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Bitwise has submitted paperwork to launch an exchange-traded fund (ETF) tracking the price of Aptos (APT), the native token of the Aptos network. The asset manager hinted at the move last week when it filed to create a Delaware trust entity for a proposed Aptos ETF. APT is a scalable layer 1 blockchain token based on the Move programming language. On Wednesday, Bitwise filed an S-1 document with the Securities and Exchange Commission, making its plans official. The S-1 filing is a requirement for companies seeking to issue a new security and be listed on a public stock exchange. To launch such a fund, the asset manager will also have to file a 19b-4 filing, which is required to signal a requisite rule change at the stock exchange seeking to list the investment and ties the SEC to a strict deadline. |
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Tether, Circle Vie in Regulation Fight - WSJ |
Recently stepped down as Tether's longtime CFO and now its chairman, Giancarlo Devasini keeps a low profile in the modest Swiss town of Lugano, according to the article by Angus Berwick. Circle founder Jeremy Allaire, meanwhile, is comfortable rubbing shoulders with politicians and Wall Street executives, Berwick continued. The conflict is as much about ideology as it is about business, writes Berwick. Tether embraces crypto’s freewheeling ethos, while Circle is pushing for mainstream acceptance through regulation. “Circle will not win if Tether is alive,” Devasini reportedly said months ago. The outcome of this battle will shape the future of stablecoins. If regulators succeed in sidelining Tether, Circle’s USDC could gain market share and bring stablecoins further into the traditional financial system. If Tether survives, and it has shown resiliency in the past after navigating concerns surrounding its commercial paper reserves, it will reinforce crypto’s ability to operate outside centralized influence. Either way, the stakes are high as crypto firms fight for dominance in an industry worth trillions Lawmakers have introduced three different bills targeting stablecoin regulation, including the Senate's GENIUS Act, the House's STABLE Act (introduced by Republicans) and the bill Ranking Member Maxine Waters and former Representative Patrick McHenry developed over the past few years. Each of these bills would impose certain reserve and reporting requirements on stablecoin issuers, and a JP Morgan analysis suggests Tether may need to adjust its reserves to comply with these bills, if they become law. However, each bill is still in an early phase of the legislative effort, and it's unclear how long it might take for any of them to be passed through the House, Senate and signed by the president. According to Allaire, digital currency is a “technology superpower dollar” that will have profound implications for the United States and small businesses, he said in an interview on Fox’s “Mornings with Maria” on Tuesday. “We’re in a competitive race with China, we’re trying to find what economic system is going to win, what currency system is going to win. This is a technology superpower dollar that expands the role of the United States around the world.”
At the same time, it can eliminate costs spent on fees to credit card companies or to send remittances overseas, making the impact of a digital currency much broader than just becoming the world’s economic superpower.
“There’s a real way to put money back in households’ and small businesses' pockets as well.” Allaire called USDC “America’s first digital dollar” given it is backed by the U.S. Dollar in the form of Treasury bills, repo and cash, and has been around and growing for over six years. He said that USDC powers trillions of dollars in transactions, including over $1 trillion a month and has seen 100% growth over the last 12 months. |
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Jump Ramps Up Crypto Trading Operation |
Chicago-based trading giant Jump is returning its cryptocurrency operations to full strength after scaling it back in the U.S. over the past couple of years due to regulatory scrutiny and uncertainty. While Jump has maintained its digital assets trading and market-making activity in other parts of the globe, crypto trading volume is now accelerating globally, according to a person familiar with the situation. In addition, Jump is looking to hire a clutch of crypto engineers and plans to start filling U.S. policy and governmental liaison roles in due course, a second person said. The previous U.S. administration, aided and abetted by anti-crypto regulators and weaponized banking authorities, did its best to choke off the digital assets sector across the States—a situation rapidly reversed under Donald Trump. Jump found itself at the center of regulatory scrutiny in the wake of the collapse of the Terra Luna stablecoin and FTX. This led to reports of a pullback in the U.S., including the spin-out of Jump’s Wormhole project and a halving of headcount at the Jump Crypto division, which had peaked at about 150 staffers in 2022, according to Bloomberg.
An interesting proposition for Jump would be participation in the U.S. crypto ETF space, where the firm has remained conspicuously absent.
Looking ahead, a solana (SOL) ETF is likely to be granted at some point; Jump is known for its investment and development work in the Solana ecosystem, such as with projects like Firedancer, software designed to improve transaction throughput on the blockchain.
Jump declined to comment. |
DoubleZero Valued at $400 Million |
DoubleZero Foundation, a startup building a “new internet” to improve blockchain performance, raised $28 million at a $400 million valuation, according to three people familiar with the matter, and is now searching for “strategic partners” to invest more at $600 million.
Dragonfly and Multicoin Capital lead the initial funding round, two of the people said. The subsequent strategic round hasn’t yet closed, said one insider. Venture capital firms have been jockeying hard for whatever allocation they could get, another said. DoubleZero declined to comment. Nabbing such a lofty valuation in an early round is uncommon but not unheard of for crypto companies pitching transformative systems. For DoubleZero’s part, its vision is to amass a global network of private fiber optic cables, and then harness them so that blockchains can transmit their data more efficiently than possible on the public internet. Its motto – “Increase bandwidth, Reduce Latency” or IBRL – proliferated through the Solana community even before DoubleZero debuted its white paper in December. The project is seen as an enabling technology for Solana’s grander plans to process one million transactions per second. DoubleZero is opening its permissioned testnet to Solana validators and RPCs, with plans to expand to other chains down the line, a source familiar said. Its network of fiber optic cables taps into private line operated by Jump Crypto, RockawayX, Distributed Global, Latitude and Teraswitch, and is accepting more contributors. At Solana's Breakpoint conference in September, Jump Crypto's Firedancer team demonstrated its superfast Solana client running at breakneck speed. What they didn't tell the crowd at the time was the participating validators were running on DoubleZero infrastructure.
DoubleZero Foundation's President Austin Federa was the former head of strategy at Solana Foundation. Its other co-founders, Andrew McConnell and Mateo Ward, are in charge of the project’s core contributor company, Malbec Labs. Jump Crypto is also a core contributor, additionally pitching early bandwidth to the network.
Federa has jokingly referred to DoubleZero as “crypto’s first infrastructure project” because of its massive reliance on hardware: fiber optic cables across land and sea. Instead of buying or building that pricey infrastructure, DoubleZero will rely on independent communications businesses willing to monetize their underutilized wares. |
Opinion: Going Beyond Party Lines for Crypto |
House Majority Whip Tom Emmer and Representative Ritchie Torres:
The United States is undisputedly the leader of global innovation. From technology, to agriculture, to finance, we stand alone. We have retained this position not because we force innovators to adopt our values, but because we allow entrepreneurs, who hold these values, to build in the United States free from government interference and excessive regulations. These aren’t Republican or Democrat ideals – they’re American ones. Nowhere is this more apparent than in cryptocurrency. Cryptocurrency empowers individuals to take ownership of their financial futures. It enables economic freedom, ensuring that all Americans – regardless of their background – have access to the tools they need to be successful. Crypto has the potential to shift the power from the centralized institutions that control much of our financial system back into the hands of the American people. The power this technology represents is bigger than any one party. With that in mind, we have announced the creation of the Congressional Crypto Caucus, a nonpartisan group of members of Congress united by the promise this technology holds who aim to work as a voting bloc in Congress. As we have done together for years, the Crypto Caucus will bring together members from across the country and across the political spectrum who are unified and committed to our mission. Together, we’ll focus on ushering key policy proposals through Congress and building coalitions within the crypto community. The Crypto Caucus’s mission goes beyond a platform to discuss policy. We are committed to delivering tangible results for the American people. When important votes or issues arise, our caucus will be prepared to act. As the chairmen of the caucus, we’ll work with our members to advance a principled policy agenda grounded in an understanding of the unique decentralized nature of digital asset technology. We are committed to fostering an economic environment where open, permissionless, and private innovation can thrive, and where attempts for centralized control are quashed. Our caucus will promote policies that allow every American the chance to participate in the digital economy. As more and more Americans access the digital economy, we will work to support policy initiatives that strike a balance between consumer protection and innovation. Our focus will be to advocate for transparent, commonsense regulations that safeguard consumers, enhance financial literacy, and expand access to these cutting-edge financial tools. By achieving this balance, our caucus will help enable millions of Americans to access these financial tools safely, while promoting policies that support innovation in the United States. For far too long, innovators have struggled to navigate the regulatory minefield in the United States. As we begin our work with this new caucus, we aim to champion a balanced framework that provides legal clarity while fostering an environment where American ingenuity can flourish. We do not call for deregulation, but for smart regulation – rules that protect consumers without pushing the entrepreneurs they rely on overseas. As countries around the world adopt policies that embrace the promise of crypto technology, the United States cannot risk falling behind. We seek to work with the whole-of-government approach to digital asset policymaking to unlock the future of open, permissionless, and private innovation in the United States. Our caucus strives to support policies that guarantee the United States remains the best place in the world to build, invest, and innovate in the digital asset space. This is an important moment for the United States. This revolutionary technology represents a fundamental shift in how we think about finance. As leaders of the Congressional Crypto Caucus, we invite our colleagues to join us in seizing this opportunity. Together, as a nonpartisan coalition, we will ensure the United States doesn’t just participate in the future of finance but defines it. |
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