The market this morning

US regulator finalises GENIUS Act stablecoin rules as banking lobby cries foul

By Crypto Info News

Good morning. The OCC has finalised rules for stablecoin reserves and redemptions under the GENIUS Act, Cointelegraph reported, with Treasury Secretary Bessent calling the law a "watershed moment for American finance" and likening it to Lincoln-era banking reform.

The reception was not uniform. The American Bankers Association accused the OCC of undermining Congress, Cointelegraph and The Block both reported, taking aim at provisions on yield. The Block said the regulator had declined to weigh in on third-party stablecoin rewards, and framed the episode as reigniting a fight between banks and crypto. The two sides disagree on what the law permits; that dispute is unresolved.

In the market, bitcoin closed at $84,082.27, up 1.37% over 24 hours, with a market capitalisation near $1.69 trillion. XRP rose 2.31% to $1.37. Decrypt described bitcoin as hitting a weekly high as the market rebounded from October's slide, with XRP and Zcash among the leaders. Glassnode reported that bitcoin had swept to about $80,000 on 15 October before bids refilled within days, and placed a block of overhead asks and the largest liquidation clusters between roughly $85,000 and $87,500.

On corporate balance sheets, Decrypt reported that Musk said the boards of Tesla and SpaceX had each formed committees to weigh a merger that would combine Tesla's 11,509 BTC and SpaceX's 18,712 BTC—described as roughly $2.5 billion—on one balance sheet.

Rulemaking moved elsewhere too. The Cardano Foundation urged the EU not to extend MiCA to DeFi and staking, Cointelegraph reported, while the UK's Financial Conduct Authority opened consultations on DeFi guidance and crypto laws. Six blockchain organisations, including Chainlink and Cardano, pressed the SEC to recognise digital commodities as non-securities.

At the White House, Cointelegraph reported that President Trump hosted a cybercrime roundtable detailing scams against Americans but did not say "crypto" once, referring instead to "cybercurrency." CoinDesk had previewed the event as spotlighting overseas crypto abuses.

Elsewhere, Cointelegraph reported Tether backed Bolivian fintech Peso to expand USDT payments across four Latin American markets. Decrypt reported a new company, led by MyDoge founder Jordan Jefferson and formed with the Dogecoin Foundation, will consolidate MyDoge, DogeOS and Such App to build out the DOGE ecosystem. And a Mizuho survey of more than 600 Robinhood users found 94% would trade single-stock perpetual futures, The Block reported, which Mizuho called a potential positive for HOOD shares.