swaps

According to CoinDesk, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has submitted two rules for review to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). One rule aims to include event contracts within the regulatory definition of swaps, while the other is a "temporary final rule" that seeks to exclude "casino-style gambling products" from the scope of swaps.These two rules were received by the OMB this week, with the document dated September 28. OMB review is typically the last step before rules are submitted for public comment, and the temporary final rule will take effect immediately while allowing for subsequent public input and revisions.This move comes as the CFTC engages in a tug-of-war with multiple states over the nature of prediction markets. Event contracts are typically binary yes-or-no bets on measurable outcomes such as sports events and elections. Last week, the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Kalshi's sports contracts do not fall under swaps and should be governed by state gambling regulations, while the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals made a similar ruling; however, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals previously determined that the CFTC has jurisdiction over prediction markets, creating a legal divergence at the federal level. CFTC Chairman Mike Selig believes that the CFTC has exclusive jurisdiction over prediction markets.If event contracts are classified as swaps and not as gambling products, it could weaken the positions of various states in multiple lawsuits against prediction market platforms like Kalshi. The CFTC is legally required to consist of five commissioners, but President Trump has yet to nominate additional commissioners, leaving Selig as the sole commissioner, who is unilaterally advancing regulatory and policy decisions. Additionally, information disclosed by the OMB indicates that the CFTC recently submitted a "pre-rule" focusing on cryptocurrency regulation to the White House.

Bitcoin News posted on platform X that after the CFTC approved Kalshi's Bitcoin perpetual contracts as futures products, traders face uncertainty on how to report gains to the IRS.If the product is classified as a regulated futures contract under Section 1256 of the U.S. Tax Code, related gains are typically treated as 60% long-term capital gains and 40% short-term capital gains, regardless of the holding period. CME believes that Kalshi's perpetual contracts are actually swaps, which are explicitly not covered under Section 1256. The CFTC's classification supports the view that it is a futures product, but does not bind the IRS; the tax treatment remains uncertain until the IRS, Congress, or the courts directly address Bitcoin perpetual contracts.

Castle Labs released a research report on September 10, comparing the execution costs of the swaps products launched by Variational with traditional perpetual contracts. The report shows that for most trading volumes, Variational is currently the lowest-cost venue among listed assets, with the cost of a $1 million trade in the US100 market being only $47.The report points out that the trading volume of RWA perpetual contracts has grown from less than $1 billion in October 2025 to over $12 billion in August 2026, currently accounting for about 12% to 13% of on-chain perpetual contract trading volume, with a peak in July reaching 20%. As of the report's release, the total open interest of RWA perpetual contracts was $4.9 billion, with TradeXYZ and Variational accounting for nearly 90%.Variational's swaps utilize RFQ execution and the proprietary liquidity provider Omni, with liquidity coming directly from traditional financial partners, and the fees being a holding cost charged once at the daily close, rather than relying on market supply and demand funding rates. Since the launch of the US100, US500, XAU, XAG, and USOIL markets at the beginning of the month, a total trading volume of $3.8 billion has been accumulated, with a peak open interest of $245 million. Currently, swaps have contributed over 50% of Variational's daily trading volume and more than $220 million in open interest.

The derivatives protocol Variational on the Arbitrum ecosystem has announced the launch of its swaps market, initially including gold (XAU) and the Nasdaq 100 index (US100) markets. Swaps are similar to perpetual contracts in that they provide exposure to the underlying asset, but differ in terms of liquidity sources and holding costs: the holding cost for swaps is based on the USD borrowing interest rate, with long positions currently paying an annualized rate of 4% to 6%, and short positions receiving an annualized rate of 2% to 3%, replacing the more volatile funding rates.The swaps market charges no trading fees, with an initial open contract limit of approximately $10 million per market. The team plans to increase the limit to over $50 million in the coming days, and the initial protocol can support an open contract size of over $1 billion. The team stated that in the coming months, they will continue to raise limits, launch more swaps and perpetual contract markets, introduce trading APIs, and promote around-the-clock liquidity.

Bitcoin infrastructure development company Blockstream announced on Twitter that due to Boltz's ongoing automated detection and multiple vulnerability attacks leading to the suspension of its exchange services, Blockstream will launch its own Blockstream Swaps service.Currently, Blockstream Swaps is in the beta testing phase, aimed at providing a toolkit for the ecosystem and will complement existing service providers.

According to Bloomberg, the White House is reviewing early proposals from the U.S. SEC and CFTC regarding the re-examination of swaps and security swap reporting requirements, which are currently in the pre-rule stage. The two regulatory agencies plan to solicit public opinions before formally drafting regulatory details. The current reporting rules for swaps and security swaps in the U.S. are not unified, and some existing compliance exemption policies will expire in 2029.The International Swaps and Derivatives Association and the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association jointly sent a letter last month urging regulators to unify the data reporting standards for the two types of products, while ICE Trade Vault LLC made a similar request. The CFTC stated that this work is being carried out jointly by the two agencies, and the SEC chairman has arranged for personnel to establish a unified reporting system during the industry conference in March. The new regulations will require two rounds of agency voting and public consultation before implementation.

Aave released a recap of the Swap event stating that a user exchanged approximately $50.43 million aEth USDT for about $36,000 aEth AAVE through the CoW Swap route on the Aave front end, with a price impact of about 99.9%.Aave indicated that the transaction occurred within a third-party Swap protocol, and the core lending protocol was unaffected. The cause of the event was the user executing a large order in a market with extremely low liquidity and confirming a high-risk quote. Aave stated that it will launch the Aave Shield feature, which will by default block Swaps with a price impact exceeding 25%.

Solana DEX aggregator Titan has launched the Private Swaps feature powered by Vanish, allowing users to conduct anonymous transactions on the Solana network through shielded wallets. Currently, this feature supports exchange transactions involving SOL.In addition, users who complete Private Swap transactions on Titan will receive a new Titan Privacy Badge.

The crypto wallet Phantom announced the launch of the MCP server on platform X, supporting AI Agent exchange, signing, and management of all on-chain addresses supported by Phantom, and can also be used with Claude, OpenClaw, or any MCP-compatible client.

According to on-chain analyst Ai Yi's monitoring, a whale exchanged 9.06 million dollars' worth of WETH for WBTC. In the past 20 minutes, he sold 3,437.09 ETH at an average price of 2,637.62 dollars and bought 109.61 WBTC for 82,494.79 dollars; previously, his first exchange earned him a 6.45% profit in ETH, while the second exchange earned him 9.26 WBTC (approximately 810,000 dollars).

According to Ember Monitoring, the whale/institution that swapped BTC for ETH the day before yesterday continued today by selling 404 BTC ($38.84 million) into 11,533 ETH through the cross-chain exchange tool THORChain.In two days, they have swapped a total of 686.1 BTC ($65.17 million) for 19,631 ETH, with an average exchange price of $3,302 for the ETH.

ChainCatcher news, according to the official announcement, Binance Alpha will support OLAXBT (AIO) BEP20 contract swaps.Starting from September 8, 2025, 05:00 (UTC), Binance will suspend AIO trading to facilitate the contract swap.Trading of OLAXBT (AIO) via BEP20 is expected to resume on the same day at 08:00 UTC.

ChainCatcher news, according to on-chain analyst Onchain Lens (@OnchainLens), a high-profile BTC ancient whale has once again transferred 1,000 BTC (worth $218.24 million) into Hyperliquid to swap for ETH.

ChainCatcher message, Magic Eden announces that its web-based cross-chain exchange feature is officially launched, supporting instant exchanges between major chains such as Solana, Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Base, with more EVM chain support to be added in the coming weeks.

ChainCatcher news, according to Blockworks, informed sources say that the Trump family's crypto project WLFI has been in talks with blockchain teams for a "token swap" deal. WLFI proposed a plan: to purchase at least $10 million worth of unreleased WLFI tokens for a fee of 10%, while World Liberty Financial would buy the same amount of the native tokens of the blockchain project.It is reported that the relevant tokens are not subject to a vesting period, and the minimum purchase amount for the token swap partnership is set at $10 million.Another anonymous blockchain project insider stated that although the minimum purchase amount is $10 million, to receive priority treatment from World Liberty Financial, the amount needs to reach $15 million.

ChainCatcher news, Uniswap CEO Hayden Adams posted on the X platform: "About 12 hours after launching Uniswap V4, we tested a $1000 ETH to USDT swap. Our on-chain routing suggests completing the token swap from ETH to USDC to USDT through two V4 pools, with a total TVL of $400,000 for the best price.Even though the TVL of the ETH/USDT single liquidity pool in V3 is approximately $150 million, the benefits of pure gas efficiency are starting to show (the cost of native ETH tokens + multi-loop routes is lower), and IMO will be one of the biggest catalysts for V4 growth------lower gas costs = better swap prices = more LP profits. An exciting moment exclusively for automated market maker enthusiasts."

ChainCatcher news, according to Cointelegraph, the developers of the DeFi protocol Uniswap, Uniswap Labs, have announced a partnership with the cryptocurrency hardware wallet provider Ledger to enhance the accessibility of DeFi. This collaboration will enable Uniswap's trading API to integrate with the Ledger Live cryptocurrency asset management application. After the integration, users will be able to swap tokens directly within Ledger Live while maintaining control of their assets through the Ledger hardware wallet.

ChainCatcher message, Uniswap Labs posted on platform X that it has launched a new feature in its Chrome browser extension wallet, allowing users to exchange cryptocurrencies and perform cross-chain operations by pressing the shortcut key cmd + shift + U in the browser.

ChainCatcher news, the Sui ecosystem lending protocol Suilend announced on social media the launch of the Swaps feature, allowing users to exchange assets such as SUI, USDT, USDC, ETH, etc. on Sui, with a fee of 0%.

ChainCatcher message, Whale Alert monitoring data shows that Tether has issued an additional 1 billion USDT on the Ethereum network. Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino stated that this 1 billion USDT is a supplement to the inventory on the Ethereum network, which is an authorized but unissued transaction, meaning that this issuance will be used for the next issuance requests and cross-chain exchange inventory.