Crypto Users Get SpaceX IPO Access, Congress Weighs Tax Relief, Police Raid Bithumb

Crypto News

Crypto traders may have a clearer path into one of the year's most coveted public offerings than traditional retail investors. SpaceX has attracted roughly $150 billion in demand for a $75 billion listing, leaving the deal twice oversubscribed and brokerage allocations thin. Bybit and Kraken have opened subscriptions to tokenized SpaceX shares through xStocks, with registration running June 7 to June 11 and trading expected from June 12, the same day the company debuts on Nasdaq. Bybit set an indicative price of 135 USDC plus a 5% underwriting fee and a $100 minimum, while Kraken's SPCXx product is open to verified users across more than 110 countries without a brokerage account.

South Korean authorities have reportedly searched Bithumb, one of the country's largest exchanges, as part of a widening influence-peddling investigation. Police are examining whether independent lawmaker Kim Byung-gi leveraged his political position to secure employment for his son at several crypto firms, including Bithumb and Dunamu, the operator of rival exchange Upbit. The lawmaker's son joined Bithumb in early 2025 and worked there for roughly six months. Investigators have questioned Kim multiple times over a broad set of allegations, including nomination bribery and hiring favors tied to his son. The probe has intensified scrutiny of the close ties between politics and the nation's tightly regulated digital-asset sector.

In Washington, the House Ways and Means Committee is set to open digital-asset taxation to public debate, taking up a package of Republican draft bills at a June 9 hearing. Witnesses from Fidelity, Coinbase, Coin Center, and NYU Law's Tax Law Center are scheduled to testify on proposals that would reshape how the Internal Revenue Service treats parts of the crypto economy. Among the measures is tax relief for staking and mining rewards at the moment they are generated, reviving a long-running dispute over when block rewards secured through a consensus mechanism should first become taxable income.

A second strand of the hearing tackles whether routine crypto payments should trigger tax obligations. Lawmakers will weigh a $10 exemption covering network fees on up to 5,000 transactions a year, plus a two-year safe harbor for taxpayers who failed to report prior gains. The friction stems from the IRS treating virtual currency as property, which means spending Bitcoin can require calculating cost basis, fair market value, and gain or loss on every transaction. With the GENIUS Act already establishing a federal stablecoin framework, advocates argue small-payment relief must extend beyond stablecoins if crypto is to function as genuine settlement infrastructure rather than a recordkeeping burden.

Buyers chasing the SpaceX exposure should understand exactly what changes hands. The xStocks tokens are not direct equity but tracker certificates issued by a Jersey-based entity, structured to mirror the price of the underlying shares rather than confer ownership. Bybit says the tokens will be backed one-to-one by real equity held in regulated broker-dealer custody once allocations are finalized on listing day. The arrangement underscores how blockchain rails are increasingly used to package traditional assets, though investors trade away shareholder rights and assume issuer and custody risk in exchange for the convenience of subscribing with stablecoins on an exchange's spot market.

The raid lands as Bithumb already operates under heightened regulatory pressure. The exchange was hit with a $24.5 million fine and a six-month partial suspension order in March after inspectors flagged anti-money-laundering and compliance shortcomings. Prior search-and-seizure actions targeted both its headquarters and the Bithumb Financial Tower, while executives from multiple exchanges were summoned as witnesses earlier in the year. The accumulating enforcement actions signal that South Korean regulators are tightening oversight of an industry that has grown rapidly, and that the country's largest trading venues now face sustained scrutiny over governance, internal controls, and their relationships with public officials.

Taken together, the day's developments trace a single arc: digital assets are being absorbed into the established machinery of finance and government. Tokenized equities are blurring the line between crypto exchanges and capital markets, US lawmakers are drafting the tax rules that will govern everyday on-chain activity, and Asian regulators are policing the sector's entanglement with political power. The dominant narrative this cycle is institutionalization paired with regulatory tightening, as authorities race to define legal rails for technology that has already outpaced existing frameworks. For traders, opportunities now arrive bundled with rules, custody questions, and reporting burdens that earlier phases of the bull market largely ignored.