US House Committees Pass Bitcoin Reserve Bill and Crypto Tax Legislation

The US House Financial Services Committee passed the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve Act (ARMA · H.R.8957) with a vote of 28-21 on September 16, while the Ways and Means Committee approved the Digital Asset Tax Certainty Act (H.R.10357) by a margin of 38-5. ARMA establishes a legal framework for the Treasury to manage federal Bitcoin holdings.

Meanwhile, US spot Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) ETFs saw $520 million in net outflows on September 16, with Wu Blockchain reporting $296 million from Bitcoin ETFs and $224 million from Ethereum ETFs. BlackRock's ETHA recorded the largest outflow of $110 million among Ethereum ETFs.

Zcash (ZEC) holders overwhelmingly supported a proposal to reduce block time from 75 seconds to 25 seconds, securing 99.9% approval, while maintaining the current halving schedule received 98.9% support. Avalanche announced it will shorten validator minimum stake periods from 14 days to 48 hours as part of its Helix upgrade, effective September 23 at 00:00 UTC.

Moscow Exchange (MOEX) launched five index-based perpetual futures contracts for Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Solana (SOL), XRP, and TRX on September 22, targeting qualified investors with dollar-denominated quotes and ruble settlements. Hong Kong regulators announced plans to clarify compliance pathways for virtual asset service providers by 2026, including tokenized gold and other physical assets.

Payward, Kraken's parent company, plans to build an on-chain perpetual futures market for US customers using Hyperliquid's HIP-3 market, operating under CFTC regulatory infrastructure. Revolut faced a ransom demand of $3 million (6000 XMR) from a group claiming data breach, though the actual breach remains unverified. Balancer co-founder Marcus Hardt proposed phased shutdown due to insufficient growth and revenue channels, with potential cessation by October 30, 2026.

KoBo Life and SBI Group successfully tested direct settlement between Korean won and Japanese yen stablecoins via the Canton Network blockchain platform on September 17 without actual fund transfers.