Between 2012 and 2025, global mobile data traffic grew more than 50% annually while operator service revenue increased less than 1% per year, according to McKinsey figures cited by Iris.

Telecom operators bring something financial apps often spend heavily trying to build: customers, verified identities and distribution.

That can be particularly powerful in emerging markets.

“In the U.S. the operator is like one rail among many,” Ava Labs Chief Business Officer John Nahas told CoinDesk. In markets such as Bolivia, by contrast, “the mobile carrier is often the rail that people do everything on.”

That is why Iris expects its initial expansion to focus on Latin America and potentially parts of Africa and Asia rather than the U.S., Nahas said.

VIVA offers an early test of whether that model can translate into better economics for carriers. Nahas said a super-app product used by VIVA helped reduce churn among prepaid mobile customers by 33% while increasing their lifetime value by 35%.

“When you start to see numbers like this, it just starts making a lot of sense,” he said, adding that Iris now needs more real-world case studies.

Stablecoins behind telecoms

Iris runs on a dedicated Avalanche Layer 1, giving the network control over its settlement, operating and compliance requirements. USDi serves as the settlement asset, while also giving VIVA the option to hold eligible operating reserves in dollars.

In VIVA’s case, using U.S. dollar stablecoin for settlements also means having the option to hold eligible operating reserves in U.S. dollars, which is particularly relevant in markets with volatile local currencies.

The central point of the deal is Payward is trying to bring a popular offshore and onchain trading product into a regulated U.S. structure while keeping trade matching and recordkeeping on Hyperliquid.

“A U.S. client would open a futures account with Payward’s registered broker and trade new perpetual futures contracts on Hyperliquid, cleared through the same clearinghouse that already supports the crypto perpetual contracts Payward offers U.S. clients today,” said Jon Pham, head of U.S. derivatives.

Payward acquired Bitnomial in May for $550 million. It bought NinjaTrader Clearing for $1.5 billion in 2025.

Perpetuals are derivative products that allow investors to place positions on the price movements of an underlying digital asset without owning the asset itself. Unlike traditional futures contracts, perps do not expire and can be maintained indefinitely. Traders make or receive periodic funding payments to keep their positions open.

The markets will run on Hyperliquid’s public blockchain, whose onchain order book matches and records trades. Bitnomial Exchange and Bitnomial Clearinghouse would act as the HIP-3 deployer, creating, owning and administering the market and clearing and settling the contracts. NinjaTrader Clearing, Payward’s registered futures commission merchant, would carry client accounts.

Payward did not disclose a fee schedule, expected trading volumes, details of any economic arrangement with Hyperliquid or a planned launch date. A Kraken spokesperson said it could not speculate on the potential revenue this would bring to the company, and did not address questions about expected trading volumes.

Yesterday morning, the head of the US Treasury proudly reported in front of Congress that the government had just run two of its best bond auctions in decades.

By 1pm, the Treasury conducted its worst 20-year bond auction in history.

On Tuesday, the US government had to pay a record-breaking 5.42% interest yield-to-maturity to sell its auction of 20 year maturity bonds — the most expensive cost of capital the US government has paid for Treasuries of this maturity since modern record-keeping began in 1986.

On a bit of a technicality, the government avoided paying 5.42% interest on the bonds, instead paying 5.125% yet selling them below par to mathematically offer 5.42% de facto yield to purchasers.

Worse, the particular type of investors Washington needs for offloading its sovereign debt — foreign investors — bought the lowest percentage ever of that $13 billion auction.

Record cost to borrow money for 20 years

Bond auctions aren’t complicated. The US Treasury offers IOUs, and buyers around the world name the yield they’ll accept.

At each live auction, yield-to-maturity is focus. The bond’s effective interest rate is the cost of capital for the US government.

The higher the yield, the less creditworthy the US government is in the opinion of bond traders. With $40.1 trillion and rising of outstanding debt that costs taxpayers over $1.1 trillion per year in interest payments, US debt-to-GDP at 123% is a growing concern for bond investors.

Tuesday’s sale was terrible on three counts.

The rate was the start of the disaster. Twenty-year bonds traded around 5.40% minutes before the sale and cleared at 5.42%. In other words, Washington paid more than the open market was charging at the end, just to find sufficient takers to fully clear the auction.

Traders call that additional 0.02% a two basis point “tail,” and it was the worst tail for any 20-year auction since 2024.

Second, the crowd mix was terrible. So-called “indirect bidders” are Treasury auction participants like foreign central banks and overseas buyers.

Like any sovereign, the US wants to sell as much of its debt to buyers abroad as possible.

Instead, indirect bidders took just 52.5% of yesterday’s auction, lower than August’s 62.9% and the lowest percentage on record for any 20-year Treasury auction since the 1980s besides a small, idiosyncratic $25 million special auction in 2021.

Third, the liquidity or depth of demand was thin as well, as measured by the bid-to-cover ratio. Specifically, bids covered yesterday’s bond sale 2.57 times, below the 2.65 average of the previous six auctions.

Hyperliquid’s HYPE token fell about 7.5% over the past week, retreating from $83.55 to around $78.70 as legal concerns and weaker technical momentum weighed on its recent rally.

HYPE price retreats from record high

Hyperliquid (HYPE) price traded near $78.70 on Sep. 16 after falling from an opening price of $83.55 on Sep. 10. The move represented a weekly decline of about 7.5%, although the token remained well above its August trading range.

The correction followed HYPE’s rally to a record high near $89 in early September. Daily candles show that buyers repeatedly failed to hold prices above the $88 area before sellers pushed the token below $82.

HYPE briefly dropped toward $76 on Sep. 16 before rebounding to around $78.70. The recovery showed that buyers remained active near the lower end of the week’s range, but price had yet to reclaim the technical levels that would signal a stronger reversal.

The pullback also followed federal charges against two former Robinhood engineers accused of using confidential listing information to trade perpetual futures on Hyperliquid.

Separate federal complaints alleged that Huaisong “Jerry” Xiang and Hefu Chai traded ahead of Robinhood’s public announcements. Prosecutors said each defendant earned more than $50,000 through the alleged activity. The allegations concern the individuals’ conduct and do not accuse Hyperliquid or its developers of participating in the scheme.

Short-term HYPE structure remains bearish

The 4-hour chart shows HYPE trading below the Supertrend indicator, which had shifted to resistance at $82.30. The indicator will continue to favor sellers unless the token closes above that level and holds it as support.

HYPE’s 4-hour Relative Strength Index stood at 47.77, while its RSI-based average was 45.16. The readings place momentum near neutral territory after recovering from a recent approach toward oversold conditions.

Price action has also formed a series of lower highs since the Sep. 7 peak. A rebound toward $80 stalled before reaching the Supertrend line, suggesting that sellers continue to defend rallies.

The $80 psychological level is the first barrier for buyers. A sustained move above it could allow HYPE to test the $82.18–$82.30 area, where the daily Bollinger Band midpoint and 4-hour Supertrend resistance converge.

A close above that zone would weaken the bearish short-term setup and expose $84.30, followed by the upper Bollinger Band near $88.53. The record area between $89 and $90 would become relevant only if HYPE clears those intermediate levels.

Daily Bollinger support protects the larger uptrend

The daily chart presents a less bearish picture than the 4-hour setup. HYPE remained above the lower Bollinger Band at $75.83 despite trading below the middle band at $82.18.

Daily RSI stood at 50.65, down from an overbought reading reached during the early-September rally. The indicator’s average remained higher at 57.48, showing that momentum has cooled faster than its recent trend.

A daily close below $75.83 would mark a more serious technical breakdown. The next visible support zone lies around $72, where HYPE consolidated before its late-August advance. A deeper correction could then bring the $68–$70 region back into focus.

The wider chart still shows a sequence of higher lows from the August bottom near $51. HYPE would therefore need to lose the mid-$70s support area before the larger recovery structure faces a clearer threat.

Holding $75.83 while reclaiming $82.30 would instead support a consolidation scenario between the lower and middle Bollinger Bands.

Liquidation map places liquidity near $80

CoinGlass’ 24-hour liquidation heatmap shows a dense liquidity cluster between roughly $78.40 and $78.90, close to HYPE’s current price. A second concentration appears between $79.70 and $80.50.

Those bands could attract price during a rebound because leveraged positions tend to accumulate around crowded levels. The heatmap does not show that all positions in those zones have already been liquidated; it identifies areas where forced closures could increase if price reaches them.

Above the market, the strongest nearby liquidity sits around $80.30. A move through that level could accelerate toward $81 and $82 as short positions face pressure.

Liquidity is also visible below price around $75–$76, aligning with the daily lower Bollinger Band. A break under $77 could therefore expose HYPE to a sweep of leveraged long positions before buyers attempt another recovery.

Token burns offer support during the correction

Onchain Lens reported that Hyperliquid bought and burned 36,720 HYPE worth about $2.84 million during a 24-hour period, at a volume-weighted average price of $77.31.

The account said lifetime burns had reached 48.67 million HYPE, valued at approximately $3.78 billion and equal to 4.87% of the token’s maximum supply. It also reported $2.14 million in rolling 24-hour fees and $2.07 million in HYPE-directed revenue.

The buyback mechanism may absorb part of the available sell-side supply, but the charts show that it has not yet restored bullish short-term momentum.

For HYPE, the immediate setup depends on whether buyers can defend $75.83 and push the price above $82.30. Remaining below that resistance would leave the token vulnerable to further consolidation, while a confirmed reclaim could reopen a path toward $84.30 and $88.53.

The U.S. Senate’s failure to advance the Digital Asset Market Clarity (CLARITY) Act has prompted expectations of faster, more direct rulemaking from the SEC and CFTC, according to analysts at Bernstein. With the bill not moving forward after a cloture vote on Tuesday, Bernstein said regulators are likely to “make up for the time lost” in developing their own frameworks for crypto markets.

In a Wednesday note shared with Cointelegraph, Bernstein argued the shift could still deliver meaningful regulatory guidance for the industry, even if the legislative approach that would have “fool-proofed the industry against political regime shifts” did not materialize. The analysts expect new agency rules to address issues ranging from how tokens are categorized to how certain decentralized finance (DeFi) activities might be treated.

Key takeaways

• With CLARITY failing to clear a cloture vote, Bernstein expects the SEC and CFTC to accelerate rulemaking instead of relying on a new statutory framework.
• New guidance may include token taxonomy for fundraising and investor protections aimed at developers and self-custodial protocols.
• Bernstein anticipates “innovation exemptions” that could support equity tokenization efforts under defined conditions.
• The SEC’s earlier proposal to clarify treatment of certain “investment contracts” provides a starting point for how regulators may structure safer harbors.

Why CLARITY’s setback changes the regulatory playbook

Earlier coverage from Cointelegraph noted that the U.S. Senate failed to advance the CLARITY Act after a cloture motion did not pass on Tuesday. The bill, according to Bernstein, would have offered the country’s first dedicated regulatory framework for digital assets.

Bernstein’s central point is that the regulatory agencies now have a new timeline pressure. Rather than continuing negotiations tied to the legislation’s prospects, the SEC and CFTC are expected to publish regulations meant to provide clarity more immediately. Bernstein also suggested that bringing the act back for another vote is unlikely, citing a limited window and concerns about ethics provisions.

For market participants, the practical implication is that uncertainty may persist—but it could shift form. Instead of waiting for Congress to define broad categories and boundaries, firms may need to adapt to agency rules that are narrower in scope yet faster to implement.

SEC groundwork: proposed rules for “certain investment contracts”

Bernstein’s expectations build on actions the SEC has already taken. On Aug. 19, Cointelegraph reported that the SEC proposed new rules to establish what the agency described as a “clear and fit-for-purpose framework for certain investment contracts involving crypto assets.” Those proposals are designed to let entities raise capital while preserving investor protection.

As reported by Cointelegraph, the SEC’s proposal includes exemptions that would allow crypto firms to issue up to $5 million in tokens over four years and up to $75 million over 12 months, along with a safe harbor intended to exempt cryptocurrencies from being treated as “investment contracts.”

Bernstein’s note implies that the agencies may use this approach as a template—tightening, expanding, or operationalizing rule details in response to the missed legislative path. Investors and token issuers, in turn, may focus on how their offerings fit within the boundaries of these frameworks, particularly around how contracts and rights are structured.

What Bernstein expects from the SEC and CFTC next

Bernstein said it expects agency regulations to cover several concrete areas for crypto businesses. The analysts highlighted token taxonomy for raising capital—an issue that matters because how regulators classify tokens can determine whether an offering or program is treated like an investment contract or falls under other regulatory categories.

Bernstein also pointed to developer protection measures for DeFi and self-custodial protocols. For builders, this could be significant: it suggests rulemaking may aim to address common architectural realities in DeFi where developers may not control user custody or operational decisions, while still addressing how investor protection principles apply.

In addition, Bernstein expected “innovation exemptions” for equity tokenization, implying regulators may carve out room for certain issuance models that resemble traditional equity structures—potentially with conditions intended to prevent broad sales practices from evading oversight.

Finally, Bernstein referenced faster approval times for real-world asset (RWA) perpetual futures and amendments to rules around federal sports even contracts and their classification as swaps. While these items are more technical and specific, they point to the agencies’ willingness to address market structure questions, not just fundraising token frameworks.

For traders and liquidity providers, the takeaway is that regulatory clarity might arrive in multiple layers: rules affecting issuance and governance may be complemented by guidance on derivative products and contract classifications.

Signals of urgency from SEC leadership

The sense that the SEC would move quickly without CLARITY is reinforced by public messaging from SEC leadership. Cointelegraph previously reported that on July 27, SEC Chair Paul Atkins told CNBC the agency was “ready, willing, and able to come out with rules” on digital assets if the Senate failed to pass the CLARITY Act.

This matters because it frames the likely regulatory response as proactive rather than reactive. If Bernstein’s expectation holds, firms should anticipate rulemaking momentum that is less dependent on congressional timing, even if the details ultimately differ from what a bill like CLARITY would have provided.

Where the picture remains uncertain is how comprehensively the agencies will harmonize their approaches across token issuance, DeFi developer responsibilities, and the treatment of derivative products. Bernstein expects a compensating wave of regulatory work, but the industry will still need to watch how the rules are finalized and how they apply in practice.

Next, market participants should monitor the SEC and CFTC for concrete drafts and timelines—especially around token taxonomy and any safe harbor or exemption mechanics that could determine how token offerings, DeFi participation, and certain derivative structures are regulated once CLARITY is off the table.