Barely

In brief

The crypto market is now deep in the red for September, shedding close to 5% in total value in 24 hours.
Bitcoin is holding onto a slim 1% gain for the month, staying in the green for now.
Technical indicators suggest market exhaustion, but prediction markets remain somewhat optimistic.

Brace yourselves, the Red September curse is upon us.

The crypto market has officially entered negative territory for September, despite Bitcoin holding on to a slight gain, after a brutal week that erased $162 billion from crypto valuations. The wipeout canceled out the gains generated from the bullish two-week start to the month, back when Bitcoin briefly notched its second-best September performance in 13 years.

Crypto market cap data. Image: Tradingview

The seasonal curse, though, doesn’t seem to be affecting traditional markets, despite September also being historically the worst month of the year for Wall Street. The S&P 500 gained 0.64% over the past 24 hours while gold retreated 1.2% from recent highs near $2,670 per ounce showing investors still want risk instead of hedge.

That risk appetite, however, does not appear to currently extend to crypto—outside of a few, recent overperformers, such as the still only-a-week-old Aster.

The crypto market’s longstanding correlation with broader risk assets is today offering little relief, with Bitcoin unable to hold the line at the crucial $111,000 support mark and Ethereum breaking below $4,000, triggering cascading liquidations across digital assets.

The crypto market as a whole has dropped 4.7% so far today, falling to $3.73 trillion and extending a seven-day decline that has revived talk of September’s notorious weakness for digital assets.

Bitcoin’s remaining 1% gain for the month, trading now at just above $109,000, represents the sole barrier preventing the entire crypto market from posting even bigger monthly losses—a precarious position given the asset’s 67% market dominance means minor selling pressure could flip the narrative completely red.

Bitcoin price data. Image: Tradingview

Red September: The fundamentals behind the curse

September has historically delivered negative returns for crypto markets in eight of the past 11 years, a phenomenon traders attribute to institutional portfolio rebalancing after summer holidays and fiscal year-end adjustments.

This year’s pattern seems to be following the script: Despite early buyings pushing the total market cap above $4 trillion with trading volumes surging 27% in the opening days of September, profit-taking mid-month could end up pushing performance to a monthly net loss.

The mechanics of the current selloff reveal how leverage amplified the damage. When Ethereum dropped 9% below the psychologically important $4,000 level—its first breach since August—it triggered $500 million in long liquidations on that asset alone. The contagion spread immediately to smaller tokens more prone to volatility.

The Altcoin Season Index, which measures capital rotation between Bitcoin and alternative cryptocurrencies, fell sharply over the week from 77 to 69 points as investors retreated to the perceived safety of the largest cryptocurrency, Bitcoin. In other words, traders are getting rid of their tokens, some of them rotating into Bitcoin, as the nervousness intensifies.

Alctoin Season Index. Image: Coinmarketcap

For what it’s worth, the way the Alcoin Season Index is structured, it does not matter whether traders are swapping altcoins for Bitcoin or exiting the market completely: Bitcoin dominance increases in either scenario.

What’s more, regulatory headwinds are compounding the observable technical weakness in the charts. The Senate’s October 1 crypto tax hearing and SEC/CFTC joint roundtable on September 29 create event risk that could catalyze selling if outcomes disappoint. Historical data shows crypto markets typically decline 3-5% in the 48 hours preceding major regulatory announcements as traders reduce exposure.

Can Bitcoin save crypto from Red September?

At the moment, the charts say Bitcoin is holding the life saver, but it’s losing its strength.

Users on Myriad, a prediction market operated by Decrypt’s parent company Dastan, believe there’s a nearly 60% chance today will be another red day for BTC, meaning the price of Bitcoin will close the day lower than when it started.

On the plus side, Myriad prediction market users place the odds at 68% that Bitcoin manages to stay above $105K throughout the September. But, for context, those odds have dropped rapidly in just the last few hours, falling from 84% early this morning.

Looking ahead to “Uptober”—with October being historically the best month for crypto markets—Myriad users currently favor the price of Bitcoin reaching $120K, but only by a slight margin over the $110K to $11K range. So, perhaps a green month ahead—just not that green.

Do the charts agree with predictors?

Bitcoin’s technical structure suggests the largest cryptocurrency by market cap may struggle to prevent the broader market from slipping into September losses, despite currently trading above $109,000 and within an ascending trend that has been in place since March.

Bitcoin price data. Image: Tradingview

While Bitcoin maintains a golden cross formation—where the 50-day moving average sits above the 200-day line, typically a bullish configuration—momentum indicators tell a different story. The Squeeze Momentum indicator has flipped to a bearish impulse, marking a shift in short-term direction that often precedes deeper corrections.

The Average Directional Index, or ADX, reads just 17, well below the 25 threshold that signals a strong trend in either direction. This weak trend strength means Bitcoin lacks the momentum to push decisively higher or lower, leaving it vulnerable to external shocks.

The Relative Strength Index—basically a thermometer of how hyped an asset is—sits at 42, having declined from overbought conditions above 70 just weeks ago. This rapid deterioration in momentum while price remains elevated often marks distribution phases where larger holders sell into residual buying interest.

Bitcoin’s ascending channel, while appearing bullish at first glance, actually constrains upside potential. The coin has been bouncing at a very solid support line, showing that bulls refuse to die when prices dip too much. However, the top doesn’t match the bottom, and prices are showing a “lower highs, higher lows,” pattern that usually ends in compression before an explosive movement in the near future.

Bitcoin’s inability to reclaim $115,000 after three attempts this month has created a descending triangle on shorter timeframes, a pattern that resolves lower 67% of the time, according to technical analysis textbooks. The measured move target from this formation points to $108,000, which would represent a 5% decline sufficient to push the entire crypto market into negative territory for September.

The good news for bulls? September will be over in five more days. The bad news? Uptober is no guarantee either.

Disclaimer

The views and opinions expressed by the author are for informational purposes only and do not constitute financial, investment, or other advice.

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PS6 Dockable Handheld Leak: AMD Canis Specs CRUSH XBOX Ally X! – YouTube

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With the current crop of consoles from Microsoft and Sony nearing the end of their natural product cycles, tech rumours are abound as to what hardware and systems the next generation will have. Amongst a whole raft of claims as to what the PlayStation 6 will be like are a list of specifications for Sony’s return to the handheld market, with a beefy custom AMD chip at the heart of it all.

Now, before I go any further, let me get one thing out of the way first, and it’s the source of these claims: Moore’s Law is Dead. The tech YouTube channel’s modus operandi is all about rumours, leaks, speculation, and at times, pretty wild predictions. But hey, even if you spray about in a raging gale, something will eventually land on target.

On to the nitty-gritty, then. MLID claims Sony is planning a handheld PlayStation for its PS6 portfolio. Not a major shock announcement, as the company has done this before. Something else that won’t raise any eyebrows is that it’s apparently going to be powered by a custom AMD chip, codenamed Canis.

The specs for it, though, are a tad more of a surprise. Manufactured on TSMC’s N3 process node and coming in at 135 square millimetres in size, the CPU size of Canis is alleged to have four Zen 6c cores and two Zen 6 Low Power cores. That’s a little bit like AMD’s Ryzen AI 340, which sports two Zen 5 and four Zen 5c cores. However, unlike that laptop APU, MLID is suggesting that games will run on the 6c pipelines, with the handheld’s operating system being handled by the two LP cores.

There are no architectural differences between AMD’s normal Zen and Zen-c cores (at least, not in Zen 5) other than what clock speeds they can reach, but given that it’s also being claimed that the ‘PS6 handheld’ will be backwards compatible with PS5/PS4 games, I’m not sure how four, low-clocked cores are supposed to handle software designed for up to eight cores.

PS5’s CPU cores take up a tiny slice of the die, on the right. (Image credit: Fritzchens Fritz)

And that’s before one begins to question why Sony would choose to go with an architecture that AMD hasn’t released yet, when it’s historically chosen an older design that’s well-tested, proven, and predictable. Oh, and cheap. Very cheap.

Moving onto the GPU section of the APU, Canis is supposed to have 16 RDNA 5 compute units. To put this into perspective, the Steam Deck has eight RDNA 2 CUs, and the Asus ROG Ally X has 12 RDNA 3 CUs, so the compute unit count isn’t beyond the realms of possibility.

However, just as with the CPU section, I’m not overly convinced that Sony would go for what would be a cutting-edge GPU architecture for the release. Even the expensive PS5 Pro is still using what’s fundamentally an RDNA 2-powered GPU, albeit with some hefty modifications.

Where things get a bit silly are the claimed clock speeds and performance for the handheld’s GPU: around 1.65 GHz in docked mode and up to 75% of a PS5’s native rendering power. Sony’s current console has a GPU with 36 CUs, with a top clock speed of 2.2 GHz, and requires a power budget of 180 W.

The PS5 Pro’s GPU is mighty for a console but quite old in tech terms. (Image credit: Sony)

While RDNA 5 rumours have yet to settle down into any semblance of sensibility, no amount of architectural wizardry can really overcome a 56% deficit in CUs with a 25% short fall in clock speed to that kind of degree. Well, perhaps it can, if the rendering resolution is low enough or the actual graphics workload leans more towards favouring AMD’s current shader design than for RDNA 2.

Just as with many handheld gaming PCs, Sony’s effort will apparently use LPDDR5X-8533, but rather than using a 128-bit wide bus, Canis is purported to sport a 192-bit bus, resulting in the total amount of RAM reaching 48 GB. That’s not impossible, as handhelds really do benefit from having considerably more than 16 GB of RAM, as it’s shared across the CPU and GPU.

Having watched MLID go through the specs, I was unconvinced by the CPU description, on the fence by the GPU (but not at all by the performance claims), and reasonably okay with the RAM specs. However, it wouldn’t be a MLID video if there wasn’t at least one really bonkers prediction, and in this instance, it’s the price: between $399 and $499.

(Image credit: Nintendo)

The Switch 2’s retail price is $450, and it is a far weaker collection of hardware, with the main SoC manufactured on an old, cheap process node. Top-end handheld gaming PCs that are more akin to the above claimed specs are typically double the cost. Heck, even the PlayStation Portal is $200 and there’s practically nothing inside that beyond a basic Qualcomm chip, a smattering of RAM, and a pokey 16 Wh battery.

Sony wouldn’t set the price that low for a platform that isn’t going to sell anywhere near as many units as a normal console. It can afford to get away with a tiny profit margin with the PS5 because it hauls the money back via the millions of games sold each year for the console. A PS6 handheld would have to be physically profitable, and given that the specs are all next-gen architecture, on an expensive process node, $500 would surely be nowhere near enough.

Anyway, you can make up your own mind about MLID’s claims about the handheld or the other PS6 bits and pieces. Better yet, you can play your own game of ‘Guess the next-gen console specs’ and make a video of it, because everyone’s predictions will be just as valid as each other until the hardware itself finally appears.

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Crypto Market Wipes Out September Gains as Bitcoin Barely Hangs On: Analysis

In brief

Red September: The fundamentals behind the curse

Can Bitcoin save crypto from Red September?

Daily Debrief Newsletter

Claimed Sony PS6 handheld console specs promise a miracle of next-gen, cutting-edge processor architectures at a price that’s barely enough for today’s hardware