WLF Bank Charter Wins Approval

Cboe Files For 3x Crypto ETFs | StablecoinX Stock Jumps On ENA Stake

Marco Manoppo & Karon Pangestu
August 17, 2026

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World Liberty's path to a national trust charter puts a company generating direct income for the president's family inside the same regulatory perimeter it would use to supervise its stablecoin rivals, a conflict Warren flagged months before the OCC's approval made it real.

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In Today's Email:

What Matters: WLF Bank Charter Wins Approval 👀
Product of the Week: Cboe Files For 3x Crypto ETFs 🔎
Charts: StablecoinX Stock Jumps, Harvard Pauses Bitcoin ETF Selling 📊

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WHAT MATTERS

WLF Bank Charter Wins Approval

State of play: The OCC's conditional approval puts a Trump-linked company one step from becoming the federally supervised entity that would set stablecoin rules for its own competitors, an arrangement Warren flagged months before the approval materialized.

The OCC granted World Liberty Trust Company, National Association conditional approval, moving it closer to a full national trust bank charter.
The charter would let WLF offer USD1 stablecoin issuance, redemption, custody, and on/off-ramp services, alongside institutional custody for market makers and exchanges.
USD1 currently holds a $4B market cap, ranking as the fourth-largest stablecoin behind Tether and USDC.
Conditional approval is not final, the OCC retains authority to rescind it before full charter issuance.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren had demanded the OCC halt its review until Trump divests from WLF, citing disclosed millions in Trump-linked WLF income.

Why it matters: A federally chartered bank tied to the president's family would sit inside the same regulatory perimeter used to supervise its stablecoin competitors.

Our take: The OCC's pattern of approvals for Coinbase, Paxos, BitGo, Ripple, and Circle suggests real momentum, but WLF's approval can't be separated from Trump's disclosed financial stake in the company.

For builders and investors: Watch whether WLF's final charter timeline moves faster than peers that filed earlier, the clearest signal of preferential treatment.

PRODUCT OF THE WEEK

Cboe Files For 3x Crypto ETFs

Cboe's push to bring triple-leveraged bitcoin and ether ETFs to US markets routes around SEC investment-company oversight entirely, structuring the funds as CFTC-regulated commodity pools instead.

Cboe BZX filed a proposed rule change to list 3x leveraged ETFs for bitcoin, ether, gold, silver, crude oil, and natural gas.
The funds will hold CME and COMEX futures contracts to deliver three times daily performance, requiring special SEC approval since they exceed generic listing standards.
Structuring the funds as commodity pools places them under CFTC oversight rather than the SEC's 1940 Act framework governing most ETFs.
Volatility Shares LLC will sponsor the funds, which already offers 2x bitcoin and ether products in the US market.
LeverageShares launched the world's first 3x bitcoin and ether ETFs in Europe in November 2025.

Other cool products:

InfiniFi launched Prime.
xStocks launched on Hyperliquid.
FX100 launches a perp trading DEX.
Solomon Labs launches USDv on Solana.
Solstice Finance launches strcUSX on Solana.

Take a peek at our referral reward at the bottom of this issue. Share this newsletter and receive our list of 500 crypto VC individuals 👇

CHARTS OF THE WEEK

StablecoinX Stock Jumps On ENA Stake

State of play: StablecoinX's 12% share pop on a quarter with a $34.2M net loss illustrates how the market is pricing digital asset treasury companies on token concentration rather than operating fundamentals.

StablecoinX shares rose over 12% after disclosing it holds roughly 3 billion ENA tokens, about 20% of total supply, worth over $250M.
The company reported a $34.2M Q2 net loss, driven almost entirely by a $36.2M unrealized impairment on its ENA holdings.
Operating infrastructure revenue totaled just $62,372 for the final two weeks of June, though its verifier node surpassed $3B in cumulative cross-chain volume.
StablecoinX began trading on Nasdaq under USDE on June 26 following its merger with TLGY Acquisition Corp.
The ENA treasury was funded through 285 million tokens from the Ethena Foundation and 2.75 billion tokens from a $530M PIPE that brought total funding to nearly $900M.

Our Take: Holding 20% of a single token's supply is a concentration risk dressed up as a strategic position, and the unrealized impairment shows how quickly that "value" can swing against shareholders.

Harvard Pauses Bitcoin ETF Selling

State of play: Harvard's decision to hold steady after two consecutive quarters of cutting its IBIT stake by a combined 55% arrives as the endowment now holds more value in gold than bitcoin.

Harvard's IBIT position stayed flat at 3,044,612 shares worth $101.4M, after cutting the stake 21% and then 43% over the two prior quarters.
Harvard now holds $171.2M in gold-related funds versus $101.4M in IBIT, and has fully exited its BlackRock spot Ethereum ETF position.
Mubadala and the Abu Dhabi Investment Council held their combined 22.9 million IBIT shares unchanged, worth about $764M at quarter-end.
JPMorgan increased its IBIT stake to 10.4 million shares while Morgan Stanley trimmed its position 4.5% to roughly 16.5 million shares.
Bitcoin traded around $63,000, down nearly 30% year-to-date and roughly half its October 2025 high above $126,000.

Our take: Harvard now holding more in gold than bitcoin is the more telling signal than the pause itself, endowments treating bitcoin as a tactical position sized against a traditional hedge undercuts the "digital gold" narrative bitcoin bulls rely on.

QUICK BITES

Bitcoin miner HIVE inks five-year $350M AI cloud contract.
Novig sues Wisconsin AG in latest spat over sports contracts.
Harvard leaves BTCETF stake untouched in Q2 after cutting it 43%.
OCC grants conditional approval for World Liberty National Trust bank.
Binance handed user data to Russia that led to a Ukrainian donor's arrest.
SafePal says data breach exposed personal info of nearly 40,000 customers.
Trump, CFTC Chair expected at White House meeting with crypto executives.
JPMorgan cut Polymarket’s banking ties but still wants a role in a potential IPO.

NOTEWORTHY READS & MEME

Gekko’s read on When will $VVV go deflationary?
ETHLabs’s read on Inside Ethereum Upgrades: Hegotá.
Emperor Osmo’s read on Onchain Investigation Tools Worth Using.

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