The crypto leash is off

Bitcoin bros and nonstop complaining about government regulation is a classic duo rivaling peanut butter and jelly. But now, between President Donald Trump pumping his own meme coins and replacing the SEC’s top regulator with a crypto-friendly figure, the industry’s regulatory guardrails are pretty much off.

So, what is the crypto industry doing with its newfound freedom?

The short answer: Throwing a bunch of stuff at the wall and seeing what sticks.

First, the SEC is backing off crypto companies that its pre-Trump predecessors were investigating. Just yesterday, Ripple Labs CEO Brad Garlinghouse announced that the SEC is dropping its lawsuit accusing the company of distributing unregistered securities to its investors.

XRP, the token that Ripple uses to facilitate payments, rose 9% on Wednesday after the news, but fell over 4% today as investors took profits. XRP is also included in Trump’s proposed bitcoin strategic reserve.

And today, crypto exchange Kraken—which was under a probe by the SEC until the regulator dismissed its lawsuit just last month—agreed to buy futures trading platform NinjaTrader for $1.5 billion.

Meanwhile, the first-ever exchange-traded funds that track the sixth-largest cryptocurrency—solana—are about to hit the market, hot on the heels of the successful spot bitcoin and ethereum ETFs. Not only will a regular old fund tracking solana be launched, but a riskier leveraged solana ETF will also be available to investors.

Suffering from success

But if the industry is finally getting a lot of dream items on its wishlist, why are most major cryptos way down this month?

“Crypto is kind of in no man's land,” wrote crypto research firm Alpha Please on X. “There is only so many times people are willing to buy useless alts because they think they can sell them to someone else in the future.”

With a crypto free-for-all breaking loose, legit crypto projects have to distinguish themselves from worthless meme coins and scams—which is easier said than done.

Meanwhile, investors are fleeing even the most blue-chip crypto: bitcoin. Investors have pulled $1.5 billion out of the largest bitcoin ETF, the iShares Bitcoin Trust, over the past month as volatility grips the equity market, turning to real gold instead.

The big picture: For so long, industry enthusiasts argued that litigation and regulators were the thorn in their side that prevented them from building something with actual practical use.

So the question is—what’s stopping them now?—LB