwork. They are a live political dispute with documents on both sides, and it broke into the open this month.
On June 10, twelve Senate Democrats, led by Chris Van Hollen and Raphael Warnock, wrote to the White House complaining about staffing at federal financial regulators including the SEC and CFTC. Their argument was procedural: the administration had broken with the customary practice of consulting Senate Democrats on minority-party nominees to independent agencies, and vacancies weaken agency independence.
On July 9, the White House fired back in a letter to Majority Leader John Thune and Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, signed by Director of Presidential Personnel Dan Scavino and Director of Legislative Affairs James Braid, saying it wanted to set the record straight. The administration said it had already asked Senate Democrats to recommend candidates for the vacant Democratic seats at both agencies and had not received names in response. It argued that Senate Democrats have blocked essentially every civilian nominee, and pointed out that Trump has nominated Democrats to other independent bodies including the National Labor Relations Board and the International Trade Commission. It also invoked the Supreme Court’s decision in Trump v. Slaughter, which expanded presidential removal powers, a citation that does not obviously help the bipartisanship argument.
The history is messier than either letter admits. The administration withdrew Brian Quintenz’s nomination for the CFTC chairmanship in September 2025 before nominating Selig in October, a sequence documented in the White House’s own list of nominations and withdrawals. So the seat that is filled took two attempts, and the four that are empty have generated a blame exchange instead of names.
The SEC is in comparable shape and receives a fraction of the attention. It has two vacant Democratic seats against three Republican commissioners, and Hester Peirce, one of the three, is expected to leave by November. Which produces the fact that ought to be the headline of the entire CLARITY debate: both of the agencies that would divide American crypto oversight are short-staffed at the commissioner level, and one of them is a single person.
The provision nobody is reading
There is a clause in the bill that turns all of this from a governance complaint into a market-structure problem, and it is Section 106.
CLARITY does not simply hand the CFTC authority and walk away. It contemplates a window in which the agency must finalize rulebooks, hire examiners, build supervision teams, and stand up a digital asset custody framework. If the CFTC cannot do those things inside that window, the industry operates under provisional status.
Sit with what that means. The bill the industry has spent a year fighting for, on the theory that regulatory certainty is the prize, contains a fallback in which firms operate provisionally because the regulator could not staff up in time. Provisional status is not certainty. It is uncertainty with a statutory basis, which may be marginally better than the status quo and is nothing like what the lobbying promised.
That is the risk almost nobody in the vote-counting coverage has priced. The failure mode of CLARITY is not only that it dies in the Senate. It is that it passes, hands a $2.2 trillion market to a one-person commission with 550 employees and a quarter of its enforcement staff gone, and the handoff does not work on schedule. The bill can pass and still not deliver certainty for years.
What to watch
Three things.
Whether any commissioner gets nominated before the recess. The House Agriculture leadership is already writing to the White House about it, and both parties say the agencies should have full benches before major crypto rules advance. If CLARITY reaches a floor vote while the CFTC still has one commissioner, that fact becomes an argument for opponents and a genuine operational problem for supporters.
Whether the automation claim survives contact. The CFTC says artificial intelligence will review registration applications. The first wave of applications under any new framework will test that immediately, and the results will be visible in processing times and in whatever the first enforcement failure turns out to be.
Section 106 and the transition window. If the bill moves, read that section before reading the vote count. It determines whether passage produces rules or produces a provisional regime, and it is where the staffing arithmetic and the legislative arithmetic finally meet.
The crypto industry asked Washington to pick a regulator. Washington is close to picking one. What nobody checked, through a year of lobbying, hearings, and vote math, is whether the regulator has anyone left to answer the phone.
Disclaimer: This article is for information and educational purposes only and does not constitute financial, investment, or legal advice. It describes pending legislation, agency staffing, and political disputes, all of which are developing and can change quickly. Nothing here is a recommendation to buy or sell any asset. Always do your own research. Information is accurate as of July 17, 2026.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many commissioners does the CFTC have?
One. Chairman Michael Selig, confirmed in December 2025, is the sole sitting commissioner of a body statutorily designed to hold five. Four seats are vacant, including both positions reserved for the minority party. His predecessor, acting chair Caroline Pham, was also the agency’s only commissioner, so the CFTC has operated as a one-person commission across two leadership periods.
Why does that matter for crypto?
Because the CLARITY Act would give the CFTC primary oversight of spot trading in digital commodities, meaning the assets named in the March 2026 joint taxonomy including Bitcoin, Ether, XRP, and Solana. Supporters of the bill warn that a short-staffed agency could struggle to supervise a market worth roughly $2.2 trillion, and both parties have argued the agencies should have full leadership benches before major new crypto rules advance.
How big is the CFTC compared to the SEC?
Roughly 556 employees in fiscal 2025 against the SEC’s approximately 4,200. The CFTC has since lost between 21% and 25% of its workforce under the federal workforce reduction drive. Its enforcement division sits at about 108 positions after a request for three new hires, roughly 23% below the 140 enforcement staff it had on record in 2025.
What is the CFTC’s answer to the staffing problem?
Automation. Chairman Selig has said artificial intelligence and automation can compensate for personnel cuts, and that the agency intends to use the technology to review registration applications and assist with market surveillance. He has also said enforcement remains a top priority. The Trump administration is separately seeking more funding and a larger headcount for the agency.
Is a one-commissioner agency slower?
Apparently not. Reporting on the agency’s recent output indicates the opposite: rulemaking has accelerated, because a single commissioner faces no dissents to answer, no majority to negotiate, and no other calendars to accommodate. The agency has moved quickly on prediction market rules, approved spot crypto trading, and co-authored the March taxonomy. The open question is whether speed achieved by removing internal review produces durable rules.
What else is on the CFTC’s plate?
A great deal. It is asserting exclusive federal jurisdiction over prediction markets, a claim it is litigating against Illinois, Arizona, and Connecticut. It is writing rules for perpetual futures while being sued by the CME over how a perp is legally classified. It runs Project Crypto jointly with the SEC. And it is drafting DeFi guidance. Each mandate draws on the same pool of attorneys and economists.
What is the dispute over the vacant seats?
Twelve Senate Democrats led by Van Hollen and Warnock wrote on June 10 alleging the administration broke the customary process for consulting on minority-party nominees. The White House responded July 9 in a letter to Thune and Schumer, signed by Scavino and Braid, saying it had asked for Democratic recommendations and received no names, that Democrats blocked essentially every civilian nominee, and that Trump has nominated Democrats to other independent bodies.
What is Section 106 of the CLARITY Act?
It concerns the transition. The bill contemplates a window during which the CFTC must finalize rulebooks, hire examiners, build supervision teams, and stand up a digital asset custody framework. If the agency cannot complete that inside the window, the industry operates under provisional status. That makes the staffing question a market-structure question: the bill can pass and still fail to deliver the certainty it was sold on.
UBS forecast about 8% upside for the Stoxx Europe 600 by year-end, raising its target to 690 points from 630.
It reflects confidence that Europe’s earnings growth and stock rally can hold through geopolitical strain.
Why Banks Raised Their European Stock Target
European stocks have climbed back to record territory this year after a volatile first half. The index set a record close near 652 points on July 3.
It has since eased to about 639, but remains up more than 7% for the year. Worries about the Iran war faded after a ceasefire, and the rally held even as tensions flared again.
UBS strategists Gerry Fowler and Sutanya Chedda raised their target to 690 from 630, Bloomberg reported. The multinational investment bank and financial services firm expects the rally to run into 2027. It set a 760 target, which implies a 19% gain over the next 18 months.
“There’s probably more upside than downside risk at this point,” Fowler said.
Their 2026 forecast sits above JPMorgan’s 680, the previous highest target. Bank of America, Deutsche Bank, and Kepler Cheuvreux also lifted their targets.
The analysts pointed to stronger AI-related upgrades, steady bank revisions, and less drag from large defensive sectors.
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Strategists Split on What Comes Next
Across the July poll, the 18 strategists put the index at 647 on average by the end of 2026. That sits less than 1% above current levels, yet bearish calls are thinning out.
Only 5 of the 18 strategists expect the index to fall by year-end. Just 2 see declines steeper than 5%.
TFS is the most bearish, projecting a 9% drop to 585 points. Societe Generale ranks next, with strategist Roland Kaloyan calling for a slide of about 6% to 600. He warned that high expectations leave little room for disappointment.
“In our view, the main risk is not the absence of earnings growth, but that the recovery falls short of what is already priced in,” Kaloyan said.
The next test comes with the second-quarter results. More than 45% of firms have already beaten estimates, while 27% have missed.
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The post Banking Giants Predict a 8% Rally for This European Stock appeared first on BeInCrypto.
The UK’s National Crime Agency (NCA) and the Metropolitan Police’s City of London Police have announced prison sentences for two men tied to the “Scattered Spider” cybercrime group. Both defendants entered guilty pleas at their first court appearance and were later sentenced at Woolwich Crown Court.
According to an NCA press release, the men pleaded guilty on June 22 and were sentenced on Thursday to a combined term of five years and six months in prison. Authorities said the case underscores how ransomware operators increasingly use cryptocurrency to monetize intrusions and extort victims.
Key takeaways
- The NCA and City of London Police say two Scattered Spider affiliates received five years and six months for hacking-related offenses.
- UK investigators linked the group to ransomware and cryptocurrency extortion activity affecting companies in both the UK and the US.
- US prosecutors previously associated Scattered Spider with large-scale crypto ransom collection, including at least $115 million from US companies.
- The group has also been tied to major incidents such as a public transport intrusion in London and separate claims involving Caesars Entertainment.
UK sentencing in the Scattered Spider case
The NCA said the two men were convicted in connection with cybercriminal activity associated with Scattered Spider, a group investigators have linked to ransomware and extortion schemes that use cryptocurrency payments.
In the court process described in the NCA update, both defendants pleaded guilty at their first appearance on June 22. The sentencing then took place on Thursday at Woolwich Crown Court, as reported in the NCA’s release.
For crypto-focused observers, the significance is less about the jail terms alone and more about how law enforcement continues to connect real-world extortion campaigns to digital asset flows—an area where blockchain analytics and custody investigations often determine whether perpetrators can be financially disrupted.
London transport network intrusion and reported losses
British authorities said the Scattered Spider group was involved in the infiltration of London’s public transport network in September 2024. The incident was reported to have resulted in losses and recovery costs of about £29 million (roughly $38.9 million).
While the sentencing announcement is specific to the two defendants, the underlying allegations tie back to a broader campaign pattern: gaining access to high-value targets, disrupting operations, and demanding payments—often in cryptocurrency—under time-sensitive pressure.
Investors and builders watching these cases generally look for a clear signal on enforcement priorities: when high-profile systems are targeted, governments typically respond with both criminal prosecution and efforts to trace and seize assets connected to extortion.
US DOJ links: crypto extortion at large scale
In a separate Department of Justice statement from September, US prosecutors said Scattered Spider was tied to collecting $115 million in cryptocurrency ransom payments from at least 47 US companies. That same DOJ release also described broader disruptions attributed to the group, including attacks impacting critical infrastructure and the federal court system.
The scale described by the DOJ matters because it suggests Scattered Spider is not a one-off operation. Instead, prosecutors portrayed it as a campaign capable of repeatedly compromising organizations and converting the resulting leverage into crypto-linked revenue.
The DOJ statement also described a broader investigation into the group’s activities, including repeated network intrusions. In such cases, sentencing outcomes in one jurisdiction can be interpreted as pieces of a larger enforcement strategy, where cases in the UK and US collectively strengthen the evidentiary record around the same actors and methods.
FBI seizure and earlier crypto ransom allegations
According to the DOJ’s September release, the FBI seized approximately $36 million worth of cryptocurrency from wallets linked to Scattered Spider in July 2024. Prosecutors said investigators traced and seized digital assets allegedly controlled by members of the group as part of the wider case.
US prosecutors further said Scattered Spider was accused of breaching Caesars Entertainment and stealing a large customer database in September 2023. Prosecutors said Caesars ultimately paid a $15 million ransom in Bitcoin (BTC). That earlier allegation fits the same overall pattern of using crypto as the payments mechanism for extortion demands.
The combination of wallet-linked seizures and later courtroom sentences highlights the practical leverage of crypto intelligence for law enforcement: tracking transfers and correlating wallet activity with criminal conduct can support both asset recovery and prosecution.
In the DOJ’s account, investigators said the group was responsible for at least 120 computer network intrusions. The NCA sentencing announcement does not enumerate those numbers, but it aligns with the DOJ’s broader framing of an expanding threat. For victims and compliance teams, the message is consistent: crypto-enabled ransomware operations continue to attract coordinated international responses, even when the extortion attempts cross borders.
“These malicious attacks caused widespread disruption to US businesses and organizations, including critical infrastructure and the federal court system, highlighting the significant and growing threat posed by brazen cybercriminals,” said Matthew Galeotti, then acting assistant attorney general of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division.
What to watch next
With Scattered Spider affiliates now facing prison time in the UK and prosecutors having described large crypto-related seizures and ransom totals in the US, the next key question is whether additional defendants—along with more wallet-linked assets—will be identified and targeted across jurisdictions. For companies and crypto traders alike, continued enforcement can meaningfully shape how ransomware groups attempt to move funds and how quickly investigators can disrupt those flows.
Crypto World
Inside Robinhood’s high-stakes bet to ‘democratizing’ its 10 million casual users onto blockchain finance
Tokenized real-world assets (RWAs) account for just $12.66 million in active market capitalization despite the recent spike in trading activity.
Much of that larger activity, instead, came from memecoin traders piling into a new token, CASHCAT, named after Robinhood’s former company mascot. The token rallied by more than 2,100% in its first week, briefly reaching a $156 million market cap, which is 12 times larger than the chain’s entire tokenized real-world asset market.
It’s worth noting, though, that memecoins are volatile and hype-driven by nature, often lacking durable growth. That lack of sustainability was evident on Wednesday, when Noxa, the token launcher that spawned CashCat, announced it had stopped operating while directing all revenue to creators. The shutdown does not determine the fate of Robinhood Chain, but it underscores how quickly activity built around memecoin launches can disappear.
Ironically, Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev told CNBC on July 2 that memecoins were a dead end – assets with no utility that serve no purpose. Six days later, he posted that Robinhood Chain “works great for memes too,” presumably after seeing CASHCAT’s success.
Asked about the apparent contradiction, the company did not directly address it. “The early activity on Robinhood Chain is exciting: developers are building, users are engaging, and the chain is performing as designed,” Lee said.
Bitcoin slipped below $62,500 at the Wall Street open on Friday, extending a fresh dose of volatility as risk sentiment deteriorated. The move came as US markets reacted to renewed tensions tied to the US–Iran war, pulling down equities and—by extension—crypto.
Traders described BTC’s behavior as “very choppy,” with buyers and sellers repeatedly failing to establish direction after earlier strength. On the technical side, analysts flagged that Bitcoin’s long-running downtrend may be nearing an important phase, after the asset flipped a key long-term moving average into resistance.
Key takeaways
- BTC fell under $62,500 during the US open as US stocks turned lower amid escalated US–Iran headlines.
- Trading data referenced from TradingView indicated up to about 2% downside on the day for BTC/USD.
- Market participants say BTC is repeating prior patterns: local highs are being rejected, and price remains rangebound.
- Analysts including Rekt Capital pointed to Bitcoin flipping its 50-month EMA to resistance, which historically has preceded a move toward a long-term floor.
BTC weakens as equities take another hit
According to TradingView data cited in the report, BTC/USD extended losses into the session, with the move described as reaching as much as roughly 2% downside on the day. The timing aligned with a broad risk-off turn in US markets.
At the time of writing, US stocks had opened in the red, and the Nasdaq Composite was down nearly 2%. Fresh military strikes on Iran were highlighted as a catalyst behind the retreat in risk assets, with tech shares continuing to face selling pressure.
Additional pressure came from company-specific news. The Kobeissi Letter flagged weakness tied to earnings disappointments, noting that Netflix was down more than 10% at the start of the US session and citing a longer-view performance mark: the stock is down about 50% over the last 12 months and trading at its lowest level since August 2024, as stated in the outlet’s X post.
After three-week highs, traders face a familiar rhythm
Bitcoin’s decline followed a rebound period in which the asset had tapped three-week highs. After that push, traders reportedly saw “copycat” selling as the market returned to the same range conditions.
One market commentator, Exitpump, suggested on X that the pattern was repeating: a “dump into passive demand,” increased open interest with shorts building while spot buying begins to reappear—an imbalance that often produces sharp bounces rather than smooth trending.
Another trader, Daan Crypto Trades, characterized the broader tape as seasonal and directionless, describing recent weeks as “very choppy,” with alternating runs up and down and limited follow-through. That view fits with the overall picture of rangebound trading: peaks get sold, support gets tested, and the market appears to oscillate rather than commit to a new trend.
Bear-market “milestones” and the 50-month EMA flip
Beyond short-term price action, attention in the crypto market has also remained focused on the longer-term shape of Bitcoin’s bear-market cycle. Analyst Rekt Capital argued that Bitcoin has moved closer to a key technical milestone by flipping the 50-month exponential moving average (EMA) to resistance.
Rekt Capital said that BTC/USD’s interaction with the 50-month EMA is repeating bear-market history and that this change sets up the next phase of the decline toward a long-term floor. In his X update, he wrote that “the necessary technical milestone has been achieved,” adding that the milestone “technically indicates that the majority of the anticipated move has already happened.”
While such signals are often discussed as evidence that the market is maturing through the bear phase, they also leave plenty of uncertainty for traders. Even if the downtrend is in a late stage, timing can still be volatile—especially when external drivers such as macro headlines and geopolitical developments repeatedly shift risk appetite.
What to watch next for traders and investors
With BTC currently trading in a highly reactive environment—tied to equity sentiment while also reflecting recurring technical behavior—readers should watch how quickly support near recent range lows holds or breaks, and whether BTC’s resistance reactions around major longer-term levels persist. The next swing will likely be shaped as much by risk sentiment as by BTC-specific technical conditions.
The Bank of England approved HSBC Orion to go live in its Digital Securities Sandbox, with the first Digital Gilt Instrument transaction expected in the first quarter of 2027.
SBI Holdings has acquired a majority stake in Coinhako after securing regulatory approval for the Singapore crypto exchange deal on July 16.
Summary
- SBI Holdings acquired a majority stake in Coinhako after receiving approval from Singapore’s financial regulator.
- Coinhako gives SBI a licensed base for expanding digital asset services across Southeast Asia.
- The deal complements SBI’s JPYSC stablecoin, Ondo partnership, and Solana-based JX equity token
According to SBI Holdings, the transaction involved a capital injection through SBI Ventures Asset Pte. Ltd. and the purchase of shares from Coinhako’s existing investors. Coinhako will now operate as a consolidated subsidiary of the Japanese financial group.
Approval from the Monetary Authority of Singapore allowed the deal to close on July 16. SBI did not disclose the size of the investment, the percentage of shares acquired, or Coinhako’s valuation under the transaction.
Established in 2014, Coinhako is operated by Hako Technology Pte. Ltd. and holds a Major Payment Institution licence from MAS. Its affiliate, Alpha Hako Ltd., is registered as a virtual asset service provider with the British Virgin Islands Financial Services Commission.
Coinhako gives SBI a regulated Singapore base
Through the acquisition, SBI plans to combine Coinhako’s customers, regional network and crypto operations with the Japanese group’s financial products and international reach. The company identified Singapore as a key market because of its established digital asset regulations and position within Southeast Asia.
SBI Chairman and President Yoshitaka Kitao described the purchase as part of the group’s plan to connect exchanges across multiple countries. According to Kitao, such a network could let investors trade without being limited by national borders or currency differences.
Coinhako’s local presence and regulatory status were central to the decision, Kitao added. SBI expects the exchange to support new services involving stablecoins, tokenized assets, cross-border trading and on-chain finance between Japan and Southeast Asia.
For Coinhako, joining SBI provides access to a financial group with operations across banking, securities and digital assets. Commenting on the acquisition, Coinhako co-founder and CEO Yusho Liu described the deal as the company’s next stage after a decade of operating in Singapore.
“Joining the SBI Group is a natural step for Coinhako to move to the next stage of growth.”
Tokenized assets deepen SBI’s regional strategy
Alongside the Coinhako purchase, SBI has been developing a yen-backed stablecoin called JPYSC with blockchain company Startale. SBI plans to explore its use within the combined group, including possible links to Coinhako’s services and regional customer network.
As previously reported by crypto.news, SBI has also partnered with Ondo Finance to bring tokenized financial products into its ecosystem. Under the agreement, the companies plan to use JPYSC for settlement and collateral while connecting Japanese securities with overseas tokenized markets.
Ondo’s products are expected to reach investors through SBI’s customer network, according to the companies. The partnership also gives SBI another route for using its stablecoin beyond conventional transfers, including transactions involving tokenized securities.
One day before the Coinhako deal closed, SBI Global Asset Management launched the SBI Japan High Dividend Equity Strategy Token, or JX token, with regulated real-world asset exchange DigiFT. Issued on Solana, the product gives accredited and institutional investors blockchain-based exposure to a Japanese high-dividend equity strategy managed by SBI Asset Management Co.
Taken together, SBI’s announcements show how the group is assembling regulated exchanges, tokenized investment products and stablecoin infrastructure across Asia. Coinhako adds a licensed Singapore distribution point to that network, while the Ondo and DigiFT agreements provide financial products that SBI could connect to it.
Morgan Stanley has completed the rollout of Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana trading on E*TRADE, charging eligible clients a 0.50% fee on each transaction.
Summary
- E*TRADE now allows eligible clients to trade Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana for a 0.50% fee.
- Morgan Stanley plans crypto transfers and a move to its Digital Trust bank later this year.
- The rollout complements Morgan Stanley’s Bitcoin holdings, crypto ETFs and Galaxy Digital lending arrangement.
E*TRADE announced in a press release that supported customers can now buy, sell and hold the three digital assets directly through its brokerage platform. Zerohash provides the underlying crypto infrastructure and holds the assets in linked customer accounts.
Each transaction carries a 50-basis-point fee, according to E*TRADE. While the current service covers trading and custody, the brokerage expects to introduce crypto transfers later this year, allowing clients to move supported assets into and out of their accounts.
Following a pilot launched in May, the completed rollout makes the service available to all eligible E*TRADE customers. Morgan Stanley had first disclosed plans to add direct spot crypto trading in 2025.
Morgan Stanley is expanding several crypto services at once
E*TRADE’s launch comes as Morgan Stanley prepares to add two exchange-traded funds tied to Ethereum and Solana. As previously reported by crypto.news, amended S-1 filings for both products indicated that their launches were approaching, although the filings did not provide a confirmed trading date.
Earlier this year, Morgan Stanley also launched a spot Bitcoin ETF, becoming the first bank to offer such a product, according to the original report. SoSoValue data showed that the fund had accumulated $384 million in net assets at the time of reporting.
Direct trading gives E*TRADE customers another route to crypto exposure alongside Morgan Stanley’s investment funds. Unlike ETF shares, the new service allows eligible users to hold the underlying Bitcoin, Ether and Solana through Zerohash, while the planned transfer feature would give customers more control over moving those assets.
Morgan Stanley had also increased its tracked Bitcoin balance by nearly 1,000 BTC over the two weeks preceding July 11, according to a crypto.news report published that day. The purchases lifted its reported holdings above 5,700 BTC at the time.
Digital Trust is set to take over the crypto service
Later this year, E*TRADE expects to move the crypto offering from Zerohash to Morgan Stanley Digital Trust, the group’s planned national trust bank. The brokerage linked that transition to the introduction of transfer services but did not provide a specific launch date.
Morgan Stanley applied to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency earlier this year for a crypto-focused national trust bank charter. Its application placed the firm alongside Coinbase, Crypto.com and Ripple, while the OCC has already granted Ripple conditional approval.
Circle has also received OCC approval to establish a national trust bank focused on digital assets. The USDC issuer had secured conditional approval in 2025 alongside BitGo, Fidelity and Paxos.
Morgan Stanley Wealth Management added another crypto route in June through a referral agreement with Galaxy Digital. Under the arrangement, eligible high-net-worth clients can lend Bitcoin, Ether and Solana to Galaxy and receive shares in spot crypto investment products, including the Morgan Stanley Bitcoin Trust.
Taken together, the ETRADE rollout, pending ETF launches and Digital Trust application place trading, investment products, lending referrals and custody infrastructure within Morgan Stanley’s disclosed crypto plans. Each service remains subject to separate eligibility rules, fees and regulatory arrangements set by the companies involved.
Bitcoin remains trapped inside a broader corrective structure after its sharp drop from the mid-$80K region. While buyers have managed to defend the $60K support multiple times, the inability to reclaim key resistance levels continues to favor a cautious outlook in the short term.
Bitcoin Price Analysis: The Daily Chart
On the daily timeframe, BTC is trading around $63K after stabilizing above the major support zone at $60K. This area has repeatedly attracted demand since the early June selloff and continues to serve as the market’s most important defensive level.
Despite the recent consolidation, the broader structure remains bearish. The price is still trading below both the 100-day and 200-day moving averages, which are positioned around the $70K and $73K regions, respectively. Both moving averages are sloping downward, reinforcing the prevailing downtrend.
The recent recovery attempt also failed to reclaim the previous breakdown area around $66K, leaving that zone as the first major resistance. Above it, another significant supply area sits near $74K, aligning closely with the declining 200-day moving average. As long as BTC remains below these levels, rallies are likely to face renewed selling pressure. Should the $60K support fail, the next major downside target appears around $55K, where another higher-timeframe demand zone is located.
BTC/USDT 4-Hour Chart
The 4-hour chart shows that BTC has been consolidating following its sharp decline from the $74K region. The price continues to trade within the broad descending channel while forming a series of higher lows above the $61K support zone.
The immediate resistance remains at $66K, where horizontal resistance intersects with the channel’s descending trendline. This confluence makes it a critical area for bulls to overcome before any stronger recovery can develop.
On the downside, the $61K support has held multiple retests and currently serves as the first line of defense. Losing this level would likely expose the $58K demand zone. The RSI has also been fluctuating around the neutral 50 level, suggesting that bearish momentum has eased and indecision is ruling the market.
A confirmed breakout above both the descending trendline and the $66K resistance zone would improve the short-term outlook and could trigger a move toward the $72K to $74K region. Until then, the market remains vulnerable to another rejection within the prevailing downtrend.
On-Chain Analysis
The 30-day exponential moving average of the Long-Term Holder SOPR (Spent Output Profit Ratio) has continued to decline and is now trading below the critical 1.0 threshold. This metric measures whether long-term holders are spending their coins at a profit or a loss, with readings below 1 indicating that coins are being realized at a loss on average.
The breakdown below 1 suggests that a growing portion of long-term investors (who have held their coins for over 6 months) has entered capitulation, choosing to sell despite being underwater. Historically, prolonged periods below this level have coincided with the late stages of corrective phases, when selling pressure from experienced holders intensifies before the market establishes a more durable bottom.
While this shift reflects deteriorating sentiment among long-term participants, it also suggests that the market is moving deeper into a redistribution phase. If the indicator quickly recovers above 1, it would imply that the recent capitulation was temporary. However, a sustained stay below this threshold would signal continued weakness and increase the likelihood of further downside, particularly if Bitcoin loses the key $60K support zone.
The post Bitcoin Price Analysis: Is BTC Headed Below $60K After $65.5K Rejection? appeared first on CryptoPotato.
Bitcoin (BTC) dipped below $62,500 at Friday’s Wall Street open as stocks took a fresh hit from the US-Iran war.
Key points:
- Bitcoin gives traders a sense of deja-vu as local highs spark rejection and rangebound moves continue.
- The US-Iran war pushes stocks and crypto lower.
- A bear-market trend line is now in place as resistance, copying historical patterns.
BTC price action stays “very choppy”
Data from TradingView showed BTC/USD extending losses with up to 2% daily downside.
BTC/USD one-hour chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView
US stocks opened in the red, with the Nasdaq Composite Index also down nearly 2% at the time of writing. Fresh military strikes on Iran fueled the risk-asset retreat, while tech stocks continued to see selling pressure.
Trading resource The Kobeissi Letter also flagged weakness arising from earnings disappointments, with Netflix shedding over 10% to start the US session.
“The stock is now down -50% over the last 12 months and trading at its lowest level since August 2024,” it noted in a post on X.
Netflix stock one-day chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView
After hitting three-week highs, BTC price action fell back into its established range as traders saw copycat moves.
“Market just keeps repeating same things,” commentator Exitpump wrote on X.
“Dump into passive demand, OI increases with shorts piling up while spot starts buying which leads to bounce.”
BTC/USDT five-minute chart with order-book data. Source: Exitpump/X
Trader Daan Crypto Trades argued that current behavior was “typical” of summer.
“Very choppy few days up, few days down kind of price action the last few weeks. No real action anywhere really,” he summarized.
BTC/USD four-hour chart. Source: Daan Crypto Trades/X
Bitcoin seals key bear-market repeat
Trader Jelle, meanwhile, remained optimistic, seeing range lows holding.
Related: Bitcoin bottom countdown nears 50 days after BTC supply in loss passed 50%
“Still think this looks good for a relief rally in the next weeks – which would give the market room to drop into October without nuking much deeper,” he told X followers.
BTC/USD one-day chart. Source: Jelle/X
In updates on the bear market’s progress, trader and analyst Rekt Capital suggested that Bitcoin’s long-term downtrend was now in its final stages.
BTC/USD, he wrote, had flipped its 50-month exponential moving average (EMA) to resistance, repeating bear-market history to set up its drop to a long-term floor.
“The necessary technical milestone has been achieved,” he confirmed.
“Which technically indicates that the majority of the anticipated move has already happened.”
BTC/USD one-month chart with 21, 50EMA. Source: Rekt Capital/X
As Cointelegraph reported, Rekt Capital saw the July relief bounce ending with the onset of next month.
Benjamin Cowen’s July memo puts the next Bitcoin bottom in the fourth quarter of 2026. His seasonal math implies a floor near $44,000, and his framework has formally shifted into bottom-watch mode.
Cowen, a member of BeInCrypto’s Market Intelligence experts council, argues the reset now depends on time rather than a single price level. His projection lands inside the $44,000 to $47,000 zone that BeInCrypto’s models identified one week earlier.
The 2019 Analog Runs Out of Time
The core thesis of the memo compares the October 2025 top with the June 2019 top. Both peaks arrived on apathy rather than euphoria, and both printed weeks before quantitative tightening formally ended.
Bitcoin (BTC) has now spent 282 days in its drawdown. The 2019 analog bottomed at day 261, when the March 2020 pandemic crash reset every indicator at once.
Cowen treats that flush as an external shock, not a cycle mechanism. Because the analog expired without a similar event, he expects this reset to complete through time instead.
The current path sits at 0.520 of the October 2025 record above $126,000, a 48% decline. Meanwhile, retail attention never returned. New views across major crypto YouTube channels sit near 389,000, an order of magnitude below the 2021 peak near four million.
That reading fits the broader picture of washed-out crypto sentiment that BeInCrypto reported this week. Cowen calls it the apathy signature, and it separates this cycle from the euphoric tops of 2017 and 2021.
Midterm Years Save the Worst for Last
2026 is a midterm election year, historically the weakest of Bitcoin’s four-year cycle. The prior midterms in 2014, 2018, and 2022 all decayed through the second half, and none rallied into year-end.
July has typically been constructive in those years, and 2026 is tracking that tendency. However, August and September turned negative in all three prior midterms, with August losses between 15% and 18%.
Cowen’s year-to-date measure has bounced to 0.731, back above the midterm average. Applying the historical decay path would drag that reading to roughly 0.49 by year-end, which implies a price near $43,800.
He stresses the figure is an illustrative projection from three observations, not a target. Still, the direction was consistent across all three prior midterms.
Two of those cycles bottomed inside the midterm year itself, in December 2018 and November 2022. The 2014 cycle spilled into January 2015, which keeps early 2027 on the table.
The macro backdrop adds pressure. The Warsh Fed removed its easing bias while the energy-led disinflation fades, a combination that keeps real rates elevated into the same fourth-quarter window.
Why the On-Chain Reset Isn’t Done
On-chain data explains why Cowen doubts the low is already in. The MVRV Z-Score reads 0.395, and prior cycle bottoms formed only after the metric reset below zero.
That reset requires price to trade beneath the realized price; the market’s aggregate cost basis is near $53,000. The early-summer low of about $57,000 approached that level without reaching it.
His $43,800 estimate, therefore, sits inside the corridor between realized price and balanced price at $37,700. Cowen’s broader risk scorecard supports that read. On-chain risk sits at 0.188 and Bitcoin risk at 0.311, both far below their readings near the top one year ago.
Yet the valuation reset remains less advanced than the distressed July 2022 phase. BeInCrypto’s models reached the same region one week earlier.
BeInCrypto’s analysis of the final 91-day window projected a bottom between $44,000 and $47,000 by early October. A regression on past drawdowns and a logarithmic Fibonacci retracement converged on that zone.
The log Fibonacci midpoint sits at $44,428, within roughly $700 of Cowen’s figure. Two independent frameworks now point to the same floor and the same quarter.
Institutional forecasts frame a similar range. The wider Bitcoin bottom debate spans Standard Chartered’s $59,000 floor and Galaxy’s $40,000 scenario, and both reject a deeper crash this cycle.
Bitcoin Bottom Watch Is On, But Confirmation Is Far Away
The supply profit and loss cross gives Cowen his trigger. Supply in loss briefly exceeded supply in profit at the summer low, a condition that historically preceded entry into bottoming windows.
The bounce has since lifted supply in profit back to 56.83%. Cowen reads the whipsaw as typical of a bottoming window measured in months rather than a single clean event.
Cowen wrote:
“The framework is in bottom-watch mode, with the low most likely a matter of months rather than weeks away.”
Structural demand has also cooled. ETF holdings peaked above 1.25 million BTC in late 2025 and have since rolled over, with the decline steepening in recent weeks. The marginal bid that absorbed supply on the way up has faded.
Price structure tells the same story. Bitcoin reclaimed its 200-week SMA near $63,100, yet the identical break-and-reclaim sequence appeared in 2022 before the final low arrived.
Confirmation, in his framework, requires two consecutive weekly closes above the 50-week SMA near $86,500. Bitcoin’s current price of about $63,158, down 2.7% in 24 hours, sits roughly 37% below that level.
Cowen also assembles the bull case. Price sits on the first percentile of his long-run quantile model, ETF-era demand could lift the floor, and the absent crowd leaves few forced sellers for a final flush.
For now, the calendar, the on-chain reset, and BeInCrypto’s own models point to the same window. The next test comes quickly, as August will show whether the midterm pattern repeats or finally breaks.
The post Benjamin Cowen’s New Memo Points to Q4 Bitcoin Bottom Near $44,000 appeared first on BeInCrypto.
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