SEC plans to promote "crypto regulation" and tokenized stock exemptions, Bitcoin trading volume hi

The cryptocurrency market generally fell, with HYPE bucking the trend leading the decline.

On Thursday, most mainstream cryptocurrencies fell, with HYPE leading the decline. Bitcoin traded at $63,400, down 1%; Ethereum and Solana both fell 1% to close at $1,880 and $75.60 respectively. HYPE bucked the trend and rose 4% to $57.30 in the session.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) will introduce new encryption regulations

According to Bloomberg, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) plans to launch two important encryption initiatives. One is a proposed "crypto regulatory" framework that would allow blockchain projects to raise funds through token sales without requiring a comprehensive securities registration. The proposal will be discussed at a public meeting scheduled for Friday.

The second, and potentially more influential move is to focus on providing "innovation exemptions" for tokenized stocks. The exemption, which could be announced as early as Friday, will allow tokenized shares of companies such as Apple, Tesla and Nvidia to be traded in small units 24 hours a day on the public blockchain and allow for rapid settlement.

Currently, tokenized stocks provide holders with economic exposure to the underlying stock, but do not confer voting rights or dividend rights. Multiple agreements are working to address these limitations. Under Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Paul Atkins '"Crypto Project", the move is expected to provide more specific regulatory guidance for these products.

Dictionary: Tokenized stocks are digital representatives of equity published on the blockchain that allow small transactions around the clock, but usually lack voting rights and dividend rights.

The legal certainty brought by the SEC's formal exemption could open the door for the U.S. retail market to enter an area that has previously been mostly active in regulatory gray areas and is often limited to non-U.S. users.

Market and Volume Trends

Spot trading activity has dropped significantly in recent weeks, and Bitcoin spot trading volume has fallen to its lowest point since 2019. Analysts pointed to a deadlock between weak spot demand and rising seller fatigue. Bitcoin exchange-traded products had a net outflow of $61 million on Wednesday, while the Ethereum ETF recorded a net inflow of $7.4 million.

Altcoins and Memecoins are still under pressure, with DOGE down 3%, SHIB down 1%, and PEPE down 5%. BONK was an exception, up 2%. The top gainers among altcoins include OKB (+7%), MNT (+6%) and Virtual (+5%). Among Solana-based tokens, Ava surged 40%, momota surged 180%, and XST rose 33%.

In traditional markets, oil prices fell 2% to US$81, gold fell slightly 0.5% to US$4450, while stock futures rose slightly, with the Nasdaq index rising 0.5%, and the Dow Jones index flat.

Institutional Trends and Technical Events

Goldman Sachs completed its $2.25 billion acquisition of NEOS, obtained BTCI Covered Opening Fund, and gained access to approximately $30 billion in options strategies. Cryptocurrency asset manager Bitwise has affected ETF issuers due to reduced trading activity, reducing its workforce by 14% to about 155 people.

Solana experienced a dangerous situation. A routing error made nearly 29% of pledged SOL unusable, leaving the chain only five percentage points short of being frozen finality. At the same time, Robinhood Chain has achieved rapid growth in trading volume in tokenized real-world assets (RWAs), growing fivefold this summer, and has a significant share of Solana and Base.

Decentralized derivatives exchange Hyperliquid has introduced a new "scaleWei" feature designed to automatically reallocate tokenized stock balances in response to events such as stock splits and dividends. The platform also reduced the cost of accessing its real-time data nodes to less than $1000 per month, eliminating the previous requirement of 10,000 HYPE to pledge.

Small Dictionary: Hyperliquid is a decentralized cryptocurrency exchange focusing on perpetual contracts, with innovative on-chain financial infrastructure such as real-time data nodes.

Multiple protocols are now developing solutions that aim to extend voting and dividend rights to tokenized stock holders, which could further align these assets with traditional stocks and address flaws in existing structures.

Security and Cyber Events

A vulnerability in a bridge program on the XRP ledger that allows an attacker to generate unsupported XRP balances stole nearly 200,000 XRPs (approximately US$202,000) despite passing multiple security audits. In another security incident, the Coldcard incident caused holders to transfer $15 billion of bitcoins to more secure storage, and 233,000 BTC left long-term wallets after the breach occurred.

NFT and Micro Token Dynamics

NFT leading projects are basically the same. Punks are trading at 31.7 ETH, Bored Ape Yacht Club at 8.17 ETH, and Puggy Penguins at 3.92 ETH. Stonkbrokers fell 20% to 10 ETH. Top gainers included Good Vibes Club (+32%) and The Saudis (+650%), while NFT microtokens such as RH Machines, Robinhood Kitties and fuwa all rose more than 200%.

Establishing a dedicated "innovation exemption" for tokenized stocks is expected to unleash the growth of real-world assets on the chain, which will give the United States a favorable position in terms of broader retail access if regulatory clarity is achieved as expected.