Sovereign Buyers Absorb the Dip as CFTC Greenlights U.S. Spot Crypto Trading

The day’s 2–4% pullback barely moved the people who matter. Bitcoin eased 2% to $91,400, ETH slipped 2% to $3,130, BNB fell 2% to $893, and SOL dipped 4% to $136. ZEC (+4%) and TRX (+2%) outperformed. What matters isn’t the red; it’s who’s taking the other side. BlackRock’s Larry Fink said sovereign wealth funds have been steadily accumulating Bitcoin and “bought more” as price slid from ~$126K into the $80Ks, building longer-dated stacks while traders fuss over basis points.

That sovereign bid reframes the noise around flows. Research pointing to roughly $4B in October–November Bitcoin ETF outflows attributed the pressure mainly to leveraged basis-trade unwinds across major funds rather than capitulation. In other words, structurally long-term buyers accumulated while short-horizon arbitrage came off. When your cost of capital changes, you close carry; when your mandate is intergenerational, you buy volatility. I’ve seen this play out across cycles: sovereign allocators prefer to scale during drawdowns, typically via regulated wrappers or top-tier custody, and they don’t announce fills.

The microstructure is tilting their way. The CFTC approved spot crypto trading on CFTC-registered venues, with Bitnomial expected to go first. That step won’t transform liquidity overnight, but it reduces ambiguity for U.S. institutions that need futures-style governance around spot execution, clearing, and surveillance. As venue integrity improves, basis dislocations often compress, reducing noise from levered carry and making room for balance-sheet buyers who don’t need 10x.

Infrastructure stitched together in the background matters, too. Solana and Coinbase’s Base are now linked through a bridge secured by Chainlink and Coinbase infrastructure. Bridging is usually where retail gets hurt; bringing oracle-secured messaging and exchange-grade infra to that junction lowers tail risk and supports real settlement between high-throughput L1/L2 domains. Pair that with “top banks” piloting stablecoins, custody, and trading with Coinbase, as Brian Armstrong noted at Dealbook, and you’ve got rails that large institutions can credibly use without rewriting internal risk manuals.

Policy winds are shifting at the same time. The IMF flagged rising stablecoin adoption as a potential drag on central bank control, citing currency substitution and monetary sovereignty risks. That tension is predictable: the more credible dollar-like settlement exists on crypto rails, the more it competes with local units of account. On the other side of the ledger, BlackRock’s 2026 outlook kept a risk-on stance—overweight U.S. equities—and highlighted AI and stablecoins as “megaforces.” You don’t have to agree with the label to see where asset allocators are pointing budgets.

Politics is touching the stack as well. In the U.K., Reform UK received a record donation from a living donor—$11.4 million—from a Tether-linked investor. Whether one applauds or cringes, crypto capital is intersecting with conventional power structures, and that usually accelerates clarity—good or bad. Elsewhere, Binance rolled out “Binance Junior,” a crypto savings account for minors with parental controls, while Sony partner Startale launched USDSC as the default settlement asset on the Soneium L2. Those are product experiments testing demand at the edges of regulation.

Short-term prints remain noisy. After the initial sell-off, majors traded slightly firmer in an earlier session: BTC up 1% to $93,000, ETH +4% to $3,190, and BNB and SOL +1% to $909 and $143. ZEC (+10%), TAO (+8%), and DASH (+6%) led. Large ETH holders resumed sizable spot buys post-Fusaka, consistent with the same pattern: patient wallets accumulate stress. Meanwhile, XRP ETFs were reportedly approaching $1 billion in assets, another data point for the “everything will get an ETF” crowd.

Here’s the read: the center of gravity is drifting toward balance sheets that prefer predictable, compliant rails and the ability to express size without signaling. CFTC-blessed spot venues, safer interchain bridges, and bank-led stablecoin pilots all reduce friction for those buyers. ETF outflows driven by basis unwinds shouldn’t distract from that structural bid. When sovereign funds are dollar-cost averaging Bitcoin in the $80Ks–$90Ks, it tells you who is underwriting the floor—quietly, and for longer than traders like to admit.