Good Morning,

Here's a quick preview of today’s content: Teachers union urges Senate to scrap crypto structure bill, Ninth defendant pleads guilty in $263M crypto scheme, Company files for a "AfterDark" Bitcoin ETF, JPMorgan analysts doubt crypto winter is coming, NFT monthly sales hit lowest point of the year, and so much more

Happy Wednesday - Let’s dive in.

Market Snapshot

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• Crypto markets rally as shorts unwind ahead of the Fed decision

  • Bitcoin, Ethereum, and XRP spike as short liquidations top $260M

  • BTC surges to $94K ahead of the expected Fed rate cut

  • ETH, ADA, and SOL steady as data shows Europe drove the deepest BTC sell-off since 2018

  • Spot DOGE ETF trading volume drops to its lowest level since launch

Prediction Markets

• Bettors on Polymarket are predicting Who will Trump nominate as Fed Chair?

• Track and trade live odds on any event, only on Polymarket

Headline Roundup
^{_{The major headlines driving crypto markets}}

• Michael Saylor urges Middle East to become 'Switzerland of Bitcoin banking' (CD)

• US tech giants unite to battle China’s AI dominance (DC)

• JPMorgan analysts doubt crypto winter is coming (DC)

• Binance founder CZ says 4-year Bitcoin cycle is over (BM)

• Standard Chartered slashes Bitcoin forecast to $100K (DC)

• Trump ally plots gamified bid to boost memecoin after crash (BBG)

• 400K Bitcoin have peeled off exchanges since last year (CT)

• Twenty One Capital vows to buy ‘as much Bitcoin as possible’ (BM)

• BMW taps JPMorgan for on-chain programmable payment (CD)

• Bitcoin retail inflows to Binance collapse to 400 BTC (CT)

• Bitwise CIO sees crypto growing 10-20x (TB)

• Fitch flags risk for US banks with high crypto exposure (CT)

• Saylor says Strategy won’t issue preferred equity in Japan (CD)

• Ethereum network sees 62% drop in fees (CT)

• NFT monthly sales hit lowest point of the year (CT)

• Polymarket trading figures are being double-counted (CT)

• Blockchain trial on Canton Network tests collateral reuse (CT)

• Securitize hires former PayPal exec as general counsel (TB)

• Zcash founder joins ZEC treasury firm (DC)

• Luxor expands business into GPUs to support Bitcoin miners (TB)

• BTCC exchange integrates with TradingView (CD)

• Allora integrates TRON Network (CS)

• Zcash floats dynamic fee plan (CD)

Venture Capital

• IREN completes refinancing deal involving $2.3B convertible senior notes and $544.3M repurchase of existing notes (CD)

• Bitcoin treasury Strive announces $500M stock sales program to raise funds for additional BTC purchases (CT)

• RWA network Real Finance secures $29M in private funding from Nimbus Capital, Magnus Capital, and Frekaz Group (CT)

• Octra, a privacy-focused blockchain project, holds a $20M public token sale on Sonar at $200M valuation (TB)

• Crown, a Brazilian stablecoin issuer, raises $13.5M Series A led by Paradigm (VB)

• Decentralized liquidity platform Magma Finance raises $6M from HashKey Capital, SNZ, SevenX Ventures, Puzzle Ventures, Topspin Ventures, and NAVI Protocol (CA)

• Pye Finance, a Solana staking marketplace, raises $5M seed led by Variant and Coinbase Ventures (CD)

• Self-custody stablecoin neobank AllScale raises $5M seed led by YZI Labs with participation from Informed Ventures and Generative Ventures (GNW)

• Stablecoin issuer AUDC raises $5M Pre-Series A equity round led by inWelt Holdings (AF)

• Prediction-market leverage protocol Gondorfi raises $2.5M pre-seed from Prelude, Castle Island Ventures, and Maven 11 (X)

• Asgard Finance, a DeFi startup on Solana, raises $2.2M seed round led by Robot Ventures with participation from Solana Ventures, Colosseum, and more (PM)

• Peer-to-peer payments platform Frex raises $1M pre-seed round co-led by Zeropearl VC and White Venture Capital (ET)

• Footium, a multiplayer football-management gaming startup, raises $600k strategic angel round led by former striker Dimitar Berbatov (SM)

• TomNext, an AI-powered LP workflow platform, closes an undisclosed funding round led by Panghea Capital Partners with participation from Consello, and others (BW)

Access the complete VC deal flow on Fundable.

Launches

• PNC enables Bitcoin trading via Coinbase (DC)

• War department launches platform with Gemini (DC)

• Company files for a "AfterDark" Bitcoin ETF (DC)

• Jack Maller’s Twenty One Capital debuts on NYSE (CD)

• HashKey files for Hong Kong IPO (DC)

• Bitwise's crypto index gets uplisted to NYSE Arca (TB)

• Malaysia’s Royal unveils ringgit-backed stablecoin (CD)

• Privacy version of USDC rolls out via Aleo Network (DC)

• Stripe's Tempo payments blockchain opens to public (DC)

• El Salvador’s AuthenticDoc goes live (BM)

• Polygon deploys Madhugiri hard fork (CT)

• Vintage project Horizen relaunches on Base (TB)

• Swapper Finance launches card deposits via Mastercard (TD)

• Cascade unveils 24/7 neo-brokerage (CD)

• Daylight launches electricity markets DeFi protocol (CD)

• Exodus launches Exodus Pay (CD)

• VeChain unveils tokenomics upgrade (DC)

Regulation

• Senate barrels forward to advance major crypto bill (TB)

• Regulatory battle over tokenized stocks escalates (CD)

• SEC Chair Atkins says crypto ICOs are outside agency’s purview (DC)

• Teachers union urges Senate to scrap crypto structure bill (DC)

• Marjorie Taylor Greene claims loophole remains in GENIUS (DC)

• Parties call for investigation into Reform UK crypto donations (DC)

• Hong Kong launches CARF crypto tax (CT)

• OCC clears national banks to facilitate crypto transactions (CT)

• ASIC expands crypto relief for stablecoin intermediaries (DC)

• Circle wins ADGM license (DC)

• Tassat wins patent for 'yield-in-transit' on-chain tech (CD)

• Plume secures ADGM commercial license (CD)

• CryptoUK joins The Digital Chamber (TB)

• Do Kwon judge demands answers before sentencing (CD)

Cybersecurity

• Ninth defendant pleads guilty in $263M crypto scheme (DC)

• ChatGPT exposes $1M crypto 'pig-butchering' scam (DC)

• USDC holder loses $440k after signing a malicious transaction (DC)

• Arkham’s 'misleading' Zcash tracking claims spark outrage (TD)

• Hacken audit finds MEXC fully backed (CD)

Extra Reads

• Japan is in the process of introducing significant changes to crypto regulation, requiring exchanges to maintain special “liability reserves” - Here’s what liability reserves actually mean

• The House’s new 2026 defense bill directs the Pentagon to develop options to impose costs on state-backed hackers who target defense-critical infrastructure in cyberspace - Has Congress forced the Dept of War to use Bitcoin to bankrupt hackers?

Chart of the Day

Bitcoin supply on exchanges dropped by 403.2K BTC over the past year

Meme Dump

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*DISCLAIMER: Investment advice provided by Autopilot advisers LLC, an SEC registered investment advisor. Past performance does not guarantee future results. Investing carries risks including the risk of the loss of principal. Performance doesn’t include fees. See more here.