Altcoin Index Soars, SEC's Crypto Rules, Bitcoin's Milestone, Binance's Zero Tolerance and More: This Wee

Crypto markets saw a busy week, led by an Altcoin Season Index rise and multiple regulatory and exchange developments. The Altcoin Season Index—measuring the performance of the top 100 coins versus Bitcoin over 90 days—hit 48, nearing 50, as several tokens such as NEAR Protocol, Tezos, Arbitrum, Uniswap, Ethena, and Zcash rose more than 40% in a week. On regulation, SEC Chair Paul Atkins said crypto rules will arrive “with or without legislation,” referencing the CLARITY Act’s failure in a Senate procedural vote. Bitcoin also broke above $80,000. Binance co-CEO Richard Teng reiterated “zero tolerance” for sanctions violations after DOJ actions tied to roughly $61 million. Finally, two former Robinhood engineers were charged with insider trading involving Hyperliquid.