Crypto Market Structure

Extracted Attributes

• Market Nature

  Mostly self-referential and used for speculation, with growth driven by continuous influx of new users hoping for high returns.

• Current State in US

  Fragmented, with most institutional crypto liquidity residing outside the U.S.

• Primary Trading Type

  Crypto-to-crypto trades, often involving stablecoins like Tether (USDT) and USD Coin (USDC).

• Key Regulatory Challenge

  Defining whether a digital asset is a security, a commodity, or neither, and avoiding obsolete definitions due to rapidly evolving technology.

• Primary Goal of New Legislation

  Establish a clear regulatory framework for the broader crypto market structure and move away from 'regulation by enforcement'.

• Dominant Assets by Market Capitalization

  Bitcoin and Ether, constituting approximately 80-90% of total market capitalization.

Timeline

• The Genius Act, a landmark victory for the cryptocurrency industry, was passed and signed into law at the White House, establishing a regulatory framework for stablecoins and aiming to solidify US Dollar dominance. This success set the stage for the Clarity Act. (Source: related_documents)

  Prior to 2025-05

• The CLARITY Act, a market structure bill intended to establish a cryptocurrency regulatory framework, was released by the House of Representatives. (Source: web_search_results)

  2025-05

• The House of Representatives passed a crypto industry-backed market structure bill (likely the Clarity Act) with broad bipartisan support. (Source: web_search_results)

  2025-07-17

$Trump

$TRUMP (stylized in all caps) is a meme coin associated with United States president Donald Trump, hosted on the Solana blockchain platform. One billion coins were originally created; 800 million remain owned by two Trump-owned companies, after 200 million were publicly released in an initial coin offering (ICO) on January 17, 2025. Less than a day later, the aggregate market value of all coins was more than $27 billion, valuing Trump's holdings at more than $20 billion. A March 2025 Financial Times analysis found that the crypto project netted at least $350 million through sales of tokens and fees. The venture has faced widespread condemnation from ethics experts for Donald Trump's conflicts of interest related to the project and his presidential duties. During the second Trump administration, Trump has promoted $TRUMP and taken actions that have raised the value of the meme coin, contributing to a substantial increase in his net worth.

Web Search Results

• Crypto Market Structure Update: What Institutional Traders Value

  1. The majority of spot crypto liquidity for institutions will remain outside the U.S. Crypto liquidity will mostly evolve elsewhere, especially on non-U.S. platforms and decentralized exchanges (DeXs) like Uniswap,7 continuing a trend we have recognized for well over a year. It will remain a fragmented market.8 Order books with regulatory status in other locations like Singapore, UAE, Switzerland, and Gibraltar will become relatively attractive. [...] Image 23: Factors Influencing Choice of Digital Asset Execution and Liquidity Partners While the last few months have given us a clearer view of where crypto market structure is headed in the U.S., particularly in light of the Coinbase and Binance enforcement actions, it is important to revisit how we got to this point—especially before we project where we are headed and what institutional traders (including those in the U.S.) will value going forward. ### U.S.—How We Got Here [...] The net result is that outside of futures, the vast majority of crypto in the U.S. cannot trade in a regulated market (we only have limited digital asset securities that can trade on ATSs). The market is simply stuck as we move through this market structure shift and regulators and policymakers are active. ### What Regulators are Doing

• Cryptoasset Market Structure and Regulation in the U.S. | PIFS

  I. OVERVIEW OF THE EXISTING CRYPTOASSET MARKET STRUCTURE -------------------------------------------------------- In Part I we provide an overview of the current state of cryptoasset markets. Although our primary focus is the cryptoasset market in the United States, we also describe certain aspects of global cryptoasset markets to the extent relevant to understanding U.S. markets and the U.S. regulatory environment. [...] for the period of May 2021 through May 2022, the largest 10 tokens constitute approximately 80% of the total market capitalization, while the top 25 tokens constitute more than 90%. Among the largest tokens, bitcoin, and to a lesser extent ether, predominate. As of November 23, 2022, bitcoin represented approximately 38% of the total $848 billion market capitalization of all cryptoassets. Table 1 below illustrates the market capitalization of the top five cryptoassets, including as a percentage [...] As noted earlier, the majority of global trading volume on centralized trading platforms consists of crypto-to-crypto trades rather than fiat-to-crypto trades. In a crypto-to-crypto trade, one of the cryptoassets traded is typically a stablecoin linked to the value of a fiat currency, primarily Tether (USDT) and USD Coin (USDC). Trading in stablecoins allows cryptoasset investors to execute trades more quickly and at a lower cost than fiat-to-crypto trades. Investors are also able to move funds

• 6 takeaways from the Senate's crypto market structure hearing

  Following the May release of the CLARITY Act, the House of Representative’s market structure bill to establish a cryptocurrency regulatory framework, the Senate Banking Committee met with industry leaders Wednesday to discuss how the Senate would craft its own framework. Here are six takeaways from the hearing. #### America is behind in establishing a crypto regulatory framework. [...] “Whether something in digital form is a security, a commodity, or neither, cannot be easily defined by a paragraph or two in a statute,” he said. “It depends on what the token represents, whether there is an issuer, whether the transaction is one in which capital is being raised, and so forth.” Additionally,the technology and its use cases are rapidly evolving, “so we should not lock in definitions that will prove obsolete soon,” he said. [...] Sign upImage 3: menu Image 4: searchSearch Image 5 Sign up Search Image 6: searchImage 7: close menu Commercial Retail Credit Unions Payments Regulations & Policy Technology Risk Fintech An article fromImage 8: site logo 6 takeaways from the Senate’s crypto market structure hearing ============================================================= Senators largely agreed on the need for regulation, but differed on the potential focus and framing of such a bill.

• [PDF] The crypto ecosystem: key elements and risks

  highlights that, despite the potential for genuine technological innovation, crypto has inherent structural flaws that pose serious risks not only to its own stability and safety, but also to the traditional financial system. The section first reviews the main structural flaws of the crypto ecosystem, including congestion, fragmentation and the need to borrow credibility from sovereign money. It also discusses the problems arising from the need for centralisation. The section then summarises [...] (2022). Insiders control token allocation and centralised exchanges dominate volumes Graph 4 A. Coins are often allocated to insiders B. Weekly trading volume1 USD bn USD bn 1 Centralised = Binance and Coinbase; Decentralised = Curve.fi, PancakeSwap (v2) and Uniswap (V2). Weekly averages of daily values. Sources: Auer, Frost and Vidal Pastor (2022); BIS (2022). Tezos Ethereum Cardano Polkadot Near Algorand Avalanche Celo Terra Solana Binance 50 40 30 20 10 0 % of initial coin allocation 400 300 [...] stablecoin or crypto coin for another, and do not finance activity in the real economy. In this sense, the system is mostly self-referential and used for speculation in coins.5 Growth is driven mainly by the continuous influx of new users hoping for high returns. Indeed, recent evidence suggests that rising crypto prices are followed by significantly higher adoption of crypto trading apps, as new users are lured by the prospect of further gains.6 3. Structural flaws and risks This section

• House sends bill regulating stablecoins, a type of cryptocurrency, to ...

  After the votes, House Republicans strongly urged the Senate to take up the second bill, which would create a new market structure for cryptocurrency. Rep. Bryan Steil, R-Wis., said the 294-134 vote on that legislation shows broad bipartisan support and a “massive energy” on the issue. But it is so far unclear whether the Senate would consider the House bill or try to write its own.