Uncategorized
2 More U.S. Regulatory Dominos May Have Fallen for Crypto: OCC and CFPB

The crypto industry can likely look forward to two more agencies falling into line on its digital assets policy aims: the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, which is one of the chief U.S. banking regulators, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, where the lights are effectively being shut off.
The sector’s dicey relationship with U.S. banking can be expected to be further mitigated with the arrival of a new stand-in chief at the OCC, Rodney Hood, the crypto-friendly former chairman of the U.S. credit-union watchdog. As with other key financial oversight positions, President Donald Trump has tapped somebody who embraces cryptocurrency technology.
When running the credit-union agency in 2021, he’d said, «Cryptocurrency needs to be a part of the credit union system. If you don’t have it, it’s going to hurt your ability to compete with other financial services providers.» Substituting banks for credit unions in that sentiment could mean a rethinking of the OCC’s guidance to banks in 2021 that contributed to the rift between crypto firms and U.S. banking services.
The main thrust of the 2021 guidance from the OCC, Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and the Federal Reserve was that banks shouldn’t get into crypto business without getting a formal sign-off from their regulators that the products or services could be handled without risking the institution. But the industry has argued that the resistance from the agencies went even farther than that and pushed banks away from digital assets entirely.
Trump’s new acting head of the FDIC, Travis Hill, has already said he’s ordered «a comprehensive review of all supervisory communications with banks that sought to offer crypto-related products or services» with the aim of opening a path for banks to engage with digital assets.
With the removal, also, of the Securities and Exchange Commission’s crypto accounting policy that effectively piled additional capital requirements on banks that wanted to handle crypto for clients, the banking impediments for digital assets may be falling away.
Read More: Crypto’s U.S. Banking Problem Likely Among the First Things Tackled Under Trump
At the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the watchdog established after the global financial meltdown in 2008, is seeing its very existence under assault from Republicans who have long had issues with the agency’s fights with corporations. Trump installed his budget chief, Russ Vought, as the acting head of CFPB, and he’s moved to choke off its financing and cripple its operations.
A cheer went up from certain figures in crypto, including Brian Armstrong, the CEO of Coinbase. His company was a frequent subject of consumer complaints logged on the agency’s database — almost 8,000 at last count. Armstrong said in a post on social media site X that the agency «should be deleted, » calling it an unconstitutional «activist organization that has done enormous harm to the country.» (Though the U.S. Supreme Court ruled last year that the CFPB’s operation doesn’t run afoul of the Constitution.)
Apart from what past leadership saw as its duty to protect consumers harmed by crypto firms, the agency was also seeking some additional policy authority over the industry. In January, its now-dismissed previous director pushed for a stablecoin regulation that the industry felt was an overreach that also threatened self-hosted wallets. But the proposal is unlikely to move further now that the agency’s activity has been frozen in the Trump administration.
The administration’s CFPB attack has drawn resistance from Democratic lawmakers, including Senator Elizabeth Warren, the top Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee, and Representative Maxine Waters, who occupies that same role at the House Financial Services Committee.
«Elon Musk and the guy who wrote Project 2025, Russ Vought, are trying to kill the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau,» Warren said in a video released on Monday, criticizing Trump’s administration for its pursuit of the consumer agency. «This is the payoff to the rich guys who invested in his campaign and who want to cheat families — and not have anybody around to stop them.»
Democrats intend to hold a rally at the CFPB later Monday afternoon.
Also on Monday, Waters released the text of the stablecoin bill she’d worked out with her previous Republican counterpart on the committee, former Chairman Patrick McHenry. This more bipartisan compromise effort, though, isn’t what’s currently on offer from Republicans. However, if both chambers eventually seek a bipartisan agreement on stablecoins that can comfortably pass muster in the Senate, it may have to address Democrats’ concern about giving the states a high level of supervisory authority over stablecoin issuers.
Uncategorized
Brazil Bars Major Pension Funds From Investing in Cryptocurrencies

Brazil’s top financial policy body banned some pension funds from investing in cryptocurrencies because they are too risky.
The National Monetary Council (CMN) forbade closed pension entities known as Entidades Fechadas de Previdência Complementar (EFPCs) from allocating any portion of their guarantee reserves into bitcoin (BTC) or other digital currencies.
The EFPCs manage retirement savings for tens of thousands of unionized and company-employed workers and their reserves are typically made up of bonds and equities.
“The resolution also prohibits investments in virtual assets, considering their specific investment characteristics and associated risk,” a Ministry of Finance notice circulating among local news outlets reads.
The ruling was published last week under under Resolution 5.202/2025 by the National Monetary Council (CMN).
In contrast, last year British pension specialist Cartwright guided the country’s first pension fund to make a bitcoin allocation worth 3% of its assets. Several U.S. states have begun experimenting with crypto allocations for their pension systems, despite federal-level caution. Wisconsin’s state investment board, for example, revealed in February it had invested $340 million in bitcoin through BlackRock’s ETF (IBIT).
The ruling does not appear to apply to open pension funds or individual retirement products sold by banks and insurers. These are regulated separately and may allow indirect investment through exchange-traded funds or tokenized asset platforms.
Uncategorized
Metaplanet Issues $13M Zero-Coupon Bond to Buy More Bitcoin

Japanese hotel firm Metaplanet (3350) has issued a 2 billion yen ($13.3 million) zero-coupon ordinary bond, with proceeds earmarked for additional bitcoin (BTC) purchases. The bond is scheduled to redeem on Sept. 30.
In addition, Metaplanet has been added to the BetaShares Crypto Innovators ETF (CRYP), a fund with over $50 billion in assets under management, according to CEO Simon Gerovich.
Metaplanet holds the largest weighting in the ETF at 15.5%, surpassing notable industry names such as Strategy (MSTR) and Coinbase (COIN), which take the second and third spots, respectively.
The ETF is traded on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) and offers investors exposure to companies operating at the forefront of the crypto and blockchain sectors. While, the CRYP ETF is down 23% year-to-date.
Metaplanet is currently ranked as the tenth-largest publicly listed holder of bitcoin, with a treasury of 3,200 BTC.
Disclaimer: Parts of this article were generated with the assistance from AI tools and reviewed by our editorial team to ensure accuracy and adherence to our standards. For more information, see CoinDesk’s full AI Policy.
Uncategorized
Decentralized Commerce Agents Will Finally Give Us Perfect Markets

Economists have long theorized about «perfect markets» — where buyers and sellers operate with complete information, zero transaction costs, and frictionless exchange. Despite technological advances, this ideal remains elusive in today’s fragmented digital economy.
Our current commerce landscape is siloed across competing platforms, each creating its own walled garden. Amazon, eBay, and specialized marketplaces for luxury goods may have digitized commerce, but they’ve simply replaced physical barriers with digital ones. These platforms deliberately maintain high costs and barriers designed to prevent users from migrating to competitors. Algorithms deployed by these platforms are trained explicitly to maximize revenue by adjusting prices dynamically based on comprehensive market data, often keeping prices artificially elevated depending on the broader internet pricing environment.
Such practices result in significant price disparities for identical assets across platforms. Inefficiencies persist because the costs of exploiting them—such as substantial platform fees, lengthy onboarding requirements, limited interoperability, and time delays in transactions—typically outweigh potential arbitrage profits. When the cost to exploit a price difference exceeds the potential earnings from the trade, these inefficiencies remain entrenched, allowing platforms to maintain control over users..
Platforms: Efficient Coordinators, Extractive Middlemen
Today’s platforms serve two essential functions: they aggregate supply and demand, and they establish trusted exchange mechanisms. But they operate with fundamentally misaligned incentives. Platforms don’t work for users; they work for shareholders, with a fiduciary duty to maximize extraction.
This results in market failures where platforms invariably exploit their position as intermediaries through high fees, manipulated search results, and proprietary ecosystems designed to lock in participants. The platform model is inherently extractive by design.
The AI-Crypto Revolution in Commerce
The convergence of two powerful technologies is about to disrupt this status quo: AI agents and crypto protocols.
AI agents can perform many platform functions — especially supply and demand aggregation — at a fraction of the cost. Unlike platforms, these agents work directly for users, fundamentally realigning incentives. Meanwhile, crypto protocols solve the fair — exchange problem through low-cost, trust-minimized transactions where users only need to trust audited, immutable code rather than corporate intermediaries.
The combination creates what I call «decentralized commerce agents» — AI that can efficiently discover price differences across marketplaces while using crypto protocols to facilitate secure, low-cost exchange. This dramatically reduces the total cost of arbitrage, suddenly making previously non-viable price differences economically feasible to exploit.
The Path to Perfect Markets
Here’s where it gets interesting: by enabling these agents to retain profits from successful arbitrage operations, they can strategically redistribute gains to incentivize adoption of decentralized commerce protocols. Each successful arbitrage can offer discounts to buyers, bonuses to sellers, and fund continued development of the agent ecosystem.
This creates a powerful feedback loop: more users generate more transactions, which create more arbitrage opportunities, yielding more profits, which attract more users. Each cycle consolidates liquidity on decentralized protocols while reducing the viability of isolated, extractive platforms.
The result is a steady progression toward that theoretical ideal of a perfect market — a single, liquid marketplace for all assets with minimal transaction costs, maximum price transparency, and efficient pricing.
Why This Matters
For consumers, this means lower prices, better selection, and truly competitive markets free from platform manipulation. For businesses, it means direct access to customers without paying exorbitant platform taxes. For society, it means markets that more efficiently allocate resources based on actual supply and demand rather than platform algorithmic manipulation.
The technical pieces are falling into place. AI capabilities are advancing rapidly, while crypto protocols for decentralized commerce continue to mature. What’s missing is the recognition of how powerful these technologies become when combined specifically to disrupt platform economics.
Decentralized commerce agents represent not merely an incremental improvement but a fundamental realignment of economic coordination. For the first time, we have the tools to make perfect markets more than just a theoretical construct in economics textbooks. The question is whether we’ll seize this opportunity to build a more efficient, accessible, and equitable commercial landscape for everyone.
-
Fashion6 месяцев ago
These \’90s fashion trends are making a comeback in 2017
-
Entertainment6 месяцев ago
The final 6 \’Game of Thrones\’ episodes might feel like a full season
-
Fashion6 месяцев ago
According to Dior Couture, this taboo fashion accessory is back
-
Entertainment6 месяцев ago
The old and New Edition cast comes together to perform
-
Sports6 месяцев ago
Phillies\’ Aaron Altherr makes mind-boggling barehanded play
-
Entertainment6 месяцев ago
Disney\’s live-action Aladdin finally finds its stars
-
Business6 месяцев ago
Uber and Lyft are finally available in all of New York State
-
Sports6 месяцев ago
Steph Curry finally got the contract he deserves from the Warriors