Crypto Rally Meets Regulatory Momentum

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Good Morning,

Trump name-dropping Hyperliquid did more for HYPE in an hour than months of Selig’s actual rulemaking process, which is the tell: this market is still trading anticipation of policy, not policy itself, and Treasury’s buyback expansion, the thing with zero crypto-specific intent, arguably moved bitcoin more than anything said in that room.

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In Today’s Email:

• What Matters: Crypto Rally Meets Regulatory Momentum 👀

• Founders Highlight: Arthur Hayes of Maelstrom 👨

• Deal Flows: Blueprint Finance Raises Strategic Round 💰️

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WHAT MATTERS

State of play: Bitcoin surged to $69,000 and HYPE jumped 17% as Trump signaled a push to bring Hyperliquid onshore and the SEC and Treasury advanced market-friendly moves, sparking nearly $2B in liquidations.

• Trump said the CFTC is working to bring Hyperliquid into the US in a “fully compliant and legal fashion,” sending HYPE up 17%.

• Bitcoin hit $69,000 and ether jumped 10% past $2,000 after Treasury doubled its longer-dated bond buyback size to $4B per operation.

• The SEC proposed “Regulation Crypto Assets,” letting issuers raise up to $75M annually under new exemptions.

• The rally triggered $1.92B in liquidations over 24 hours, with actual figures likely higher.

• Trump urged Congress to pass the stalled Clarity Act as Coinbase, Ripple, and Robinhood CEOs met at the White House.

Why it matters: Coordinated bullish signals from the White House, CFTC, SEC, and Treasury suggest US crypto policy is shifting from restriction to active market-building.

Our take: The simultaneous timing of Trump’s comments, the SEC proposal, and Treasury buybacks reads less like organic momentum and more like a coordinated liquidity push ahead of Clarity Act negotiations.

For builders and investors: Watch for Hyperliquid’s US entry structure as a template for onshoring other offshore-native protocols, and expect volatility as leveraged positioning resets around policy headlines.

BUILDER-INVESTOR HIGHLIGHT

Intro: Arthur Hayes is the Chief Investment Officer of Maelstrom, a multi-strategy investment fund and family office.

Previous background: Arthur started at Deutsche Bank in 2008 as a Synthetic Equity Trader and Associate, market-making Asian ETFs for three years. He then moved to Citi in 2011 as a Delta One Trader (Associate).

• In 2014, he co-founded and served as CEO of BitMEX, the Bitcoin derivatives exchange, for nearly seven years until October 2020.

The big idea: Arthur bets on infrastructure powering the next wave of trustless decentralization, investing across the full capital stack from early-stage tokens to public markets.

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INSIGHTS

Payward is exploring becoming a full bank outside the US as it pushes beyond trading into banking and asset management, with executives eyeing products like mortgages down the line.

• Co-CEO Dave Ripley said Payward is looking into full bank status in other geographies, not the US immediately.

• Ripley named trading, banking, and asset management as the firm’s three core product areas going forward.

• Payward already runs Kraken Financial, a Wyoming SPDI that offers custody and deposit accounts but can’t lend fiat.

• Kraken Financial secured a limited “skinny” Fed master account in March, a first for a crypto company.

• CCO Mark Greenberg said future offerings could eventually include products like mortgages.

DEAL FLOWS

Deal flows slowed down this week - we saw $65M+ in deals 💼

Blueprint Finance raised a strategic round led by Polychain Capital to scale Concrete, its vault infrastructure for institutional onchain asset management.

• Polychain Capital led the round, joined by Bullish, Keyrock, BitGo, FalconX, and other institutional investors.

• Concrete offers full-stack vault infrastructure letting institutions launch and manage onchain capital allocation strategies.

• The funding will support new primitives including AssetCX and concUSD alongside Concrete’s core vault system.

• CEO Nic Roberts-Huntley said the round signals a shift from yield-chasing to infrastructure-grade capital allocation tools.

Deal flows in the past week:

• Pouchers, $500,000 Pre-Seed Round

• BLOX, $1M Seed Round

• Twyne, $2.05M Seed Round

• NeoSoul, $11M Pre-Series A Round

• Beldex, $8M Unknown Round

• Botanika, $1.5M Unknown Round

QUICK BITES

• X is exploring stablecoins to pay influencers and content providers.

• Spot bitcoin ETFs report $517M in net inflows, largest in 3.5 months.

• Kraken parent Payward explores becoming a ‘full bank’ outside the US.

• HYPE surges after Trump says CFTC is working to bring Hyperliquid to US.

• Bitcoin breaks through $75,500 while analyst calls current rally ‘premature.’

• MANTRA freezes all transactions and network following unspecified incident.

NOTEWORTHY READS & MEME

• Shaunda’s read on Onshoring Hyperliquid.

• Jonah’s read on You Were Lied to About Stablecoins.

• Rain’s read on The Anatomy of a Stablecoin Card Swipe.

Leo@Leooweb3

Me managing my $180 portfolio

5:29 AM · Aug 20, 2026 · 849K Views

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