CFTC

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission registered Coinbase Clearing LLC on September 28, 2026, as a derivatives clearing organization, or DCO, the entity that clears trades and handles the resulting settlement obligations. Its authority covers fully collateralized futures, options on futures, and swaps. That funding condition is the key limit in the CFTC registry entry. For a US trader, the significance is practical: Coinbase can bring clearing for this category of contracts into its own infrastructure. The money committed to a position, the institution settling it, and the records left by collateral transactions still matter. ...

Your Bitcoin can already count as margin at a qualifying US futures broker. But how much counts? In specified customer-account calculations, the haircut is generally at least 20%. That means a $100,000 crypto holding can contribute just $80,000 of recognized collateral value before its market price falls. Now the CFTC has clarified another part of the plumbing: how tokenized versions of permitted investments fit inside the rules governing customer funds. For American traders, the useful question is what your broker can accept, what it can do with customer cash, and how quickly your collateral cushion can shrink. ...

At 18:31 UTC on September 24, 2026, Bitget detected unauthorized transfers involving approximately $351.6 million from portions of its hot and warm wallets. Withdrawals stopped; deposits and trading continued. Its official security notice said cold wallets were secure and a User Protection Fund holding more than $464 million covered the loss. Those assurances were company statements, not independently verified findings. The Seychelles-registered exchange exposed a problem relevant to US holders even without a Bitget account: crypto held at an exchange is not an insured bank deposit. A displayed balance, a reimbursement promise, and access to withdrawals are three different things. ...

The exchange that taught crypto how to trade leverage with no expiry is no longer an exchange. BitMEX stopped trading, deposits and new positions at 04:00 UTC on September 23, 2026, ending an 11-year run — and the wind-down is not finished for anyone who left a balance behind. CoinDesk confirmed the shutdown, and BitMEX’s own closure notice set the terms months in advance. For US readers the story is less about a price event than about a structural one: the venue that invented the perpetual swap was the venue Americans were never allowed to use in the first place, and the product it popularized is only now arriving onshore. ...

$86K Broke the Shorts. The Weekly Close Matters More. Bitcoin hit $86,332 on Bitstamp on Monday, September 21, a 33-week high and its first move above $86,000 since late January. By that high, crypto short liquidations approached $800 million over 24 hours. The rally reached roughly 5.7% on the day. Cointelegraph’s report captures the squeeze. The bigger development arrived before Monday’s rush: Bitcoin closed the prior week above its 50-week moving average for the first time in 45 weeks. My read: the squeeze explains the speed; the weekly reclaim gives the recovery a stronger foundation. US ETF demand now has to help sustain it. ...

Bitcoin just won a historic committee vote. It did not win a government buy order. The American Reserve Modernization Act would lock up qualifying federal Bitcoin, change the custody rules and demand an inventory. It authorizes the Treasury to buy exactly zero coins. On September 16, the House Financial Services Committee advanced H.R. 8957, or ARMA, by 28–21, the first full-committee passage of a strategic Bitcoin reserve bill. All votes for passage came from Republicans; all opposing votes came from Democrats. The committee’s markup record also records the adoption of Rep. Bryan Steil’s substitute and the defeat of Rep. Maxine Waters’ amendment, 21–28. ...

Two prints landed on the same afternoon and they cannot both be right. $520 million walked out of US spot crypto ETFs on Sept 16. On that same day, wallets holding between 10,000 and 100,000 ETH bought roughly 200,000 ETH. One side of this market is leaving. The other is buying size into the exit. That is the entire setup. The ETF complex is a rent-a-coin wrapper that US desks rotate in and out of on a schedule. The wallets that moved 200,000 ETH are not on a schedule. And sitting right between them is a single price level that has nothing to do with either flow: $76,700. ...

One unanimous vote. One quarter point. And the market that half the timeline swore would crack did not crack — Bitcoin printed −0.31% while Ethereum got cut −4.70% in the exact same session. That split is the whole story of this week, and it is why what just opened looks nothing like the panic the headline count is selling you. The forced sellers already did their work. What is left on the screen is a repriced market with a rulebook being written in real time — and a very short list of assets that held. ...

The rulebook just got voted down 49-50, Bitcoin knifed to $74,910, and $771 million of leveraged positions were washed out in a single session. If you were waiting for a discount, this is what one looks like when it lands on your screen. The market did the selling for you. The only question left is whether you sit out the cheapest 24 hours of the month. Here is exactly what broke, what did not, and what a US account does before 2:00 p.m. ET tonight. ...

Nasdaq-100 futures fell 1.65% yesterday. The Kospi lost 3.26%. Gold dropped 0.8%, silver 1.7%, and AI semiconductors were taken to the woodshed. Crypto closed higher, with 94 of the CoinDesk 100 green. That divergence is the whole trade this week. Bitcoin is sitting at $77,950 with a $78,280 high already printed on Sept 14. The CLARITY Act Senate vote fires at 2:15 p.m. ET today. The FOMC decision lands tomorrow at 2:00 p.m. ET. Both are still ahead of you. ...