SEC Chair Paul Atkins Chairs Meeting Of SEC Crypto Task Force

(Getty Images)

SEC Chairman Paul Atkins announces new agenda for the crypto industry

The supply of stablecoins on ethereum has reached a record high of $150 billion.

9/4/25 1:43PM

On Thursday, US Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Paul Atkins announced a new agenda at the agency tasked with protecting investors from misconduct in securities markets.

The Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs released the new agenda, titled “Unified Agenda of Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions,” covering potential rule proposals related to the crypto industry.

Aiming to provide clarity on the issuance, custody, and trading of digital assets, the document “also covers a number of envisioned deregulatory rule proposals to reduce compliance burdens and facilitate capital formation, including by simplifying pathways for raising capital and investor access to private businesses,” Atkins said in a statement.

The announcement comes as ethereum’s supply of stablecoins, or cryptocurrencies pegged to the US dollar, has climbed to an all-time high of $150 billion, an over 34% increase this year, data from DefiLlama shows. Year to date, the price of ethereum has increased almost 30%, but in the last 24 hours, the token has dropped 4% to trade at the $4,310 level.

In other ethereum news:

Ethereum’s monthly and weekly spot volume on centralized exchanges has overtaken bitcoin’s for the first time in more than seven years, The Block reported on Thursday. Last month, centralized exchanges notched about $480 billion in trading volume for ethereum, while bitcoin saw $401 billion.
Ethereum’s entrance queue to start staking has risen to 819,797 tokens worth $3.5 billion, bringing the wait time to 14 days and 6 hours, a figure that surpasses the network’s exit queue, which reached an all-time high in the previous month. The last time ethereum’s staking entrance line was over 800,000 tokens was in September 2023, per analytics dashboard Validator Queue.
Meanwhile, US spot ethereum ETFs have recorded three consecutive days of outflows, with Wednesday seeing $38 million leave the investment funds. Ethereum’s outflows come as spot bitcoin ETFs have started seeing inflows again after a brutal August.

Yaël Bizouati-Kennedy

Bitcoin falls to lowest level since November as long-term holders accelerate selling

A majority of bitcoin investors are officially underwater and the asset’s continued fall “could intensify selling pressure as investors attempt to limit losses.”

Sage D. Young1/28/26

Ripple launches treasury platform to manage cash and cryptocurrencies

Ripple, the firm closely tied to the fifth-largest cryptocurrency, XRP, introduced a new treasury platform for digital asset and traditional cash management for users like financial officers, treasurers, and accountants.

Ripple’s move comes more than three months after it acquired treasury software provider GTreasury for $1 billion, one of several steps to grow the firm’s position in corporate finance.

Combining Ripple’s blockchain rails and GTreasury’s software, the new platform’s goal is to simplify treasury operations. It eliminates settlement delays with payment times of three to five seconds and optimizes yield from working capital 24/7 through tokenized money market funds such as BlackRock’s BUIDL and overnight secure repo markets with RLUSD, according to a Tuesday blog post.

Ripple Treasury also aims to provide “real-time cash positions, automated forecasting, and seamless reporting across traditional cash, digital assets, RLUSD, and XRP holdings,” the blog post stated.

Last year, Ripple filed its national banking license application with the US Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, while the firm’s subsidiary Standard Custody & Trust Company applied for a Federal Reserve master account, which would allow Ripple to hold RLUSD reserves directly with the Fed.

XRP has seen $2.4 billion in trading volume in the last 24 hours, increasing 1.8% in the period. The token’s all-time high was set in July 2025 at $3.65. Meanwhile, spot XRP ETFs had nearly $9.2 million worth of inflows on Tuesday, bringing cumulative inflows to $1.4 billion.

Yaël Bizouati-Kennedy

1/28/26

Bitcoin is underperforming precious metals now, but experts warn of “short-sighted” view

The debate on investing in digital gold vs. actual gold continues, but it’s helpful to put each one’s performance in context.

Bitcoin Medals Manufactured At Sakamoto Metal

Yaël Bizouati-Kennedy

1/27/26

Bitcoin miners hit with downgrades, winter storm

While the bitcoin hashrate has crashed, experts say this is a temporary reaction to the weather.

US-CRYPTOCURRENCY-CLIMATE-EMPLOYMENT-CHINA

$82B

Sage D. Young1/27/26

Crypto money laundering activity totaled more than $82 billion in 2025, more than 8x higher than 2020’s figure of $10 billion, according to a Tuesday report published by crypto analytics firm Chainalysis. Chinese-language networks dominated the ecosystem, accounting for roughly 20% of the illicit activity, or $16.1 billion, last year:

“Compared to other laundering endpoints, since 2020, inflows to identified CMLNs [Chinese-langugage money laundering networks] grew 7,325 times faster than those to centralized exchanges, 1,810 times faster than those to decentralized finance (DeFi), and 2,190 times faster than intra-illicit on-chain flows.”

Tom Keatinge, director at the Centre for Finance & Security at security think tank Royal United Services Institute, told Chainalysis that the rapid development of Chinese-language networks is an “an unforeseen consequence” of China’s imposition of capital controls.

“Wealthy individuals seeking to move money out of China and evade these controls provide the impetus and liquidity pool needed to service organized crime groups based in the West,” he noted.

Keatinge told Chainalysis, “The professional enablers of this capital flight provide the services necessary to match these two independent yet mutually beneficial needs.”

Chinese-language networks offer six primary money movement techniques to clean dirty money, which include recruiting individuals to rent out their financial identities, selling illicit cryptocurrency at a discounted rate, and obscuring fund origins through multiple transactions.

Overall, this Chinese ecosystem processed nearly $44 million per day last year.

SEC Chairman Paul Atkins announces new agenda for the crypto industry

More Crypto

Ripple launches treasury platform to manage cash and cryptocurrencies

Latest Stories