What has been happening this week in the world of blockchain and cryptocurrencies? Current events and background reports in our weekly review.
Selected articles of the week:
The major US crypto regulation will probably not materialize this year. The Clarity Act is meant to clearly divide digital assets between the securities regulator SEC and the derivatives regulator CFTC, with Bitcoin and Ether falling under the CFTC. The blockage is not about substance, as the central stablecoin dispute was already settled in May. The problem is the timeline. In the Senate, two committee versions must be merged and more than 100 amendments voted on, and passage requires 60 votes. The Republicans hold only around 53 seats and therefore depend on Democratic votes. After the August recess, the midterm campaign also begins, during which complex bipartisan financial legislation tends to stall. Senator Cynthia Lummis is already warning that the window could close until at least 2030. The prediction market Polymarket shares this skepticism and now prices passage in 2026 at just 39%, down from 82% in February.
The Clarity Act delay is intensifying: Galaxy Research cut the odds of a 2026 signing to 50%, while Polymarket now prices them at just 39%.
Trump earns USD 1.4 billion and blocks his own bill
Of all people, the president is making the Clarity Act’s path harder. The remaining Democratic votes hinge on an ethics clause that would bar officeholders from private crypto holdings and directly targets the Trump family’s business. Just how large these interests are is shown by the latest disclosure to the U.S. Office of Government Ethics. Donald Trump reported crypto income of USD 1.4 billion for 2025, a roughly 25-fold increase over the prior year. Around USD 800 million comes from the co-founded project World Liberty Financial, another USD 635 million from the TRUMP meme coin. The White House accepts general rules but rejects person-specific provisions. For retail investors, the balance is bleak. The TRUMP token trades at USD 1.69, putting it 80.5% below its high of USD 74. While the family fortune grew sharply, private buyers bore the losses.
Trump’s financial disclosure reports over 1.4 billion USD in crypto income for 2025, making cryptocurrencies his largest source of income.
BlackRock and Visa challenge Tether and Circle with OpenUSD
Individual players are not the only ones pushing into the stablecoin market; the established financial world is joining forces as well. More than 100 companies form the “Open Standard” consortium and are planning a joint dollar stablecoin under the ticker OUSD for the second half of 2026. Members include asset manager BlackRock, payment providers Visa, Mastercard and Stripe, as well as custodian bank BNY Mellon and Coinbase. Notably absent are the previous market leaders Tether and Circle, which together account for around USD 258 billion. The new model forgoes fees on minting and redemption and shares the reserve yield among participants. OpenUSD is fully backed by short-dated US government bonds and cash. The project is built on the infrastructure of Stripe and its subsidiary Bridge. The market reaction was not long in coming, as Circle’s stock lost 8.2% on the day of the announcement.
More than 100 financial firms such as BlackRock, Visa, and Mastercard, are launching the OpenUSD stablecoin in the second half of the year.
Swiss providers secure broad access to the EU market
While US corporations reorder the stablecoin standard, Swiss providers are securing access to the EU single market on a broad front. The European crypto regulation MiCA has been fully in force since late 2024, and the transition periods finally expired this week. A CASP authorization permits EU-wide operation via passporting. In early July, the EU counted 283 authorized providers, with Germany leading at 59 licenses. Swiss firms are taking two paths here. Crypto Finance, AMINA Bank, Relai, SwissBorg and Swissquote obtained licenses through subsidiaries in Germany, Austria, France and Luxembourg. More recently, a trend toward Liechtenstein has emerged, whose EEA membership enables passporting across all 30 EEA states. RuleMatch, Bitcoin Suisse and Sygnum took this route. Providers such as Taurus and 21Shares are deliberately staying away, as they focus on tokenized securities and ETP products and thus fall under different rulebooks. Overall, the Swiss adoption rate exceeds the EU average.
Seven Swiss crypto service providers hold a MiCA CASP authorization. AMINA was the world’s first; three followed via Liechtenstein.
Bitmine and Sharplink build Ethereum an institutional point of contact
In addition: The Ethereum ecosystem gains a new bridge to Wall Street. The independent non-profit organization Ethereum Institutional is intended to serve as a central point of contact between the network and banks, asset managers and regulators. It is backed by the listed firms Bitmine and Sharplink as well as by Ethereum co-founder Joe Lubin. Even before launch, more than 500 institutional relationships exist, representing assets of around USD 250 billion. The geographic focus initially lies on New York, London, Hong Kong and Singapore, with expansion to Zurich, Frankfurt and Tokyo planned. The claim to neutrality, however, stands in tension with the backers. Bitmine and Sharplink are ETH treasury firms with a direct financial interest in the price. The timing is also delicate, as the Ethereum Foundation is simultaneously restructuring and cutting around 20% of positions under its efficiency mandate.
Ethereum Institutional launches as a non-profit from Bitmine, Sharplink, and Joe Lubin, a new point of contact for banks and asset managers.
