Morning Minute: HYPE Soars as CFTC Gives Perps Green Light – Decrypt

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GM!

Today’s top news:

• Crypto majors continue to bleed, fall 6% on the week; BTC at $72,500
• HYPE soars 17% to new ATH after CFTC gives perps the green light in US, approves Kalshi’s product
• KNTQ jumps 55% on the week in the wake of HYPE’s move
• Binance announced plans to let non-US users trade US stocks
• Jamie Dimon calls Brian Armstrong “full of shit” as Clarity Act battle wages on

📈 The CFTC Just Opened the US Perp Market

The most consequential crypto regulatory action since the Bitcoin ETF approval landed on Friday.

The CFTC approved KalshiEX’s BTCPERP on May 29, the first Bitcoin perpetual on a US-regulated exchange. The cash-settled contract trades 24/7 and utilizes a funding mechanism tied to spot prices.

The CFTC simultaneously cleared a path for a Coinbase affiliate to connect U.S. customers to options and perps at the global level through Deribit, its affiliated foreign board of trade. The no-action relief allows Coinbase Financial Markets to accept Bitcoin, Ethereum, and stablecoins as margin collateral for eligible customers.

CFTC Chair Michael Selig: “This morning, the CFTC took historic action to permit the listing of a true Bitcoin perpetual contract by a CFTC-registered exchange, charting a path for one of the most liquid segments of the crypto asset markets.”

The CFTC is separating regulatory pathways for crypto perpetuals – one for domestic listings on CFTC-registered exchanges, one for offshore products treated as foreign futures under existing Commission regulations.

Markets reacted immediately, as Coinbase gained 4% and Robinhood 11% on Friday after the approval. Meanwhile, Hyperliquid jumped 30%+ from its Thursday lows to make a smashing new all-time high at $73.50. HYPE has now outperformed Bitcoin by 270% on the year and has cemented itself as the primary crypto market darling of the cycle.

There is some debate on whether the CFTC news is actually good for Hyperliquid or not, given that it opens the door for competition. But clearly the market has spoken—legal perps in the U.S. is good for Hyperliquid.

🙈 Jamie Dimon Calls Brian Armstrong Full of Shit

JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon went on the offensive against Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong over the Clarity Act, vowing to fight the passage of the crypto market structure bill until the bitter end, going as far as saying that Armstrong is “full of shit.”

The specific fight is around the stablecoin yield carve-out. Armstrong has been aggressive and public about preserving the “bona fide activities” exception that allows platforms to offer activity-based rewards on stablecoin balances. Dimon’s position is that any yield-equivalent reward is deposit competition that threatens the banking system’s deposit base. The clash is over whether stablecoin issuers should be allowed to offer yield-bearing rewards that resemble bank deposits.

The Senate returns from Memorial Day recess today. The Clarity Act floor vote is expected within 30 days per leadership. The bill cleared committee 15-9 with bipartisan support on May 14. It now needs 60 votes—roughly six Democratic crossovers—to advance on the Senate floor.

Prediction markets are giving the Clarity Act just a 56% chance of passing this year—though those odds could surge with some post-recess progress.

🟠 The U.S. Seizes $1 Billion in Iranian Crypto

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the U.S. has “outright grabbed” roughly $1B worth of crypto from Iran via seizures, with assets including Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Tether’s USDT.

The seizures are connected to Iran’s Hormuz Safe platform and related OFAC enforcement actions targeting Iranian entities using crypto to circumvent Western sanctions.

This marks the largest single crypto seizure from a hostile state actor since the DOJ seized 94,000 BTC from the Bitfinex hack in 2022. But the move also raises the question of where the money goes. The U.S. government currently holds approximately 200,000 BTC in its Strategic Bitcoin Reserve, accumulated through criminal and civil forfeitures.

White House Crypto Advisor Patrick Witt said in late April that a “major announcement” on the SBR was coming “in the next few weeks.” Representative Begich’s American Reserves Modernization Act, which would direct the government to acquire 1 million BTC over five years using budget-neutral strategies, explicitly contemplates using seized assets as part of the accumulation mechanism.

Iranian state media called the seizures “an act of financial warfare” and said Iran’s cyber units were “working to identify and neutralize” the enforcement infrastructure used.

🌎 Macro Crypto and Markets

• Crypto majors are red on the day and week with HYPE the lone standout; BTC -6% on week at $72.6K; ETH -6% at $1,980; SOL -5% at $81; HYPE +17% at $73.35
• H (+90%), WLD (+15%), and SIREN (+10%) led top movers; KNTQ jumped 28% on the day and 56% on the week
• Oil +4% at $90; Gold -1% at $4,535
• Stock futures are green with the Nasdaq up 0.2% and DOW +0.5% at 51,340
• Binance announced plans to allow non-U.S. users to trade stocks, with more than 7,000 U.S. stocks and ETFs offered
• Citi projected that tokenized RWAs could hit $5.5T by 2030, more than 250x from here
• Republican fintech entrepreneur Michael Carbonara liquidated 10 BTC for $800,000 in USDC to self-fund his congressional bid for Florida’s newly redrawn 22nd District
• Grayscale published a 26-page report titled “Hyperliquid Breaks the Mold,” concluding that Hyperliquid generated $800M in revenue in 2025 and is rapidly evolving from a crypto perp exchange into broader financial infrastructure
• Gnosis Pay was hacked related to its “delay module,” with the founder promising to cover any user losses

Corporate Treasuries & ETFs

Meme Coin Tracker

• Meme leaders were red on the week; DOGE -2.5%, SHIB -3%, PEPE -7%, PENGU -16%, TRUMP -6%, BONK -10%, SPX -9%, FARTCOIN -17%
• Gacha (+200%), Grail (+300%) and Cards (+24%) led notable movers on Solana
• Base movers included CTR (+18%), Degen (+15%) and Gitlawb (+17%)

📈 Myriad Market of the Day

💰 Token, Airdrop & Protocol Tracker

• Sui suffered its second outage in two days on May 29, then went down a third time during an epoch transition later the same night; three outages in under 48 hours
• BullX announced a pause on its trading tool, as the team shifts resources to future developments
• Phantom has generated $20M+ in fees from its Hyperliquid builder program

🚚 What is happening in NFTs?

• NFT leaders were red on the week; Punks -4% at 31.8 ETH, BAYC -5% at 8.29 ETH, Pudgy -10% at 4.23 ETH; Hypurr’s +4% at 309 HYPE
• BAKC (+24%) and MAYC (+14%) led top movers
• Autoglyphs saw 3 sales over the week in the 69 ETH to 80 ETH range, moving the floor back up to 87 ETH