Hey, it’s Marc & the 51 team.

The SEC submitted a proposal outlining how securities laws apply to crypto. This means: SEC won’t wait for Congress. And Washington is betting on private stablecoins and regulated crypto. [SEC] More on that below.

Here are our highlights this week:

* ICE (NYSE’s parent) invested in OKX at a $25 billion valuation, with plans to let OKX users trade tokenized NYSE-listed stocks on-chain by H2 2026. [RELEASE]

* We sat down with the man responsible for this. Watch our interview here.

* Morgan Stanley (AUM: $7T) applied for a crypto broker-dealer license, moving to offer direct BTC, ETH, and SOL trading to its E-Trade users through ZeroHash. [FILLING]

* Kraken became the first digital asset bank to receive a Federal Reserve master account. This is historic. [RELEASE]

* Five US regional banks (Huntington, First Horizon, M&T, KeyCorp, and Old National) are building “Cari,” a shared tokenized deposit network targeting launch by Q4 2026. [RELEASE]

* Stripe is not buying PayPal. PayPal officially denied being in sale talks, and its stock dropped after the denial, reversing the initial 7% pop.

* Mastercard processes 160 billion transactions a year. Now it’s letting AI agents spend that money for you. [RELEASE]

Let’s jump in 👇

Top Boardroom Reads

* Podcast with Michael Howell, the Godfather of liquidity (51)

* Podcast with Michael Blaugrund, Head of Strategic Initiatives at ICE (51)

* Stablecoins in Payments: What the Raw Transaction Numbers Miss (McKinsey)

* Global FX Outlook — March 2026 (Convera)

* Monetary Sovereignty in the Age of Stablecoins (Oliver Wyman)

* Building the Path Towards Digital Asset Securities Interoperability (DTCC / Clearstream / Euroclear / BCG)

* 2026: The Invisible Revolution (VeradiVerdict / Pantera Capital)

* Targeted Report on Stablecoins and Unhosted Wallets (FATF)

* Ten Global Insights for Leaders (Citi)

The Friday newsletter only scratches the surface. A lot more is going on that we’ll tell you in our PRO briefings.

Top Signals This Week

ICE (NYSE’s parent) invests in OKX at a $25B valuation

Intercontinental Exchange, NYSE's parent company, has taken a minority stake in OKX, valuing the crypto exchange at $25 billion. ICE invested roughly $200 million, secured a board seat, and licensed OKX's spot crypto prices to launch U.S.-regulated futures contracts. In return, OKX's 120 million users gain access to ICE's futures markets and NYSE tokenized equities, pending regulatory approval. OKB surged over 35% on the news. [RELEASE]Why this matters: This is ICE's third major crypto infrastructure move in four months — it's buying infrastructure, piece by piece. Polymarket gave it a data layer it can license into derivatives pricing. The BNY and Citi partnership locked in clearing and settlement. OKX adds distribution: 120 million crypto users who will get access to NYSE tokenized equities by H2 2026. The business model is straightforward, licensing OKX's spot crypto prices to launch regulated U.S. futures, the same data-licensing playbook ICE has run for 20 years. It now controls the exchange, the clearing houses, the data pipes, the prediction layer, and the crypto user base.

Listen to our podcast with Michael Blaugrund, VP at ICE👇

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Kraken receive Federal reserve master account

Kraken Financial, Kraken’s Wyoming-chartered bank, has become the first digital asset company in U.S. history to receive a Federal Reserve master account, granted by the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City on March 4, 2026, after a 5.5-year regulatory process. The account is a limited-purpose Tier 3 structure: Kraken must hold 100% reserves, earns no interest on deposits, and has no access to the Fed’s emergency lending window. [RELEASE]

Why this matters: With this approval, Kraken settles directly on the Fed’s balance sheet in real time, no intermediaries, no holds, full U.S. government-backed finality. That closes the last major gap between crypto and traditional finance settlement. BNY Mellon and State Street‘s institutional pitch was built on exclusive Fed rail access, that exclusivity just ended. Timing matters too: this lands right before Kraken’s IPO, and a Fed master account is one of the most powerful things you can put in an S-1.

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Morgan Stanley applies for a crypto broker-dealer license

Morgan Stanley has applied for a crypto broker-dealer license with the SEC, moving to offer direct BTC, ETH, and SOL trading to its E-Trade users through ZeroHash as the backend settlement layer. This follows the bank’s earlier OCC filing to create Morgan Stanley Digital Trust, a federally chartered national trust b...