Iran threatens commercial vessels, escalating US tensions

Today in crypto, a NYT investigation found that senior CFTC officials who raised concerns about prediction markets were suspended and pushed out, an analyst takes a contrarian view on Kevin Warsh slashing interest rates. Meanwhile, the SEC has approved Nasdaq’s proposal to list cash-settled Bitcoin index options. Senior officials at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission who raised concerns about prediction market companies were suspended, investigated and eventually pushed out of the agency.According to a New York Times investigation published Sunday, the officials had flagged concerns about Polymarket, Crypto.com and a Gemini affiliate, each with alleged business ties to the Trump family. Career staff worried that Crypto.com was not treating small bettors fairly, that Polymarket lacked adequate fraud protections and that Gemini’s affiliate had not completed the required regulatory review to operate.Despite those concerns, then-acting CFTC chair Caroline Pham and her senior counsel intervened to help the firms get what they wanted, sources told the NYT. By the end of 2025, two officials who had raised questions were placed on administrative leave and under internal investigation. Three others who had enforced crypto laws faced the same fate. None were told what they had done wrong.“But current and former agency staffers said in interviews that the commission’s work force took away a clear message: Don’t cause trouble for those industries,” the report wrote.Analyst says new Fed chair will slash interest ratesThe newly appointed Federal Reserve Chairman, Kevin Warsh, will slash interest rates, despite the prevailing consensus among investors that interest rates will either remain the same or go up over the next year, according to investor Lawrence Lepard. Leopard said that Warsh will likely cut interest rates, citing comments from other cabinet-level US officials signaling impending rate cuts. He added:“Warsh will cut. He will use the AI productivity and trimmed inflation excuses and will claim that all the war inflation is transitory. Two data points from today’s Wall Street Journal support this view.”Source: Lawrence LepardInterest rate policy is viewed by investors and traders as a catalyst for higher risk-on asset prices, while higher rates are viewed as constrictive for liquidity and asset prices. SEC approves Nasdaq to list Bitcoin index options on the exchangeThe Securities and Exchange Commission has approved Nasdaq’s proposal to list cash-settled Bitcoin index options on the Philadelphia Stock Exchange.The options are European-style contracts tied to the Nasdaq Bitcoin Index, a benchmark that tracks one one-hundredth of the CME CF Bitcoin Real Time Index, which updates with data from major cryptocurrency exchanges every 200 milliseconds. The approval was granted on an accelerated basis and published Friday on the SEC’s website.The new contracts are cash-settled, meaning holders receive the difference between the Bitcoin spot price and the strike price at expiration. Unlike options on spot Bitcoin ETFs, there is no physical Bitcoin involved and no risk of early assignment, offering traders an alternative way to bet on the price of the cryptocurrency.Source: SECThe contracts will trade under the ticker QBTC on Phlx, with a minimum increment of $0.01 and a position limit of 24,000 contracts per side, equivalent to roughly 0.12% of Bitcoin’s outstanding supply, the SEC noted in its order.