Ex-SEC Chair Jay Clayton Named AI Czar, Bitcoin Could Hit $600K

Former Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Jay Clayton has been appointed by President Donald Trump to lead the newly created Super Intelligence Force, a federal initiative modeled after the Space Force and tasked with coordinating U.S. policy on advanced artificial intelligence. Clayton, who currently serves as director of national intelligence, announced the role via Truth Social, with Trump confirming the pick on Sunday. Clayton's SEC tenure saw high-profile crypto enforcement actions, including a last-day lawsuit against Ripple over alleged unregistered securities sales, and as U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, he led the criminal prosecution of Tornado Cash developer Roman Storm. Storm publicly criticized the appointment, stating: "It doesn't look like we're headed toward a future that supports open-source AI." Separately, Elon Musk announced SpaceXAI will rebrand to SpaceXSI to align with the administration's push to rename "artificial intelligence" as "super intelligence."

Veteran trader Peter Brandt has flipped bullish on Bitcoin, projecting the asset could reach as high as $600,000 by 2029 in the current market cycle. The forecast comes as Bitcoin trades above $86,000, extending a strong uptrend alongside altcoins like Monero, Solana, BNB, and Stellar. Brandt's technical analysis points to a multi-year ascending structure that, if validated, would represent one of the most aggressive upside targets issued by a mainstream chartist. The call adds fuel to an already heated debate among analysts about how much runway remains in the current bull run.

NEAR Protocol's cross-chain swap platform, NEAR Intents, successfully blocked approximately $3.8 million in stolen funds linked to the Bitget exchange hack, earning both praise and scrutiny from the crypto community. The platform's SHIELD AI system intercepted the funds after detecting a bug in the Omni deposit and withdrawal infrastructure that interacted with NEAR Intents smart contracts. NEAR Intents general manager Alex Shevchenko issued a blunt 48-hour ultimatum to the exploiter, writing: "You know better than most how responsible disclosure works — this is the last window to use it." The funds were returned in full, and Shevchenko urged would-be white hats to use formal bug bounty programs instead.

The week also saw the debut of NEAR's Bitwise ETF, which pulled in nearly $60 million in inflows on launch, adding institutional momentum to a token that has more than doubled in price over the past month. The combination of regulatory wins, security wins, and a successful ETF listing has strengthened NEAR's positioning heading into the final quarter of 2026.