The SEC proposed rules that would permit registered investment advisers and funds to self-custody crypto assets in limited circumstances and utilize state trust companies as qualified custodians, opening a 60-day public comment period following Federal Register publication. The proposal seeks to replace years of regulatory ambiguity with an explicit compliance pathway, defining technical and operational criteria under which institutional asset managers can hold digital assets without relying exclusively on federally chartered banking institutions.
The initiative could significantly expand the institutional custody landscape by formalizing key management and direct asset controls as distinct fund-governance decisions. While this structure may foster greater competition between specialized state trust companies and conventional custodians, market adoption remains contingent on the final framework's balance of liability allocation, compliance burdens and ongoing supervisory expectations.
MetaMask initiated withdrawals of roughly $1.4 billion in staked ETH from Lido validators following an infrastructure compromise that resulted in stolen validator rewards, though the team stated that end-user wallets face no immediate threat. Lido projected that the full exit, withdrawal and redeployment cycle could take up to 45 days, contributing to a nine-month high in Ethereum validator exit queues. The event underscores how institutional staking exposure introduces operational dependencies on validator infrastructure and staking middleware beyond baseline network consensus risks.
NEAR Intents suspended cross-chain services after a deposit-and-withdrawal contract vulnerability enabled a $3.8 million exploit, prompting the protocol to pledge complete restitution for affected users while deposits and withdrawals across 11 networks remained disrupted. NEAR traded down 9.9% over 24 hours at $4.80 on $1.35 billion in volume, experiencing immediate pressure days after the launch of a spot NEAR exchange-traded product in the US. While user reimbursement mitigates direct balance losses, the incident highlights persistent settlement vulnerabilities in cross-chain intent-routing infrastructure.
Shareholders of special purpose acquisition company Armada Acquisition Corp. II approved a business combination with Evernorth, positioning the Ripple-backed entity to list on Nasdaq under the ticker XRPN with an XRP treasury of approximately 473 million tokens valued at roughly $710 million. The listing expands the public corporate treasury model beyond Bitcoin to XRP, though the vehicle's market performance and valuation will depend on closing execution, secondary equity liquidity and how effectively the stock tracks net asset value relative to its balance-sheet reserves.