
Bitcoin, Clarity Act, FTC & NYSE: Web3 Thoughts of the Week
Why It Matters
The convergence of regulatory friction, institutional trading infrastructure, and price volatility signals a pivotal moment for crypto’s mainstream adoption and its competitive stance against traditional finance. Stakeholders must navigate evolving policy and liquidity frameworks to capture growth opportunities.
Bitcoin, Clarity Act, FTC & NYSE: Web3 Thoughts of the Week
“Another weekend, another sell‑off in digital assets on the back of tariff news and geopolitics. Bitcoin has broken below a key support level of $94,000, which marked the January breakout trend line.
From here, it’s likely we’ll see further downside unless buyers step in, with strong support around $88,000. So far, a small rebound has taken BTC back above $93,000, but it’s nothing to write home about.
The current environment remains supportive for precious metals, with gold and silver both shooting up again, while altcoins continue to bleed. Unfortunately, investors holding out for a rotation from metals to altcoins will be sorely disappointed, as the uncertainty and fears around Greenland are likely to get worse before they get better.”
— Nic Puckrin, digital asset analyst and co‑founder of the Coin Bureau
“It’s a fight to the death (between banks and crypto). And it will be a fight to the death and probably (banks). In the new world order that’s coming, certain arcane business models and structures don’t make sense.
That four‑year cycle died when we printed 25 % of the money supply in 18 months. We didn’t know it at the time. Now we know.
You have effectively a deflationary asset that’s being priced in an inflationary asset. When you have those things and you have reasonable demand, the price of the deflationary asset has to go up over time. It just does.
Bitcoin becomes my personal beta now and certainly forevermore until something better comes along. That’s my personal thesis. I doubt that’s going to happen.”
— Bill Barhydt, founder and CEO of Abra
NYSE to support 24/7 trading and on‑chain settlement
“24/7 trading removes another hurdle to RWA adoption by creating the opportunity for continuous liquidity. However, it isn’t a silver bullet – liquidity still has to exist at those hours. Unless cross‑venue and cross‑chain fragmentation is addressed simultaneously, reliable liquidity will remain elusive.”
— Sergej Kunz, co‑founder of 1inch
“The NYSE finally admitting markets don’t sleep anymore feels overdue. 24/7 trading and on‑chain settlement is definitely the direction, even if they’re tiptoeing. You can’t pretend liquidity shuts off at 4 p.m. while crypto moves all night.
And once assets live on‑chain, you start asking why they still need old rails at all. If you can trade tokenized stocks, why not bonds, invoices, commodities, all in one place? You don’t want 10 systems, you want one engine. That’s basically institutional‑grade DEX meets real‑world assets. Faster, transparent, less mess.”
— Marlon Williams, founder of DexTrader.ai
Crypto Council urges FTC to rethink DeFi enforcement
“Today, the Crypto Council for Innovation, the Blockchain Association, the DeFi Education Fund, and the Solana Policy Institute – the leading organizations representing the decentralized digital asset ecosystem – join together to urge the Federal Trade Commission to adopt a measured, technology‑aware approach to consumer protection in non‑custodial systems. We are united in our commitment to protecting consumers while preserving the core features of decentralized and non‑custodial technologies that make digital assets safer, more resilient, and more accessible.
In a joint letter, we address that it is critically important that enforcement actions do not impose prescriptive technical standards that are incompatible with decentralized architectures. Mandating centralized control mechanisms, such as kill switches or circuit breakers, risks undermining the very security, resilience, and user protections that decentralized systems are designed to provide.
Decentralized technologies operate fundamentally differently from traditional custodial financial institutions. Developers who do not custody or control user funds should not be treated as if they do. Policies that fail to recognize this distinction risk chilling innovation, weakening security, and pushing responsible development offshore.
We respectfully urge the Commission to reconsider any approach that would use its enforcement authority to set substantive engineering standards for decentralized systems, particularly where Congress is actively debating comprehensive digital asset legislation. Consumer protection and innovation are not mutually exclusive. With the right regulatory approach, the United States can and should lead in both.”
— Crypto Council for Innovation
Clarity Act delays
“It’s no surprise the CLARITY Act has been delayed – despite President Trump’s assurances during his Davos speech that it will be signed ‘soon.’ While he may say crypto is a priority, there’s a reason he didn’t mention it until the end of a long speech – it’s clearly not the first item on the agenda.
The market’s reaction shows that this bill is far more important to the future of digital assets than tariff noise. This is why (a recent) rollercoaster Bitcoin trading session ended with its price still below $90,000. The momentary euphoria over America’s commitment to crypto quickly faded, and even the cancellation of tariffs on NATO countries couldn’t lift it higher.
This is likely just the first in a series of delays to this potentially game‑changing digital asset legislation, which was originally expected to pass last year. And that’s a real anticlimax. The longer CLARITY is delayed, the longer uncertainty prevails. This alone will keep a cap on digital asset prices, before any geopolitical turbulence is factored in.
In my view, passing the bill quickly would bring more benefits than agreeing on a perfect piece of legislation with a huge delay. The big concern is that this could take years rather than months, leaving the crypto industry in the same limbo it has been fighting so hard to emerge from.”
— Nic Puckrin
Decentralization winning
“The whole purpose of decentralization is to eliminate the need for them to exist. Banking systems will be replaced with DeFi. Credit will be replaced with smart‑contract‑based loans.”
AI and money
“The future of the agentic internet, in my opinion, is decentralized. There’s no other way to do transaction processing for the agentic internet that makes sense to me. None.”
Meme coins and scalability
“The best thing that meme coins did for us is they showed us how TradFi can work. When Trump introduced the meme coin, it was the most scalable transaction processing launch ever. And I’m including Visa in that.”
— Bill Barhydt
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