Scenius Sync (Issue # 204)
Charles Schwab Launches Spot BTC and ETH, Coinbase becomes Hyperliquid’s official USDC treasury, Myriad Adopts Chainlink, CME to Launch Nasdaq CME Crypto Index Futures, & Starknet launches strkBTC
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 publication is the following:
Distribute thought leadership that made an impression on us this week
Share the essential stories driving the crypto industry and markets.
Highlight innovative applications and mainstream adoption of crypto and blockchain technology.
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Opinions & Alpha 📡 🧠
The Scenius team is excited to introduce “Opinions & Alpha” , a new section to our weekly Sync publication. With this format we intend to highlight research and opinion pieces that have helped shape our thinking over the last week.
The Agentic Economy: Why we think the fintech crowd is building on the wrong substrate
Key Insight: “The companies that score agent reputation, verify what agents claim about themselves, and price agent risk for merchants and lenders do not exist yet. That is the opportunity. Whoever builds the credit bureau for software wins a category that did not exist three years ago.” - Anthony Avedissian, Canonical
Key Insight: “Institutional capital is beginning to move onchain, and as it does, it is creating an incentive for more asset issuers to tokenize and bring their products onchain to compete for it. BlackRock’s BUIDL and Apollo’s onchain credit fund are early examples, but they will not be the last. Tokenized RWAs onchain have grown to roughly $25B, up from around $8B less than two years ago. BUIDL alone holds over $2B. The presence of institutional dollars onchain could attract more tokenized treasuries, more private credit vehicles, more structured products, because issuers go where the capital is. And as more products come onchain, they give more institutions a reason to move more capital.” - Jonah Burian, Blockchain Capital
Key Insight: “Bitcoin bottomed earlier this year at $60,000, and with a tailwind of trillions of dollars and yuan yet to be created at its back, retaking the $126,000 is a foregone conclusion. Many haters will refuse to participate in this Bitcoin rally because it underperformed tech and gold substantially over the last twenty-four months. Many cannot fathom why Bitcoin is even relevant anymore as a hedge against wanton money printing. But it will demonstrate its sensitivity to an expansion of fiat liquidity. I expect the rally to intensify and the haters to cower in the corner as Bitcoin’s upward price trajectory turns explosive after punching through $90,000 where many call over-writers will rush to cover as their strike gets taken out” - Arthur Hayes, Maelstrom
Essential News 🗞
Charles Schwab Launches Spot BTC and ETH Trading for Retail Clients
Charles Schwab has begun rolling out direct spot cryptocurrency trading to its first wave of eligible retail clients. The firm confirmed the launch in a May 13 post on X, stating that users can now trade Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) inside a standard Schwab brokerage account alongside stocks and other investments. Schwab manages more than $11 trillion in client assets and serves 39.1 million active brokerage accounts as of March 2026. The service operates under the Schwab Crypto brand as a separate account linked to a client’s existing Schwab portfolio.
Coinbase becomes Hyperliquid’s official USDC treasury deployer as USDH sunsets
Coinbase has become Hyperliquid’s official treasury deployer for USDC as an aligned quote asset (AQA), with USDH set to sunset over time. As part of the transition, Native Markets, the operator of Hyperliquid’s stablecoin USDH, agreed to grant Coinbase the right to purchase USDH brand assets, according to a statement shared with The Block. USDC has been the leading stablecoin on Hyperliquid since the platform launched in 2023, according to Coinbase.
CFTC issues blanket no-action letter on prediction markets, relieving swap data reporting duties
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s staff has issued a no-action letter that effectively relieves swap data reporting and recordkeeping requirements for prediction market platforms. According to the announcement published on Wednesday, the CFTC’s Division of Market Oversight and Division of Clearing and Risk said they will not recommend the agency to launch enforcement actions against designated contract markets (DCMs) and clearinghouses for failing to abide by such reporting requirements.
Kraken parent Payward partners Franklin Templeton for tokenized MMFs, yield
Payward, the parent of crypto exchange Kraken, and asset manager Franklin Templeton have announced a broad strategic collaboration spanning tokenized yield products, onchain asset management strategies and institutional crypto services. The partnership will see the two firms co-design tokenized yield products targeting both institutional clients and, in permitted jurisdictions, Kraken’s retail user base. Franklin Templeton’s BENJI tokenized money market funds will be leveraged on Kraken’s platform for institutional use cases, likely as tokenized collateral. And the firms plan to launch new actively managed strategies built on Payward’s xStocks tokenized equities framework, which has processed over $30 billion in volume since its 2025 launch.
Kelp DAO, Aave to resume rsETH operations as recovery from $292 million exploit progresses
Kelp DAO and Aave announced that they will resume rsETH-related operations in the coming days after successful first recovery steps following the $292 million exploit last month. On Tuesday, Kelp wrote on X that 117,132 rsETH, the amount stolen on April 18, will be progressively refilled from Aave Recovery Guardian and Kelp Recovery Safe into the LayerZero OFT adapter on mainnet over the next two weeks. “Kelp will unpause withdrawals, tentatively within 24 hours, after the first tranche to the LayerZero OFT adapter,” Kelp said, explaining that all rsETH operations — including deposits, redemptions, bridging, and claims — will resume as usual after smart contracts are unpaused.
Innovation & Adoption 💡📈
Myriad Adopts Chainlink as Official Oracle Platform to Power New Crypto Prediction Markets
Myriad has adopted Chainlink to power its crypto prediction markets, launching with markets for BTC, ETH, BNB and SOL. The Chainlink Runtime Environment (CRE) equips Myriad with a unified orchestration layer to automate market creation, resolution, and settlement. The integration comes as Myriad prepares to scale following its recent seed investment round.
CME Group to Launch Nasdaq CME Crypto Index Futures
CME Group, the world’s leading derivatives marketplace, today announced plans to launch Nasdaq CME Crypto Index futures on June 8, pending regulatory review. Nasdaq CME Crypto Index futures will be the company’s first-ever market-cap weighted futures contract, and available to trade in both micro-sized and larger-sized contracts. These contracts will provide market participants with a capital-efficient way to gain exposure to the top cryptocurrencies by market cap – all through a single, financially settled futures contract.
Anchorage and Mexican billionaire’s Grupo Salinas ink cross-border payments partnership
Anchorage Digital and Grupo Salinas have partnered to give the Mexican conglomerate controlled by billionaire Ricardo Salinas Pliego access to stablecoin rails designed to improve cross-border payments in U.S. dollars.
“Grupo Salinas, through Coinpro, will integrate Anchorage Digital’s stablecoin infrastructure into its cross-border payment flows, to compress settlement cycles,” Anchorage said on Wednesday. “By utilizing blockchain-based rails for dollar movement, the partnership introduces programmable, real-time settlement capabilities while maintaining the governance, security, and regulatory standards required by large financial institutions,” the company said.
Starknet launches strkBTC to bring ZK-powered shielded bitcoin to its Layer 2 network
Starknet, an Ethereum Layer 2 network developed by StarkWare, has officially launched strkBTC, a new bitcoin-based asset designed to enable private balances and confidential transfers while maintaining full composability across decentralized finance applications. Initially unveiled in February, the token uses Starknet’s zero-knowledge cryptography to provide an advanced shielding mechanism that is compliance-ready, the team said in a statement shared with The Block.
Jupiter taps Bitwise to curate institutional-grade Solana-based USDe lending market
Major Solana infrastructure provider Jupiter has tapped Bitwise to curate a dedicated, isolated market for USDe on Jupiter Lend. This marks the first time an institutional asset manager is curating a market on Jupiter Lend, according to an announcement on Wednesday. The dedicated USDe lending market will be isolated from Jupiter Lend’s existing liquidity layer, minimizing risk for “institutional capital.” It is also tapping the decentralized Fluid protocol to provide lending and collateral infrastructure support.