Bitcoin fluctuates around $86,000 as gains narrow and bearish signals on derivatives increase
Bitcoin was trading around $86,000 on Wednesday, following a breakout on Monday. Data shows that BTC is currently trading at approximately US$86,379, up 1.3% in 24 hours, and intraday trading volume fell by 36% to US$38 billion. The CoinDesk 100 index rose 0.67%, but 38 of the component assets have fallen within the day, indicating that the recent gains have significantly narrowed. In terms of derivatives, the 24-hour trading volume of cryptocurrency futures fell by 21% to US$227 billion, open interest (OI) increased slightly by 1% to US$159.4 billion, and the proportion of active seller transactions rose to 51%; the Binance USDT margin lending rate rose to 5.49%, close to a multi-month high. BTC OI is basically unchanged at about 710,000 pieces. The ratio of long and short whale positions has declined, and the overall position is closer to reducing positions than turning to short selling. In the options market, open interest in call options with strike prices of $90,000, $95,000, and $100,000 is increasing, while $75,000 and below is considered a strong support area.
Brahma AI, an AI native OS development company, completed US$150 million in financing, led by Multiples
Brahma AI, an AI native operating system development company, raised $150 million through the issuance of preferred shares, of which Multiples Alternate Asset Management contributed $100 million. Brahma AI’s customers include Warner Bros., NBA, Google, Hakuhodo and DNEG as its strategic distribution partners. The company's platform is centered on the enterprise content intelligence and media evaluation platform Brahma AI Core and the creative production suite Brahma AI Studio. Its technology covers visual AI, digital human, voice and multi-language performance and other fields.
The hacker group ShinyHunters tampered with the FBI recruitment website, and the FBI subsequently took it offline for maintenance
According to an article posted by SlowMist CISO @im23pds on the Subsequently, the FBI took the website offline and displayed it as "under maintenance."
Analysis: Crypto market breadth is better than S&P 500, 88 top coins stand above 200-day moving average
Although the S&P 500 is close to all-time highs, market breadth is weak. As of Wednesday, 257 S&P 500 stocks were below their 200-day moving average. In contrast, the crypto market has performed relatively strongly, with 88 of the top 100 coins by market capitalization (including BTC and ETH) sitting above the 200-day simple moving average (SMA), with most coins standing above the 50-day, 100-day and 200-day moving averages at the same time. CoinDesk pointed out that most crypto assets such as BTC, ETH, XRP, and SOL are still significantly lower than their historical highs. Dick Lo, founder and CEO of TDX Strategies, said that the continued inflow of institutional funds through ETFs has pushed major crypto assets and some altcoins to maintain momentum, and said that the key position of BTC's current focus is US$90,000, and the 2026 high of US$97,900 is the mid-term target. Bernardo Brites, co-founder and CEO of Trace Finance, said that funds currently flow mainly through ETFs rather than stablecoins, making the market more prone to corrections.
Polygon’s stablecoin miMATIC continues to de-anchor, with a discount of 14% from the USD 1 peg.
The QiDao Protocol stablecoin miMATIC on Polygon is still unanchored and is currently trading at about $0.86, about 14% lower than its $1 anchor price. Blockaid said that the anchoring situation is still continuing so far.
The founder of Aave responded to V4’s doubts: It is not just about isolating the market, it has attracted US$1.2 billion in deposits
Aave founder Stani posted an article on the X platform to clarify the relevant views of Aave V4, saying that V4 has attracted approximately US$1.2 billion in deposits and is deployed in multiple networks such as Ethereum, Avalanche and Arc, and also supports third-party curatorial institutions such as EtherFi. Stani believes that the size of the code base of V4 is significantly smaller than that of Aave V3, and Spoke can directly use the liquidity of the Hub without the need to accumulate liquidity from scratch like traditional curation vaults. It also said that Hub and Spoke in V4 are isolated based on risk status by default, but markets with similar risks can share liquidity through Hub and improve fund utilization and capital efficiency within set limits. Stani said that completely isolating liquidity could lead to fund fragmentation, reduced utilization and increased user costs.
Trump again calls for interest rates to be lowered to 1% or lower, and the Fed emphasizes the risk of inflation and raises interest rates
U.S. President Trump recently once again called for U.S. interest rates to be lowered to 1% or even lower, a goal that only he himself has publicly proposed. At the same time, the Federal Reserve "contradicted" him and raised the target range of the federal funds rate to 3.75%-4.00%. The disagreement over the path of interest rates is becoming one of the most obvious conflicts between the policy logic of the White House and the Federal Reserve. After the Federal Reserve raised interest rates in September, Trump said that U.S. interest rates "should be 1% or lower" on the grounds that the United States has the best credit in the world and the economy is increasing investment. He believes that lower financing costs can further stimulate corporate investment, reduce government debt costs, and enhance the competitiveness of the U.S. economy. But Fed officials gave a completely different judgment. Boston Fed President Collins said she supported the rate hike and warned that future inflation could be "significantly higher" than the 2% target. She believes that while the job market remains resilient, monetary policy needs to remain restrictive to ensure that inflation continues to fall.
Galaxy places $100 million in sUSDS into corporate coffers and includes them as collateral for institutional trading
Galaxy Digital has used its own balance sheet funds to place $100 million of Sky Protocol’s sUSDS into the company’s coffers and has also approved sUSDS as collateral for its institutional trading business. The average loan size of this business is approximately US$1.4 billion. In addition, Galaxy also purchased an undisclosed amount of SKY tokens. This cooperation further deepens the cooperation between Galaxy and Sky in the lending business.
Glassnode: Bitcoin’s current bear market has deviated from the “four-year cycle”, and the possibility of a deep decline has decreased.
Glassnode issued an article saying that as time goes by, it seems increasingly unlikely that the same depth of decline in the past cycle will occur later in this round of market. The "four-year cycle" rule of Bitcoin that the market previously relied on has not been reflected in this round of bear market. Data shows that the retracement amplitude of the past three cycles has exceeded twice that of the current cycle, and the cycle low is still several weeks away; in contrast, this cycle of BTC is currently only about 30% lower than the historical high, and the price is recovering.
Solana treasury company Forward Industries plans to raise $25 million to increase stake in SOL
Forward Industries, a Nasdaq-listed Solana treasury company, announced that it has signed a securities purchase agreement with an institutional investor and plans to issue 3.125 million common shares at US$8 per share. It is expected to raise a total of approximately US$25 million, before deducting placement agent fees and other issuance expenses. The offering is expected to be completed around September 24. Forward Industries stated that the net proceeds from the proceeds will be used to purchase more SOL to expand the size of SOL's treasury and increase the number of SOL corresponding to each fully diluted share. A.G.P./Alliance Global Partners served as the sole placement agent for the offering.
Citi: U.S. corporate earnings expectations turn negative for the first time in 23 weeks, S&P 500 may face a 7% drop
Stock analysts turned net pessimistic about the outlook for U.S. corporate earnings for the first time in months amid worries that rising inflation and interest rates will erode corporate profits. An index from Citigroup showed that for the first time in 23 weeks, the number of analysts who lowered their corporate profit forecasts exceeded those who raised their forecasts, ending the longest cycle of earnings forecast upgrades since September 2021. Morgan Stanley strategist Michael Wilson warned earlier this week that the S&P 500 could face a drop of up to 7% if stock valuations extend their recent slide and further increases in energy prices prompt monetary policy to tighten.
The public security agency busted a transnational national asset unfreezing fraud gang, with the amount involved exceeding 6 billion.
Since July this year, under the command of the Ministry of Public Security, the Jilin Public Security Bureau has dismantled a transnational national assets unfreezing fraud gang and captured 101 suspects in the country. At the same time, international law enforcement cooperation was carried out with the police of Laos, Singapore, and Cambodia, and the police of the three countries arrested a total of 156 suspects. Recently, relevant criminal suspects have been escorted back to China one after another. In January this year, the Jilin Public Security Bureau discovered a criminal gang that committed transnational asset unfreezing fraud. The gang fabricated false "national projects" such as "Rejuvenation Huijin", "Action for Elderly Care", "China's Strengthening Agriculture", "People's Livelihood Security" and "China Dream Realization", hired technical teams to develop fraudulent apps, and "drained traffic" to develop members through online platforms. It has long-term committed fraudulent activities against the elderly group. Many people have been defrauded, and the amount involved exceeds 6 billion yuan.
AI agency startup Ema completes US$77 million in Series B financing, led by Creaegis
AI agent startup Ema announced the completion of a $77 million Series B round of financing, led by Creaegis, with additional investment from existing investors Accel, Section 32 and Prosus. So far, the company's total financing has reached US$140 million, and its valuation has more than tripled from the previous round of financing in 2024. Ema was founded in 2023 by former Google and Coinbase executive Surojit Chatterjee and former Okta executive Souvik Sen. The company is deploying technology called "AI workers," systems that can coordinate multiple AI agents to help companies execute multi-step business processes within existing applications instead of handling a single task at a time. It is reported that most of the new funds will be used to expand market business. Previously, the company mainly focused on product research and development.
Overview of U.S. stock pre-market news: “Big Shorts” increase their bets on Micron, and IonQ soars 12% before the market opens
Before the U.S. stock market opens, investors need to focus on the following market financial news: 1. The three major U.S. stock index futures collectively turned downward. Dow Jones futures fell 0.31%, S&P 500 futures fell 0.12%, and Nasdaq 100 futures fell 0.27%. 2. International oil prices turned from falling to rising. WTI crude oil futures prices rose 0.16% to US$90.669/barrel; Brent crude oil futures prices rose 0.94% to US$96.305/barrel. 3. International gold and silver spot prices both fell. Spot gold prices fell 1.06% to US$4,312.00 per ounce; spot silver prices fell by 3.03% to US$65.00 per ounce. 4. Europe's three major stock indexes collectively fell. Britain's FTSE 100 index fell 0.20%, France's CAC40 index fell 0.35%, and Germany's DAX30 index fell 0.73%. 5. Anthropic is in the early stages of negotiations and plans to lease up to 1 gigawatt of computing power from the data center developer of Apollo Global Management Holdings. This move aims to bypass cloud service providers and open up a path to reduce computing power costs. 6. Qualcomm has released two new generation flagship Snapdragon chips, both using 2nm process and with a maximum CPU frequency of 5GHz, further segmenting the Android high-end mobile phone market. 7. Quantum computing company IonQ surged 12% before the market opened. The real-time quantum error correction decoder developed by it has completed testing. The system can run on a single standard commercial CPU and supports analog circuits with up to 408 logical qubits and more than 31.5 million quantum operations. 8. SpaceX is reported to have stopped accepting reservations for Falcon 9 rockets after 2028. With the Falcon 9 withdrawing from the market, rocket launch capacity may be in short supply before 2030. 9. JPMorgan Chase said that Meta’s AI intelligent agent Muse is expected to become the most widely used AI application after ChatGPT, and reiterated Meta’s “overweight” rating with a target price of $820. 10. "Big Short" Burry's latest statement is that he has increased his short positions on Micron Technology, Nebius, Palantir, etc., and emphasized that this time it is "quite large." He said that as the new supply of memory is released, it will put pressure on prices.
Analysis: 90% of the increase in U.S. bond yields is concentrated in employment data and Fed officials’ speech windows
The study found that most of the increases in U.S. benchmark Treasury yields over the past six years occurred during the three-day window around the release of the non-farm payrolls report and speeches by key Federal Reserve officials. Economists including Paul Beaudry, a professor at the Vancouver School of Economics at the University of British Columbia in Canada, Paolo Cavallino of the Bank for International Settlements, and Tim Willems of the Bank of England found that since August 2020, about 90% of the increase in the nominal yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury note occurred in just a few days before and after these events.
MoonPay plans to acquire North Capital for over US$60 million to lay out tokenized securities
MoonPay announced the acquisition of North Capital Investment Technology, a brokerage service company in Utah, USA, which provides custody, secondary market transactions and tokenization services for debt, equity and other assets. MoonPay did not disclose the transaction amount, but people familiar with the matter revealed that the transaction was an all-stock transaction worth more than $60 million. North Capital holds a number of U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)-related licenses including broker-dealers, alternative trading systems (ATS), transfer agents and investment advisors, and MoonPay plans to use this to expand businesses such as tokenized stocks.
New York Stock Exchange and Blockchain.com plan to explore launching tokenized version of U.S. stocks
The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and Blockchain.com are exploring the launch of encrypted versions of U.S.-listed stocks, offering tokenized stock trading on the blockchain.
Founders Fund, KHOSLA Ventures and other American VCs have recently visited China intensively to inspect AI companies.
Although U.S. venture capital institutions have significantly reduced their investment in Chinese start-ups in recent years, some U.S. VCs continue to travel to China to meet with technology founders. Last month, Sean Liu, John Luttig and Joey Krug, three partners of Peter Thiel's Founders Fund, visited technology companies in Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen. The report pointed out that the rising technological influence of Chinese AI start-ups, especially DeepSeek, is prompting some U.S. investors to refocus on the Chinese technology market.
Samsung to provide support for South Korea's AI RAN project with KT and SK Telecom
Samsung Electronics announced today that it has signed contracts with Korea Telecom (KT) and SK Telecom to provide support for its Artificial Intelligence Radio Access Network (AIRAN) project under the "Super Artificial Intelligence Network" program of the Ministry of Science, Technology and Information Communications (MSIT) of South Korea. Samsung will serve as KT's exclusive global supplier and SK Telecom's main supplier respectively. Scheduled to launch in October 2026, these projects will deploy 5G Standalone (SA) private networks in a variety of industrial environments, from shipyards to petrochemical facilities, to validate AIRAN capabilities and generate real-world insights for future deployments.
Liang Wenfeng publishes a new paper signed by DeepSeek, pointing to large-scale agent training
The latest paper signed by DeepSeek founder Liang Wenfeng has been made public. For the first time, the technical details of DeepSeek's Agent training sandbox platform DSec (DeepSeek Elastic Compute) have been systematically released. The author list exceeds 130 people, and Liang Wenfeng is among them. The paper shows that the scale of the DSec platform is very large. One of the production units consists of about 160 CPU nodes, 30,000 cores, 250TB of memory, and hosts PB-level images. In terms of capabilities, the DSec platform serves about 3 million sandboxes in a single day, with a peak concurrency of more than 380,000, and a creation speed of more than 5,000 per second. A single training task can pull up up to 32,000 sandboxes at a time.
Analysis: Nearly $16 billion in BTC options will expire this Friday, and the Put/Call open interest ratio is only 0.69
Approximately US$15.9 billion in BTC options and US$2.1 billion in ETH options will expire at 8:00 (UTC) on September 25. The expiration size of BTC options accounts for approximately 37% of Deribit’s current total BTC open options of US$43.5 billion. Deribit CEO Luuk Strijers said that call options (Call) positions in this quarter’s contract are dominant, with a Put/Call open interest ratio of 0.69, indicating that the market had previously been mainly betting on price increases. Currently, 55% of approximately US$9.4 billion in calls are in real value, and the biggest pain point of BTC options is US$75,000. Strijers said that after the expiration and settlement, the market maker hedging and the Gamma effect subside, the short-term volatility of BTC may increase, and the market trading range may be readjusted.
Ignas: If the high-income token narrative continues, it may become the simplest strategy for this bull market
DeFi researcher Ignas wrote that if the "high-income token" narrative continues, the current crypto bull market may become one of the easiest to participate in. It believes that investors can focus on projects with high and sustained income, income that can actually flow back to token holders through dividends or repurchases, and projects with a lower market value relative to the income that holders can obtain. At the same time, token additional issuance and unlocking situations need to be considered. Ignas said that in the future, AI agents can also automatically complete relevant screening and due diligence every week, and pointed out that tokens such as HYPE, LIT, and PUMP are relatively simple trading opportunities in retrospect. The next step should be to look for emerging protocols with higher income but still undervalued by the market.
Iranian officials: There will be no rush for negotiations, and conditions must be met to open the Strait of Hormuz
The secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council said that U.S. President Trump’s speech at the United Nations General Assembly was an attempt to use the image of a “failed aggressor” to justify his actions. He said that almost all of Trump's remarks centered on Iran, indicating that Iran has become a major issue facing U.S. policy. He criticized Trump for describing war as peace and terrorism as security, and said that U.S. military actions against Iran have not weakened Iran's strength, but instead enhanced Iran's international influence. He pointed out that the destruction of advanced U.S. drones and fighter jets exposed the limitations of U.S. military strength, and declared that Iran has become "the fourth most powerful country in the world." He mentioned that Iran detonated an anti-ship missile over the USS Washington aircraft carrier for the first time. He said that the Strait of Hormuz will not be reopened and Iran will not engage in negotiations until the conditions proposed by Iran are met. He said that Iran's negotiating conditions have been formulated and submitted to Qatar and Pakistan. (Jinshi Data APP)
The European Securities and Markets Authority will prioritize regulating AI and tokenized applications in 2027
The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) will make AI and tokenization a top priority for its digital innovation regulatory work in 2027. Regulators across the European Union will sort out the application of relevant technologies in investor-oriented products and processes, conduct inspections of some highly affected financial institutions, and establish unified regulatory methods. ESMA pointed out that risks such as biased or misleading AI output, difficulty for investors in understanding related products, and over-reliance on a small number of third-party technology suppliers will become key concerns.
Bitwise report: None of the 15 large institutions surveyed reduced their holdings during the 50% retracement of the crypto market
Bitwise released its first "Institutional Crypto Asset Adoption" report, based on interviews with investors responsible for crypto asset allocation at 15 large institutions. The report states that between the fourth quarter of 2025 and the second quarter of 2026, the overall crypto market has retraced approximately 50%, but none of the institutions surveyed has reduced its allocation of crypto assets, and some institutions have further increased their holdings; all the institutions surveyed that hold crypto assets hold Bitcoin, and most regard it as a store of value asset and list it alongside gold as a hedging tool against the depreciation of legal currencies. The report also shows that the crypto asset allocation ratio of the surveyed institutions ranges from 0.5% to 13% of investable assets, with most concentrated in 1% to 2%.
Fed Governor Barr: Further interest rate increases may be needed to ensure a timely return to the 2% inflation target
Federal Reserve Governor Barr said that further interest rate increases may be needed to ensure a timely return to the 2% inflation target. The risk of achieving 2% inflation will increase and the risk of the labor market will decrease. The Fed is in a bad position to have adjusted in the right direction, and further policy adjustments may be necessary to ensure that inflation falls to target in a timely manner.
Dollar rises to eight-week high on rising expectations of Fed rate hike
The dollar rose to its highest level against a basket of currencies since late July as markets bet on further interest rate hikes from the Federal Reserve. The Federal Reserve raised interest rates by 25 basis points last week and hinted that it will raise interest rates at least once this year. As market expectations for rate hikes continue to rise, the dollar has found support. A renewed rise in energy prices also boosted the dollar in European afternoon trading, with Brent crude rising back above $100 a barrel. Rising energy prices generally benefit the U.S. dollar due to its safe-haven properties and the U.S.'s status as a net oil exporter. However, the dollar has become less sensitive to oil price swings as interest rate expectations become the dominant factor. "The mid- to long-term dollar strength trend we previously predicted may finally be starting to emerge." Steve Englander, a strategist at Standard Chartered Bank, said in a report.
Hack VC Lianchuang responded to the death of Hsin-Ju: The specific situation is not yet clear, please respect the family of the deceased
Hack VC co-founder Alexander Pack posted that the team was shocked and saddened by the news of Hsin-Ju’s death, and expressed condolences to his family, friends and everyone close to him. Alexander Pack stated that Hack VC has not had direct contact with Hsin-Ju for more than 10 months. It currently does not know the specific circumstances of his death and has no more information, and called on all parties to respect those who are experiencing grief.
In the past hour, the total liquidation of the entire network reached 225 million US dollars, and the liquidation of ETH was 59.87 million US dollars.
In the past one hour, the entire network liquidated 225 million US dollars, including 219 million US dollars for long orders and 6.62 million US dollars for short orders. In addition, the liquidation amount of ETH reached 59.87 million US dollars, and the liquidation amount of BTC reached 57.49 million US dollars.
Coinbase terminates membership of UK financial industry lobby group UK Finance
Coinbase has been terminated from membership by UK financial services industry lobby group UK Finance. People familiar with the matter said that the UK Finance board of directors sent a letter to Coinbase last week notifying it of the termination of membership.
Musk talks about "biological enhancement": He wants to break through the bottleneck of human information transmission bandwidth
Tesla CEO Elon Musk said that he is optimistic about "biological enhancement" in the next ten years. The "Neural Connection" company he co-founded is trying to break through the bottleneck of human information transmission bandwidth. Musk said that even if AI is friendly enough and willing to serve humans, the speed of information transmission between humans and machines is still too slow. The peak human bandwidth is only about 100 bits per second, and the speed at which we output information is extremely slow. And computers communicate with each other at trillions of bits per second. Any technology that increases the speed of human communication will improve the alignment between humans and machines. Otherwise, for an AI that communicates at trillions of bits per second, communicating with people is like humans talking to trees.
New DeepSeek paper: No single mechanism can prevent all agent misbehavior and system failures
A new paper on agent training published by DeepSeek has attracted attention. This 31-page paper introduces the production-level sandbox platform DSec used internally. There are more than 100 authors of the paper, including Liang Wenfeng. One of the more interesting sections of the paper is "Inappropriate Behavior of Agents". DeepSeek found that agents will obtain answers through unexpected channels, such as residual answers in search platform management files, etc., destroying the validity of training and evaluation results. When access control is introduced, there are also agents that swap file block mappings in an attempt to make protected file contents accessible via another file descriptor, compromising the task or shared infrastructure. DeepSeek believes that no single mechanism can prevent all agent misbehavior and system failures. Therefore, the team’s approach is to strengthen observability to identify new problems and continue to strengthen Dsec as the model evolves, including restricting access control for agents to obtain answers through unexpected channels and reducing rewards for deceptive behavior. These controls can solve some of the problems.
Bonk Guy: The number of USELESS coin-holding addresses hit a new high, and the market value has increased more than 10 times from its lowest point
Bonk Guy, a well-known trader, posted that the number of USELESS currency-holding addresses has reached a new high, adding that the token has continued to show a cyclical trend of "outperforming the market - sharp correction - consolidation - reaching new highs" in the past few months. It pointed out that the market value of USELESS has risen from a low of about US$28 million a few months ago to about US$318 million. The short, medium and long-term cycles have shown a trend of rising highs and lows, and believes that this trend is different from the characteristics of Meme coins that have peaked.
Musk forwarded Katzenberg's long article: AI will not disappear, creators should participate in formulating AI application rules
Musk retweeted Hollywood producer and DreamWorks co-founder Jeffrey Katzenberg’s long article on AI and the creative industry on the X platform. Katzenberg said that AI is rapidly changing animation and film and television production. He had previously predicted that a new generation of AI tools could reduce the production time and cost of world-class animation by up to 90% within three years. He believes that AI is currently outstanding in reasoning, evaluation, optimization and pattern recognition, but true creativity still relies on human taste, intuition, empathy and desire for expression. There is still a difference between AI-generated works and human creators actively expressing certain thoughts. Citing the history of technological changes such as talkies and computer animation, Katzenberg said that technological progress will indeed eliminate some old jobs, but it will also expand art forms and creative space. He believes that AI will not disappear, and Hollywood needs to shift from resisting AI to participating in formulating its application rules; at the same time, AI developers should cooperate with creators to use their works and ideas on the basis of obtaining authorization, giving signatures, and providing reasonable remuneration. Katzenberg predicts that as AI further reduces the cost and threshold of film and television production, more movies and new narrative forms will appear in the future.
BlackRock: AI agents may become an important driver of the next round of demand growth in the crypto market
The BlackRock Digital Asset Research Team released the report "The Machine-Native Economy" stating that as AI agents gradually become capable of autonomously performing tasks and making payments, AI may become an important driver of future growth in demand for crypto assets. BlackRock believes that AI agents need to make high-frequency and low-amount payments such as API calls, obtaining data, and renting computing power. Traditional bank accounts and bank card networks are not suitable for such scenarios, and stablecoins can provide all-weather, near-instant settlement payment methods. The report also proposed that encapsulating computing power into standardized on-chain contracts may become a new digital asset application scenario, and related assets can be bought and sold, used as collateral or automatically settled. BlackRock cited data saying that the adjusted trading volume of stablecoins in 2025 will exceed US$11 trillion, and as of September 2026, the circulating market value of stablecoins will exceed US$300 billion; TRM Labs’ research on this year’s $52.7 million x402 settlement volume shows that AI agents currently only account for about 0.6% to 7.5% of it, but BlackRock believes that as AI agents autonomously complete payments and service procurement, their demand may further promote the development of stablecoins and programmable blockchain infrastructure.
Kalshi: The US CFTC has not investigated its trading activities
Kalshi said it has not been contacted by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and the company does not believe it is under formal investigation, dismissing reports that its prediction market trading activities are under regulatory scrutiny. The majority of trading volume in Kalshi’s Bitcoin and Ethereum perpetual contracts markets consists of trades of the same size, with many Ethereum perpetual contract trades clustered around $5,500 and Bitcoin perpetual contract trades centered around $2,500 or $5,000. The Wall Street Journal reported similar data late Tuesday, adding that the U.S. CFTC was investigating Kalshi’s trading activity after nearly a million transactions of similar amounts emerged on the ethereum market. Regulators are reviewing the data to decide whether to launch a law enforcement investigation, the report said. In this regard, Kalshi said that these data patterns are typical of liquidity incentive programs and are common in financial markets.
Republicans' private meeting with Kalshi comes as Senate Banking Committee Democrats demand public hearing on prediction markets
All Democrats on the U.S. Senate Banking Committee sent a letter to chairman Republican Senator Tim Scott demanding a public, bipartisan hearing on prediction markets. In their letter, Democrats argued that the committee has "critical oversight responsibilities" in overseeing prediction markets and should review them publicly rather than in "a separate, industry-friendly roundtable of closed-door Republicans." They emphasized that securities-linked prediction markets may involve issues such as consumer protection, market manipulation, insider trading, etc., and some products may fall under the jurisdiction of the SEC. On the same morning, Republican members of the Banking Committee held a private meeting with Tarek Mansour, CEO of prediction market platform Kalshi. Scott responded that the move was aimed at better understanding the opportunities and challenges of security-linked products.
Bloomberg: The United States is considering promoting dollar-backed stablecoins overseas
The Trump administration is considering a plan to promote the use of U.S. dollar-denominated stablecoins overseas to solidify the U.S. dollar’s status as a global reserve asset, people familiar with the matter said. Stablecoin projects are among the areas the U.S. government is considering supporting through joint ventures with private companies, a move aimed at preserving the U.S. dollar’s currency dominance and boosting demand for U.S. Treasuries.
U.S. SEC Commissioner Uyeda: Many encryption lawsuits have been dropped to avoid damaging credibility
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Commissioner Mark Uyeda said the SEC dropped several cryptocurrency-related lawsuits inherited from the previous administration because continuing to defend legal interpretations that were about to be overturned would "undermine the SEC's credibility," according to crypto journalist Eleanor Terrett. Mark Uyeda also called the SEC’s “innovation exemption” mechanism for tokenized securities a “pilot program” and believed it could create “substantial potential opportunities” for new market entrants and traditional financial institutions.
A giant whale dumped $112 million worth of ETH
A whale transferred 42,000 ETH (approximately $111.88 million) to Galaxy Digital in order to sell off. The whale had previously accumulated the ETH over the past two months via Galaxy Digital’s over-the-counter (OTC) channel.
a16z: RWA perpetual contract transaction volume surged 44 times year-on-year in August to US$117.3 billion, with on-chain transactions accounting for 86%
a16z crypto issued a statement stating that trading of perpetual contracts linked to stocks, gold and other traditional assets is growing rapidly, and more and more of these trading activities are being conducted on the chain. Monthly trading volume of RWA perpetual contracts reached $117.3 billion in August, a 44-fold surge year-on-year. The value of open interest reached $4.8 billion. The vast majority of trading activities occur on the on-chain platform. Currently, the on-chain platform accounts for 86% of the total RWA perpetual contract trading volume, approximately US$101 billion, and the transaction volume of centralized exchanges is approximately US$16 billion. The asset mix is also changing, with equities accounting for 48% of August turnover, commodities and indices accounting for 28% and 18% respectively. a16z crypto notes that growth is closely tied to infrastructure upgrades like Hyperliquid HIP-3.
U.S. 5-year Treasury yield rises to 5% for first time since 2007
The U.S. 5-year Treasury bond yield rose further, latest rising 19.04 basis points to 5.032%; it rose to 5% for the first time since 2007.
Bankless Lianchuang: ZEC is similar to ETH in 2021, privacy and anti-quantum narrative attracts Bitcoin holders’ capital spillover
Bankless co-founder David Hoffman wrote that the crypto market occasionally sees a single asset undertake the transfer of funds from Bitcoin holders. A similar situation occurred with ETH in 2021, and ZEC in 2026 is similar to ETH that year. With its privacy and quantum-resistant narrative, ZEC has successfully attracted some Bitcoin holders to view it as a "just in case" hedge, thus driving a surge in market value. What’s really driving ZEC’s rise is the spillover of BTC wealth, not brand new money. Additionally, NEAR is taking on relatively weak “smart contract buying” in 2026. At the same time, Hoffman believes that it is difficult for BTC and ETH to grow 10 times more, and innovation is more captured by new projects such as Hyperliquid, Ethena and traditional finance, which may limit the scale expansion of the entire encryption industry.
Variational: VAR token TGE is scheduled for the fourth quarter of this year, and the genesis airdrop will account for 32%
Variational, a decentralized derivatives trading protocol, issued a statement stating that the $VAR Token Generation Event (TGE) is scheduled for the fourth quarter of 2026, when a genesis airdrop of 32% of the total supply will be conducted. At TGE, $VAR tokens will be distributed according to the following categories: 32% for creation, airdropped according to the proportion of points held by users, 100% unlocked at TGE; 18% for ecological reserves, used by the Variational Foundation for ecological growth; 50% for team and investor distribution, reserved for investors and tokens for existing and future team members building Variational, locked for 12 months after TGE, and then linearly unlocked for at least 3 years. The platform stated that all revenue directed to Treasury will be used to buy back and destroy $VAR. In terms of points, the points program originally planned to end in the third quarter has been postponed due to major strategic cooperation, and 150,000 points will continue to be issued every week until TGE. The account must hold at least 1 point to be eligible to receive the Genesis Airdrop, and the unclaimed portion will be destroyed. In the future, the private beta will be ended, the Omni public mainnet will be launched, the trading functions will be expanded, and the trading API will be released. According to previous news, the decentralized derivatives trading protocol Variational announced the completion of a $50 million Series A round of financing, led by Dragonfly Capital, with participation from Bain Capital Crypto and Coinbase Ventures. Its $10.3 million seed round was led by Bain Capital Crypto.
Four new addresses suspected to be the same whale/entity withdrew approximately $85.68 million in ETH from Coinbase after the pullback
Four new addresses suspected to belong to the same whale/entity withdrew 31,979 ETH from Coinbase between 23:31 and 23:38 last night, worth $85.68 million in ETH, with an average price of $2,679.31.
The first edition PSA 10-grade Charizard card sold for $1 million, setting a record for the largest on-chain TCG transaction
Beezie, an on-chain collectibles platform, posted that a PSA 10-grade “First Edition Basic Series” Charizard card sold for $1 million. Set a record for the largest known on-chain TCG (trading card) transaction. The card was purchased by collector DCFGOD for $300,000 less than a year ago and has now sold for $1 million through the Beezie marketplace.