Scenius Sync (Issue # 203)

White House targets July 4 for Clarity Act, DTC to begin tokenized asset in July, Coinbase Adds Gold and Silver Perps, Bullish to Acquire Equiniti in $4.2B Deal, & Morgan Stanley debuts crypto trading

Scenius: The intelligence and the intuition of a whole cultural scene. The communal form of the concept of genius.

Welcome to The Scenius Sync.

Our mission with this concise publication is twofold:

1. Share the essential stories driving the crypto industry and markets.

2. Highlight innovative applications and mainstream adoption of crypto and blockchain technology.

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Essential News 🗞

1. White House targets July 4 for Clarity Act passage, says crypto adviser Patrick Witt

   • White House digital-assets adviser Patrick Witt said the administration is targeting July 4 for House passage of the Clarity Act, with the Senate Banking Committee markup planned for this month and four working Senate weeks in June for floor passage. The stablecoin-yield compromise inside Clarity between Sens. Thom Tillis and Angela Alsobrooks “is closed,” Witt said. The White House is pushing for a conflict-of-interest provision that applies “across the board” rather than targeting any single officeholder, in response to advocates who raised it as an answer to President Donald Trump’s crypto interests.

2. DTC to begin tokenized asset rollout in July ahead of full launch as it gets feedback from BlackRock, Circle and others

   • In just a few months, the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation — the backbone of custody and settlement in U.S. markets — will roll out its tokenization service as it gathers feedback from firms like BlackRock and Circle. On Monday, in a statement, DTC said it would facilitate “initial, limited production trades of real-world assets” in July 2026, ahead of the service’s launch in October. The Securities and Exchange Commission greenlit the new service late last year through a No-Action Letter, allowing DTC to begin offering participants the ability to tokenize certain highly liquid assets on pre-approved blockchains under a three-year authorization period.

3. Kelp DAO ditches LayerZero for Chainlink’s cross-chain infrastructure following $292 million exploit

   • Kelp DAO, the DeFi lending protocol at the center of the $292 million bridge exploit last month, is dropping LayerZero as its cross-chain infrastructure provider in favor of Chainlink. With the move, Kelp DAO is “the first major protocol to move away from LayerZero since the exploit,” a Chainlink representative told The Block. Many onlookers blame LayerZero at least partially for the attack. On April 18, attackers suspected to be connected to North Korea’s Lazarus Group exploited a single-verifier configuration of a LayerZero-powered Omnichain Fungible Token (OFT) bridge to drain 116,500 rsETH from Kelp DAO.

4. A16z backs CFTC, says state-by-state rules on prediction markets create ‘barrier to impartial access’

   • Venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz came out in support of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, pushing back against a wave of state-level crackdowns on prediction markets. In an 18-page comment letter to the CFTC on Friday, the VC firm, commonly referred to as a16z, said that actions being taken by state regulators against prediction market platforms, including cease-and-desist letters and proposed bans, are creating a “serious barrier to impartial access” for users.

5. Trump’s World Liberty Financial countersues crypto billionaire Justin Sun for defamation in response to allegations of fraud

   • One of the Trump family’s biggest early crypto backers is now a foe. In response to claims of fraud by billionaire Justin Sun, the Trump-backed crypto firm World Liberty Financial filed a countersuit for defamation on Monday in Florida State court, claiming its former ally engaged in “a scorched-earth pressure campaign” against the crypto project as Sun pushed World Liberty Financial to release hundreds of millions of cryptocurrency he owned.

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Innovation & Adoption 💡📈

1. Coinbase Adds Gold and Silver Perps With USDC Settlement and up to 25x Leverage

   • Crypto exchange Coinbase (Nasdaq: COIN) announced on May 6 that it began offering gold and silver perpetual futures for eligible non-U.S. traders, marking another step in its push to bring traditional market products onto digital asset trading platforms. The contracts provide exposure to spot gold and silver prices through perpetual futures that settle in USDC and reference one troy ounce of each metal. Retail traders in supported jurisdictions can access the products through the Coinbase website and the Coinbase app. Institutions can use Coinbase International Exchange. GOLD-PERP tracks spot gold, while SILVER-PERP tracks spot silver. The exchange said gold contracts will support maximum leverage of up to 25x, while silver contracts will support up to 20x.

2. Bullish to Acquire Equiniti in $4.2B Deal, Expanding Into Tokenized Securities

   • Bullish has agreed to acquire Equiniti, a global transfer agent, for approximately $4.2 billion including debt, according to the Wall Street Journal.

     Following the deal, the companies plan to offer corporate issuers end-to-end tokenization services, including 24/7 trading of securities and stablecoin-based payment and settlement solutions. Equiniti currently serves nearly 3,000 public companies, including Berkshire Hathaway and Moody’s. The transaction is expected to close in January 2027, subject to regulatory approvals.

3. Crypto VC Haun Ventures raises $1 billion for funds investing in blockchain and AI

   • Haun Ventures, the venture capital firm known for investing in crypto firms, has raised another $1 billion for both early and later-stage funds, according to an announcement on Monday. The capital will be deployed over the next two to three years in both crypto firms and a startups at the “new frontier” of finance, including artificial intelligence and alternative assets. Last year, Fortune reported that Haun Ventures sought to raise $1 billion to launch two new crypto-focused funds. The funding round was expected to close in June.

4. Ripple, JPMorgan and others use XRP Ledger to cash out tokenized Treasurys fund internationally

   • JPMorgan, Ripple, Mastercard and Ondo Finance have teamed up to transfer tokenized U.S. Treasurys across borders using both blockchain and interbank payment rails. “By combining the XRP Ledger with global banking infrastructure, this pilot shows how institutions can execute cross-border transactions in a single integrated flow,” Ripple said in a post to X on Wednesday. Ripple is the primary advocate for XRP Ledger, an onchain payment rail. The pilot transaction involved Ondo initially processing its OUSG onchain fund redemption for Ripple on the XRP Ledger. OUSG is a tokenized U.S. Treasury product.

5. Morgan Stanley Debuts Crypto Trading, Undercuts Rivals on Price

   • Morgan Stanley is rolling out cryptocurrency trading on its E*Trade platform with a dig at rivals: cheaper pricing. The Wall Street bank is charging clients 50 basis points on the dollar value of each crypto transaction — undercutting Coinbase Global Inc., the biggest crypto exchange in the US, as well as Robinhood Markets Inc. and Charles Schwab Corp. The offering is in pilot now, with all of E*Trade’s 8.6 million clients set to gain access later this year.