News Block: Bitcoin Price Surges on Surprise Treasury Move, Washington's Big Crypto Week, and Tether's First-Ever Audit

**Natalie Brunell** (0:00)
Welcome to the Coin Stories News Block powered exclusively by Ledn. Bitcoin jumped up 7% this week, touching a two-month high near $70,000.
And the trigger came from an unexpected place, the US. Treasury. Long-term government borrowing costs had been climbing to levels that make Washington nervous. The 30-year Treasury yield hit its highest point since 2007 So investors basically weren't showing up to buy America's long-term debt. As a result, the Treasury led by Secretary Scott Bessent made a surprise announcement. It will at least double the size of its bond buybacks, stepping in as a bigger buyer of the government's own debt. Yields fell immediately on the announcement. The dollar dropped, gold rallied and Bitcoin surged, wiping out more than a billion dollars in short positions. The Treasury insists this is about market liquidity, not propping up prices, but here's how Wall Street read it. You don't make a surprise move like this unless you're worried. So let's call it what it is. Borrowing costs got too high and the government stepped in to buy its own debt. They will never call it money printing. But when debt gets too expensive, they don't stop borrowing. They find a way to keep the debt machine running. And that in a nutshell is why Bitcoin exists.
Three significant crypto developments came out of Washington, DC this week. The SEC proposed its first ever formal crypto rulemaking, letting token projects raise up to $75 million a year without full securities registration. Plus a path for tokens to eventually exit securities laws entirely. Now, to be clear, this is about tokens, not Bitcoin. Supporters say it ends regulation by enforcement. Critics worry it reopens the token casino. But for now, it's only a proposal. There was also a first in American history. A federal regulator gave preliminary approval for World Liberty Trust, the Trump family's crypto venture, to operate as a national trust bank. Now, to be precise, this is not a regular bank, no deposits, no loans. But it lets the company issue and safeguard its own digital dollar directly. Firms like Ripple and Circle have similar approvals.
No company owned by a sitting president's family has ever been granted any kind of federal bank charter. Critics call it self-dealing. The regulator that approved it ultimately answers to the president. The White House says there's no conflict here because the president's assets are in a trust managed by his children. And President Trump is expected to personally chair a White House meeting this week with the CEOs of Coinbase, Ripple, Gemini, Robinhood, Cal she and Polymarket, plus the heads of NASDAQ, the New York Stock Exchange and CME. The agenda reportedly is pressuring the Senate to move the Clarity Act, which faces a key vote on September 15th. Today's episode is made possible by our title sponsor, Ledn. If you own Bitcoin but don't want to sell it, Ledn gives holders another option, borrowing against it. Ledn has operated through multiple market cycles and publishes proof of reserves, so you can verify what they hold. Its Bitcoin-backed loan rates scale with the size of your loan. So the larger the loan, the lower the rate. Your Bitcoin stays custodied and is never lent out for interest. Ledn now also supports tokenized gold and gold-backed loans are on the roadmap. Get a quarter percentage point of your first loan at ledn.io/natalie. Terms apply, visit the site for details. The world's biggest Bitcoin Treasury companies made major moves this week. Strategy bought back nearly 1.4 million shares of STRC for 132 million. That's its third largest buyback yet while issuing common stock to grow its cash reserve to 4.8 billion dollars, money that's earmarked for preferred dividends and interest. Now, if you want to go deeper, I just held a second retail investor Q&A with Strategies leaders, Michael Saylor and Fong Li, where I brought your questions directly to them. Don't miss it. That's streaming on my podcast right now.
Meanwhile, Japan's MetaPlanet, the third largest corporate Bitcoin holder, is expanding into the United States, seeding a new US platform with 2100 Bitcoin, about 132 million dollars, going into a NASDAQ listed company that will be renamed SuperPlanet and raise dollars to buy more Bitcoin. MetaPlanet keeps roughly 95 percent control, locked up for five years. CEO Simon Gerovich put it this way, the strategy now runs on two engines, SuperPlanet raises in America, MetaPlanet raises in Japan, and both feed a single Bitcoin position. The expansion comes as both companies face a new challenge though. MSCI, one of the world's largest index providers, is considering removing companies from its global stock indices, if their main business is holding assets rather than running operations. Trillions of dollars of index funds automatically own whatever is in these indices, so removal would force billions in selling. A decision is expected in mid-October, and Strategies' response was MSCI should measure the market, not dictate what assets companies hold.