Timeline

2026

June

• Jun 15 — Bitcoin trading at $65,714; market cap ~$1.32T; ATH of $126,080 earlier in 2026. (Fortune)
• Jun 10 — TokenPost: BlackRock + Fidelity tighten grip on spot BTC ETF market — inflows concentrate into an IBIT+FBTC "two-horse race" (~79% on May 1, >90% on Jan 14); Bitcoin −29% YTD 2026; smaller issuers (Ark, Bitwise, VanEck, Franklin Templeton, Valkyrie, WisdomTree) marginalized. (TokenPost)

May

• May 1 — IBIT + FBTC took ~79% of daily spot BTC ETF inflows ($497.8M of $629.8M). (TokenPost)
• Apr 30 (reported) — Spot BTC ETF cumulative inflows ~$58.5B; total AUM ~$102B; IBIT ~$62B (~810k BTC, >70% of April inflows). (Investing.com)

April

• Apr 15 — Q1 2026 RWA Tokenization Market Report published: total on-chain RWA (ex-stablecoins) ~$27.5-29B (up 30% in the quarter, 263% YoY); tokenized Treasuries $13.4B; tokenized commodities $7.3B; tokenized equities ~$960M. (Investax)
• Apr 10 — FDIC prudential standards and Treasury FinCEN/OFAC AML guidance published under GENIUS Act rulemaking. (Morgan Lewis)
• Apr 8 — Morgan Stanley Bitcoin Trust (MSBT) launches; draws $163M in inflows. (Investing.com)
• Apr 3 — Treasury publishes principles for evaluating state stablecoin regimes as "substantially similar" to federal standards. (Morgan Lewis)
• Apr 1 — Morgan Lewis GENIUS Act implementation status check: effective date stated as January 18, 2027; rulemaking still incomplete across Treasury/FDIC/NCUA/OCC. (Morgan Lewis)
• Apr (monthly) — Spot BTC ETF inflows: $2.44B for the month (vs $1.32B in March); FBTC added $2.1-2.12B over a nine-day streak; GBTC ~$960M YTD outflows. (Investing.com)

March

• Mar 27 — CoinTelegraph mining outlook: hashprice fell to a "structural low" ~$35/PH/s (from ~$55/PH/s in Q3 2025); named AI/HPC pivot roster (HIVE, Core Scientific, MARA, Hut 8, Riot, TeraWulf, IREN, CleanSpark); TeraWulf secures Google as 14% shareholder. (CoinTelegraph)
• Mar 17 — SEC-CFTC joint interpretation issued: groups all digital assets into 5 categories; explicitly names BTC, ETH, SOL, XRP, ADA, DOGE as digital commodities (an earlier "16 tokens" figure in this KB is unconfirmed); staking rewards classified as non-securities; ends "regulation by enforcement" model. (Norton Rose Fulbright)
• Mar 13 — Blockhead publishes on institutional crypto infrastructure: Ripple's $1.25B Hidden Road acquisition (announced Apr 2025), Kraken prime brokerage, Bitnomial derivatives clearing, Broadridge/NYFIX-Crypto.com integration, Japan FSA reclassification, Korea Digital Asset Basic Act. Note: this source was previously miscited elsewhere in this KB as the basis for JPMorgan Kinexys/Canton Network claims — it does not cover those topics; see the raw file. (Blockhead)
• Mar 12 — BlackRock reported (elsewhere in this KB, unverified this session) to launch "ETHB" staking ETF on Nasdaq with $107M seed capital. Not corroborated by the BlockEden source used to compile Proof-of-Stake/Spot ETF pages (which as of Jan 18, 2026 covers only the non-staking ETHA).
• Mar 3 — Brookings (Liang & Dudley) publish "Next Steps for GENIUS Payment Stablecoins" — frames four unresolved implementation issues (interest, singleness/par of money, illicit finance, operational resilience); notes USD stablecoin supply ~$280B at year-end 2025 (from ~$25B in 2020); EY: stablecoins could be 5–10% of cross-border payments by 2030 ($2.1–4.2T). (Brookings)

February

• Feb 27 — Citi and Morgan Stanley announce crypto custody and trading expansion at World Strategy Forum 2026: Citi (Nisha Surendran) targets a 2026 institutional bitcoin custody launch; Morgan Stanley (Amy Golenberg, ~$8T AUM) says "we need to build this internally," has filed for BTC/ETH/Solana ETPs and launched spot trading on E*TRADE. Note: this source does not state a specific OCC filing date — the "Feb 18" filing date recorded elsewhere in this KB is not corroborated here. (CoinDesk)
• Feb 10 — RWA.xyz "A Letter to the Believers" — tokenized asset value ~$600B represented / ~$30B distributed; ~$300B stablecoins across ~300M holder wallets; 2,000+ tokenized assets + ~100 stablecoins; institutional adoption accelerating independent of crypto price. (RWA.xyz)

January

• Jan 18 — BlockEden: Ethereum ETFs manage ~$18B in assets; gross staking yield ~3%, ~60-70% captured net of ETF fees; SEC decisions expected Q1 2026 on BlackRock/Fidelity/Franklin Templeton staking applications. (BlockEden)
• Jan 6 — Grayscale distributes $9.4M in staking rewards — the first time a US-listed crypto ETP passed on-chain staking income to shareholders, enabled by Treasury's Nov 2025 safe-harbor (Revenue Procedure 2025-31). (BlockEden)
• (Previously recorded here: "Canton Network launches — JPM Coin joined by Goldman Sachs, BNP Paribas, Deutsche Börse, BNY Mellon." This claim's cited source does not support it on full-text verification 2026-07-22 — see the Mar 13 Blockhead entry above and the raw file. Retained here as an unverified carried-forward claim, not deleted.)

2025

December

• Dec 26 — The Block publishes its 2026 Institutional Crypto Outlook — documents 2025's shift from pilots to structural TradFi integration: BTC spot ETFs $31B net inflows / $880B volume / ~$120B AUM by Nov (IBIT ≈59%); DAT companies raised $29B (vs $11B 2024), public cos hold ~1.06M BTC (~4.7%, Strategy ~650k); stablecoin supply just under $300B (Tether 63%/$185B, Ethena USDe >$14B); adjusted stablecoin tx $11.8T (+89% YoY); 2025 crypto IPOs (Circle $1.1B/+290%, Bullish $1.15B, Gemini $425M, Figure $787.5M). (The Block)
• Dec — OCC conditionally grants national trust bank charters to Circle, Paxos + 3 others — early federal licensing of payment-stablecoin issuers under the GENIUS framework. (Brookings)

July

• Jul 17-18 — GENIUS Act passes and is signed into law; House passed 308-122 (Jul 17), Senate 68-30; establishes federal licensing for payment stablecoins; 1:1 reserve requirement, segregated accounts, monthly reporting; effective date is the earlier of 18 months post-enactment (Jan 18, 2027) or 120 days after final regs — a later status check (Apr 2026) states Jan 18, 2027 explicitly, not the "November 2026" figure recorded elsewhere in this KB. (Morgan Lewis)

June

• Jun 30 (report date) — Ledger Insights analyzes Circle's pre-IPO prospectus: $1.7B 2024 revenue, $167M operating income, >$1B in Coinbase distribution costs, $74.1M Binance upfront fee, Hashnote acquisition. Circle's NYSE IPO (CRCL) itself closed later in 2025; day-one share move recorded elsewhere in this KB at +168% to +290% (sources differ). (Ledger Insights)

October

• Oct — Bitcoin peaked above $126,000 before falling below $80,000 by November 2025, per the CoinTelegraph mining-outlook source. (CoinTelegraph)

(H1 2025)

• Ethereum spot ETFs launch (July 2024 approval flows into full operation); ETHA (BlackRock) and ETHE (Grayscale converted) are primary products.

2024

April

• Apr — Bitcoin halving: block reward cut from 6.25 BTC to 3.125 BTC; permanently reduces new supply issuance.

March

• Mar — EIP-4844 "blob" upgrade on Ethereum; introduces blob storage for L2 transaction data; reduces L2 transaction costs ~90%; accelerates L2 adoption.

January

• Jan 11 — SEC approves 11 spot Bitcoin ETFs including IBIT (BlackRock) and FBTC (Fidelity); GBTC converts from trust; marks the beginning of institutional ETF channel. (SEC, widely documented)

2023 and Earlier

• Sep 2022 — Ethereum "The Merge": transitions from Proof-of-Work to Proof-of-Stake; eliminates 99.95% of energy use; creates staking yield mechanism.
• Nov 2022 — FTX collapse; $8B customer funds lost; accelerates regulatory scrutiny and custody demand.
• Aug 2020 — MicroStrategy (Strategy) first corporate Bitcoin treasury purchase; $250M BTC buy; pioneers corporate BTC treasury model.
• Jan 2009 — Bitcoin genesis block mined by Satoshi Nakamoto.
• Jul 2015 — Ethereum mainnet launches; smart contracts enable programmable money.