Crypto
Bitcoin Conference Held In New York City
Bitcoin balloons (Andrew Burton/Getty Images)

Bitcoin continues to rally following Trump’s executive orders

The president signed two orders yesterday that crypto fans cheered: one allowing cryptocurrency to be included in retirement plans and another regarding debanking.

Yaël Bizouati-Kennedy

President Donald Trump’s highly anticipated executive order on Thursday, allowing crypto to be included in retirement plans, continued to boost bitcoin and the overall crypto market on Friday.

Crypto enthusiasts also cheered a second executive order that targets the “unfair debanking” of the digital assets industry and directs the Small Business Administration “to make reasonable efforts to reinstate clients and potential clients previously denied services due to unlawful debanking.”

“When banks arbitrarily restrict crypto firms, it forces legitimate companies to operate in regulatory grey areas or offshore,” Thomas Chen, CEO of Function, said. “For institutions holding or integrating bitcoin, this narrative only accelerates the normalization of crypto on corporate balance sheets.”

Many see the orders as a watershed moment for the industry, including Bitwise Europe Head of Research André Dragosch, who wrote on X that the “401(k) EO approval could be bigger than the spot #Bitcoin ETF approval.”

In other bitcoin news...

  • Bitcoin miner CleanSpark reported record third-quarter fiscal earnings Thursday, which it deems its “most successful quarter.” It grew its treasury to “over $1 billion in value,” CEO Zach Bradford said in the press release. The company, the ninth-largest bitcoin corporate holder, added 95 bitcoin and now holds 12,703 bitcoin in total.

  • Jack Dorsey’s Block reported second-quarter earnings yesterday, showing that it added 8,692 bitcoin, up from 8,485 bitcoin on December 31, 2024, according to regulatory filings. Bitcoin segment revenue was $2.14 billion, lower than Wall Street’s $2.48 billion estimate.

  • Publicly traded UK-based The Smarter Web Company acquired 50 bitcoin, now holding 2,100 bitcoin.

  • Nasdaq-listed Alliance Resource Partners acquired 28.84 bitcoin to bring its total to 540.

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While the crypto industry has shed $564.3 billion in 2026, Hyperliquid’s native token has bucked the downtrend and jumped 54.8% year to date.

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Payward, parent company of crypto exchange Kraken, puts plans for IPO on hold

Payward, crypto exchange Kraken’s parent company, has paused its plans for an initial public offering until market conditions improve, according to a report from CoinDesk that cited two people with knowledge of the matter. 

Since the firm announced in November its preparation for an IPO of its common stock, the total market capitalization of the crypto industry has shed around $652.2 billion, from $3.2 trillion to $2.5 trillion as of Wednesday, data from CoinGecko shows. 

The news comes two weeks after Kraken received approval for a master account from the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, allowing the crypto exchange to connect to the Fed’s payment infrastructure used by traditional banks and credit unions. 

Last year, Kraken raised $800 million at a $20 billion valuation from institutional investors such as Jane Street and Citadel Securities.

Payward, parent of crypto exchange Kraken, has put its IPO plans on hold

Payward, parent of crypto exchange Kraken, has put its IPO plans on hold

The news comes two weeks after Kraken received approval for a master account from the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, allowing the crypto exchange to connect to the Fed’s payment infrastructure used by traditional banks and credit unions. 

Last year, Kraken raised $800 million at a $20 billion valuation from institutional investors such as Jane Street and Citadel Securities.

crypto
Sage D. Young

SEC and CFTC issue new guidance on how securities laws apply to crypto assets

On Tuesday, the US Securities and Exchange Commission, together with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, issued an interpretation clarifying how federal securities law applies to crypto assets, a first step toward developing a clearer regulatory framework. 

The interpretive guidance introduces a token taxonomy for different types of cryptocurrencies, with SEC Chairman Paul S. Atkins adding that “most crypto assets are not themselves securities.”

Examples of a digital commodity, “a crypto asset that is intrinsically linked to and derives its value from the programmatic operation of a crypto system that is ‘functional,’” include:

The guidance also includes definitions of digital collectibles (such as NFTs), stablecoins, digital tools, and digital securities (such as tokenized real-world assets and stocks).

This is a monumental step in the mainstream adoption of the industry and clears a hurdle in how crypto can operate going forward, according to David Pakman, head of venture investments at CoinFund. “This will allow new token designs with the confidence that their existence does not require registration with the SEC, etc.,” Pakman told Sherwood News.

Despite the clarification efforts from the two organizations, the market capitalization of the crypto industry has dropped about 2% in the last 24 hours as each of the tokens mentioned in the guidance are trading lower in the period, data from CoinGecko shows.

The joint agency action also complements congressional efforts to turn a crypto market structure framework into law. With the goal of providing regulations on the offer and sale of digital commodities, the CLARITY Act passed the House of Representatives last year and is now sitting in the Senate.

Yaël Bizouati-Kennedy
3/18/26
Citi analysts cut 12-month bitcoin projection to $112,000 from $143,000

The analysts’ bear-case scenario is $57,537, based on “recessionary macro-factors, especially weak equity markets,” which could cause ETF flows to stall.

Bitcoin ice carving

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