Today didn’t just move the crypto market, it redrew the map.

The Fed, Congress, banks, and Big Tech all fired off transformative shifts within hours of each other, and suddenly the future of digital money looks nothing like it did yesterday.

The result is a cascade of breakthroughs that could define the next decade of digital finance.

The Fed is expected to cut rates by 25 bps today—the third cut of 2025—but the cut itself isn’t the story. The real volatility comes from the dot plot and the question of where rates sit in 2026.

Powell is on his way out, Kevin Hassett is signaling caution, and the market is trying to interpret a Fed that isn’t speaking with one voice. Traditional markets are stuck in the same holding pattern: wavering Dow futures, a softer dollar, and 10-year yields pushing to 4.2 percent as investors wait for Powell’s tone.

Crypto is mirroring that tension.

Bitcoin has been locked between $88K and $94.5K for a week, drifting around $92K while the entire market waits for direction.

Ether is the lone standout, up seven percent after last week’s Fusaka upgrade, but altcoins remain weak. The altcoin-season index at 16 out of 100 shows exactly how defensive traders are ahead of the Fed.

Then the quiet cracked.

Crypto added $150 billion in a day, with BTC spiking toward $94.6K after three catalysts hit at once. PNC, the eighth-largest U.S. bank, rolled out spot Bitcoin trading directly inside its wealth platform—no new accounts, no exchanges, just BTC sitting next to equities.

Traders leaned into rate-cut expectations. And a market overloaded with shorts finally buckled, sending $304 million in bearish positions into liquidation and igniting the rally.

Risk appetite returned immediately. Ether jumped 9%, Cardano ran double digits, Solana and Dogecoin followed. But the structure beneath the surface is still fragile.

Volatility expectations exploded. BTC’s one-day implied volatility jumped from 20% to 67%. Options markets are positioned for turbulence, not confidence.

ETH open interest is surging, BTC open interest on CME is thinning, and several altcoins now carry deeply negative funding rates as shorts crowd in again.

Solana sits at a crossroads. Prices bounced, but on-chain metrics still reflect a reset. 

Realized PnL has been negative for weeks, liquidity is thin, and nearly half a billion in leveraged longs would liquidate with a small move lower. 

Yet ETFs keep adding exposure, and exchange supply keeps falling—signs of quiet accumulation beneath the noise. Another flush could be the cleanout that clears the path forward.

Investor Signal

The rate cut won’t decide the next trend. The dot plot will.

A dovish outlook opens the door for BTC and ETH to break their ranges. A divided or hawkish projection keeps the ceiling in place and risks another liquidation cascade before any real upside.

The market is coiled. Crypto is primed for volatility—and whichever way Bitcoin breaks from its narrow range is likely to define the next major trend.

For years, I’ve interviewed billionaire founders, hedge fund managers, and early Bitcoin insiders.

But recently, behind closed doors, they all started preparing for the same thing — an event they believe could trigger the biggest wealth transfer in crypto history.

After 600 insider interviews and 17 million podcast downloads, I finally connected the dots and revealed everything in my new book Crypto Revolution — now FREE.

Inside, you’ll see:
• Why insiders believe Bitcoin could reach $300,000
• The hidden accumulation pattern forming right now
• And the “point of no return” most people won’t see coming

Once this goes mainstream, the early edge disappears.

Claim your FREE copy before it’s gone

© 2025 Boardwalk Flock LLC. All Rights Reserved. 2382 Camino Vida Roble, Suite I Carlsbad, CA 92011, United States. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for your situation. You should consult with a professional where appropriate. Readers acknowledge that the authors are not engaging in the rendering of legal, financial, medical, or professional advice. The reader agrees that under no circumstances Boardwalk Flock, LLC is responsible for any losses, direct or indirect, which are incurred as a result of the use of the information contained within this, including, but not limited to, errors, omissions, or inaccuracies. Results may not be typical and may vary from person to person. Making money trading digital currencies takes time and hard work. There are inherent risks involved with investing, including the loss of your investment. Past performance in the market is not indicative of future results. Any investment is at your own risk.

A quiet but important fight is unfolding in Washington.

Rep. Keith Self slipped an amendment into the annual National Defense Authorization Act—the giant defense bill Congress must pass every year—and it does one thing: it bans the Federal Reserve from creating a U.S. CBDC in any form.

It even bans the Fed from offering direct consumer accounts, which a CBDC would require to function.

Self calls it the “Anti-CBDC Surveillance State Amendment.”
This is a live policy battle over the future of the U.S. dollar.

If a digital dollar ever exists, Congress wants it to be open, permissionless, and private—meaning it cannot resemble China’s surveillance model or the EU’s state-controlled digital cash blueprint.

That effectively prohibits any version of a government-issued token that lets the state see every transaction, freeze funds, or program how money behaves.

A ban means the government will not issue a blockchain-based dollar.

And the implications are enormous.

No federal coin competing with stablecoins.
No government token acting as a substitute for Bitcoin.
No centralized payment rail that bypasses public blockchains.

Instead, the U.S. would rely on, and regulate around, the private crypto ecosystem.

That means stablecoins remain the digital dollar.
And Bitcoin and Ethereum remain the digital reserve assets.

This amendment says:
The U.S. will not compete with crypto.
The U.S. will integrate it.

That changes the game entirely.

If Bitcoin ETFs were a green light for Wall Street…
A CBDC ban is a green light for the entire digital asset ecosystem.

It redraws the map of how digital dollars work, who issues them, and which networks they run on.

Without a federal competitor, private stablecoins become the undisputed rails of the digital dollar.

USDT, USDC, PYUSD, and bank-issued stablecoins continue powering payments across Ethereum, Solana, Base, Tron, and every L1 and L2 built around stablecoin flow.

The ecosystems that host these tokens get stronger, not weaker.

What’s happening is: domestic policy → global currency war → crypto adoption.

This ban turbocharges adoption for BTC, ETH, and stablecoins.

A government-issued digital dollar was the only thing that could have challenged Bitcoin’s “digital money” role or Ethereum’s position as the settlement layer for tokenized dollars. 

With that threat removed, both assets retain their structural importance in the digital economy.

Meanwhile, banks and fintechs become the architects of America’s digital dollar.

If the Fed won’t build a CBDC, then Stripe, Circle, Coinbase, PayPal, and traditional banks will. They become the infrastructure. They define the rails.

Private innovation, not federal engineering, ends up steering the direction of U.S. payments.

The U.S. also signals it won’t pursue a China-style surveillance currency. That lowers long-term regulatory risk for crypto, keeps the system open, and avoids the centralization that could have suffocated stablecoins, DeFi, or permissionless rails.

Blocking a U.S. CBDC removes the only real existential threat to the crypto ecosystem.

A government-issued digital dollar was the one thing that could have displaced:
Bitcoin.
Ethereum.
USDC.
USDT.
DeFi rails.
Tokenized settlement systems.
And the private-sector digital economy forming around them.

A CBDC might have replaced stablecoins entirely.

Without a CBDC, stablecoins expand and amplify the USD’s reach. The networks that carry them benefit—Ethereum, Solana, Base, L2s, and the entire DeFi ecosystem.

By banning a CBDC, the U.S. is implicitly choosing crypto rails instead of federal rails.

Open systems over centralized ones.
Private innovation over government control.
Stablecoins over state tokens.
And blockchain rails over legacy payment networks. 

Investor Signal

The landscape changed the moment Congress moved to block a CBDC.

Now the question isn’t whether the U.S. will build a digital currency…
It’s who will build it for them.

In hindsight, this may be the turning point.
The day the United States decided its digital future would run on crypto.

This is urgent, so I’ll be direct…

For the first time ever, James Altucher – one of America’s top venture capitalists – is sharing how ANYONE can get a pre-IPO stake in SpaceX… with as little as $100!

In other words, this is your first-ever chance to skip the line, and get in BEFORE Elon Musk’s next IPO takes place.

Best of all, it couldn’t be any easier…

When you act today, you can get a pre-IPO stake right inside your regular brokerage account, all with just $100 and a few minutes of time.

All you need is the name and ticker symbol that James reveals for FREE, right inside this short video.

[Click here now to view.]

The OCC quietly detonated a major upheaval this week…

National banks can now execute “riskless principal” crypto trades.

That phrase sounds technical, but the meaning is simple.
A customer wants to buy crypto, the bank instantly finds a seller, matches the two, steps in the middle for a split second… and exits with no market risk.

It’s the exact playbook banks already use for stocks, bonds, and foreign exchange—and now, for the first time in U.S. history, they can use it for any crypto asset. Even those not classified as securities.

Until now, banks were trapped between two bad choices: avoid crypto altogether or rely on third-party exchanges they didn’t trust. This ruling vaporizes that bottleneck.

Banks can finally serve wealthy clients, retail clients, and institutions inside the same compliance environment they know and control—without touching crypto inventory or balance-sheet risk.

Crypto stops being an exotic outlier and starts looking like just another asset class flowing through the pipes of U.S. finance.

The OCC didn’t tiptoe around it either. In Interpretive Letter 1188, they said blockchain settlement is simply a modern ledger, banks already manage similar risks, and crypto transactions fit neatly inside existing banking functions. 

In one stroke, the regulator rejected the old “too risky, too strange, too outside” view that has haunted the U.S. for years.

Zoom out and the pattern is unmistakable. Multiple U.S. agencies are aligning at once—the FDIC preparing a stablecoin rule, the Fed building digital-asset standards, and Treasury shaping oversight for non-bank issuers. The OCC is processing a surge of new crypto trust-bank applications.

The U.S. is constructing the digital finance rails.

Investor Signal

Riskless principal trading doesn’t make banks buyers—but it does make them gateways. And that’s the bullish part. The last barrier keeping banks out of crypto just fell.

The moment Wells Fargo, JPMorgan, and Bank of America can offer crypto trading like they offer stocks, millions of customers get frictionless access without ever touching an exchange.

Liquidity deepens. Institutional flows normalize. Offshore venues lose their grip. 

The U.S. is openly wiring its financial system for an on-chain future.

For investors, this is one of the strongest regulatory green lights since the approval of spot BTC ETFs. The rails are being built. The money will follow.

Paul Atkins, the newly seated SEC Chair, told a room full of industry leaders, “You ain’t seen nothing yet,” signaling that the agency is preparing a rapid-fire rollout of crypto-friendly reforms in early 2026.

After years of regulatory fog, the SEC is finally moving toward a rulebook built for digital assets instead of a lawsuit factory aimed at them.

Atkins is pushing three pillars.

First, a real token taxonomy; a clear definition of which assets are securities and which are not, ending the era where projects learned their legal status only when the SEC sued them.

Second, a full modernization of SEC rules under Project Crypto, replacing the blanket “everything is a security” stance with categories the industry can actually comply with.

And third—the biggest swing—an innovation exemption that would give crypto startups a fast-track sandbox: quicker approvals, lighter reporting, and room to launch products without fighting a multi-year regulatory war.

Atkins says he hopes it goes live by late January.

That alone would rewrite how new crypto markets form in the United States.

This is a complete reversal of the Gensler era. Instead of enforcement first, Atkins is offering clarity first. Instead of punishment by default, he’s pushing collaboration and modernization.

Investor Signal

For the first time in years, the SEC is signaling that innovation isn’t the enemy.

That shift alone reduces one of crypto’s biggest U.S. risk premiums and opens the door for deeper institutional flows.

A real token taxonomy could unleash suppressed altcoin demand by making exchange listings safer, institutional access easier, and long-term valuations more stable.

An innovation exemption would accelerate everything … staking products, tokenized assets, new stablecoins, even ETFs beyond Bitcoin and Ethereum.

And as the U.S. pivots from “hostile jurisdiction” to “open for business,” capital that fled offshore may start coming home to regulated rails.

2026 may be the year Washington finally builds with crypto.

This dividend-paying manufacturer just dropped a bombshell: AI server revenue is projected to surpass iPhone revenue within 24 months.

✔ Builds most of Nvidia’s AI servers
✔ Pays nearly 3X the S&P 500 dividend
✔ $30+ billion in AI revenue projected THIS YEAR
✔ Yet the stock still trades for around $5

While other tech names struggle, this hidden AI dividend gem keeps climbing.

Alexander Green calls it his “Single-Stock Retirement Play.”

Click here for Alex Green’s full analysis and ticker.

Stripe … one of the biggest payment companies on the planet … just launched the public testnet for Tempo, a blockchain built from the ground up for one thing: stablecoin payments.

Tempo is engineered for instant settlement, very low fees, predictable behavior, and stablecoin-native everything—wallets, gas, and even built-in exchange functions.

It’s the kind of chain merchants, banks, and fintechs have been begging for: fast, boring, reliable.

And the partners?
A lineup you’d expect to see in a global summit, not a blockchain launch.

OpenAI.
Visa. Mastercard.
Shopify, Klarna, Revolut, Payoneer, Mercury.
Deutsche Bank, Standard Chartered, UBS.
Anthropic. Kalshi.

Stripe and Paradigm raised half a billion dollars at a $5 billion valuation to build this. 

The truth is simple: institutions want blockchain tech, but not public chains they can’t control. As SWIFT’s innovation chief put it, “Banks prefer to own their own rails.”

Ethereum and Bitcoin proved the model.
But institutions want versions with compliance, governance, and guardrails.

So they’re building their own blockchains.
Tempo is one of them.

Tempo settles in stablecoins, charges fees in stablecoins, and operates as a pure payments rail. 

Stablecoin rails do three powerful things.

They push millions of merchants, consumers, banks, and fintechs onto blockchain rails without telling them, “You’re using crypto now.” 

Once people operate inside this world, holding assets like BTC and ETH becomes normal … even obvious.

They force demand for on-chain liquidity. Stablecoins still live primarily on Ethereum, Solana, Base, and other public chains. 

More stablecoin activity means more throughput, more blockspace demand, more liquidity… and, over time, higher valuations.

And they normalize blockchain for the deepest pockets in finance. 

When Stripe, Visa, Mastercard, Deutsche Bank, and Shopify integrate blockchain rails, Wall Street and sovereign wealth funds don’t see “web3 experiments.” They see infrastructure.

Tempo is building trains.
But the rails still run back to public crypto ecosystems.

Investor Signal

Stablecoin adoption is one of the strongest long-term tailwinds for Bitcoin and Ethereum.

It expands the user base, hardens the infrastructure, forces institutions onto blockchain rails, and moves the world one step closer to a financial system where digital assets are the plumbing.

Even if Tempo never touches BTC, the shift it accelerates is unmistakably bullish for the assets that anchor public crypto markets.

This wasn’t just another macro day.

In the span of a single news cycle:

Put simply: the United States just nudged crypto from the edge of the system into the middle of it.

Banks are becoming gateways, stablecoins are becoming dollar rails, and public chains are becoming the settlement layer for all of it.

The charts still wobble, ranges still hold, and liquidations still bite… but beneath the noise, the financial plumbing is being rewired in crypto’s direction.

When future historians write about the moment the digital asset market started being treated as infrastructure, weeks like this are what they’ll circle in red.