Appold Market Watch - Week ending 30 May 2025

Market Update & Industry News - Week ending 30 May 2025

🔷 The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) voluntarily dismissed its civil lawsuit against Binance. The SEC accused the exchange in June 2023 of artificially inflating trading volumes, diverting customer funds and misleading investors about its surveillance controls. The SEC’s decision follows Binance’s listing of USD1, a USD-pegged stablecoin offering from President Trump’s digital asset venture World Liberty Financial.

Appold view: The SEC’s dismissal is with prejudice, meaning the SEC won’t be able to bring this lawsuit against Binance again in the future. It is the latest in a growing number of withdrawals of investigations or lawsuits by the SEC against digital asset companies since President Trump took office.

🔷 BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust exchange-traded fund (IBIT) is experiencing record-low volatility. The 90-day rolling volatility of 47.64 is the lowest since the ETF was introduced in January 2024. Since its launch, IBIT has reportedly generated $49 billion of net inflows.

Appold view: Declining volatility will further increase IBIT’s appeal with investors and institutions seeking bitcoin exposure without the perceived risks of self-custody or choosing a custody partner for Bitcoin.

🔷 The UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has launched a consultation on regulating stablecoin issuance and digital asset custody. The proposed rules aim to align with the UK’s Financial Services and Markets Act and cover governance, safeguarding, and wind-down procedures. Feedback is open until the end of July 2025, with implementation to follow.

Appold view: It is encouraging that the consultation paper's release aligns with the broad timeline outlined in the FCA’s Crypto Roadmap. We will look to drill deeper into its contents in due course. 

🔷 Prime brokerage platform Hidden Road has launched a digital asset over-the-counter (OTC) brokerage in the U.S. The platform aims to serve institutional clients with enhanced liquidity and pricing tools. Hidden Road’s strategic expansion into U.S. OTC trading follows its acquisition by Ripple for $1.25 billion in April.

Appold view: Following the Ripple acquisition, this demonstrates that Hidden Road potentially has a deeper balance sheet to expand its OTC and institutional product offerings, giving it an edge over many non-bank (and bank) prime brokerage services. This is assuming that institutional clients are comfortable with onboarding with a Ripple-owned entity, based on historic wariness of digital asset-native organisations from traditional market participants.

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