The Digital Chamber Pushes Congress to Advance the CLARITY Act

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In Today's Note

• US equities hit fresh record highs after reports of a tentative 60-day US–Iran ceasefire extension, while Brent crude fell below $94 and Treasury yields moved lower.
• Crypto sentiment remained weaker, with BTC still trading between $72K and $75K, spot ETF demand fading, and BTC/ETH options still showing low implied volatility with persistent put skew.
• US inflation remained elevated, with April PCE rising to its highest annual level since May 2023 and Q1 GDP revised down to 1.6%.
• Paxos became the first blockchain-native firm registered by the SEC as a clearing agency, while ICE said it has met with Hyperliquid multiple times as it explores blockchain-based derivatives markets.

Market Snapshot: Overnight Moves

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Macro & Markets

• News that the US and Iran have reached a tentative deal that will extend the Middle East ceasefire by an additional 60 days helped underpin risk-on sentiment in US equities. 
• For now, however, sentiment remains more subdued in crypto markets: our in-house Risk Appetite Index’s for both BTC and ETH continue to drop from their recent highs. 

• According to Axios, negotiators from Washington and Tehran reached an agreement on a 60-day memorandum of understanding which will allow “unrestricted” access to the Strait of Hormuz and include negotiations on Iran's nuclear program. 
• The agreement is now waiting on a final approval from President Trump and Iranian leaders. The news report cited a US official as saying, "The president relayed to the mediators that he wants a couple of days to think about it”. 

• Vice President JD Vance told reporters yesterday that both sides are “going back and forth on a couple of language points” and that Iran is negotiating in good faith.
• Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent, was less explicit on stating whether a deal had been reached with certainty — he reiterated President Trump’s three “red lines”: reopening the Strait of Hormuz, surrendering highly enriched uranium, and ending Iran’s nuclear program.

• US equities once again closed at record highs. The S&P 500 finished up 0.58%, marking its sixth consecutive winning day, while Brent crude settled below $94 a barrel and treasury yields fell across the curve. 
• The all-time high in benchmark US equity indexes contrasts a less bullish sentiment in BTC and ETH however. 
• BTC continued to chop between $72K and $75K, with demand for Spot ETFs waning. 
• In options markets, implied volatility continues to trade close to year-to-date lows with volatility smiles showing a persistent skew towards puts across the surface. 

• Yesterday’s Bureau of Economic Analysis report showed the personal consumption expenditures (PCE) index for April rose 3.8% from a year earlier, putting the index at its highest level since May 2023. 
• The index gained 0.4% on a month-over-month ​basis in April after jumping 0.7% in March.
• Categories such as goods prices rose 0.7% in the last month, while the cost of gasoline and other energy products rose 5.5%. 
• Food prices rebounded 0.5% in April, following a 0.1% decline in the month prior. 
• The core PCE index rose 3.3% on a year-on-year basis, to its highest since November 2023. 
• Goods prices increased 0.7% last month, with the cost of gasoline and other energy products rising 5.5%.

• A separate report from the BEA showed that the US economy grew at an annualised rate of 1.6% in Q1 2026, less than the initial 2% estimate. 
• The downward revision was primarily driven by a decline in inventory investment (which measures the physical change in the stock of unsold goods and raw materials held by businesses), as well as consumer spending. 

DeFi / Web3 / Altcoins / Crypto3

• The Digital Chamber, the largest American advocacy group that promotes the emerging industry behind blockchain technology, bitcoin, digital currency and digital assets, has launched a new campaign urging Congress to pass the CLARITY Act, a major crypto market structure bill aimed at creating clearer federal rules for digital assets.
• The group has introduced a website that allows crypto users, builders and industry participants to contact lawmakers directly and call for support. 

• ICE CEO Jeffrey Sprecher said the exchange operator has met with Hyperliquid “multiple times” and described the relationship as one of “joint admiration,” with both sides helping each other understand how traditional and onchain derivatives markets are evolving.
• Speaking at a Bernstein conference, Sprecher pushed for regulatory parity, arguing that ICE is effectively asking regulators: “Can we do that?” and “Why are you prohibiting us from doing this when it’s already happening?”, referring to crypto-native perpetual futures markets.
• He also highlighted the policy dilemma facing regulators, questioning whether perpetual futures should be treated as a new category of regulated product or folded into existing swaps frameworks, while noting that ICE is actively exploring how its own businesses could participate in blockchain-based derivatives markets.

• Ventuals said it will compensate affected users after its pre-IPO SpaceX perpetual contract on Hyperliquid briefly crashed 45% in around 30 minutes, triggering a wave of liquidations across hundreds of accounts.
• The platform attributed the move to incorrect data from an offchain oracle provider, which caused the contract’s oracle and mark prices to diverge sharply from market expectations and forced liquidations despite no corresponding change in SpaceX fundamentals.
• SPACEX-USDH fell from roughly $2,277 to $1,254 before recovering, with Hyperliquid data showing 484 traders were liquidated and around $1.74M in notional value was wiped out.

• Paxos said its subsidiary, Paxos Securities Settlement Company (PSSC), has received SEC registration as a clearing agency, making it the first blockchain-native firm authorized to provide clearing and settlement services as a central securities depository in the U.S.
• The approval follows Paxos’ operation of an SEC-approved settlement pilot since 2020, under which it cleared and settled U.S. equities transactions using blockchain-based infrastructure.
• The registration allows PSSC to provide regulated clearing and settlement services for eligible securities under Section 17A of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934.

• Layer 1 blockchain Sui experienced a mainnet outage at approximately 10:00am ET on May 28, with the team warning that transactions had stalled and confirming engineers were investigating the issue.
• Network activity resumed at approximately 4:00pm ET, with Sui later attributing the roughly six-hour halt to a crash bug in the gas charging logic introduced in the network’s 1.72 release.

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