Today in crypto, Cantor Fitzgerald is reportedly nearing a deal to buy $3.5 billion in Bitcoin from Blockstream, Republicans suffered their first setback in Congress on crypto legislation and Bitcoin-powered darknet marketplace Abacus Market has gone offline amid suspected law enforcement pressure.
Cantor plans $3.5B Bitcoin buy from Adam Back’s Blockstream: Reports
Financial services firm Cantor Fitzgerald plans to acquire $3.5 billion worth of Bitcoin (BTC) from Adam Back’s Blockstream Capital to spin up a company to hold the cryptocurrency, the Financial Times and Bloomberg reported on Tuesday.
The would see BlockStream contribute as much as 30,000 Bitcoin, currently worth $3.5 billion, in exchange for shares in Cantor Equity Partners 1, a blank-check special purpose acquisition company (SPAC), which would be renamed BSTR Holdings.
The deal also includes plans to raise up to $800 million in additional outside capital for further Bitcoin purchases and follows a previous $3.6 billion crypto deal Cantor Fitzgerald made with SoftBank and Tether in April to create the Bitcoin acquisition company.
Cantor is run by Brandon Lutnick, the 27-year-old son of US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, while Back’s 1997 Hashcash cryptographic work was cited by Bitcoin's pseudonymous creator, Satoshi Nakamoto, and became foundational to Bitcoin’s proof-of-work consensus.
First crypto bill vote fails to get 100% Republican support despite Trump’s call
Cryptocurrency-related bills backed by US President Donald Trump failed to clear a key procedural step in the House of Representatives on Tuesday, despite the president’s public push for action.
Trump had urged Republican lawmakers to “get the first vote done this afternoon” on legislation to regulate payment stablecoins as part of a larger effort to pass crypto legislation before the August recess.
In a Tuesday post on his social media platform Truth Social, Trump ordered all Republicans to vote yes on the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for US Stablecoins, or GENIUS Act, a bill designed to regulate payment stablecoins in the US.
The legislation is one of three bills, along with ones to address market structure and central bank digital currencies, that Republican House leaders had been pushing as part of the party’s “crypto week” plans.
Bitcoin-fueled darknet marketplace vanishes in possible exit scam
Abacus Market, the largest Bitcoin-powered Western darknet marketplace, has gone offline in an apparent exit scam.
Its website and infrastructure, including its clearnet mirror, are inaccessible, TRM Labs said in a report on Monday. The disappearance has led TRM to believe the “operators have likely conducted an exit scam, shutting down operations and disappearing with users’ funds.”
TRM Labs said the closure could be the result of attention from law enforcement, as Abacus Market clocked a monthly record after the closure of Archetyp Market, one of the longest-running dark web marketplaces, in mid-June.
In late June, users began reporting withdrawal issues, which prompted the Abacus administrator known by the handle “Vito” to assure users that the problems were merely a result of an influx of new people and a distributed denial-of-service attack.
“This behavior was consistent with known exit scam patterns seen across other darknet markets.”