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📰 TOP NEWS
Trump to meet crypto and prediction market executives at White House ahead of CFTC Innovation Advisory Committee debut
President Trump is expected to attend a 2:30 p.m. ET meeting Wednesday at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building with executives from the crypto and prediction market industries, with CFTC Chair Michael Selig and SEC Chair Paul Atkins also expected to be present. Invitees include executives from Coinbase, a16z, Ripple, Chainlink, Kalshi, and Paradigm, alongside Digital Chamber representatives and White House crypto adviser Patrick Witt. The session is framed as a kickoff for the CFTC's Innovation Advisory Committee, which holds its inaugural three-hour public meeting the following day covering crypto asset regulation, artificial intelligence, and prediction markets. The 35-member committee includes Polymarket CEO Shayne Coplan, Kalshi's Tarek Mansour, and Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse alongside executives from Cboe, CME, DTCC, and Nasdaq. The gatherings take place against a backdrop of mounting legal pressure on prediction market platforms, with Baltimore having sued both Kalshi and Polymarket this week over sports-related contracts and a Washington state court ordering Kalshi to halt most of its offerings in the state. The Clarity Act, meanwhile, remains stalled, with Senate Majority Leader Thune having filed cloture last week to set up a September 15 vote that would require 60 votes to advance the bill without itself passing it. Trump has previously backed the CFTC's jurisdictional claims over prediction markets, while Donald Trump Jr. serves as a strategic adviser to both Kalshi and Polymarket and has invested in the latter through venture capital firm 1789 Capital.
Trump-backed World Liberty Financial wins preliminary OCC approval for national trust bank charter
World Liberty Financial received conditional approval from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to become a national trust bank, bringing the Trump-backed company one step closer to a full bank charter that would allow it to offer stablecoin issuance and redemption, on-ramp and off-ramp services, and custody and conversion. WLF issues the USD1 stablecoin, which carries a market capitalization of $4 billion and ranks as the fourth-largest stablecoin after Tether and USDC. The conditional approval means final authorization has not yet been granted and could still be rescinded. WLF joins a growing list of crypto firms that have received conditional OCC approvals over the past year, including Coinbase, Paxos, BitGo, Ripple, and Circle, as the regulator takes an increasingly friendly stance toward the industry under OCC chief Jonathan Gould, a former Bitfury legal officer who has said crypto firms should have a pathway to becoming federally supervised banks. The approval is likely to intensify scrutiny from Democratic lawmakers, who have raised conflict-of-interest concerns over WLF's close ties to the administration. Sen. Elizabeth Warren had previously written to Gould demanding he halt the review until Trump divests from the company, warning that approval would put the OCC in the position of both setting rules that influence the profitability of the president's company and supervising it alongside its competitors. Financial disclosures released in June showed Trump received millions of dollars connected to WLF.
Crypto futures market flashes liquidity trap warning as open interest dwarfs trading volume
The crypto futures market is showing signs of a potential liquidity crunch, with total open interest sitting at $48 billion against just $25 billion in 24-hour trading volume, a gap that has not been this narrow since September last year and a stark reversal from 2019-2020 when volume outpaced open interest by two to three times. The divergence matters because open interest reflects the total size of investor positioning while volume measures the daily churn available to absorb it. When positions are large relative to daily volume, a sudden catalyst triggering forced liquidations finds little resting flow to soak them up, amplifying price swings in the direction of the move. "When open interest towers over daily volume, liquidations meet little resting flow to absorb them, and adverse moves extend further than they otherwise would," Glassnode said in a report. The risk skews to the downside, with Glassnode noting that the band of resting bids beneath current prices has thinned by roughly a third since early July, meaning fewer buyers are waiting to step in if bitcoin retests its June low of around $58,000. The picture is further complicated by a severe gap between spot and futures markets, with 24-hour spot volume at just $12.55 billion against $25 billion in futures, leaving the market more vulnerable to exaggerated moves. Bitcoin is currently trading near $63,500, up 1% since midnight UTC.
Kraken parent Payward posts $508 million in Q2 revenue as funded accounts and market share gains offset volume decline
Payward, the parent company of Kraken, reported second-quarter adjusted revenue of $508 million, up 17% year over year, and remained adjusted EBITDA positive at $23 million despite a 13% year-over-year drop in total platform transaction volume to $310 billion. The company said it gained spot market share for a third consecutive quarter, with the volume mix shifting toward equities and tokenized equities, while asset-based and other revenue climbed to 60% of total revenue from 55% a year earlier. Funded accounts rose 42% to 6.6 million, with Payward citing momentum in the European Economic Area following its MiCA authorization, and assets on platform stood at $40 billion. Co-CEO Arjun Sethi attributed the results to the company's single-platform strategy, saying three forces are reshaping global markets: convergence across asset classes, onshoring of activity into regulated venues, and automation of market participation. Payward continued its acquisition push during and after the quarter, closing its purchase of derivatives venue Bitnomial on May 1 and stablecoin payments platform Reap on July 1, before agreeing on July 27 to acquire Magic Labs' wallet infrastructure business. The results arrive against an unsettled path to public markets, with Payward having confidentially filed a draft S-1 in November 2025 and publicly confirmed IPO plans in April before pausing the listing over market conditions, with no new timeline set and a most recent valuation of $20 billion.
🎟️ EVENT OF THE WEEK
Mempool Dev Day London
Mempool Dev Day London is bringing together Bitcoin developers, builders, and curious hackers for a day of workshops, collaboration, and good conversations.
Expect hands-on sessions, technical discussions, and plenty of time to meet others building on Bitcoin. Whether you’re an experienced contributor or just getting started, you’re welcome.
Date Aug 21 2026
💬 EXPERT OPINION
We believe that cryptocurrency and the use of blockchain can open up the economy to individuals and groups that have been historically excluded or ignored by the free market and financial institutions."
📊 METRIC OF THE WEEK
Our researchers designed this metric with ❤️
GLOSSARY CORNER Namecoin is one of the first altcoins forked from Bitcoin, launched in 2011, that uses blockchain technology to create a decentralized domain name system (DNS), allowing users to register and manage website domains ending in ".bit" without reliance on centralized authorities like ICANN. | EDITOR’S CHOICE |
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