Morning Minute: CFTC Will Give Crypto Clarity If Congress Won’t

Morning Minute is a daily newsletter written by Tyler Warner. The analysis and opinions expressed are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Decrypt.

GM!

Today’s top news:

• Crypto majors are up another 5-10% with BTC leading; BTC at $77.4k
• The BTC ETFs saw $606M in inflows and ETH had $219M, new local highs
• Over $1.2B in crypto shorts liquidated in past 24 hours, nearly $5B in 2 days
• CFTC Chair says he’ll write the crypto rules himself if Congress won’t
• Pump Fun posts 2 biggest back-to-back revenue days since January, PUMP +25%

🏛️ CFTC Chair Says He’ll Write Crypto Rules Himself If Congress Won’t

The Clarity Act has been stuck in the Senate since lawmakers left for August recess without a procedural vote, still short of the roughly six Democratic votes it needs to clear 60. On Thursday, CFTC Chair Michael Selig told a room full of crypto executives that if the bill stays stuck, his agency will build the framework without them.

“If Clarity continues to stall because of Democrat obstruction, the CFTC will utilize its existing authorities to begin establishing a regime for crypto asset markets,” Selig said at the inaugural meeting of the agency’s Innovation Advisory Committee. He’s already started. Staff have been directed to explore rules codifying a CFTC market structure for digital assets, and Selig said he’ll direct them to formally propose those rules if Congress doesn’t move. “Rest assured, I will direct CFTC staff to move swiftly.”

With this new framework, existing CFTC registrants and currently unregistered crypto exchanges could both come under agency oversight. Leveraged and margined crypto trading would likely be permitted under rules tailored to digital assets. Selig also directed staff to engage directly with developers of onchain finance protocols on how they can operate legally in the U.S.

As for the tension with Congress, Selig said legislation remains his preferred path precisely because rules written by an agency can be unwritten by the next one, calling the bill the surest way to prevent another Gary Gensler from running lawfare against crypto again. But if Congress won’t do it, Selig will.

So let’s summarize this week. On Tuesday, the SEC proposed its first formal crypto rules Tuesday. On Wednesday, Trump pushed the Senate on Clarity and said Hyperliquid is coming to the U.S. On Thursday, Selig confirmed he’s moving forward with a crypto framework if Clarity stalls in September.

Washington has picked up the crypto ball and is running with it. Let’s see where they take it…

🌎 Macro Crypto and Markets

• Crypto majors are very green up another 4-8% with BTC leading; BTC +8% at $77.5k; ETH +4% at $2,380; SOL +4% at $91; HYPE +4% at $74.60
• Top alt movers include ENA (+40%), PUMP (+23%), FET (+20%) and XRP (+20%); ZEC +15% to $650
• Oil -2% at $87.20; Gold +2% at $4,650
• Stock futures are green; DOW +04%, Nasdaq +0.5%
• Another $1.2B in shorts were liquidated over the past 24 hours with crypto prices soaring, nearing $5B total over the past 2 days
• Solana daily transactions hit a new ATH on Thursday
• XRP posted its best week since the 2024 election pump, up roughly 40% off last weekend’s close under $1, riding Bitcoin’s short squeeze.
• X (Twitter) is in talks to pay creators in stablecoins such as USDC, as the platform phases out Revenue Sharing for a new Original Content Rewards Program
• An Optimism-funded dev team cast the deciding vote with 17 minutes left, moving 546.9 million OP worth about $49.7 million out of the user airdrop allocation and into a Foundation-controlled fund
• Binance launched Agent OS, letting AI agents like ChatGPT and Claude trade spot, margin, convert, and futures through an isolated sub-account with no withdrawal permissions

Corporate Treasuries & ETFs

• The Bitcoin ETFs saw $606M in net inflows on Thursday, the biggest day since May 1; the ETH ETFs saw $219M in inflows (biggest since September 2025)

Meme Coin Tracker

• Meme leaders were very green up another 10%+; DOGE +9%, SHIB +7%, PEPE +17%, PENGU +17%, TRUMP +6%, BONK +11%, Fartcoin +15%
• Robinhood chain was mixed with Cashcat +11%, and AI +135% leading, Robbie +40%
• Solana leaders included Cate (+145%), Toad (+70%) and Jimothy (+40%); Ansem +15% to $290M

💰 Token, Airdrop & Protocol Tracker

🚚 What is happening in NFTs?

• NFT leaders were mixed; Punks even at 32.4 ETH, BAYC +7% at 8.1 ETH, Pudgy -1% at 3.74 ETH; Stonkbrokers -2% to 5.5 ETH
• Gribbits (+100%), Stackers (+75%) and Hypurrs (+17%) led top movers