bleed

By Omkar Godbole (All times ET unless indicated otherwise)

It’s not been a happy 24 hours for crypto bulls, with the CoinDesk 20 Index dropping 5% and market leaders BTC$109,615.08 and ETH$4,016.39 falling nearly 2%.

Major altcoins such as XRP, BNB and SOL lost even more, and ASTR, the native token of Aster DEX, which recently flipped Hyperliquid in 24-hour volume, fell 4% as the decentralized exchange saw abnormal price movements in the XPL-USDT perpetual trading pair. Still, a few coins, including MNT, CRO, KAS, OKB and XMR, managed gains of around 1%.

The downturn coincides with a stronger dollar, pushed higher by Thursday’s U.S. GDP and jobless claims data. Meanwhile, market flow dynamics turned bearish.

“ETF behavior changed from a primary absorber of supply to a net seller this week,” analysts at BRN told CoinDesk. “Yesterday, Bitcoin ETFs posted $258 million of outflows while Ethereum ETFs recorded $251 million of outflows, marking four straight days of red for ETH funds.”

Whales have also become net sellers, offloading 147,000 BTC since Aug. 21, the most since the bull cycle began in early 2023, according to CryptoQuant.

Analysts at Bitunix exchange warned that President Donald Trump’s tariff announcements on Thursday have increased market uncertainty, with sentiment oscillating between “rising inflation” and “slowing growth.”

Trump announced tariffs of as much as 100% on trucks, furniture and pharmaceuticals, effective Oct. 1.

The Fed’s preferred inflation gauge, the core personal consumption expenditure, is due later today. The report is projected to show a 2.9% year-over-year rise in August, matching July. Month-on-month, it’s forecast to have increased 0.2%, slightly below July’s 0.3%, according to FactSet. A softer-than-expected print could temper the dollar’s rally, putting a floor under bitcoin and the wider crypto market.

Traders should remain vigilant about regulatory developments related to digital asset treasuries. A WSJ report on Thursday cited U.S. regulators’ concerns about unusual trading volumes and stock price volatility in over 200 companies linked to crypto treasury strategies. Regulatory pressure on these treasuries, or DATs, could accelerate market sell-offs.

Additionally, geopolitical developments warrant attention, as reports are circulating about Russia’s aerial incursions in Europe. WTI crude oil is already up 4% for the week, the most since June. Stay alert!

What to Watch

Crypto
Macro
- Sept. 26, 8:30 a.m.: Canada July GDP MoM Est. 0.1%.
- Sept. 26, 8:30 a.m.: U.S. August headline PCE Price Index YoY Est. 2.7%, MoM Est. 0.3%; core YoY Est. 2.9%, core MoM Est. 0.2%.
- Sept. 26, 10 a.m.: (Final) September Michigan Consumer Sentiment Est. 55.4.
- Sept. 26, 1 p.m.: Fed Vice Chair for Supervision Michelle Bowman speech on “Approach to Monetary Policy Decision-Making.”
Earnings (Estimates based on FactSet data)

Token Events

Governance votes & calls
Unlocks
- Sept, 28: JUP$0.4435 to unlock 1.75% of its circulating supply worth $28.89 million.
Token Launches
- Sept. 26: Hana Network (HANA) to be listed on Binance Alpha, KuCoin, MEXC, BingX, and others.
- Sept. 26: Mira (MIRA) to be listed on Binance Alpha, KuCoin, and others.

Conferences

Token Talk

By Francisco Rodrigues

Plasma, a new blockchain purpose-built for stablecoins, launched its mainnet beta and native token XPL on Thursday, debuting with a fully diluted valuation that’s now above $12 billion.
The layer-1 network, backed by Bitfinex, Bybit, Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino and tech billionaire Peter Thiel, entered the market with over $2 billion worth of XPL tokens in circulation.
Built for high-speed, low-fee stablecoin operations, Plasma aims to serve as the back end for a new class of DeFi applications. At launch, liquidity was already deployed across major platforms including Aave, Ethereum, Euler and Fluid.
These include Plasma One, which is billed as a “stablecoin-native neobank.”
Some tokens sold to U.S. investors are locked until mid-2026 due to regulatory restrictions, which may lower the effective float in early trading.

Derivatives Positioning

Most major tokens, including BTC and ETH continued to experience capital outflows from futures market, leading to a decline in the notional open interest (OI).
That’s only to be expected as the market soon shakes out overleveraged bets.
Notably, the BTC and ETH OI have continued to decline in the past couple of hours, raising questions about the sustainability of the minor price recovery.
Smaller coins like KAS and KCS have seen a moderate increase in OI in the past 24 hours.
Volume in crypto perpetuals listed on Aster DEX has surged to over $46 billion in the past 24 hours, significantly higher than Hyperliquid’s $17 billion.
On the CME, BTC futures OI has almost reversed the early September spike from 134K BTC to 149K BTC, representing renewed capital outflows. On the other hand, OI in options continues to rise, approaching the November 2024 high of 56.19K BTC.
Positioning in ETH futures and options remains elevated on Deribit, with an annualized three-month basis at 7%, a significantly lower yield than SOL’s 15%.
BTC, ETH options risk reversals continue to lean bearish out to the December expiry, data from Deribit show. In SOL and XRP’s case, pricing is biased bullish for the year-end expiry.

Market Movements

BTC is up 0.4% from 4 p.m. ET Thursday at $109,669.81 (24hrs: -2.17%)
ETH is up 0.74% at $3,916.83 (24hrs: -3.12%)
CoinDesk 20 is up 0.18% at 3,820.89 (24hrs: -3.25%)
Ether CESR Composite Staking Rate is unchanged at 2.9%
BTC funding rate is at 0.0049% (5.4082% annualized) on Binance

DXY is down 0.19% at 98.37
Gold futures are up 0.21% at $3,778.90
Silver futures are up 0.56% at $45.37
Nikkei 225 closed down 0.87% at 45,354.99
Hang Seng closed down 1.35% at 26,128.20
FTSE is up 0.37% at 9,247.82
Euro Stoxx 50 is up 0.38% at 5,465.79
DJIA closed on Thursday down 0.38% at 45,947.32
S&P 500 closed down 0.5% at 6,604.72
Nasdaq Composite closed down 0.50% at 22,384.70
S&P/TSX Composite closed unchanged at 29,731.98
S&P 40 Latin America closed down 1.12% at 2,908.21
U.S. 10-Year Treasury rate is up 0.3 bps at 4.177%
E-mini S&P 500 futures are unchanged at 6,664.75
E-mini Nasdaq-100 futures are unchanged at 24,614.25
E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average Index are up 0.19% at 46,355.00

Bitcoin Stats

BTC Dominance: 59.06% (-0.03%)
Ether-bitcoin ratio: 0.03573 (0.52%)
Hashrate (seven-day moving average): 1,083 EH/s
Hashprice (spot): $48.79
Total Fees: 3.27 BTC / $364,469
CME Futures Open Interest: 134,940 BTC
BTC priced in gold: 29.2 oz
BTC vs gold market cap: 8.24%

Technical Analysis

XRP’s weekly chart. (TradingView/CoinDesk)

XRP is dropping fast toward the key $2.65-$2.70 price level identified by the swing high from May and intraday lows in August and earlier this month.
A break below would mark a significant weakening of buying demand, potentially yielding a slide toward $2.00.

Crypto Equities

Coinbase Global (COIN): closed on Thursday at $306.69 (-4.69%), -0.1% at $306.39 in pre-market
Circle Internet (CRCL): closed at $124.66 (-5.26%), +0.28% at $125.01
Galaxy Digital (GLXY): closed at $32.12 (-6.34%), -1.26% at $31.71
Bullish (BLSH): closed at $61.83 (-8.52%), +0.36% at $62.05
MARA Holdings (MARA): closed at $16.07 (-8.9%), +0.62% at $16.17
Riot Platforms (RIOT): closed at $16.74 (-6.95%), +2.69% at $17.19
Core Scientific (CORZ): closed at $16.84 (-1%), -0.77% at $16.71
CleanSpark (CLSK): closed at $13.68 (-5.33%), -4.02% at $13.13
CoinShares Valkyrie Bitcoin Miners ETF (WGMI): closed at $42.16 (-6.31%), -1.4% at $41.57
Exodus Movement (EXOD): closed at $28.9 (-9.69%)

Crypto Treasury Companies

Strategy (MSTR): closed at $300.7 (-6.99%), +0.31% at $301.62
Semler Scientific (SMLR): closed at $30.21 (-4.46%), +1.66% at $30.71
SharpLink Gaming (SBET): closed at $16.31 (-7.22%), -0.98% at $16.15
Upexi (UPXI): closed at $5.28 (-14.29%), -0.38% at $5.26
Lite Strategy (LITS): closed at $2.54 (-5.93%), +1.97% at $2.59

ETF Flows

Spot BTC ETFs

Daily net flows: -$253.4 million
Cumulative net flows: $57.2 billion
Total BTC holdings ~1.32 million

Spot ETH ETFs

Daily net flows: -$251.2 million
Cumulative net flows: $13.39 billion
Total ETH holdings ~6.57 million

Source: Farside Investors

While You Were Sleeping

Near $30M Ether Wipeout on Hyperliquid Stands Out as Crypto Market Sees $1B in Liquidation (CoinDesk): Nearly $1.2 billion in leveraged bets vanished as over-leveraged longs dominated losses, exposing overcrowded bullish positioning and rising risks on decentralized perpetual exchanges.
Key Indicators to Watch in Q4: Bitcoin Seasonal Trends, XRP/BTC, Dollar Index, Nvidia, and More (CoinDesk): Seasonal data show strong fourth-quarter tailwinds for BTC and ETH, while signals from XRP, the dollar index and Nvidia highlight technical and macro risks for traders.
Trump to Slap New Tariffs on Pharma, Big Trucks (The Wall Street Journal): The president announced Oct. 1 tariffs on imported branded drugs, heavy trucks and home goods, drawing warnings from U.S. pharmaceutical companies that higher costs could undermine domestic manufacturing and research.
Will China’s Digital Yuan Centre Be a Step Forward for Internationalisation? (South China Morning Post): On Thursday, the People’s Bank of China opened a Shanghai operations center and unveiled three platforms to expand e-CNY’s cross-border role, underlining Beijing’s bid to reduce China’s reliance on the U.S. dollar.
Curve Finance Founder Michael Egorov Launches Bitcoin Yield Protocol (CoinDesk): Yield Basis, a decentralized automated market maker (AMM) protocol backed by $5 million, debuts with capped pools and veTokenomics to remove impermanent loss and open sustainable bitcoin yield.

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In brief

Crypto stocks surged on Fed Chair Powell’s dovish Jackson Hole speech hinting at September rate cuts, with Ethereum treasury companies and Bitcoin miners leading gains of 8-15%.
Bitcoin ETFs bled $1 billion over five consecutive days while Ethereum ETFs rebounded with $288 million in net inflows on Thursday.
Blockchain lender Figure Technologies filed for an IPO, seeking to go public after processing over $16 billion in home loans on its Provenance blockchain.

Public Keys is a weekly roundup from Decrypt that tracks the key publicly traded crypto companies.

Wings of a Dove

Crypto stocks (and the rest of the crypto and stock market) are soaring thanks to a big boost from Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell’s dovish speech at the Jackson Hole Symposium on Friday morning.

Crypto and stocks tend to get a boost when the Fed lowers rates because it triggers a rotation of funds from treasury bonds and into risk-on assets.

During his remarks, Powell said the “shifting balance of risks may warrant adjusting our policy stance.” In other words, he opened the possibility for a rate cut when the Federal Open Markets Committee meets again in September.

Crypto exchange Coinbase’s shares gained about 6% and Bitcoin hoarding behemoth Strategy rose 5% on the day—a nice reversal from earlier in the week.

But it’s Bitcoin miners and Ethereum treasury companies that won the day. The two largest Ethereum treasuries—former Bitcoin miner BitMine Immersion and online gambling marketer SharpLink— gained 12% and 15.6%, respectively.

Bitcoin mining rig manufacturer Canaan’s stock gained 12%, and Bitcoin miners Riot Platforms and Iris Energy picked up 7.7% and 9.3%, respectively.

Katalin Tishhauser, head of research at Sygnum Bank, noted that while crypto markets had a “swift and positive” reaction to the news, she flagged that the underpinning economic data still shows signs of trouble.

“Even if a September cut does not materialize, the market has proven resilient in digesting past disappointments while still setting new highs. Momentum may continue, albeit with higher volatility,” she told Decrypt. “Meanwhile, spiralling debt and rising inflation remain unresolved structural issues—factors that strengthen the case for safe-haven assets over the longer term.”

$1 Billion Bleed

Bitcoin ETFs just spent five days in the red and shed $1 billion—even as their Ethereum counterparts staged a turnaround. On Thursday, Ethereum funds stopped the bleed and pulled in $288 million worth of net deposits.

The dominance of Ethereum in the current market narrative is very much warranted, according to the latest note from M31 Capital.

The private equity and venture capital fund pointed out that infrastructure, DeFi, L1 and L2 networks, and Web3 companies were all in the green—and all came out ahead of Bitcoin.

But nothing short of another all-time high for BTC was going to top last week’s record-setting run to $124,128.

Figure on the runway

Just as Bullish makes its $1.15 billion debut, there’s a new crypto company ready to test its wings.

Blockchain lender Figure Technologies has filed paperwork for an initial public offering.

Now, it’s important to make a distinction about what Figure does given the history of crypto lenders in the space: Figure uses its platform to enable lending outside the traditional scope of the crypto industry, such as real estate.

The company says that its the largest non-bank provider of home equity lines of credit in the U.S. and that its software has been used for more than $16 billion worth of home loans.

Illia Otychenko, the lead analyst at CEX.IO, told Decrypt earlier this week that the company “dominates the tokenized private credit space, with more than 70% market share and over $11 billion in active loans on its Provenance blockchain.”

Figure is co-founded by SoFi co-founder and former CEO Mike Cagney, who left the bank in 2017 amid sexual harassment allegations. The IPO would mark his return to leading a publicly traded company.

“The IPO is one step in a long process to bring blockchain to all aspects of capital markets,” he said in the company’s SEC filing. No word yet on share pricing, though.

Other Keys

Timber: Nasdaq has delisted drug developer Windtree Therapeutics, which announced last month that it would buy $700 million worth of Binance’s BNB token. The company said in an SEC filing that its shares stopped trading on the Nasdaq for failing to maintain the $1-per-share minimum bid price required by the exchange.

USA Made: Bitcoin miner Bitdeer confirmed it’s going to begin manufacturing mining rigs in the U.S. this year. That news came as two of its competitors—Iris Energy and CleanSpark—have been hit with letters from U.S. customs asking for millions in tariffs on Chinese-manufactured rigs purchased in 2024.

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