Court Hands CFTC Fresh Power Over Leveraged Crypto Products The Seventh Circuit just handed the Commodity Futures Trading Commission the legal weapon it has been hunting: the ability to treat leveraged crypto contracts as off-exchange retail commodity transactions that the agency can shut down unless they trade on a CFTC-registered exchange. The decision lands squarely…
Court Slams Brakes on SEC’s Token Crackdown The Fifth Circuit just handed the SEC a sharp rebuke in a case that could redraw the boundary between digital assets and federal oversight. In a terse but forceful opinion, the appellate panel vacated an enforcement action that had sought to treat certain blockchain tokens as securities, signaling…
Wintermute plans $1 billion AI push beyond crypto: Bloomberg Wintermute, a major crypto market maker, is planning an expansion into artificial intelligence that could involve deploying up to $1 billion, Bloomberg reported. According to the report, the initiative would represent a move beyond Wintermute’s core crypto trading and liquidity business. The planned scale suggests the…
Court Deals Blow to Crypto Trader’s Commodities Defense A New York appeals court just stripped a trader of his “I thought it was a commodity” defense and handed regulators a sharper blade. The ruling in Regal Commodities v Tauber tightens the legal definition of futures contracts and signals that courts will not let traders dodge…
CFTC WINS SHOWDOWN OVER KRAFT DOCUMENTS The Seventh Circuit just ordered Kraft to hand over internal trading records the CFTC has chased for four years, signaling that regulators will keep winning the fight for raw data even when the target is a blue-chip food company rather than a crypto exchange. The ruling tightens the net…
Court Orders Consolidation in Multi-State Crypto Suit Three federal judges just consolidated three crypto-related lawsuits into one courtroom in Chicago, a move that could shape how courts treat digital assets nationwide. Plaintiff Anthony Motto filed suit in the Northern District of Illinois claiming unregistered securities were sold through a now-collapsed crypto platform. Two similar suits—one…
JUDGES SHRED SEC’S STABLECOIN POWER PLAY The Fifth Circuit just slammed the SEC’s attempt to treat a dollar-pegged token as an unregistered security, delivering the first major appellate setback to the agency’s crypto enforcement sweep. The ruling signals that courts may no longer let the SEC redefine every digital dollar as an “investment contract,” and…
CFTC WINS NINTH CIRCUIT RULING ON PRECIOUS-METALS FRAUD The Ninth Circuit just handed the Commodity Futures Trading Commission its first major appellate victory against a precious-metals dealer in a decade, reversing a lower court that had dismissed the agency’s fraud claims. The three-judge panel ruled that Monex Credit and its affiliates can be sued under…
Riot’s Anthropic Deal Shows Bitcoin Miners Are Moving Deeper Into AI Compute The request did not include any raw content beyond the headline and an empty description field, so there isn’t enough verified information to write a news story without inventing facts. If you share the source text (press release excerpt, filing details, statement, or…
Court Hands CFTC Direct Control Over Crypto Derivatives The D.C. Circuit just handed the Commodity Futures Trading Commission a sweeping victory, ruling that the agency can treat any crypto contract tied to a future price as a futures contract under its jurisdiction—even if the token itself never changes hands. Trevor Kitchen, a DeFi developer, challenged…
CFTC Wins on Crypto Fraud; Court Keeps Gate Wide Open The Ninth Circuit just handed the CFTC a clean win, letting the agency punish a trader who lied to investors about his digital-currency pools. The ruling matters because it cements the regulator’s power over commodities-linked crypto schemes and signals that courts will not second-guess enforcement…
Court Orders Crypto Accounts Seized Over Tax Trail Federal prosecutors just won the right to seize two dozen cryptocurrency wallets after a D.C. district court ruled that the IRS could treat hidden digital assets the same way it treats hidden bank accounts. The decision turns routine tax collection into a new front for government crypto…
SEC Loses Ground on Exchange Definition in Binance Clash The Securities and Exchange Commission just suffered a partial defeat in its landmark case against Binance Holdings and founder Changpeng Zhao. A federal judge in Washington dismissed several of the agency’s most aggressive claims while allowing the core unregistered-securities allegations to survive. The split decision signals…
Court Hands Delaware Tech Firm Win Over Crypto Investor A Delaware judge just ruled that a crypto startup and its founder cannot be sued for fraud in their home state because the investor waived his rights in the contract. The decision strengthens the enforceability of forum-selection clauses in crypto deals and signals that Delaware courts…
FlightAware drops Kalshi lawsuit over a market niche that data shows it never took off Flight tracking data company FlightAware has dropped its lawsuit against Kalshi, ending a legal dispute tied to a niche market that, according to the available data, never gained meaningful traction. The case centered on FlightAware’s challenge to Kalshi over a…
Court Deals Grayscale Crushing Blow on Bitcoin ETF The D.C. Circuit refused to force the SEC to approve Grayscale’s spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund, leaving the firm’s nine-billion-dollar trust stranded in a structure investors hate. Judges ruled the agency had given a “reasoned explanation” for treating the product differently from Bitcoin futures ETFs already on the…
CFTC Wins Big—Court Affirms Agency’s Reach Over Crypto Futures A federal appeals court just handed the Commodity Futures Trading Commission its clearest victory yet in the crypto space, ruling that James Donelson’s unregistered trading platform fell squarely under the agency’s authority. The Seventh Circuit’s decision locks in a lower-court win and sends an unmistakable signal:…
Court Slams Coinbase Appeal, SEC Keeps Its Edge The Third Circuit just told Coinbase no—refusing to force the SEC to rewrite its crypto rules. The exchange’s petition to review a 2023 SEC order was tossed out, leaving the agency’s enforcement-first approach intact for now. Coinbase filed the petition after the SEC rejected its 2022 rulemaking…
EToro reports second quarter crypto loss even as total profit beats estimates EToro reported a loss in its cryptocurrency business during the second quarter, even as the company’s overall profit came in ahead of analyst expectations. The results highlight a split in performance across the platform’s business lines: crypto trading contributed negatively in the quarter,…
Morning Minute: Saylor’s Strategy Sells Bitcoin for Second Week in a Row Strategy, the company closely associated with executive chairman Michael Saylor and known for its long-running bitcoin accumulation strategy, sold bitcoin for a second consecutive week. The move stands out because Strategy has historically been identified with buying and holding bitcoin as a core…
