Daily Summary2026-09-18

SEC Chair Paul Atkins announced a temporary "innovation exemption" permitting compliant venues to trade tokenised US equities on-chain — real custodied stocks, not synthetics — with coverage citing a five-year window, per the FT, Bloomberg and The Block. Commissioner Peirce drew an explicit boundary between the exemption and DeFi broadly. Bloomberg framed the move as the agency's answer to the CLARITY Act's failure two days earlier. The NYSE separately announced plans for 24/7 on-chain tokenised equity trading, which Atkins publicly backed.

The House Financial Services Committee advanced H.R. 8957, the American Reserve Modernization Act, on a party-line vote, per Decrypt. The bill would codify the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve in statute, bar sales for 20 years except to retire federal debt, and mandate quarterly proof-of-reserve reports with third-party audits. Coverage cited prediction markets assigning roughly 6% odds of full passage. The reserve currently exists by executive order.

Zcash briefly broke $1,500, a ten-year high, as the NU7 network upgrade was confirmed approved — coinholders voting overwhelmingly to retain the Bitcoin-style halving schedule while cutting block times to 25 seconds, per Decrypt. Investment firm Paradigm disclosed a ZEC holding and separately cautioned that coinvoting "could limit Zcash's long-term trust as a monetary asset," per coverage. The rally came as wider markets fell on the Federal Reserve's first rate hike since 2023.

CFTC staff issued a no-action position allowing wallets and passive software providers to offer regulated perpetual futures without broker registration, per Unchained Crypto and The Block, the agency's second developer-facing relief in two days after the SEC's tokenised-stock exemption. The relief carries conditions, including providers consenting to the CFTC's investigative and enforcement authority. As a staff position rather than a Commission rule, it can be withdrawn without formal process.