The SEC’s handling of cases involving Justin Sun and Elon Musk was among the factors that caused the agency’s top enforcement official to quit, according to sources. Update (March 25, 12:18 am UTC): This article has been updated to add a response from the SEC. The US Securities and Exchange Commission's former top enforcement official reportedly clashed with the regulator’s top brass before resigning last week, with part of the reason being how the agency handled cases involving those close to US President Donald Trump. Margaret Ryan, the ex-director of the SEC's Division of Enforcement, wanted to pursue fraud and other charges in cases involving those in Trump’s orbit, but was resisted by SEC Chair Paul Atkins and other Republican political appointees, Reuters reported on Monday, citing people familiar with the matter. Read more
Bitcoin moved back above $71,000 after US President Donald Trump postponed Iran strike for five days, sending oil price crashing below $100. Bitcoin (BTC) broke back toward $71,000 during Monday’s European trading session as US President Donald Trump said attacks on Iran’s power infrastructure would be postponed. Key takeaways: Bitcoin bounces 5% to $71,000 after President Trump said US attacks on Iran's infrastructure would be postponed. Read more
Bitcoin and Asian markets dropped on Monday as Iran escalated threats to strike critical infrastructure in the Gulf. Crypto and the wider markets tumbled on Monday as the US and Iran escalated threats toward one another for the fourth week, sending oil prices seesawing. US President Donald Trump posted to Truth Social on Sunday that the US would “hit and obliterate” Iranian power plants, “starting with the biggest one first,” if the country didn’t open the Strait of Hormuz within 48 hours. Iran responded by saying it will answer any US strikes on its power or water infrastructure with attacks on US and Israeli assets in the Gulf and threatened to completely close the Strait, one of the world’s vital oil shipping lanes. Read more
Dominari Securities, tied to Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr., is among the brokerages named in the congressional probe. US lawmakers have launched an investigation into several Wall Street underwriters, including Dominari Securities, whose parent company is linked to the Trump family, over their role in bringing Chinese companies to US stock markets that were later tied to stock manipulation schemes. On Monday, the House of Representatives Select Committee on China, chaired by Representative John Moolenaar with Rep. Ro Khanna as ranking member, sent letters to three US companies — D. Boral Capital, Dominari Securities and Revere Securities — seeking information about Chinese initial public offerings (IPOs) they helped underwrite. “These scam centers defraud American households through coordinated “ramp-and-dump” stock manipulation schemes involving Chinese shell companies listed on American exchanges, which your firm appears to facilitate,” the lawmakers wrote. Read more
Mixers, privacy coins and the threat quantum computing could pose to Bitcoin were all points of speculation across the industry following the release of Trump’s Cyber Strategy. Crypto industry executives are combing through US President Donald Trump’s National Cyber Strategy after it was released on Friday, searching for hints about what it could signal for government support of the crypto industry. “Crypto and blockchain are explicitly named as technologies to be 'protected and secured.’ This is a first for any US cybersecurity strategy,” Galaxy Digital’s head of firmwide research Alex Thorn said in an X post on Friday. Crypto and blockchain were mentioned once in the six-page report: Read more
The US Federal Reserve has issued a limited-use master account to Kraken, marking a major pro-crypto shift in policy. Recent events at the US Federal Reserve signal acceptance of digital assets at the highest levels of the country’s monetary system. Kraken recently became the first crypto exchange to receive a master account at the Federal Reserve. The Fed could also see a new crypto-friendly chair. US President Donald Trump on Wednesday submitted a pro-Bitcoin candidate for the Senate’s consideration. Read more
The post from Eric Trump, tagging his crypto company, came hours after his father claimed banks were holding a market structure bill “hostage.” Eric Trump, son of US President Donald Trump and one of the co-founders of the family-backed crypto business World Liberty Financial, has jumped on the anti-bank messaging that many in the industry are espousing amid disagreements over how to handle stablecoin rewards. In a Wednesday X post, Eric Trump echoed his father, claiming that banks were “desperately targeting” cryptocurrencies and stablecoins as discussions lag on the market structure bill in the US Senate. The post came hours after the president posted a similar message claiming that banks were holding the legislation “hostage.” The issue of stablecoin yield has been dividing many US lawmakers, banking industry representatives, and crypto companies, stymieing the market structure legislation. Eric Trump and many in the crypto industry oppose a ban on stablecoin yield, arguing it would “block any rewards or p...
Anthropic previously secured a $200 million Pentagon contract, and its AI has been used in classified operations, including support for US airstrikes on Iran, the Financial Times reports. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has reportedly reopened negotiations with the US Department of Defense in a last-minute effort to secure continued access to Pentagon contracts as the company faces the possibility of being labeled a supply chain risk by the Trump administration. Amodei has been holding discussions with Emil Michael, the US undersecretary of defense for research and engineering, to finalize terms governing the military’s use of Anthropic’s artificial intelligence models, the Financial Times reported, citing people familiar with the matter. A new agreement would allow the Pentagon to keep using the company’s technology and could prevent a formal designation that would force contractors in the defense supply chain to cut ties with the AI developer, according to the report. Read more
Bitcoin has jumped as well, increasing 7.6% in the last 24 hours, while Ether is up more than 8.3% to trade at $2,132. Crypto-related stocks surged on Wednesday as recent pro-crypto commentary from the US president pushed Bitcoin and the broader crypto market higher. Alongside a rise in the cryptocurrency market, the Bitcoin (BTC) treasury company Strategy spiked by more than 10%. Crypto exchange Coinbase registered a more than 14% gain, while miners Hut 8 clocked 13.89% and American Bitcoin Corp rose 11.65%. Dominick John, an analyst at Zeus Research, told Cointelegraph the promise of clearer regulations on the near horizon could be one of the factors fueling the rally. Read more
The US President makes it official after previously announcing his pick of Kevin Warsh to replace Fed chair Jerome Powell in a Jan. 30 social media post. The US Senate will soon vote on Donald Trump’s nominee to head the US Federal Reserve after the president picked Kevin Warsh, who has previously expressed pro-Bitcoin views, to replace Fed chair Jerome Powell. In a Wednesday notice, the White House said that Trump had sent Warsh’s nomination to the Senate to be chair of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve for a term of four years, and as a Fed governor for 14 years. The president had previously taken to social media to announce Warsh was his pick to replace Powell, whose term as chair ends in May but may stay on as a Fed governor until 2028. Warsh served as a Fed governor under former US Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama from 2006 to 2011. He went on to become a Shepard Family Distinguished Visiting Fellow in Economics at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University. Read more
The meeting reportedly happened hours before Donald Trump posted to his social media platform, echoing some of Brian Armstrong's public statements about stablecoin yield. US President Donald Trump reportedly met with Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong just hours before issuing a statement criticizing banks for holding a market structure bill “hostage.” According to a Tuesday Politico report, Trump met privately with Armstrong after a group of Coinbase representatives went to the White House. The details of the reported meeting were unclear, but the president posted to his Truth Social channel afterwards, that “the US needs to get Market Structure done, ASAP.” “The banks are hitting record profits, and we are not going to allow them to undermine our powerful Crypto Agenda [...],” said Trump in his Tuesday post. Read more