The Daily: Trump secures House pledges on GENIUS Act, Ark trims Coinbase and own bitcoin ETF amid record highs, and more

The following article is adapted from The Block’s newsletter, The Daily, which comes out on weekday afternoons.

Happy Wednesday! "Crypto Week" was thrown into disarray overnight as the U.S. House scrapped planned votes on crypto legislation following a procedural failure.

In today's newsletter, President Trump says key House members have now pledged to back the GENIUS Act vote, Ark Invest offloads Coinbase shares and its own bitcoin ETF following their record highs, a Cantor Fitzgerald SPAC is set to close a multi-billion-dollar bitcoin deal with Adam Back, and more.

Meanwhile, Peter Thiel-backed entities acquire a 9.1% stake in the Ethereum treasury firm BitMine.

Let's get started.

Trump says key House members pledge to back GENIUS Act vote Wednesday

President Trump said overnight he had secured pledges from 11 of 12 key House members to back the GENIUS Act vote scheduled for Wednesday.

• Earlier on Tuesday, the House failed by 223 to 196 votes to advance the GENIUS and Clarity Acts during what advocates for the legislation have dubbed "Crypto Week."
• Trump said Speaker Mike Johnson also agreed to hold the GENIUS Act vote "as early as possible" on Wednesday.
• The GENIUS Act has already passed the Senate and sets backing, audit, and issuance rules for U.S. dollar stablecoins, while the
• Clarity Act deals with crypto market infrastructure regulations and still awaits Senate passage. Trump reiterated his support of the bills, calling stablecoins key to reinforcing dollar dominance and pushing for passage by August.
• Following Trump's Truth Social post, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise confirmed the GENIUS, Clarity, and Anti-CBDC Acts are now set for votes starting at 12:20 p.m. ET on Wednesday.
• Meanwhile, Rep. French Hill, Chair of the U.S. House Financial Services Committee, said he is confident the House has the votes to pass each of the three different crypto bills.

Ark Invest sells $13.3 million in Coinbase shares, $8.7 million of its own bitcoin ETF

Cathie Wood's Ark Invest sold $13.3 million worth of Coinbase shares and $8.7 million of its own spot bitcoin ETF on Tuesday after both assets hit record highs.

• The firm rebalanced its Next Generation Internet fund to keep individual holdings within its 10% cap, with Coinbase and ARKB still among the fund's top four positions.
• Coinbase closed Monday at a record $394.01 and crossed a $100 billion market cap before slipping slightly on Tuesday. Bitcoin also saw an all-time high above $123,000 on Monday.
• Ark Invest's spot bitcoin ETF has generated $2.9 billion in cumulative net inflows since launch, with $5 billion in assets now under management amid the concurrent price rise.

Cantor Fitzgerald SPAC to close multi-billion-dollar bitcoin deal with Adam Back

Brandon Lutnick, chair of Cantor Fitzgerald and son of U.S. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick, is finalizing a deal with Blockstream founder Adam Back to acquire billions of dollars in bitcoin through Cantor Equity Partners 1, the FT reported, citing two people briefed on the talks.

• The deal would see Back and Blockstream Capital contribute up to 30,000 BTC ($3.6 billion) in exchange for shares in the SPAC, which would be renamed BSTR Holdings, while raising another $800 million in outside capital for additional bitcoin purchases.
• This marks the latest in Cantor's strategy of using blank-check vehicles for bitcoin treasury company purposes, following an earlier deal with SoftBank and Tether-backed Twenty One.
• Back is a cryptographer cited in the original Bitcoin whitepaper and the inventor of the Hashcash proof-of-work system cited in it.

Eclipse Foundation begins 100 million ES token airdrop for early users

Eclipse Foundation launched ES on Wednesday and began a 100 million token airdrop to early users based on onchain activity, social presence, and community engagement.

• The ES token will power Eclipse's Layer 2 as gas and enable decentralized governance. It is deployed on the Eclipse, Ethereum, and Solana mainnets.
• Eclipse allocated the remaining 1 billion token supply to exchange liquidity programs (5%), ecosystem growth (35%), early backers (31%), and contributors (19%) under long-term lockups.
• Founded in 2022, Eclipse raised $65 million in funding, launched mainnet in November 2024, and now holds $30 million TVL as it touts itself as "Solana on Ethereum," by combining Solana's speed with Ethereum's security.

Pump.fun appears to initiate PUMP token buybacks using platform fees

Pump.fun appeared to begin a multi-million-dollar PUMP token buyback using platform fees on Tuesday, repurchasing nearly 3 billion tokens less than a week after launch.

• Onchain data shows Pump.fun spent about 118,351 SOL ($19.3 million) to repurchase PUMP tokens from a dedicated buyback wallet funded with 187,770 SOL in total ($31.3 million), at an average price of $0.0064 each.
• The buyback boosted PUMP's price by 17% following the news amid rising competition from rival memecoin launchpads like LetsBonk.

In the next 24 hours

• Eurozone CPI inflation data are out at 5 a.m. ET on Thursday. Est. MoM 0.3%; Core 0.4%. Est. YoY 2.0%; Core 2.3%. U.S. jobless claims figures follow at 8:30 a.m.
• U.S. FOMC members Adriana Kugler and Mary Daly will speak at 10 a.m. and 12:45 p.m., respectively.
• ZKsync and ApeCoin are set for token unlocks.

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Disclaimer: This article was produced with the assistance of OpenAI’s ChatGPT 3.5/4 and reviewed and edited by our editorial team.

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