CFTC's investigations into Polymarket highlight the growing scrutiny and regulatory challenges facing prediction markets and insider trading.
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Bitcoin Magazine
Government Defeated as Lords Back UK Digital Assets Strategy
The UK government suffered a defeat in the House of Lords on Wednesday as peers backed an amendment requiring the Treasury to draw up a national strategy for regulating digital assets.
The upper chamber approved the measure by 194 votes to 138, with Conservative and Liberal Democrat peers combining against a near-solid bloc of Labour votes. Baroness Neville-Rolfe, a Conservative former Treasury minister, moved the amendment to the Financial Services and Markets Bill.
The new clause, titled “Digital assets strategy,” would require the Treasury to prepare, publish and consult on a strategy for regulating and developing digital assets and related digital financial market infrastructure in the UK.
JUST IN:
— Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) September 11, 2026
The regulation of digital assets includes “cryptoassets, qualifying stablecoins, Central Bank Digital Currencies, tokenised securities and other digital and tokenised financial assets,” according to the draft.
The UK is in the process of drafting a sweeping new crypto bill. The country’s Financial Conduct Authority finalised its regulatory framework for cryptoassets in June, with the regime due to take effect on 25 October 2027. The authorisation gateway for firms opened on 30 September and runs to 28 February 2027.
Britain is trailing behind Brussels and Washington with digital asset regulation. The EU’s Markets in Crypto-Assets regulation has applied to service providers since 30 December 2024.
And the U.S. under President Donald Trump signed the GENIUS Act into law in July 2025, establishing a federal framework for dollar-backed tokens. Broader market-structure legislation remains unfinished: the Clarity Act cleared the House in July 2025 by 294-134 but has been stuck in the Senate over DeFi, stablecoin yield and ethics provisions, with a procedural vote set for next week.
This post Government Defeated as Lords Back UK Digital Assets Strategy first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.
Tether's collaboration with global law enforcement highlights the increasing role of stablecoin issuers in combating financial crimes worldwide.
The post Tether assists DOJ in $52 million action against global scam network appeared first on Crypto Briefing.
Canada's support for tokenized deposits may accelerate fintech innovation, prompting banks to adapt to evolving regulatory landscapes.
The post Canada’s banking regulator backs innovation in tokenized deposits appeared first on Crypto Briefing.
A revised version of the CLARITY Act would put regulatory obligations on people or coordinated groups controlling “non-decentralized finance trading protocols.” The revised bill defines a non-decentralized protocol as one whose functionality, operation, or rules can be materially altered by an identifiable person or coordinated group.
Under the framework, the SEC and CFTC would write activity-based rules covering registration, conduct, disclosure, recordkeeping, and supervision. Treasury would then determine how existing Bank Secrecy Act obligations apply to affected controllers.
— Coin Bureau (@coinbureau) September 10, 2026
The full text has not been made public.
Key disputes remain unresolved, including:
– Ethics rules targeting the president, who reported more than $1.4… pic.twitter.com/pXJ0yZ1ojT
Software and distributed-ledger systems would not be required to register in their own capacity under the text. Participation in an incident-response or security council would not, by itself, establish control over a protocol. This is a carve-out aimed at preserving emergency-response mechanisms without pulling their participants into regulatory scope.
However, the September 15 vote still depends on Democratic crossover votes, given unresolved disputes over ethics provisions, anti-money-laundering protections, and stablecoin rewards.
Trade Bitcoin on Bybit and Get a Chance to Win Our $1,000 USDT AirdropThe core shift in the revised CLARITY Act is definitional rather than structural. Instead of treating all DeFi trading protocols as a single regulatory category. The bill draws a line between protocols that behave like neutral infrastructure and those where an identifiable controller retains the ability to alter functionality, restrict users, or override pre-established code logic.
Practically, this means the SEC and CFTC would be tasked with building activity-based rulebooks aimed at controllers rather than protocols in the abstract. Treasury’s piece addresses how Bank Secrecy Act obligations map onto those same controllers.
For market participants tracking how the CLARITY Act could reshape institutional access to crypto markets, this is the mechanism that determines which DeFi front-ends and governance structures face compliance exposure and which remain entirely outside registration requirements.
The bill still faces the same political friction that has slowed it for months. Ethics restrictions, AML protections, and stablecoin-yield treatment remain contested, and the ethics section in the newly released text is largely unchanged from the prior draft despite being one of the central sticking points in negotiations.
Earn $50 and Enter $300K Prize Draw on EdgeXCrypto Council for Innovation CEO Ji Hun Kim called the pending vote a pivotal moment for digital assets and innovation. American leadership argues the US needs a framework that pairs consumer protections with business conduct standards.
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong told CNBC the bill was ready for a yes vote, saying Coinbase’s previously identified must-have issues had been resolved, though he did not specify which provisions changed or where ethics negotiations landed.
— Coin Bureau (@coinbureau) September 10, 2026
“If it passes, we get legislation,”
“If it doesn’t pass, the SEC and CFTC are ready to issue rules.”
Armstrong said the Sept. 15 Senate vote will bring regulatory clarity… pic.twitter.com/A38qUeLF7d
Not everyone shares that confidence. Democratic Senator Ruben Gallego warned in August against rushing a vote before lawmakers resolved disputes over ethics and stablecoin yield, arguing that a fast vote does not guarantee the outcome supporters want.
The September 15 cloture vote decides only if the Senate opens debate, not if the CLARITY Act becomes law. Clearing the 60-vote threshold requires Republicans to secure Democratic support despite the open fights over ethics language, AML protections, and stablecoin rewards, the same issues Gallego flagged weeks ago.
Armstrong noted that if the legislation stalls, the SEC and CFTC could still pursue rulemaking and innovation exemptions under their existing authority, meaning DeFi regulation would proceed agency by agency rather than through a single statutory framework.
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The post Revised CLARITY Act Would Shift DeFi Compliance to Controllers appeared first on Cryptonews.
Brian Armstrong, Coinbase’s CEO, said Bitcoin reaching $400,000 by 2030 is a reasonable target, and described the $300,000-$400,000 range as very likely to be hit within that window, in a CNBC Squawk Box Asia segment. The call is Armstrong’s personal read on where Bitcoin’s price could land, not a formal Coinbase corporate forecast or a consensus market call.
Armstrong is the CEO of the largest U.S. crypto exchange, and his outlook carries weight because it’s grounded in policy developments he’s directly involved in shaping, not a spreadsheet model he’s publishing for Coinbase clients.
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong says Bitcoin could realistically reach $400,000 by 2030.
— Crypto Emperor (@Cryptoemperor06) September 10, 2026
That would put BTC at nearly 5x its current level, reflecting his long-term conviction in institutional adoption and Bitcoin’s growing role in the global financial system. pic.twitter.com/AHn42RaKLB
In the clip, Armstrong walked through the CLARITY Act and what greater regulatory clarity could mean for the crypto industry as a whole, tying the legislation to the pace at which institutional capital moves into digital assets. He also said he believes the Bitcoin trade has already bottomed and expects upside as pressure continues to build in global bond markets.
That bond-market framing is the more interesting piece for traders parsing his logic. Armstrong is effectively arguing that stress in sovereign debt markets pushes capital toward scarce, non-sovereign assets, a thesis long-time Bitcoin holders have made for years.
Coinbase itself sits at the center of that flow, and Armstrong’s comments arrive as the exchange continues pushing regulators toward a clearer rulebook for digital assets, a topic covered in more detail in our look at how regulatory clarity could unlock institutional capital.
Neither the CNBC segment nor Armstrong’s remarks lay out a specific valuation model, a probability weighting, or a precise timeline for the bottom he says has already formed; the forecast is directional conviction.
Discover: The Best Token Presales
The CLARITY Act has become shorthand in these conversations for the broader push to define how digital assets get regulated in the U.S. Armstrong’s decision to lead with it signals where he thinks the real re-rating catalyst sits.
— Coin Bureau (@coinbureau) September 10, 2026
“If it passes, we get legislation,”
“If it doesn’t pass, the SEC and CFTC are ready to issue rules.”
Armstrong said the Sept. 15 Senate vote will bring regulatory clarity… pic.twitter.com/A38qUeLF7d
His argument, as framed in the CNBC segment, links clearer rules directly to wider institutional adoption. The logic being that large allocators need defined jurisdiction and compliance guardrails before committing larger positions to Bitcoin meaningfully.
That’s a familiar setup for anyone who traded through prior Bitcoin price prediction cycles tied to ETF approvals: the asset doesn’t need the legislation to pass to rally, but sustained institutional flow tends to follow policy certainty rather than lead it.
Earn $50 and Enter $300K Prize Draw on EdgeXArmstrong’s comments don’t reference a specific pending vote or implementation deadline, so traders shouldn’t treat passage of any legislation as imminent based on this interview alone. The more relevant variable in the near term is whether Bitcoin can confirm the bottom Armstrong referenced.
Until regulatory outcomes firm up, Armstrong’s $400,000 figure functions as a directional marker rather than a tradable price level, the kind of long-dated target that shapes positioning sentiment more than it dictates entries.
Whether it holds up depends less on Coinbase’s own roadmap and more on how quickly institutional capital and policy clarity actually materialize over the next several years.
Trade Crypto on Bybit and Get a Chance to Win Our $1,000 USDT AirdropThe post Bitcoin News: Bond Stress and Regulation Shape Armstrong’s $400K BTC Prediction appeared first on Cryptonews.
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said U.S. crypto regulatory clarity is likely to arrive, whether or not the Senate advances the CLARITY Act in its scheduled Sept. 15 vote. He also frames the legislation as one of two possible paths to the same destination. Passage would unlock institutional capital and support future products such as tokenized equities, he said.
Armstrong told CNBC’s Squawk Box Asia the bill appeared close to the support it needs, with the senators he’s spoken to on board. Securing 60 votes remains the immediate hurdle, and as we have reported on the cloture vote, ethics provisions are among the details still being negotiated.
He said SEC and CFTC rulemaking could deliver an alternative route to clarity if Congress fails to act. Separately, Coinbase reported second-quarter 2026 revenue of $1.2 billion, down from $1.5 billion a year earlier, with a $359.5 million net loss versus a $1.43 billion profit in the year-ago period.
Earn $50 and Enter $300K Prize Draw on EdgeXThe CLARITY Act seeks to establish a federal framework for digital assets, dividing oversight between the SEC and CFTC. Coinbase has been one of its most vocal backers, and Armstrong reiterated that stance ahead of the Sept. 15 Senate vote, where clearing the 60-vote threshold is the key procedural test.
Democratic Sen. Ruben Gallego of Arizona has said getting to 60 votes requires resolving ethics provisions alongside other outstanding issues. Armstrong said those details were still being negotiated but appeared very close to a solution ahead of the vote.
LATEST:
— CoinMarketCap (@CoinMarketCap) August 21, 2026
He described the bill’s potential passage as a regulatory checkbox that could unlock institutional capital and pave the way for products like tokenized equities in the U.S., calling it a big milestone if it happens, without committing Coinbase to a specific product timeline.
That regulatory push comes as Coinbase leans harder into diversification. Crypto spot trading, which Armstrong said has been down for the last year and still accounts for roughly half of revenue, has dragged on results now for three straight quarters against Wall Street expectations.
Coinbase has expanded its trading business into stocks, commodities, and foreign exchange, while building out non-trading revenue through stablecoins and institutional custody. It is a mix that connects to broader questions about how regulatory clarity feeds into digital-asset pricing.
Discover: The Best Token Presales
Armstrong’s tokenized-equities framing runs into a distinction worth keeping straight: putting a stock on a blockchain doesn’t remove it from securities regulation. The SEC said in a January 2026 statement that a tokenized security is still a security under federal law regardless of whether it’s formatted as a crypto asset.
That statement also outlined that tokenized securities can be issued directly by companies or created by unaffiliated third parties, layering a crypto asset on top of an existing security. The CLARITY Act’s relevance to Coinbase’s ambitions, then, may lie less in redefining what a tokenized stock legally is and more in clarifying which agency governs the trading venues and market infrastructure around it.
The Senate’s Sept. 15 vote is the immediate checkpoint, with 60 votes and outstanding ethics language the deciding factors. If the bill stalls, Armstrong’s fallback case rests on the SEC and CFTC moving forward with rulemaking of their own, a scenario he expects but that regulators have not put on a confirmed public schedule.
Trade Crypto on Bybit and Get a Chance to Win Our $1,000 USDT AirdropThe post Coinbase Links CLARITY Act Passage to Institutional Capital appeared first on Cryptonews.
Malone Lam, a 22-year-old Singaporean and recent Miami resident, pleaded guilty in a Washington, D.C. federal court to one count of participating in a RICO conspiracy tied to the theft and laundering of more than $245 million in Bitcoin and cryptocurrency. He faces a maximum sentence of 20 years, according to court proceedings before U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly.
The case centers on an August 2024 theft of more than 4,100 Bitcoin from a Washington-area victim, executed not through a protocol exploit but through impersonation and credential theft.
Malone Lam, 22, a citizen of Singapore and recent resident of Miami, pleaded guilty today in connection with his role as ringleader of an international cybercrime conspiracy that used social engineering to steal and launder cryptocurrency valued at more than $245 million,… pic.twitter.com/R8Nnz9a7n6
— U.S. Attorney DC (@USAO_DC) September 8, 2026
According to prosecutors, two alleged co-conspirators posed as representatives of Google and the Gemini cryptocurrency exchange to manipulate the victim into granting access to his Google Drive and revealing security codes. That access allegedly let Lam siphon off the Bitcoin holdings in one move.
No wallet was cracked; no private key was brute-forced. The attackers simply talked their way past the human layer that sits in front of every custody setup.
Lam is one of 18 defendants charged in the case and the 11th to plead guilty. Prosecutors describe him as an organizer for a network of young men who ran a string of cryptocurrency scams starting in 2023.
Trade Crypto on Bybit and Get a Chance to Win Our $1,000 USDT AirdropAuthorities say Lam helped launder and convert the stolen cryptocurrency into cash, which then funded a fleet of more than 30 cars, including custom Porsches, Lamborghinis, and Ferraris, a $2 million watch, and rented mansions in Miami. Nightclub spending alone reportedly hit $569,000 in a single evening at one Los Angeles club.
— AlphaWire (@AlphaWireHQ) September 8, 2026
Prosecutors say Lam and his associates impersonated Google and Gemini representatives to socially engineer a victim and steal more than 4,100 BTC, later… pic.twitter.com/sno0sEe9xs
The run lasted a month before FBI agents arrested Lam in Miami. Per the indictment, an off-duty law enforcement officer had tipped him off that agents were en route, though the arrest went ahead regardless. In a recorded jailhouse call cited in the indictment, Lam told associates the outcome had exceeded even their own worst-case scenarios for what getting caught might look like.
The mismatch between the crime’s technical simplicity and its financial scale is the real story here. Social engineering doesn’t require exploiting Bitcoin’s underlying protocol. It requires exploiting the people and institutions standing between a holder and their keys. Google Drive access and a leaked security code did more damage here than any blockchain-level attack could.
Discover: The Best Token Presales
Judge Kollar-Kotelly had not immediately scheduled Lam’s sentencing hearing at the time of the plea. He faces up to 20 years in prison on the single racketeering-conspiracy count, with the remaining defendants in the 18-person case still working through their own proceedings.
For traders and holders, the takeaway isn’t abstract: large balances sitting behind cloud-linked recovery methods, reused security codes, or support channels vulnerable to impersonation remain the softest target in the ecosystem.
Recovery of stolen funds, when it happens at all, typically comes through law enforcement asset forfeiture rather than any on-chain remedy, a process illustrated by past cases involving long-delayed Bitcoin recovery efforts tied to historic exchange failures.
The Lam case is a reminder that the weakest link in crypto security is rarely the cryptography.
Earn $50 and Enter $300K Prize Draw on EdgeXThe post Bitcoin Thief Pleaded Guilty: The $245M Social Engineering appeared first on Cryptonews.
Coinbase policy chief Faryar Shirzad told crypto advocate Scott Melker that he remains cautiously optimistic the CLARITY Act can clear a critical Senate procedural vote scheduled for September 15. Coinbase is not assuming all 53 Senate Republicans will back the CLARITY Act, which means Democratic votes are essential to reach the 60-vote cloture threshold.
The vote in question is a cloture motion on the bill’s path to full Senate consideration, not a final passage vote. Clearing cloture opens debate and amendments, but the bill still needs to survive a later floor vote before it becomes law.
Shirzad described the years the industry has spent building bipartisan support as finally putting comprehensive Senate crypto regulation within reach, calling the legislative package a powerful one. He laid out two possible outcomes on September 15: the bill stalls just short of 60 votes, or enough Democrats cross over to trigger what Washington insiders term a jailbreak, where additional undecided senators feel safe voting yes once bipartisan momentum is visible.
Discover: The Best Token Presales
Shirzad identified the ethics language connected to President Trump’s crypto holdings as the single biggest risk to the bill’s advance. Senate Democrats continue to argue that the proposed ethics provisions fall short, while Republicans maintain that the legislation already contains meaningful safeguards.
UPDATE: Republican senators warn the CLARITY Act is "likely to FAIL" next week as talks stall over ethics rules governing Trump and his family, per Semafor.
— Coin Bureau (@coinbureau) September 8, 2026
Sen. Thom Tillis says the bill “is going to fail” unless the White House helps bridge the divide. https://t.co/cjCUWLznoE pic.twitter.com/ytnt5wUXFQ
Per Shirzad, the White House has accepted restrictions that apply specifically to the president, but Democrats may still demand further concessions before supplying the votes needed for cloture. Remaining disputes over DeFi provisions and exchange rules are, in his view, more likely to get resolved than the ethics standoff.
Stablecoin-related banking concerns add another layer of friction on the Republican side. Shirzad expects the White House to push lawmakers toward a compromise on that front, a dynamic that has already shaped how the industry frames the bill’s impact on bank deposits, a subject covered in detail regarding the CLARITY Act’s effect on the US banking sector.
Earn $50 and Enter $300K Prize Draw on EdgeXThe bill would split oversight of digital assets between the SEC and CFTC and bar government officials, including Trump, from operating crypto businesses, according to Reuters reporting. Trump reported more than $1.4 billion in income from his family’s crypto ventures last year, which is precisely why the ethics carve-outs have become the bill’s most contested section.
Democrats have pushed for stronger anti-money-laundering controls and for state attorneys general to have independent enforcement power over the presidential ban, per Reuters. Community bankers, meanwhile, have lobbied against provisions letting exchanges pay rewards on stablecoin holdings, arguing it would pull deposits away from traditional lenders.
BREAKING:
— The Bitcoin Historian (@pete_rizzo_) September 8, 2026
THEY RAKED IN RECORD PROFITS OF $300 BILLION LAST YEAR BY “SQUEEZING CONSUMERS AND SMALL BUSINESSES”
AND NOW THEY WANT TO “KILL THE BIPARTISAN CLARITY ACT”
THEY WANT "TO PREVENT… pic.twitter.com/eCvVpjIFHo
Failure at the procedural stage would not stop crypto regulation, according to Shirzad, who argued regulators would move to implement well over 100 individual rules through agency action to replicate much of the framework Congress failed to pass.
He expects crypto’s integration with traditional finance to keep advancing regardless, through tokenization, stablecoins, perpetual futures, and 24/7 markets. This is the CLARITY Act outcome Coinbase is positioning itself for by building toward a wider financial platform spanning investing, lending, and borrowing across asset classes.
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Prediction markets are pricing skepticism into that timeline. Kalshi traders have assigned a low probability to major crypto legislation becoming law this year. A signal worth weighing against Coinbase’s public optimism heading into September 15.
Traders positioning around the vote should treat September 15 as a gauge of momentum, not a resolution. A cloture win still leaves debate, amendments, and a final floor vote ahead.
Discover: The Best Token Presales
The post Coinbase CLARITY Act Optimistic as Cloture Vote Faces Ethics Fight appeared first on Cryptonews.
Bitcoin Magazine
Lummis Blasts Democrats Ahead of Clarity Act Vote — But Adds Bill Can Get Passed
Republican Senator Cynthia Lummis has again slammed Democrats over the long-awaited crypto Clarity Act.
Writing on X on Tuesday, the pro-crypto lawmaker responded to an article from Semafor that reported Republican senators saying the bill was likely to fail when the senate returns next week.
Lawmakers were hoping a crucial vote on the long-awaited crypto market structure bill would go ahead in August before their five-week recess. But it was delayed and the Senate will now vote on it next week.
JUST IN:
— Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) September 8, 2026
Senator Cynthia Lummis says if they fail to pass it next week, "we will not get another realistic shot at this before the end of the decade"
Pass it
“If this bill fails it won’t be because of ethics, it will be because Democrats didn’t join Republicans in embracing a bipartisan bill that protected consumers, cements America’s leadership in digital assets, and empowered law enforcement to clamp down on illicit finance,” wrote Lummis.
She said that Democrats were continuing to “demand changes” that could allow future regulators to “kill the crypto industry.”
“If we can bridge those gaps I’m confident we can pass Clarity, but they require further compromise from Democrats, not the White House,” added Lummis.
Lummis previously said that if the Clarity Act dies, it will be because of the Democrats. Lummis and other pro-crypto lawmakers have blasted politicians who they think are deliberately holding back the bill.
The Clarity Act drafts a framework to formally divide oversight between regulators, distinguishing which digital assets are securities, commodities or stablecoins.
Though passed by the House of Representatives last July, it has been stalled this year, mostly because the banking lobby clashed with crypto companies over paying customers stablecoin yield.
A new draft tackling the issue of ethics started circulating in July, banning government officials from promoting or making money from crypto — something Democrats have criticized the Trump family for doing.
Despite the changes, a group of Democrats said the bill fell short and wanted amendments.
President Donald Trump has urged lawmakers to get the legislation over the line. In August, he said that in order for the U.S. to remain the “undisputed leader in Bitcoin and crypto,” they had to pass the “very, very powerful legislation.”
This post Lummis Blasts Democrats Ahead of Clarity Act Vote — But Adds Bill Can Get Passed first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.
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