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Trump name-dropping Hyperliquid did more for HYPE in an hour than months of Selig’s actual rulemaking process, which is the tell: this market is still trading anticipation of policy, not policy itself, and Treasury’s buyback expansion, the thing with zero crypto-specific intent, arguably moved bitcoin more than anything said in that room.
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In Today’s Email:
**What Matters:Crypto Rally Meets Regulatory Momentum 👀Founders Highlight:Arthur Hayes of Maelstrom 👨Deal Flows:**Blueprint Finance Raises Strategic Round 💰️
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WHAT MATTERS
**State of play: **Bitcoin surged to $69,000 and HYPE jumped 17% as Trump signaled a push to bring Hyperliquid onshore and the SEC and Treasury advanced market-friendly moves, sparking nearly $2B in liquidations.
Trump said the CFTC is working to bring Hyperliquid into the US in a “fully compliant and legal fashion,” sending HYPE up 17%.
Bitcoin hit $69,000 and ether jumped 10% past $2,000 after Treasury doubled its longer-dated bond buyback size to $4B per operation.
The SEC proposed “Regulation Crypto Assets,” letting issuers raise up to $75M annually under new exemptions.
The rally triggered $1.92B in liquidations over 24 hours, with actual figures likely higher.
Trump urged Congress to pass the stalled Clarity Act as Coinbase, Ripple, and Robinhood CEOs met at the White House.
**Why it matters: **Coordinated bullish signals from the White House, CFTC, SEC, and Treasury suggest US crypto policy is shifting from restriction to active market-building.
Our take: The simultaneous timing of Trump’s comments, the SEC proposal, and Treasury buybacks reads less like organic momentum and more like a coordinated liquidity push ahead of Clarity Act negotiations.
**For builders and investors: **Watch for Hyperliquid’s US entry structure as a template for onshoring other offshore-native protocols, and expect volatility as leveraged positioning resets around policy headlines.
BUILDER-INVESTOR HIGHLIGHT
**Intro: **Arthur Hayes is the Chief Investment Officer of Maelstrom, a multi-strategy investment fund and family office.
**Previous background: **Arthur started at Deutsche Bank in 2008 as a Synthetic Equity Trader and Associate, market-making Asian ETFs for three years. He then moved to Citi in 2011 as a Delta One Trader (Associate).
In 2014, he co-founded and served as CEO of BitMEX, the Bitcoin derivatives exchange, for nearly seven years until October 2020.
**The big idea: **Arthur bets on infrastructure powering the next wave of trustless decentralization, investing across the full capital stack from early-stage tokens to public markets.
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INSIGHTS
Payward is exploring becoming a full bank outside the US as it pushes beyond trading into banking and asset management, with executives eyeing products like mortgages down the line.
Co-CEO Dave Ripley said Payward is looking into full bank status in other geographies, not the US immediately.
Ripley named trading, banking, and asset management as the firm’s three core product areas going forward.
Payward already runs Kraken Financial, a Wyoming SPDI that offers custody and deposit accounts but can’t lend fiat.
Kraken Financial secured a limited “skinny” Fed master account in March, a first for a crypto company.
CCO Mark Greenberg said future offerings could eventually include products like mortgages.
DEAL FLOWS
*Deal flows slowed down this week - we saw $65M+ in deals 💼 *
Blueprint Finance 𝕏raised a strategic round led by Polychain Capital to scale Concrete, its vault infrastructure for institutional onchain asset management.
Polychain Capital led the round, joined by Bullish, Keyrock, BitGo, FalconX, and other institutional investors.
Concrete offers full-stack vault infrastructure letting institutions launch and manage onchain capital allocation strategies.
The funding will support new primitives including AssetCX and concUSD alongside Concrete’s core vault system.
CEO Nic Roberts-Huntley said the round signals a shift from yield-chasing to infrastructure-grade capital allocation tools.
Deal flows in the past week:
Pouchers, $500,000 Pre-Seed Round
BLOX, $1M Seed Round
Twyne, $2.05M Seed Round
NeoSoul, $11M Pre-Series A Round
Beldex, $8M Unknown Round
Botanika, $1.5M Unknown Round
QUICK BITES
Xis exploringstablecoins to pay influencers and content providers.Spot bitcoin ETFsreport$517M in net inflows, largest in 3.5 months.Kraken parent Paywardexploresbecoming a ‘full bank’ outside the US.HYPEsurgesafter Trump says CFTC is working to bring Hyperliquid to US.Bitcoinbreaksthrough $75,500 while analyst calls current rally ‘premature.’MANTRAfreezesall transactions and network following unspecified incident.
NOTEWORTHY READS & MEME
Shaunda’s𝕏readon Onshoring Hyperliquid.Jonah’s𝕏readon You Were Lied to About Stablecoins.Rain’s𝕏readon The Anatomy of a Stablecoin Card Swipe.
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Disclaimer: All the information presented in this publication and its affiliates is strictly for educational purposes only. It should not be construed or taken as financial, legal, investment, or any other form of advice.
