At a Tuesday panel in Washington, DC, CFTC Chair Michael Selig said the agency is working to authorize true perpetual futures contracts for cryptocurrencies in the United States within "the next month or so." He and SEC Chair Paul Atkins also discussed prediction markets and an evolving digital asset market structure bill in Congress, which could reshape how both regulators oversee crypto products.

On March 3, 2026, Abu Dhabi's Financial Services Regulatory Authority approved nine Ondo Finance tokenized equities and the Invesco QQQ ETF for trading on Binance's Multilateral Trading Facility, restricted to non-U.S. investors. The products are structured as equity-linked notes tied to underlying stocks such as Apple, Amazon, Nvidia, Tesla, Microsoft, Alphabet, Meta, and Circle, with Ondo reporting over $11 billion in cumulative trading volume and more than $600 million in total value locked.

The U.S. Senate has advanced the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, a bipartisan bill that pairs housing reforms with a prohibition on Federal Reserve-issued central bank digital currencies through 2030. The legislation cleared a key procedural vote with an 84–6 margin and seeks to expand housing supply, reduce bureaucratic delays, and limit large institutional control of single-family rentals. The White House has indicated it would recommend President Trump sign the measure if it reaches his desk, though the CBDC restriction still must survive further negotiations with the House.

As coordinated U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran enter their fourth day, gold has surged toward $5,400 per ounce and Brent crude has jumped about 17% to $83, while Bitcoin has slid back toward $66,000 and remains roughly 47% below its $126,000 peak from last October. According to Elliptic, withdrawals on Iranian exchange Nobitex, which serves around 11 million users and handles about 87% of the country’s crypto volume, spiked over 700% within minutes of the first airstrikes, with nearly $3 million moved off the platform in one hour as users sought to move funds away from local banking channels.

After recent US-Israeli strikes, Elliptic reported a roughly 700% jump in crypto outflows from Iranian exchange Nobitex to foreign platforms. Nobitex handled about $7.2 billion in trading volume in 2025 for more than 11 million domestic users, while unverified social media claims allege ultra-low Bitcoin mining costs and a multibillion-dollar shadow economy tied to mining in Iran.

Between December 8, 2025 and January 30, 2026, Binance worked with Interpol, Afripol and law enforcement in 16 African countries on Operation Red Card 2.0, which led to 651 arrests and the recovery of $4.3 million tied to scam networks linked to over $45 million in losses. The exchange is also challenging a Wall Street Journal article it calls inaccurate and defamatory, while highlighting expanded compliance resources and its role in responding to more than 71,000 law enforcement requests in the previous year.

A large trader identified as 0x007 has opened a 20X leveraged short position on tokenized silver on Hyperliquid’s HIP-3 platform, with a notional value above $12.34M and unrealized gains that recently fluctuated around $2M. The position, which benefits from positive funding fees and has a liquidation level at $107.96 while silver trades near $83.67, highlights how some crypto participants are using silver as a comparatively safer and more liquid shorting instrument than altcoins. Silver remains among the top traded commodities on HIP-3 even after losing its top spot to gold, as traders return to short strategies now that the metal has moved into a perceived safer range.

American Airlines Group Inc.'s AAL shares traded lower in premarket on March 3, 2026, after closing down 4.21% at $12.52 the prior session. The stock slipped to $12.06 before the open as military action in the Middle East triggered widespread flight disruptions and pushed Brent crude about 8% higher to $78.77 per barrel, pressuring airline margins and sentiment across the sector.