Bitcoin touched $70,000 · SEC and Treasury both filed rules — Thu 20 Aug

Bitcoin touched $70,000 on Wednesday for the first time since June, after the US Treasury doubled its bond buybacks. In the same three days the SEC proposed a crypto rulebook, the Treasury filed the first stablecoin rules, and the president met the industry at the White House.

💎 What actually moved the price, and what only happened at the same time
💎 The SEC's two exemptions, and the safe harbour attached to them
💎 HSBC and Standard Chartered move tokenized deposits between banks
💎 Citi will hold bitcoin on the same balance sheet as your equities
💎 More than 100,000 merchants take stablecoins without knowing it

— Morten

Bitcoin traded above $69,000 on Wednesday and briefly touched $70,000 on Coinbase, the first time since 2 June, after the US Treasury at least doubled its long-dated bond buybacks. The move carried the price through a technical level traders had watched all month, and forced liquidations amplified it. More than 110,000 traders were closed out over the day.

Why it matters: Four things landed in the same week — a liquidity measure, a White House meeting, an SEC proposal and a technical break. Which of them the market was actually responding to will only be clear in hindsight.

Source: Bitcoin broke out of its summer lull as several drivers landed at once — Kaupr

The SEC proposed Regulation Crypto Assets on Tuesday, a tailored offering regime for investment contracts involving crypto assets. It creates two exemptions from registration: $5 million over four years for start-ups, and $75 million in any twelve-month period. A conditional safe harbour applies once an issuer has completed or permanently ceased the managerial work it promised. The rules would override state registration requirements.

Why it matters: Rules made by an agency can be unmade by the next one, and are open to legal challenge in a way legislation is not. That is the trade the industry is now accepting.

Source: SEC Proposes New Regulation Crypto Assets — SEC

The Treasury proposed rules on Monday defining when a payment stablecoin counts as issued in the United States — the boundary that decides who needs a licence. A stablecoin is issued not when the tokens are created but at first transfer to a user, and returning a token to the issuer resets that. Exchanges could face liability for knowingly assisting an unlicensed initial distribution.

Why it matters: The GENIUS Act takes effect in January 2027 and its own one-year deadline for finished regulations passed last month unmet. This is the first piece of it arriving in draft.

Source: Treasury proposes GENIUS Act regulations on payment stablecoin issuance, offer, and sale — US Department of the Treasury

HSBC and Standard Chartered have completed the first live cross-border transaction on Swift's blockchain ledger, recorded as obligations on each bank's own tokenized deposit system. Swift matched and netted what the banks owed each other before settlement went through existing systems. Seventeen banks across six continents are in the pilot.

Why it matters: Each bank keeps its own deposit infrastructure and gains a way to reach the others. That is a different proposition from asking everyone to move onto one chain.

Source: HSBC and Standard Chartered execute first live transaction on Swift's blockchain-based ledger — Finextra

Citi announced on Tuesday that bitcoin custody for institutional clients will launch later this year, letting them hold digital and traditional assets within the same framework. The bank plans to hold the tokens itself rather than route them through an outside custodian. No launch date, fee structure or clients have been disclosed.

Why it matters: Asset managers have wanted a regulated bank rather than a crypto-native firm to hold digital assets. Citi is answering that with the same balance sheet that already holds their equities.

Source: Citi plans to launch bitcoin custody for institutional clients later this year — CoinDesk

Kraken has opened commission-free trading in more than 7,000 US-listed stocks across the European Economic Area, making it the only crypto exchange offering both conventional shares and tokenized versions of the same companies in one account. The equities side runs under MiFID II, the crypto side under MiCA. The tokenized versions give price exposure rather than shareholder rights.

Why it matters: A customer can now hold the same company two ways in one place, with different legal positions attached. Whether people notice the difference is the open question.

Source: Kraken adds U.S. stocks in Europe as TradFi-crypto divide blurs — CoinDesk

Cantor Fitzgerald will act as introducing broker for block trades in event contracts on Kalshi, giving hedge funds and family offices a route into prediction markets at institutional size. Susquehanna provides pricing and liquidity. Cantor says hedge funds want contracts tied directly to iPhone sales rather than to Apple's share price.

Why it matters: A contract on iPhone units is a cleaner expression of a view than buying Apple stock and hoping the rest of the business cooperates. That is what institutions are actually buying here.

Source: Cantor opens Kalshi prediction markets to thousands of institutional clients — CoinDesk

The Wyoming Stable Token Commission has moved its Frontier Stable Token to Chainlink's cross-chain protocol, after a security review that identified concerns about LayerZero's disclosure practices and operational security. It is the first time a US public body has publicly replaced blockchain infrastructure on those grounds. The token itself is capitalised at under $1 million.

Why it matters: A state naming a vendor's disclosure practices as its reason gives every other public body a precedent to cite. The size of the token is beside the point.

Source: Wyoming joins $15 billion LayerZero exodus with state stablecoin move — CoinDesk

Rain's chief executive Farooq Malik told the Wyoming Blockchain Symposium that stablecoin payments routed by the firm already reach over 100,000 merchants who are unaware of it, settling through Visa in about three days. Merchants could opt to settle in stablecoins the same day instead. Malik also described scoped cards, which give AI agents limited authority to transact within set spending caps.

Why it matters: Adoption that requires nobody to change what they do is the kind that gets counted late. The merchant sees a card payment; what moved behind it is somebody else's problem.

Source: Rain CEO says stablecoin payments reach more than 100,000 merchants without them knowing it — The Block

FirstBlock-athon runs 7–11 September as part of Nordic Tech Week, and the challenges are split across eight themes — only two of them sit inside finance. Today's broadcast is about the other six. UNICEF brings the problem of documenting that an aid programme works without exposing the people receiving help. The Swedish Red Cross brings the security of the messaging services its volunteers depend on. AIMS-Management brings identity verification for people who make a living creating content.

Free, 11:00 to 12:30 CET, live on YouTube and Kaupr. Kaupr is media partner and organiser of the pre-events.

Read more: Hackathon in Stockholm takes blockchain beyond finance — Kaupr

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Wishing you a good Thursday — and welcome back tomorrow morning for the next edition of Kaupr Daily.

Best regards Morten Myrstad Founder & Editor