Scenius Sync (Issue # 209)

Congress agrees on CBDC ban through 2030, SBF Loses Appeal, CME to sue CFTC over approval of perpetual futures, Coinbase launching tokenized US stocks, & Ripple invests in Flutterwave at $3.2B

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:

1. Distribute thought leadership that made an impression on us this week

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

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

If you find this newsletter valuable, please subscribe and share The Scenius Sync with your network 💪

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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.

1. The First DeFi Yield Venue for Confidential USD (cUSDC) in Partnership with Morpho and Steakhouse

   • Key Insight: “Until now, operating on a public blockchain meant exposing your entire financial playbook to your competitors. By bringing Fully Homomorphic Encryption (FHE) to core financial primitives like lending vaults, we are proving that confidentiality and decentralization are no longer mutually exclusive.”

2. The L1 Blockchain <> AI Lab Comparison

   • Key Insight: “OpenAI is Bitcoin. Anthropic is Ethereum. All of the new labs are altcoins. Altlabs are raising gobs of money based on research whitepapers at high valuations justified on a relative basis to the category kings.”

3. Stablecoin Opportunity for Sponsor Banks

   • Key Insight: “Supporting stablecoin-backed business models is now a golden opportunity for sponsor banks. The passage of the GENIUS act in the US and MiCA in Europe have cleared the regulatory path. Regulators across the globe have given banks the greenlight to build on stablecoin infrastructure. Sponsor banks already have the relationship, the compliance program, and the integration in place for fintech programs. Extending into stablecoins deepens existing relationships and opens new revenue streams.”

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Essential News 🗞

1. Senate, House reach agreement on housing bill banning CBDC through 2030

   • The U.S. Senate and House of Representatives have reached a deal to advance a comprehensive housing legislation that also includes language banning the issuance of a central bank digital currency (CBDC). On Tuesday, Senator Tim Scott, Senator Elizabeth Warren, Rep. French Hill, and Rep. Maxine Waters released an updated version of the “21st Century ROAD to Housing Act,” which reflects bipartisan, bicameral agreement on the bill.

     The legislation contains a housing affordability package to boost housing supply in the U.S. and make it more affordable by preventing corporate landlords from dominating the market.

2. Sam Bankman-Fried Loses Appeal as Federal Court Upholds ‘Robust’ Fraud Conviction

   • FTX co-founder and former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried lost a bid to overturn his 25-year prison sentence and fraud conviction Friday, with a panel of federal appeals judges unanimously upholding the verdict. The Manhattan-based judges, of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, picked apart Bankman-Fried’s arguments for overturning the judgment, finding each of them uncompelling. “Bankman-Fried makes these arguments in the face of a trial at which the government’s evidence against him was, conservatively stated, robust,” the decision reads.

   • In a related news: Senators Introduce Bipartisan Resolution Opposing SBF Pardon

3. CME Group to sue CFTC over approval of perpetual futures, CEO tells CNBC

   • CME Group, the world’s largest futures exchange operator, is planning to sue the Commodity Futures Trading Commission over the agency’s decision to approve perpetual futures contracts. Perpetual futures, or perps, are a type of derivatives that don’t have an expiration date and allow people to bet on the price movement of assets without owning them directly. CME CEO Terrence Duffy told CBNC on Wednesday that perpetual futures should be classified as swaps under the Dodd-Frank Act, and that this would form the basis of the lawsuit, which the company is filing on Thursday. Last month, CFTC approved the bitcoin perpetual contracts as futures contracts.

4. Polychain and Coinbase-backed Satori Finance DEX winds down citing ‘unfavorable market conditions

   • Satori Finance, a multi-chain DEX that had raised $10 million, is shutting down, becoming the latest crypto protocol to close up shop during the most recent market downturn. “After careful consideration, we have made the difficult decision to wind down Satori Finance operations,” Satori wrote in an X post. “Unfortunately, due to prolonged unfavorable market conditions, our revenue has not been sufficient to sustain operations, and continuing to run the platform is no longer financially viable.” Users are encouraged to withdraw their funds during a closing window that will stay open until July 16, 23:59 UTC.

5. Binance may be forced to halt services for EU clients next month: Reuters

   • Binance customers in the European Union may lose access to the platform as early as the end of the month after its application for a regulatory license in Greece is reportedly set to be rejected, according to Reuters. Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange by volume, has been seeking authorization under the EU’s Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) framework, which requires crypto firms to obtain a license in order to continue offering services across the bloc. A grace window was put in place for firms to apply and receive licensure, but that transition phase expires on July 1.

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Innovation & Adoption 💡📈

1. Coinbase launching tokenized US stocks, backed 1:1, with holders able to receive dividends

   • Coinbase says users will be able to buy, trade and hold tokenized versions of U.S. stocks that are backed 1:1, the exchange announced on Tuesday in a brief social media post. “The first real, 1:1 backed tokenized stocks are coming,” Coinbase said. “Own actual tokenized shares of U.S. companies. Trade, hold, and redeem, all onchain. Automatically receive dividends. No derivatives, no IOUs.” The company said more details would come later Tuesday afternoon. Coinbase’s move comes as American regulators and lawmakers are discussing how tokenized stock trading can or will function. Rival firms like Robinhood and Kraken also aim to offer users onchain versions of U.S. equities.

   • See the X post here.

2. Ripple buys into Flutterwave Series E at $3.2 billion valuation, backs RLUSD integration

   • Ripple has participated in Flutterwave’s Series E funding round, valuing the African payments company at $3.2 billion and marking a strategic partnership centered on integrating RLUSD and the XRP Ledger into its payments infrastructure. Flutterwave will use the capital and deepened product alliance to scale its stablecoin-enabled payments roadmap, accelerating a multi-year strategy to embed digital asset settlement, liquidity, and remittance rails into its core ecosystem, the company said in a statement on Tuesday. The company, which bills itself as Africa’s leading payments technology provider, said it has raised more than $500 million to date, processed more than 1 billion transactions worth over $50 billion and has infrastructure spanning 34 African countries.

   • Relatedly, Squid adds Ripple’s RLUSD stablecoin for cross-chain swaps

3. Zama, Morpho and Steakhouse launch first ‘confidential DeFi yield’ vault on Ethereum

   • Zama, Morpho and Steakhouse Financial are launching the Steakhouse Confidential USDC Prime vault, the first DeFi yield product for confidential USDC stablecoins on Ethereum, The Block has exclusively learned.

     The integration lets holders of Zama’s encrypted cUSDC deposit directly into Morpho’s existing Steakhouse USDC Prime vault and earn yield without exposing their balances, transaction amounts or strategy onchain.

     “Until now, operating on a public blockchain meant exposing your entire financial playbook to your competitors,” said Zama co-founder and CEO Dr. Rand Hindi. He called the launch the official start of a “confidential DeFi” category on Ethereum. Deposits for the vault go live on June 23 via the Zama app, according to the teams.

4. French BTC treasury firm Capital B mulling STRC-style bitcoin credit instrument

   • Paris-listed bitcoin treasury company Capital B is considering a credit instrument for the European market, according to board director Alexandre Laizet. Speaking with The Block’s Gareth Jenkinson at BTC Prague, Laizet said that the company is exploring a bitcoin-backed credit product modeled after Strategy’s STRC and Strive’s SATA. “Our role, our responsibility, is to provide for a solution in Europe which is crippled by high taxes, crippled security issues, and old, unadapted regulations for the digital era,” Laizet said. “Our laser focus is to provide a digital credit instrument adapted to Europe that could really change the configuration of the markets.”

5. Kraken launches crypto perps trading in the US on Kraken Pro

   • Kraken is launching perps trading in the United States on the heels of its recent acquisition of Bitnomial, and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s approval of onshore crypto derivatives trading. Perps are derivative contracts that provide continuous exposure to an underlying asset, like BTC or ETH, without expiration, using funding rates to keep prices aligned with the spot market. U.S. users have historically had limited direct access to true perpetual futures on regulated platforms and have often turned to offshore venues (with associated risks such as regulatory uncertainty or counterparty issues). Kraken completed its acquisition of the fully CFTC-licensed exchange, clearinghouse, and brokerage Bitnomial in May.