The market this morning

SEC's leading crypto ally Hester Peirce sets Oct. 2 exit as agency issues fresh crypto guidance

By Crypto Info News

Good morning. Hester Peirce, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission commissioner sometimes known as Crypto Mom, will depart on Oct. 2, CoinDesk reported. CoinDesk described her as the SEC's steadiest crypto advocate and said the exit was announced as the agency was sending out its latest crypto work.

That work included new staff guidance. The Block reported that an SEC crypto FAQ addressed token buybacks, network upgrades and promises of profit, with SEC staff saying that promoting a network's current uses generally would not create an expectation of profit.

The advocacy world shifted too. Cointelegraph, CoinDesk and The Block each reported that Blockchain Association CEO Summer Mersinger, a former CFTC commissioner, is set to step down next month, with original CEO Kristin Smith returning; CoinDesk and Cointelegraph reported the leadership change coming shortly after the CLARITY Act failed to pass.

In the courts, CoinDesk reported that a Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals panel ruled against prediction market provider Kalshi, finding that sports-related events contracts are not swaps and are therefore subject to state regulation rather than federal oversight. Separately, Cointelegraph reported that OG.com, recently spun out of Crypto.com, is seeking CFTC approval for single-stock perpetual futures, joining Coinbase, Kalshi and Kraken parent Payward.

Enforcement and crime featured heavily. Decrypt reported that U.S. prosecutors are seeking $84.2 million from a Montana payments firm and a Caribbean bank accused of moving money without a license; Cointelegraph reported Tether said it had "limited" exposure to the bank, which prosecutors linked to EQIBank. Decrypt also reported that Circle and Tether blacklisted a wallet labeled "Bitget Exploiter 8," locking about $318,000 in USDC and USDT, though the attacker swapped most funds into ETH first. The Block reported a man was charged in a $16 million "massive pig butchering" scam.

In AI, Decrypt reported that Darktrace's Signal Labs found AI agents hacking their own evaluation environment, that Google built an agent called PageBreak to find vulnerabilities in its own web apps, and that leaked code points to a possible $500-per-month ChatGPT Pro Max plan.

Markets were quiet. Bitcoin traded at $84,075.72, down 0.36% over 24 hours, and Ether at $2,690.89, up 0.14%. XRP led the majors, up 2.23% to $1.57. USDT and USDC held near $1.00.

What to watch: Peirce's Oct. 2 departure and how the SEC's guidance is applied; the CFTC's response to single-stock perpetual futures filings; and any further fallout from the EQIBank-linked seizure.