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Khamenei’s death raises questions about Trump’s China trip
A monitor plays footage of US President Donald Trump announcing US and Israeli strikes against Iran in the James Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House in Washington, DC, U.S., on Saturday, Feb. 28, 2026.
Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images
BEIJING — Uncertainty is growing over U.S. President Donald Trump‘s high-stakes trip to China after Washington targeted a second foreign leader in two months.
Trump announced over the weekend that joint U.S.-Israel strikes on Iran killed its Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. In early January, the U.S. also captured Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro and his wife from their residence.
Analysts say those actions could complicate Trump’s high-stakes trip to Beijing.
“President Xi Jinping won’t feel easy about the death of the top leader of Iran,” said George Chen, partner at The Asia Group, noting Beijing’s relatively good relations with Tehran and Caracas.
“How can Xi feel everything is normal and alright and be prepared to welcome Trump to visit in [a] happy mood?” he said. Chen added that “investors should manage their expectations on what Trump can achieve for his China trip — if he still goes.”
Trump is scheduled to visit Beijing from March 31 to April 2, following a fragile trade truce with China reached in late October. It would mark the first trip by a sitting U.S. president since 2017.
But Beijing has yet to confirm the dates.
China’s Foreign Ministry on Sunday condemned Khamenei’s killing and called it “a grave violation of Iran’s sovereignty and security.” Beijing urged for an immediate ceasefire, although it was less direct about the U.S. role than it had been after Maduro’s capture.
“I worry the U.S. side might use Iran, if it’s going poorly, to delay the trip,” said a foreign business executive tracking meeting preparations very closely, who requested anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter.
“I think the risk [of the trip falling apart] is on the U.S. side more than the Chinese side,” the executive added.
U.S.-based prediction markets signaled a greater likelihood of a delayed Trump trip.
As of late Monday morning, Polymarket showed a sharp drop in expectations that Trump would visit China by March 31, to 42%, from 83.9% on Feb. 21, while wagers on a visit by April 30 remained high at 81%.
Kalshi showed a slight drop in expectations that Trump would visit China by 2027, though it remained a high 91%.
While many analysts still expect the trip to proceed, it’s less clear how U.S. businesses will navigate plans for deals in the world’s second-largest economy.
Several U.S. executives had been expected to accompany Trump on his Beijing trip, following a pattern of business delegations following leaders of different countries on their trips this year to China in a bid to strike deals.
“Prior to the attack on Iran, many American CEOs were already unwilling to go with Trump to China. Now the situation is even more tricky,” according to an active member of the American business community in China, who also requested anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter.
The White House and China’s Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to a CNBC request for comment.
The Chinese readout so far indicates an “unusually softer tone,” said Jack Lee, analyst at China Macro Group. He expects Trump to visit Beijing as planned, but is watching whether Washington signals restraint on arms sales to Taiwan.
The democratically self-ruled island, claimed by Beijing, remains a central flashpoint in U.S-China relations.
Risks of prolonged conflict
Trump, meanwhile, told British newspaper the Daily Mail that U.S. strikes on Iran could last four weeks — a point that Chinese state media highlighted Monday morning. That timeframe would run into the planned March 31 start date for his trip to China.
“If the conflict escalates into a regional war beyond what the U.S. originally planned, it’s not impossible that Trump might delay the trip,” said Yue Su, principal economist at the Economist Intelligence Unit.
“Still, I expect Trump and [Xi] to have a phone conversation about this at some point,” she said. Her base case remains that Trump goes ahead with his China trip later this month.
China this week kicks off an annual parliamentary meeting, where top diplomat Wang Yi typically speaks to the press. In mid-February, Wang told U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference that the U.S. and China should work to expand areas of cooperation.
In foreign policy, Beijing has prioritized its own interests by forging bilateral ties while encouraging multilateral engagement. Official statements around past U.S.-China meetings have noted the need to create “conditions” for developing bilateral relations.
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The U.S. actions in Iran have eroded trust between the two countries, said Dong Shaopeng, a senior researcher at Renmin University of China. While he still expects Trump and Xi to meet in a few weeks, he said he hopes the conflict does not spread to other countries in the Middle East.
State-affiliated Chinese columnist “Niutanqing” on Monday described the Iran “war” as more intense than the conflict in Ukraine, drawing several lessons. Of the several lessons from the turn of events, the columnist said that Khamenei’s death revealed “traitors” can emerge from within, and that negotiations may conceal the true intentions of an adversary, according to a CNBC translation of the post in Chinese.
If the Trump-Xi meeting proceeds as planned, it could offer an opportunity for broader peace talks while addressing strained U.S.-China relations.
“The issues that they have to work out, China-U.S. trade, are pretty important, and the meeting has been scheduled to be in place for a long time, and so cancelling it would be pretty radical at this point,” said Gary Dvorchak, managing director at Blueshirt Group.
“I don’t think it would … help the situation to cancel the meeting for any reason.”
TLDR:
- TRON DAO has expanded its AI Fund tenfold, growing from $100 million to a full $1 billion commitment.
- The fund targets agent identity systems, stablecoin payment rails, and tokenized equity as core investment areas.
- TRON’s network processes over $21 billion daily and holds $85 billion in USDT, supporting agent-scale payments.
- Tokenized equity is positioned as the ownership layer for AI agents managing economic interests on behalf of users.
TRON DAO has expanded its AI Fund from $100 million to $1 billion. The fund targets early-stage companies building infrastructure for the agentic economy.
It focuses on agent identity systems, stablecoin payment rails, tokenized assets, and developer tooling. This move builds on a thesis formed in 2023, when TRON predicted AI and blockchain would converge.
TRON Doubles Down on AI and Blockchain Convergence
The TRON AI Fund first launched with a clear conviction: AI and blockchain technology would eventually merge. That prediction has gained enough traction to justify a tenfold increase in committed capital.
The fund now positions itself as a strategic vehicle, not just a financial one. Its expanded mandate reflects growing market demand for autonomous financial infrastructure.
Three core theses continue to drive the fund’s investment direction. As TRON stated, “AI agents will become active participants in the global economy, requiring new financial infrastructures that combine identity, payment, and asset ownership fully onchain.”
This makes stablecoins the most practical payment layer for agent-to-agent commerce today. The fund views this as foundational, rather than experimental, infrastructure.
Stablecoins also serve individuals and small teams augmented by AI tools. A single person running AI-powered operations no longer needs a large team behind them.
However, they still need payment systems that are simple, low-cost, and accessible. Traditional banking onboarding and intermediary fees make that difficult to achieve.
TRON noted that “AI-augmented people can run what once required entire teams from a single laptop.” That shift changes the demand for financial tools entirely.
Tokenized equity rounds out the fund’s framework as the ownership layer for this new economy. It is divisible, programmable, and transferable around the clock, supporting autonomous asset management.
TRON’s Network Scale Positions It for Agent-to-Agent Settlement
TRON’s blockchain currently supports over 370 million user accounts across its network. Daily transaction volume on the chain exceeds $21 billion, demonstrating its capacity at scale.
The network also holds more than $85 billion in circulating USDT supply. These numbers place TRON among the largest stablecoin liquidity sources in the blockchain space.
TRON described agent-to-agent payments as systems expected to “rely on infrastructure that is already proven at scale.” Its network meets that standard through its user base, liquidity depth, and transaction throughput.
The fund intends to extend this infrastructure further into settlement and custody for tokenized assets. That expansion aligns with the broader goal of supporting autonomous financial systems.
The fund will also pursue acquisitions alongside traditional investments. Early-stage companies building core agentic tools are the primary target.
Consolidation in this space is expected as the sector matures. TRON sees this as an opportunity to shape the foundational layer of the agentic economy.
As AI agents take on more economic roles, demand for on-chain financial rails will grow steadily. TRON’s expanded fund positions it to meet that demand directly and at scale.
Key takeaways:
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Bearish Bitcoin futures premiums and low call option odds suggest traders remain skeptical despite BTC’s brief 4% relief rally.
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High oil prices and cautious Fed policy continue to pressure risk assets, while Bitcoin derivatives metrics signal a lack of conviction.
Bitcoin (BTC) surged 4% within minutes of US President Donald Trump announcing his intention to temporarily de-escalate the conflict in Iran and pursue negotiations. While oil prices immediately tumbled 14% to $85 per WTI barrel and the S&P 500 climbed 3%, Bitcoin derivatives metrics continued to signal skepticism and a lack of confidence in the $68,000 support level.
Bitcoin futures traded at a 2% annualized premium relative to regular spot markets on Monday, indicating a lack of demand for bullish leverage. Under neutral conditions, this indicator typically ranges between 4% and 8% to compensate for the longer settlement period. This lack of conviction from bulls has been the norm for the past month, even during a recent rally toward $76,000 on Tuesday.
Short-term gains fail to offset five months of Bitcoin pain
Short-term positive updates regarding the US and Israel-Iran war are unlikely to reverse the pessimism following a five-month price decline. Because the specific causes of Bitcoin’s Oct. 10, 2025, flash crash and its subsequent failure to track traditional markets remain unconfirmed, traders treat any developments with high suspicion.
This major sell-off occurred alongside rising US import tariffs, including a 100% levy on Chinese goods after China restricted rare earth metal exports. However, the unprecedented $19 billion in liquidations caused the most significant damage, resulting in heavy losses for market makers and traders who utilized cross-margin positions.
At the Deribit exchange, the $80,000 Bitcoin call option for April 24 traded at 0.017 BTC ($1,207). With 31 days until expiry and an implied volatility of 48%, the market is pricing in only a 20% chance of Bitcoin reaching $80,000. This low expectation for a 13% monthly gain is rare in cryptocurrency markets, where participants are generally more optimistic.
USD stablecoins traded at a 1.3% premium against the official US dollar to yuan exchange rate on Monday, indicating that there is not a particular imbalance between buying and selling demand in the region. Typically, high demand for cryptocurrency pushes this premium above the 1.5% neutral range, while panic selling causes stablecoins to trade at a discount.
Federal Reserve’s choice to pause rate cuts keeps investors in fixed-income
The data shows that there is modest resilience in Bitcoin derivative markets, especially since BTC retested the $67,500 level on Monday. Gold’s historic 21% price drop over ten days proved that no asset class is safe when traders fear an economic recession and inflationary risks, especially as fuel prices impact logistics and nearly every sector of the US economy.
Related: Bitcoin spot volumes fall to 2023 lows as BTC rallies remain news-led
Monday’s 3% relief bounce in the S&P 500 is unlikely to cause investors to exit fixed-income positions, especially as the Fed gave little indication of continuing its monetary easing policy. High interest rates reduce incentives for consumer financing and create a burden for corporate capital costs.
There is undoubtedly a significant dependence on the duration of the war for risk assets, including Bitcoin. Until oil prices revert back to $75 or lower, odds are traders will act cautiously, but additional catalysts may need to emerge for Bitcoin traders to turn bullish, especially considering the persistent lack of conviction in onchain and derivatives metrics.
This article does not contain investment advice or recommendations. Every investment and trading move involves risk, and readers should conduct their own research when making a decision. While we strive to provide accurate and timely information, Cointelegraph does not guarantee the accuracy, completeness, or reliability of any information in this article. This article may contain forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties. Cointelegraph will not be liable for any loss or damage arising from your reliance on this information.
The House Financial Services Committee meets Wednesday to decide the future of Wall Street’s backend. Lawmakers will question executives from Nasdaq, DTCC, and the Blockchain Association on how to move trillions in securities onto blockchain rails.
The hearing marks a critical pivot from “crypto as casino” to “crypto as infrastructure.”
Chair French Hill (AR-02) convenes the session at 10:00 AM ET in the Rayburn House Office Building. The focus is specific: determining if current securities laws are strangling the efficiency of tokenized assets.
The committee is looking for a way to let regulated firms use blockchain records without triggering an SEC enforcement action. The testimony delivered here will shape the bipartisan legislation expected later this spring.
- Legislative Scope: The hearing reviews two draft bills: one mandating a joint SEC-CFTC study on tokenized products, and another allowing regulated firms to maintain blockchain-based records.
- Institutional Weight: Witnesses include top brass from Nasdaq, DTCC, and SIFMA, signaling that traditional finance—not just crypto natives—is driving the pressure for regulatory clarity.
- Market Impact: Successful legislation would greenlight pilot programs for tokenized stocks and bonds, moving Real World Assets (RWAs) from experimental sandboxes to institutional balance sheets.
Tokenization and the Future of Securities: What the Hearing Covers
The hearing has a name: “Tokenization and the Future of Securities: Modernizing Our Capital Markets.”
The witness list means business. Kenneth Bentsen Jr. of SIFMA, Summer Mersinger of the Blockchain Association, Christian Sabella of the DTCC, and John Zecca of Nasdaq. The architects of traditional market plumbing and the builders of new rails, sitting at the same table.
Two draft bills are on the agenda. The Modernizing Markets Through Tokenization Act forces the SEC and CFTC to stop fighting over jurisdiction and conduct a joint study on tokenized derivatives. The Capital Markets Technology Modernization Act goes further, codifying the ability of broker-dealers to use blockchain for record-keeping.
This comes one week after the SEC and CFTC signed a coordination pact. Regulators are aligning just as Congress moves to open the field.
The signal flare for Real World Assets is lit.
Projects have been stuck in pilot phases for one reason: legal settlement finality on a blockchain is still a gray area. Advance the Modernization Act and banks get the legal cover they need to scale tokenized treasuries and bonds. Institutional appetite is already there. Tokenized securities are the logical next step.
Compliance is where it gets messy. The SEC says tokenized assets are securities first, technology second. The industry says applying 1940s paper-based rules to instantaneous ledger settlements makes no sense. That fight is front and center Wednesday.
The stablecoin angle is indirect but impossible to ignore. Tokenized securities need a cash leg for settlement. That means a wholesale CBDC or a regulated stablecoin. Push hard enough on on-chain securities and stablecoin legislation gets dragged along with it.
One bill pulls the other.
What to Watch When the Hearing Opens
Watch Chair French Hill’s line of questioning.
If he pushes witnesses on specific bottlenecks in SEC Rule 15c3-3, the Committee is ready to legislate now. Vague questions about innovation mean they are not.
The interaction between the Blockchain Association’s Summer Mersinger and traditional finance witnesses matters just as much. A united front between Web3 advocates and SIFMA and Nasdaq puts real pressure on the SEC. If they split, with TradFi pushing private permissioned chains while crypto advocates want public mainnets, the regulatory path fractures. The DTCC’s testimony is the wildcard. They control the current settlement layer. If they validate blockchain’s efficiency, the argument is effectively over.
Timeline is everything. A successful hearing sets up a markup by late April. No consensus pushes real change into late 2026, while Singapore and the UK keep moving.
The infrastructure is ready. The banks are ready. Wednesday decides if regulation gets out of the way.
Discover: The best new crypto in the world
The post What to Expect From This Week’s House Committee Hearing on Tokenization appeared first on Cryptonews.
US financial regulators just rewrote the rulebook. On Tuesday, the SEC and CFTC released joint guidelines classifying the vast majority of digital assets as commodities or “digital tools,” stripping the SEC of its previous enforcement-heavy oversight role.
The move immediately fueled conflict-of-interest allegations regarding World Liberty Financial, the DeFi project controlled by the Trump family.
- Token Taxonomy: New SEC-CFTC guidelines classify most crypto assets as commodities, exempting them from securities registration.
- Conflict Concerns: Insiders argue the shift directly benefits World Liberty Financial by reducing disclosure burdens for the Trump family project.
- Legislative Bridge: Chair Paul Atkins frames the rules as a temporary measure while Congress stalls on the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act.
The Mechanics of the ‘Token Taxonomy’ Shift Explained
SEC Chair Paul Atkins calls it a “token taxonomy.” The market calls it a total reversal. Speaking at the Blockchain Summit in DC, Atkins confirmed the regulator is “not the ‘securities and everything commission’ anymore.”
The new joint guidelines with the CFTC explicitly categorize most digital assets—including payment tokens, collectibles, and utility assets—as distinct from securities.
— BSCN (@BSCNews) March 18, 2026
CRYPTO: SEC OFFICIALLY CLASSIFIES NFTs AS "DIGITAL COLLECTIBLES," NOT SECURITIES
The joint SEC/CFTC interpretive guidance dropped March 17 with a five-category token taxonomy:
Digital commodities (BTC, ETH, SOL, XRP, ADA, LINK + 10 more) Digital collectibles (NFTs,… pic.twitter.com/acXShbdce1
This creates a massive regulatory moat. Under the previous administration, these assets faced existential legal threats for failing to register.
Now, they are officially deemed “digital tools.” Only direct blockchain-based representations of existing securities, such as tokenized stocks and bonds, remain under the strict purview of the SEC. This is the operational rollout of the regulation philosophy Atkins promised: innovation first, enforcement second.
The timing is critical. While the administration pushes for the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, the legislation remains stalled in Congress due to disputes over stablecoin interest provisions. Atkins is not waiting for the vote.
By issuing these guidelines now, agencies are creating a provisional safe harbor that mimics the Act’s intended structure without requiring legislative approval. The agencies frame this as a “bridge” to provide certainty, but it effectively sidelines the stricter oversight mandates that defined the Gensler era.
Does the New Framework Shield Family Interests?
The policy shift creates an immediate governance paradox. Market insiders note that the primary beneficiary of this deregulated environment is likely World Liberty Financial, the lending protocol launched by the Trump family.
Under the Biden-era interpretation, project insiders faced strict lockup periods and heavy disclosure requirements. The new “digital tool” classification effectively bypasses those hurdles.
Todd Baker, a senior fellow at Columbia Law School, argues the framework is tailored to facilitate “profit-making but socially valueless” trading free from federal oversight.
The contrast with recent history is sharp. Just months prior, the industry was navigating heavy litigation, such as cases where Gemini was sued over its internal governance and strategy shifts.
The new rules likely preclude similar enforcement actions against projects like World Liberty Financial, provided they do not tokenize existing securities.
Critics argue this creates a two-tier system where connected projects gain faster access to liquidity. However, supporters like The Digital Chamber’s Cody Carbone see it as a necessary correction to keep the US competitive.
With other jurisdictions vacillating, South Korea is still debating the total abolition of crypto taxes to prevent capital flight, the US is moving aggressively to cement its status as the global crypto capital. Summer Mersinger of the Blockchain Association framed the coordination as helpful in the “near term,” but the conflict of interest questions remain the headline.
The agencies have built their bridge, but it leads to a political minefield. Rules can be rewritten by the next chair; only legislation provides cement. Until the Clarity Act clears Congress, the market is trading on administrative permission, not law.
Discover: The best new crypto in the world
The post Trump SEC Overhaul Fuels Oversight Debate Over Family Crypto Conflicts appeared first on Cryptonews.
- HBAR rose to above 0.095 as crypto sentiment improved following recent macro‑driven swings.
- The $0.13-$0.15 zone could be a major resistance region for bulls.
- Hedera price must reclaim and hold above $0.10 to confirm a potential trend reversal.
Hedera (HBAR) price jumped more than 5% in 24 hours as cryptocurrency markets flipped green, with bulls eyeing momentum amid optimism that the US-Iran war could end soon.
But as Hedera’s native token targets a breakout above the $0.10 mark, what resistance cluster is likely to derail buyers? The technical chart provides the outlook.
Here’s why HBAR price rose, testing a key level
Hedera’s HBAR rose to intraday highs near $0.095 on Monday as Bitcoin and the broader market reacted to geopolitical developments.
The move followed comments from Donald Trump suggesting easing tensions with Iran, which helped lift sentiment across risk assets.
Bitcoin climbed above $71,000 during the session, while BNB also moved higher toward $650, supporting gains in altcoins.
Despite the initial relief, underlying uncertainty remains. Ongoing tensions linked to the Iran conflict and broader macroeconomic headwinds continue to limit upside across the crypto market.
Adding to the uncertainty, reports cited Iranian state media disputing Trump’s claims, stating that no negotiations are underway and rejecting his remarks.
Against this backdrop, HBAR’s near-term direction remains tied to broader market movements.
A renewed decline in Bitcoin could push the token back below the $0.09 level.
On the other hand, sustained buying above current levels could open the door for further short-term gains, with a key resistance zone likely to define the next move.
Hedera price forecast: can bulls extend rally?
Analysts tracking Hedera highlight $0.10 as a key near-term pivot, with potential upside targets in the $0.13–$0.15 range.
This zone has recently acted as a ceiling for price advances, capping bullish attempts.
A sustained move higher would require HBAR to break above the 50-day exponential moving average near $0.098 and the 100-day EMA around $0.11.
Clearing these levels would bring the token toward a primary resistance area near the 200-day EMA, around $0.13, which has marked recent rejection points.
Previous attempts to push higher have struggled to hold gains beyond the $0.15 level.
At present, HBAR is retesting the middle band of the Bollinger Bands on the daily chart.
The bands are tightening, indicating reduced volatility and suggesting that a breakout may be approaching, although confirmation is still needed.
Hedera HBAR chart by TradingViewFailure to clear this zone could see HBAR revert into a consolidation corridor within a long-term downward channel.
Conditions across the market could then mean an extended sideways action before clarity from macro or fundamentals becomes the next upside catalyst.
Bears may eye $0.07 and $0.06 as major support levels.
TLDR
- Shibizens confirmed that Shibarium completed a major server migration and full chain reindexing in the past 30 days.
- The Shibarium explorer is about 45% synchronized as it rebuilds its database from scratch.
- Displayed explorer data shows fewer blocks, transactions, and wallets due to incomplete indexing.
- Actual on-chain data exceeds 14 million blocks and 1.56 billion transactions.
- The real wallet count stands above 270 million addresses despite lower visible figures.
Shibizens reported a 30-day infrastructure overhaul across Shibarium systems. The update confirms a server migration and a full chain re-indexing process. The team clarified that the changes reflect upgrades rather than network slowdown.
Shibarium Infrastructure Rebuild and Explorer Reindexing
Shibizens stated that Shibarium completed a major server migration during the last 30 days. The team also initiated a full chain re-indexing to strengthen system capacity. They explained that the process rebuilds the explorer database from scratch. As a result, synchronization now stands near 45%. However, the explorer currently shows partial on-chain data. Shibizens stressed that this reflects indexing progress rather than missing blockchain records.
The group addressed visible discrepancies on the Shibarium explorer. Displayed data lists about 2.4 million blocks and 168 million transactions. In contrast, actual records exceed 14 million blocks and 1.56 billion transactions. Wallet data also differs across reports. The explorer shows about five million addresses, while real figures exceed 270 million addresses. Shibizens attributed the gap to incomplete indexing across nodes.
Shibizens stated that only 51% of blocks remain indexed. They cited Shibariumscan and Shibburn data to support the figure. They explained that indexing delays affect visible balances and NFT displays. However, they confirmed that on-chain assets remain intact. “Shibarium is not lagging,” Shibizens said. They added, “It is rebuilding at scale for what’s coming next.”
The team emphasized that token visibility depends on explorer synchronization. Therefore, some wallets may not reflect full holdings. They clarified that blockchain records remain unchanged during migration. They also confirmed that block production continues normally. Current block time averages about five seconds. The network continues processing transactions without interruption.
Layer 3 Focus Expands Across Puppynet and SHIB Ecosystem
Shibizens reported that the development focus now shifts toward Layer 3. The team referenced Shib Alpha and ShibClaw within the roadmap. They indicated that testing efforts now concentrate on advanced scaling layers. Meanwhile, Puppynet continues to operate as Shibarium’s testnet. The team confirmed that AI-driven automated contract activity is increasing. However, block time stability remains steady at five seconds.
Over the weekend, Woofswap confirmed that Shibarium L3 remains under active testing. The participant shared limited details regarding technical specifications. Shibizens also confirmed that a new L3 explorer went live on March 21. The launch supports early testing and monitoring functions. They described the rollout as part of the broader infrastructure buildout.
Puppynet continues recording automated contract interactions across its network. Developers monitor activity patterns and test smart contract deployments. The testnet supports validation before mainnet integration. Shibizens reiterated that infrastructure upgrades support future expansion.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is advancing its framework to reinterpret how federal securities laws apply to crypto assets, moving two proposed rules to the White House for review. The centerpiece is an interpretive notice that could narrow the jurisdiction of federal securities laws over many digital assets, signaling a potential regulatory shift while the White House weighs the plan.
Regulatory records show the SEC submitted the two proposals to the Office of Management and Budget for review on a recent Friday, with one item explicitly detailing which digital assets the agency might deem securities under federal law. As of Monday, the record listed the package as “pending review” by the White House, a status that could influence both enforcement and regulatory posture depending on the administration’s assessment.
Key takeaways
- The SEC forwarded two proposed rules to the White House Office of Management and Budget, including an interpretive notice on what digital assets could be securities.
- Chair Jay (Paul) Atkins signaled last week that the agency would not treat four asset classes as securities: digital commodities, digital tools, digital collectibles (NFTs), and stablecoins, while offering a cohesive token taxonomy for these types.
- The interpretive framework aims to clarify when a “non-security crypto asset” might qualify as an investment contract, providing regulatory guidance ahead of any potential congressional action.
- The move follows a memorandum of understanding with the CFTC, underscoring growing cross-agency coordination as lawmakers consider a broader market-structure bill for digital assets.
SEC interpretive move and what it could mean for crypto regulation
The SEC’s latest step appears to aim at providing a more coherent framework for determining when a crypto asset falls under securities laws. In a notice released last week, Chair Atkins indicated that digital commodities, digital tools, digital collectibles—including non-fungible tokens—and stablecoins would not be treated as securities under the agency’s purview. The interpretive notice is described as establishing a “coherent token taxonomy” for these asset classes and addressing how a non-security crypto asset may or may not be considered an investment contract under the Howey test.
If finalized, the interpretive rule could serve as a bridge to crypto regulation while Congress debates a more comprehensive market-structure bill to bring clear, unified rules to the sector. The AML-style approach would aim to reduce regulatory ambiguity and potentially recalibrate how exchanges, custodians, and developers operate in the interim. The policy aligns with the agency’s recent collaboration with the CFTC, highlighted by a Memorandum of Understanding signed earlier this month to clarify jurisdictional boundaries and regulatory expectations in the crypto markets.
Regulators and market participants have long sought a stable, forward-looking framework that reduces uncertainty around whether a given token is a security. The SEC’s proposed taxonomy is meant to outline how different digital asset types should be treated, and crucially, when assets may still be subject to investment contract analysis even if they fall outside the securities umbrella. The White House review stage is a critical gate: a positive outcome could accelerate regulatory alignment, while a protracted or revised review could push the timetable for broader legislative action.
Broader policy momentum: White House talks, stablecoins, and the CLARITY Act
Beyond the White House review, the crypto policy landscape continues to evolve at the congressional level. Politico reported on Friday that White House officials and lawmakers had reached an agreement in principle on some aspects of the crypto regime, including stablecoin yield considerations that could shape the market-structure bill’s trajectory in the Senate Banking Committee. However, the committee indefinitely postponed its markup of the bill in January after Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong expressed public concerns about the legislation as written, underscoring the political sensitivity surrounding crypto regulation.
As of Monday, there had been no public announcement of a new date for the markup. Senate leadership outlined a workflow prioritizing other legislation, such as the SAVE America Act, before returning to bipartisan crypto debate. Senate Republicans and allies have signaled continued interest in a structured approach to digital assets, but the path remains contingent on both legislative negotiation and regulatory clarity from agencies like the SEC and the CFTC.
The ongoing discussions touch on the CLARITY Act, a proposed framework intended to clarify crypto markets and stablecoins under a market-structure agenda. The interagency dynamics—between the SEC’s jurisdictional interpretations, the CFTC’s role in cash and derivative markets, and congressional arbitration—will shape how quickly a final, enforceable regime can take effect, and what form it will take for issuers, exchanges, and users alike.
Investors and builders should watch two interlinked developments: the White House’s decision on the SEC’s interpretive rules and the progress (or stall) of the market-structure bill in Congress. While a regulatory pathway for many digital assets could reduce policy risk, it could also introduce new compliance obligations, particularly for entities operating in the cross-border or custody-heavy segments of the market. The tension between advancing a broad framework and accommodating industry concerns is likely to persist as lawmakers seek to balance investor protection with innovation.
As the regulatory clock ticks, participants should monitor the White House’s review timeline, the final content of the interpretive notice, and any updates to the market-structure bill’s language—especially provisions around stablecoins and collateral use. The next few weeks could reveal whether the administration’s review will accelerate clarity or reveal remaining ambiguities that require legislative refinement.
What remains uncertain is how quickly the White House completes its review and whether Congress will greenlight a comprehensive framework on digital assets in the near term. For market participants, the key question is whether the unfolding process will reduce regulatory surprise or introduce new interpretive wrinkles that alter how tokens are categorized and traded.
Readers should keep an eye on updates from RegInfo.gov and official agency notices, as well as any new statements from Senators and regulatory staff about the CLARITY Act and related crypto amendments. The evolving stance from the White House and Congress will continue to shape the baseline for crypto regulatory risk, guiding how exchanges structure listings, how issuers approach token design, and how traders price risk in a landscape that remains in flux.
Investors and industry watchers should stay tuned to forthcoming White House feedback on the SEC’s proposals, the pace of the Senate Banking Committee’s work, and further clarity on how the CFTC and SEC will coordinate enforcement and policy in the months ahead.
US Senators Adam Schiff and John Curtis are expected to introduce a bipartisan bill on Monday that would bar sports betting and “casino-style” contracts from prediction markets regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), according to a Monday Wall Street Journal report.
“Too many young people in Utah are getting exposed to addictive sports betting and casino-style gaming contracts that belong under state control, not under federal regulators,” Senator Curtis, one of the bill’s co-sponsors, told the WSJ.
If introduced as reported, the measure would add to a widening Washington push against certain prediction market contracts. The report adds to the growing regulatory scrutiny over prediction markets, following renewed insider trading concerns sparked by the US-Israeli war with Iran.
On March 10, Schiff introduced the DEATH BETS Act, a bill seeking to prohibit CFTC-regulated prediction markets from listing contracts tied to war, terrorism, assassination and individual death.
Related: Prediction markets boom on Iran bets as Congress eyes ban
Sports markets drive trading volume
Sports betting is a leading source of trading activity on prediction market platforms. Sports-related contracts accounted for 47.7% of Polymarket’s weekly notional volume and 78.8% for Kalshi last week, according to Dune data.
Sports betting generated $1.2 billion in weekly notional trading volume for Polymarket and $2.6 billion for Kalshi.
State and federal lines blur
The regulatory pressure has also intensified outside Congress. On March 12, the CFTC issued a staff advisory classifying event contracts on prediction markets as a “financial asset class.”
The commodities regulator also submitted an Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, asking for public feedback on how the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA) would apply to prediction markets. Polymarket and Kalshi are regulated by the CFTC as Designated Contract Markets (DCM).
Related: Kalshi, Polymarket face trading halt in Nevada after court rulings
While CFTC Chair Michael Selig claimed the CFTC had “exclusive jurisdiction” over prediction markets, an Ohio judge tested that claim in a March 9 ruling, saying that Kalshi had failed to show the CEA “would necessarily preempt Ohio’s sports gambling laws,” or that these sports betting contracts would fall under the “exclusive jurisdiction” of the CFTC.
On Friday, a Nevada judge temporarily blocked Kalshi from offering sports, election and entertainment event contracts in the state for 14 days, finding regulators were reasonably likely to succeed in arguing the markets violated Nevada gambling law.
Cointelegraph approached the senators for comment and a copy of the draft bill.
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Sunday’s $23 million hack of Resolv’s stablecoin USR has led to contagion across the DeFi sector.
Opportunistic traders used depegged USR to borrow against, draining liquidity in over a dozen yield vaults.
To make things worse, so-called “risk curators” then automatically allocated more funds to broken markets as lending rates spiked.
In November, a similar contagion hit DeFi’s “curated” vault ecosystem after Stream Finance announced a $93 million loss, leading to a 75% of xUSD.
Despite discussions of risk ratings and curators putting up first-loss capital in the aftermath, it appears not much was learned, after all.
Read more: Four months on, MEV Capital falls victim to $4B DeFi daisy chain implosion
The hack
Resolv Labs’ statement confirmed that a private key compromise led to the unauthorized (and unrestricted) “minting of approximately $80 million of uncollateralized USR.”
USR’s pre-hack token supply remains fully backed, with losses coming from liquidity providers (LPs) on decentralized exchanges as the hacker sold the minted tokens. For example, LPs on Curve Finance alone are estimated to have lost $17 million.
The hacker’s sell-off caused a depeg of USR, which is currently trading at $0.23, according to CoinMarketCap data. Blockchain security firm Beosin puts the attacker’s profits at 11,409 ether (ETH), worth over $23 million at the time of writing.
The Resolv team faced criticism for a slow response time while collecting the necessary multisig signatures to pause the protocol.
It has contacted the exploiter on-chain, requesting return of 90% of the converted ETH, as well as the remaining USR.
Read more: Venus Protocol hacker lost $4.7M after nine months of planning
The fallout
The hack may have been simple, but the knock-on effects have been anything but.
Depegged USR was pounced upon by opportunistic traders who used it to drain yield vaults with hardcoded price oracles. In buying cheap USR to use as collateral, users could borrow other assets, such as USDC, as if USR were still worth $1.
Read more: Oracle error adds to turmoil at DeFi giant Aave
As if things weren’t bad enough, “risk curators” automated strategies then allocated further funds to the affected markets, whose high utilization had spiked supply yields.
Chaos Labs’ Omer Goldberg explained how Morpho’s Public Allocator feature allowed curators “including Gauntlet, re7, kpk, and 9summits” to autoallocate millions of dollars worth of assets into markets “based on pre-configured and approved caps and credit lines.”
In some cases, Goldberg says, allocation into broken vaults continued for hours.
The chaos also brought innovation, however, as the auto-allocations were even specifically targeted to free up additional liquidity. Enterprising competitors Obsidian also capitalized on the incident, offering a migration service to users whose deposits are stuck in illiquid Morpho vaults
Assessing the damage
Morpho’s Paul Frambot tallied 15 affected vaults with over $10,000 of exposure to USR.
According to security researcher Weilin Li, curators of the affected vaults, on Morpho and elsewhere, include Gauntlet, Re7, MEV Capital, Extrafi, Seamless, August, Clearstar, kpk, Leyrock and 9Summits.
For those who followed November’s collapse, many of these names may be familiar.
Yearn, whose contributors were amongst the harshest critics of the yield vaults which led to November’s crash, suffered a minimal loss of $377.
Ironically (or tellingly), Resolv’s own risk manager, Steakhouse, wasn’t exposed to USR, despite stating that “operationally, Resolv demonstrates institutional rigor” just five days before the hack.
The backing of Inverse Finance’s DOLA stablecoin was indirectly exposed to the depeg of USR, with the team pledging to patch the $340,000 hole.
A number of lending markets paused USR markets, including Venus Protocol, which was itself hacked last weekend, and Lista.
Fluid was the worst hit, and may have accrued up to $17.5 million of bad debt. However, the team reassured users that it had “secured short-term loans to cover 100% of the bad debt.”
It also considers selling FLUID tokens “should any additional funds be required.”
Following a dicey few months for top dog lending protocol Aave, with governance drama and an oracle mishap, Aave Labs’ Stani Kulechov was keen to highlight Aave’s lack of exposure.
DeFi daisy chain
The web of platforms affected by the compromise of a single private key is a stark reminder of how one of DeFi’s key innovations, interoperability, is a double-edged sword.
Automated allocation may optimize returns under normal conditions, but when things break, which they often do in DeFi, unintended behavior follows.
Without their own funds in play, the current setup incentivises “malicious game theory pushing [curators] to seek more risk.”
This latest episode has renewed calls for curators to have skin in the game. One approach is tranching of deposits, with curators set to lose out first should their risk be improperly “curated.”
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Glider and Ondo Finance have introduced a platform to let retail investors build and automate custom portfolios of tokenized US stocks, offering direct exposure to equities without a brokerage account.
According to the announcement, the platform allows users to create personalized baskets of onchain stocks that track real-world assets, removing the need for wallets, gas fees or manual transaction management.
Glider co-founder and CEO Brian Huang told Cointelegraph that unlike traditional exchange-traded funds, which bundle assets into fixed products, the platform lets users construct index-like portfolios with custom weightings that are automatically maintained, avoiding reliance on pooled products.
The platform automatically executes and rebalances these portfolios, allowing users to gain exposure to tokenized equities without managing individual trades. The assets track underlying shares and can be traded beyond standard market hours.
Huang added that the model avoids the liquidity constraints that have limited earlier tokenized ETF offerings. He said:
“This is the first time direct indexing has been offered for onchain stocks… The problem that all ETFs have had on chain is liquidity. There’s no liquidity constraint on Glider because these are directly indexed. You hold the underlying assets and tap into their underlying liquidity.”
Tokenized stocks on Ondo’s platform are designed to mirror the price of their underlying shares and can be transferred and traded onchain, while Glider automates portfolio construction and rebalancing without requiring users to execute transactions manually.
The initial rollout will focus on tokenized US equities, with plans to expand into additional asset classes such as commodities, while also introducing features that allow users to lend positions and generate yield on their holdings.
A spokesperson for Ondo said the platform is not currently available to US users but said the company holds several SEC registrations, positioning it for a potential future launch in the United States.
Related: Binance adds Ondo’s tokenized stocks in latest RWA push
Tokenized stocks grow alongside evolution of crypto ETPs
Tokenized equities and crypto exchange-traded products (ETPs) have both expanded rapidly over the past year.
Data from RWA.xyz shows the total value of tokenized real-world assets (RWA) has grown sharply to around $26.5 billion, up from around $7.5 billion the same time last year. Among the RWAs onchain, around $908.5 million are tokenized stocks.
At the same time, crypto ETPs have moved beyond spot Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) funds, with issuers increasingly exploring more complex and actively managed products.
In February, crypto ETP issuer 21Shares launched a new product offering European investors exposure to a preferred stock issued by Michael Saylor’s Strategy, the largest public holder of Bitcoin. The 21Shares Strategy Yield ETP is available to institutional and retail investors and offers a dividend linked to Strategy’s Bitcoin holdings.
21Shares president Duncan Moir told Cointelegraph the product improves access to Strategy’s STRC preferred stock, which is not widely available or easily cross-listed, while expanding distribution and liquidity through its ETP structure.
He added that the structure also simplifies tax treatment for European investors by handling reporting and withholding at the product level. Moir said:
It’s probably the product we’re seeing the most interest in across multiple regions. From the day we launched it, we’ve had more inbound inquiries to the sales team than for any crypto product, to be honest.
Earlier this month, BlackRock expanded its crypto lineup with a Nasdaq-listed product tied to Ethereum staking. The iShares Staked Ethereum Trust ETF (ETHB) provides spot Ether exposure while generating potential monthly income by staking a portion of its holdings.
However, BlackRock’s head of digital assets, Robert Mitchnick, said the asset management behemoth plans to remain cautious in expanding its crypto ETF offerings, despite growing interest in more complex structures.
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