The market this morning

Goldman and Citi push deeper into crypto's plumbing as Washington's rulebook stalls

By Crypto Info News

Good morning. The clearest theme of Monday, 28 September, was traditional finance extending its reach into crypto infrastructure. CoinDesk reported that Goldman Sachs is bringing its roughly $100 billion Treasury fund to institutional crypto firms, and doing so without creating a tokenized version of the fund. Separately, Decrypt and The Block reported that Coinbase and Citi expanded an existing deal so that Citi's institutional clients can accept stablecoin payments without touching crypto themselves, while Coinbase business accounts run on Citi's banking rails.

Other firms moved in the same direction. Cointelegraph reported that Bybit will accept Franklin Templeton's Benji-issued tokenized fund shares as trading collateral, letting eligible institutions pledge them for stablecoin credit lines while the underlying assets stay in off-exchange custody. Decrypt reported that Chainlink's CCIP 2.0 now lets banks run their own security checks on cross-chain transfers, which Decrypt described as arriving five months after a rival's setup lost $292 million to hackers.

Washington supplied the day's regulatory news. Cointelegraph reported that, following the failed cloture vote on the CLARITY Act, the SEC issued updated staff guidance on how federal securities laws could apply to token issuers, following similar guidance from the CFTC. The Block reported that SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce is wrapping up her last week at the agency after nearly a decade. On the political side, Cointelegraph reported that the crypto PAC Fairshake pledged an initial $30 million against the Democratic candidate in Ohio's Senate race, spending $11 million so far.

Enforcement and risk featured too. The Block reported that a new Senate investigation places Tether's USDT at the center of what it called Iran's shadow banking system. Cointelegraph reported that Canada's Aiden Pleterski, alleged to have run a crypto Ponzi scheme between 2021 and 2022, is set to represent himself at his fraud trial. Decrypt reported that a UC San Diego-led team impersonated a hardware security module without extracting its key.

On corporate treasuries and listings, Decrypt reported that Strive bought 1,107 BTC for $94.5 million last week, lifting its holdings to 27,462 BTC, with its SATA preferred stock supplying 85% of the capital. Cointelegraph, citing a report, said Blockchain.com is eyeing a $500 million IPO at a valuation of up to $6 billion, below its 2022 peak.

The market itself was quiet by comparison. BTC closed the day at $83,479.25, down 1.148% over 24 hours. ETH was near flat at $2,687.92. Glassnode's Week 40 pulse described a week in which ETF inflows carried Bitcoin's gain while perpetual traders and profit-takers sold into it, with Monday's dip returning price to the lower end of its range.

What to watch: whether the SEC and CFTC's staff guidance hardens into enforcement, how far the bank-led infrastructure deals extend, and the outcome of the Pleterski trial and the Senate's Tether findings.