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Previously accused of limiting crypto exposure but now adding a trading button
Nikita Bier, the former product head of platform X, dropped a statement these days that stunned many in the crypto community. He revealed that X will soon add a cryptocurrency trading button to posts, so when you come across a new token, you won’t need to jump to any exchange; you can complete buying and selling directly within that post.
This development is surprising enough on its own. What’s more awkward is the background. Before this, people in the community kept criticizing Bier for limiting Crypto Twitter’s exposure during his tenure, saying good projects couldn’t get promoted. But this time he straightforwardly responded that he personally created the Cashtags feature back then, allowing you to see real-time price charts of Solana and Ethereum directly in posts. Now, with the trading button added, users can go from viewing prices to placing orders without leaving X at all.
Actually, before the button goes live, X already allows users to directly paste contract addresses of newly issued tokens. That means if you want to buy a newly emerged meme coin, you currently have to copy the address yourself, switch to your wallet, and operate manually. Once the trading button is integrated, this manual process will be eliminated. If you see a hyped-up post, you can jump in with one click, losing that brief moment that might have given you a chance to cool down.
He also shared his view on the current market trend. In his opinion, the recent crypto market rally isn’t driven by any technological breakthrough but by the U.S. Treasury increasing the scale of long-term Treasury buybacks. The market started betting on a dollar devaluation, and money flowed in. This explanation is completely different from the usual narratives in the community about halving events or institutional entry; he directly attributes the cause to the Treasury’s actions.
What’s most intriguing is the logic behind it. A platform centered on posting and social interaction is quietly transforming itself into an exchange. Previously, when you hyped or criticized a coin on X, you only influenced sentiment. In the future, you’ll be able to place orders directly within the same post, making the platform both a forum for public opinion and a trading venue. Sentiment and action are compressed into the same interface, minimizing the cost of impulsive decisions.
Bier hasn’t clarified when the button will launch, which assets it will support, or who they will partner with. But the direction is clear. As the boundaries between social apps, wallets, and exchanges blur, the screen we scroll every day might be more dangerous than we think.The financial backer protecting the decentralized world has pulled out
This evening, a breaking news exploded. Shipyard, the core team maintaining IPFS, announced that because Protocol Labs will no longer renew funding support, all their engineering, maintenance, and infrastructure operations will end on September 30.
Many people might not realize how close IPFS is to us. Those so-called decentralized applications you use now, NFT metadata, and various on-chain file storage largely run on this protocol. Core implementations like Kubo, Helia, Boxo, and public gateways like ipfs.io, dweb.link are all maintained by the Shipyard team.
The most ironic part is this: something regarded by the entire industry as the cornerstone of decentralization is actually maintained by a team paid by a single foundation. When Protocol Labs stops funding, the team disbands, and those public nodes shut down. The decentralization we shout about every day, at the very bottom, is still centralized in maintenance.
Shipyard was only established in 2024, and its members are basically veterans who previously worked on IPFS at Protocol Labs. In other words, the financial backers and the workers originally came from the same group. Now the parent company has turned off the faucet, and the subsidiary team is gone first.
To be clear, IPFS technology is indeed decentralized, with open-source code and anyone able to run nodes. But what truly keeps this network alive are the salaried engineers and the costly public gateways. Open source does not mean someone is maintaining it, which is a deadlock many Web3 projects cannot avoid.
The protocol itself certainly won’t die immediately. Protocol Labs said they will shift to lighter governance, distributing funds to individual maintainers through the IPFS Foundation to continue decentralized infrastructure. But honestly, the gap between a dedicated team and loosely supported individuals is huge.
Ordinary users might not feel it immediately. When you open those web pages, images, and files relying on IPFS, they will still load normally in the short term because the nodes haven’t shut down yet. But once maintenance stops, bugs won’t be fixed, vulnerabilities won’t be patched, and gateway responses will slow down—these issues will gradually surface. By the time everyone notices, it’s often too late to fix.
What worries me more is the next month. Until September 30, these public infrastructures are still supported by Shipyard. After that, who will take over, and whether they can handle it, is a big question mark. Teams heavily dependent on IPFS for their projects probably need to reassess their storage solutions in the coming days.
We always say Web3 needs decentralization, but even the most fundamental storage maintenance is still tied to the budget of a single lab. If the financial backer changes their mind someday, the supposedly unbreakable infrastructure might not even have anyone to hand it over to. At that time, no one can guarantee whether the things you stored there will still be there.Betting on no rate hike but simultaneously shorting the Nasdaq
A trader who had been betting for four consecutive days in the prediction market that the Federal Reserve would not raise rates in September quietly opened a short position on the Nasdaq worth $1.5 million early this morning. This sounds like a self-contradiction, but when you break down the two accounts, you’ll find he’s actually playing a very sophisticated hedging strategy.
This person, codenamed TwoEyes, from the morning of August 22 to early August 23, placed about 149 buy orders totaling roughly $110,000, all betting on the same outcome: that rates would remain unchanged in September. The weighted probability at the time of his purchases was about 68, meaning the market generally believed no rate hike was highly likely. Early this morning, he added another $10,000 at an average probability of 67, bringing the total to about $120,000 on the same side.
Logically, betting on no rate hike is equivalent to being bullish on risk assets, so for a rate-sensitive asset like the Nasdaq, one would expect a long position. Yet, six hours after finishing his latest round of additions, he went to Hyperliquid and opened a 30x fully leveraged short position on the Nasdaq, with a position value of about $1.51 million, currently showing an unrealized loss of over $10,000.
Is this contradictory? He obviously doesn’t think so. The secret lies in those $120,000 prediction market positions. If rates really remain unchanged in September, his two core prediction positions combined could pay out about $220,000, with a maximum profit close to $70,000. Meanwhile, for the $1.5 million Nasdaq short, he loses over $50 for every point the index rises. The profit from the prediction market can cover roughly 1,100 points, about a 4% margin of error. In other words, he used a small bet in the prediction market to buy limited upside insurance for his ten-times-leveraged Nasdaq short.
The logic behind this is probably that he doesn’t fully believe that no rate hike will necessarily push the Nasdaq up continuously, or he’s betting on another scenario, such as no rate hike but the market has already priced in the good news, or he has concerns about the current valuation of the Nasdaq itself. Whatever the motivation, combining prediction markets with perpetual contracts is becoming increasingly common on-chain recently. Essentially, it’s using the payout from one market to hedge extreme volatility in another.
Interestingly, his two combined positions are currently showing an unrealized loss of over $4,000, with the Nasdaq short’s return about -21, and the liquidation price above 38,000 points. That means the insurance hasn’t kicked in yet, but the bill has arrived first. Once the September rate decision is announced, whether the prediction position profits first or the Nasdaq short gets squeezed will reveal the outcome of this internal hedging strategy. Do you think he’s found a loophole, or is he just making a risky bet on a knife’s edge? Dehydrated all-day market overview, stripping away market noise to focus only on the core information that truly impacts capital flow.👇 🌍 In one sentence summary $BTC BTC briefly broke through 80,000 today, reaching a high of 81,272, then profit-taking caused a pullback to 78,344, with a 24-hour increase of about 1.2%. Altcoin season is spreading widely, with 92% of tokens rising, $STX up over 21% as the brightest mover today. A-share indices are mixed with most individual stocks rising, Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index slightly down 6 points, narrowly holding 25,500. US stocks opened higher on Tuesday, semiconductor sector rebounded, ending consecutive days of decline. The market awaits tomorrow's PCE data, Thursday's Nvidia earnings, and the Jackson Hole symposium. 🪙 Crypto｜BTC surged then pulled back, altcoin season spreads BTC hit a high of 81,272 on Binance today, a new high since May, then retreated to 78,344, with $635 million liquidated throughout the day and 94,000 people liquidated. Altcoin total market cap returned to $1 trillion, with 92% of tokens recording gains. STX rose over 21%, SOL returned above $100, marking the two most recognizable signals today. The logic for STX is that it is the leading Bitcoin L2, benefiting from ecological capital overflow after BTC's breakout; after SOL stabilized above $100, the market began to play for the $110-120 range. 💡 Uncle's observation: BTC's surge and pullback is a typical profit-taking at high levels, not indicating a trend reversal Bitcoin surged to 80,000 with leverage but then hit the floor—there's a hidden story behind this short squeeze rally
Bitcoin has climbed from 62,000 all the way to around 80,000 in this round, with a weekly gain ranking as the second largest in nearly five years. The screen is full of bright red explosive gains. But something strange happened: logically, with such a sharp rise, a large wave of people should have leveraged up to jump in, but the reality is the opposite.
Glassnode's data shows that the open interest of Bitcoin-denominated futures contracts has actually decreased instead of increasing. It’s currently about 587,000 contracts, down from 645,000 on August 14, dropping to the lowest level in nearly five months. The last time open interest was this low was during the deep correction this spring. This means this rally was not built on new longs piling on leverage.
What really pushed the price up was a wave after wave of short liquidations. Tens of billions of dollars in short positions were wiped out in a classic short squeeze, with the short squeeze stampede pushing Bitcoin past 80,000. Interestingly, the annualized funding rate for perpetual contracts is still below 10%, indicating that bullish leveraged funds are not crowded at all. Everyone talks bullish, but very few are actually leveraging with real money.
Even more striking is that the open interest in crypto margin futures has dropped to about 52,000 contracts, a historic low, accounting for only 11% of total market activity. The proportion of cash margin is rising, which is actually a good thing. Previously, the biggest fear was that when prices fell, collateral would shrink, triggering forced liquidations and causing deeper crashes. Now with a higher cash ratio, this chain reaction of cascading liquidations is cut off. Anyone trading crypto knows that this kind of clean and straightforward rally is actually more reassuring than one full of leverage.
I’ve been staring at this number for a while. In every past Bitcoin breakout, there was a dense crowd of leveraged longs behind it, and the fiercer the rise, the harder the fall afterward. This time it’s completely reversed: prices hit new highs while leverage is flat on the floor. Have retail investors finally learned their lesson, or are institutions slowly pushing with cash?
Whatever the answer, the low participation in derivatives and healthier structure at least indicate this rally is not so hollow. But on the flip side, how far can a rally go without leverage support is itself a question mark. What do you think about the 80,000 level—is this the start of a true bull market, or just the calm before the storm?The factory that created countless meme coins is now getting listed on Binance itself
Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, just released news that has the meme community buzzing. On August 26th at 4 PM, Binance Spot will open trading pairs for PUMP, and simultaneously enable algorithmic trading bots. The PUMP token is from pump.fun, the meme launchpad that has been both loved and hated by many over the past two years. This launch is not just for PUMP; it also includes USDC pairs against the Argentine Peso and ACE, but PUMP is clearly aimed at the meme crowd.
You might never have launched a coin yourself, but you’ve probably seen the scenes on pump.fun. A Twitter avatar, a name, a story of uncertain truth, and within minutes a new token is created and thrown onto the blockchain. If it pumps, someone buys in; if it crashes, it goes to zero and that's that. pump.fun has made a fortune with this model—platform fees, coin issuance charges, liquidity—all real money flowing into its pockets. It turned coin issuance from a task requiring a technical team into something anyone can do with a few clicks.
Now here’s the interesting part. The factory that makes money by letting others launch coins is now getting a seat at Binance’s table. For Binance, PUMP has real traffic and attention, so listing it can bring activity and volume—there’s no logical flaw there. But for those who lost money on pump.fun, the feeling is complicated. The coins they once called "meme dogs" are now officially listed by the very factory that made them. At its peak, pump.fun could launch tens of thousands of coins a day, earning billions in fees; it’s the most stable winner in this meme frenzy.
What’s even more worth pondering is the timing. In this recent market rally, the meme sector has clearly warmed up, and funds are flowing back into these highly volatile assets. Once a token like PUMP is listed on Binance, liquidity, exposure, and bot-driven volume all connect, likely making short-term hype and volatility even more intense. But we must be clear: an exchange listing does not equal project endorsement, nor does it mean the token is worth its price. Tokens from a coin-launching machine are essentially just chips within that coin-launching ecosystem.
The real question is, now that the meme coin creators themselves have learned to get listed on major exchanges, will there still be buyers for the new coins ordinary players hold? The table hasn’t changed, only the dealer has taken a more prominent seat. Whether you chase this hype or not, you should first consider if you’re betting on sentiment or on value. The so-called decentralized DeFi vaults have 70% controlled by just five entities
A freshly released report has burst many people's illusions about DeFi. Vaults.fyi analyzed 856 vaults, 131 custodians, and 18 protocols, with a total locked value of approximately $11.29 billion. The conclusion is harsh: the top five custodians control 69% of the funds, and the top ten hold 79.1%.
What happened to decentralization? We talk about DeFi every day as returning financial power to users, yet the money bags are still concentrated in the hands of a few names. Even more striking is the concentration at the address level: weighted by locked value, a single address holds on average 47% of the share, and the top ten addresses collectively control 74%. No matter how many protocols there are, in reality, a few addresses can influence a huge amount of money.
Behind this is a counterintuitive trend. Over the past year, the total DeFi supply-side TVL dropped by 41.8%, but custodial vaults actually increased by 39%, with market share rising from 5.24% to 12.51%. User mentality partly explains this: with continuous collapses, people are reluctant to spread money across small protocols and prefer to squeeze into top custodial vaults for peace of mind. But this doesn't eliminate risk; it just concentrates it from many small risks into a few big ones. Whoever hits these is hit hard. On the surface, it looks like a rational choice, but in the long run, it tightens the fragile points even more.
The top players' landscape is far from stable. Sentora and Concrete were not even on the list a year ago, now ranking second and fourth respectively; Usual dropped directly from fourth to thirty-fourth. Even custodians themselves are undergoing a major reshuffle, and the drastic ranking changes indicate the field is not settled. Today's winners may not be tomorrow's moat.
The most intriguing part is the entry posture of traditional institutions. The report names Société Générale, Apollo, and JPMorgan Chase—giants once shouted down by DeFi as disruptors—who have quietly deployed custodial vault strategies. They weren't disrupted; they came back under a new identity. Those who once shouted "code is law" probably never imagined sitting at the same custodial table with bankers one day.
Another detail: about 33% of custodial funds require multi-step redemption processes, with a median 7-day annualized yield of 4.82%, which is 98 basis points higher than instant redemption. That extra yield comes at the cost of liquidity constraints. The higher the concentration, the closer a single custodian's failure is to systemic risk. When a run happens, they will be the slowest to escape. The so-called high yield becomes the last promise to be fulfilled.
How decentralized is DeFi really? This report gives a less flattering answer. When bank-affiliated players start entering to share the pie, do you see this as a sign of maturity or another compromise of the decentralization narrative.An emoji ignited a 60% seven-day surge for PENGU
On August 23, Pudgy Penguins' CEO Luca Netz posted a tweet on X with just a mysterious emoji and no text. That single emoji set the entire market on fire.
After the tweet, PENGU climbed steadily, rising about 60% over the past seven days, once breaking above $0.01, hitting a recent high. Everyone was guessing what that emoji meant, with the mainstream interpretation quite consistent: the company’s IPO might really be progressing. Luca Netz had previously said he hoped to take Pudgy Penguins public by 2027. A project that started with NFT penguin avatars is now talking about ringing the bell—quite a contrast.
Looking further, it increasingly doesn’t look like a typical crypto project. A few days ago, Pudgy Penguins announced entry into the South Korean retail market, selling plush toys, trading cards, comics, and larger-sized dolls. Before that, it had already expanded into major U.S. retailers like Target and Walmart. You read that right—physical toys on store shelves, not just a string of code on the blockchain.
Looking back at the entire NFT space is even more interesting. Most avatar projects from 2021 have seen their floor prices plummet close to zero, communities dissolved, and teams vanished. Pudgy is one of the very few that survived and is becoming more tangible. While others worry about the next hot trend, it has already brought its business to supermarket shelves and turned its IP into a tangible consumer brand.
Actually, crypto projects talking about going public isn’t new; many founders have painted that picture before, but most never followed through. What’s special about Pudgy is that it first reached out to real shelves, using toy sales revenue to back its narrative. But once the story moves to the stock market, the evaluation criteria shift from community sentiment to revenue and profit—that’s the real test.
What’s interesting is Luca Netz’s approach. He doesn’t issue announcements or write long posts; he just drops an emoji and lets the market imagine the IPO progress. This kind of teasing both whets appetites and avoids any falsifiable promises. For those holding PENGU, every emoji is a reason to hold on.
A community built on memes is now placing toys in stores while signaling an IPO. In the crypto world, no native consumer brand has truly made it to the public stock market yet. How far PENGU’s current surge can go will only be answered when the bell actually rings. But honestly, we all have to ask: can a meme project really become a Wall Street–worthy public company, or is it just another hype-driven party fueled by narrative?#宇树上市后连续回落，估值如何定价？
On August 19, the first day of listing, the opening price was ¥1100, up 629%, with a market value of ¥444.9 billion. The closing price that day was ¥845, with a market value of ¥341.8 billion. It then fell for four consecutive days, hitting an intraday low of ¥588 on August 25, a drop of over 46% from the opening price, with market value falling below ¥250 billion.
How far are the numbers from reality?
585x dynamic PE, 1228x static PE. Revenue in the first half of the year was ¥1.152 billion, net profit ¥274 million. Net profit excluding non-recurring items declined 19.34% year-on-year. Q1 revenue grew 68%, but net profit excluding non-recurring items fell 52%. The actual operational efficiency of robots in factories is still lower than humans, and the timing for large-scale promotion is far from mature. As of Q3 2025, 73.6% of humanoid robot revenue comes from research institutions. The industrial scenario accounts for a very low proportion.
What do institutions think?
Nomura initiated coverage on the listing day with a buy rating and a target price of ¥370, based on a 2027 expected price-to-sales ratio of 25x. The target price has 145% upside from the issue price but is only about half of the current price. Brokers expect a compound annual growth rate of 122% in revenue from 2026 to 2028, with 2028 revenue forecasted at ¥13.184 billion.
The humanoid robot sector is solid, and Yushi's industry position is also solid. But the price of ¥588 corresponds to the 2028 revenue expectation of ¥13.1 billion, while the full-year revenue for 2026 is only over ¥2 billion. The market is shifting from "storytelling" to "calculating performance," and this process is not yet complete. Three Storage Coins Surge 50% While Holdings Shrink by 30%
Since July 30, three storage stock tokens on the Hyperliquid chain—SKHX, SNDK, and MU—have experienced a concentrated rebound. SKHX has risen by 29.9%, SNDK by 52.6%, and MU by 28.5%. Judging by the price increase alone, this is quite an impressive rally.
However, breaking down this rise tells a very different story. Monitoring by TradingBeats shows that the on-chain open interest (OI) value of these three dropped from about $999 million to $677 million, a decrease of $322 million or 32.2%. Even more striking is the drop in contract volume: SKHX holdings fell by 45.1%, SNDK by 47.2%, and MU by a massive 60.4%.
Prices clearly climbed steadily, yet the contracts being wagered are disappearing en masse. This indicates that the price surge is not driven by new money entering the market, but rather by existing capital actively reducing leverage at higher price levels. While the OI in USD terms may be supported by rising prices, converting to contract volume reveals unmistakable signs of withdrawal.
This deleveraging trend has not stopped over the past seven days. Comparing snapshots from August 18, the combined OI of the three dropped another 22.1%. The margin leverage of whales is shrinking in tandem: SKHX shorts’ effective leverage fell from 5.5x to 2.9x, MU shorts from 7.7x to 4.7x. Both longs and shorts are pulling back, as if collectively stepping away from the table.
Another comparison is even more interesting. During the same period, the entire crypto market has been warming up—Bitcoin retook $80,000, and altcoin season sentiment is returning. Normally, this would encourage more leverage. Yet in storage tokens, large on-chain capital is doing the opposite: the more the price rises, the more aggressively leverage is cut. This divergence is often more telling than the price gains themselves.
This retreat isn’t limited to on-chain activity. The leveraged ETFs in South Korea tracking Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix saw nearly $1 billion in net outflows this month—the first monthly net outflow since their launch at the end of May. On one side, spot prices are rebounding; on the other, leveraged products are being redeemed. Both retail players and large on-chain capital seem to be quietly pulling back.
This is very different from being squeezed out and forced to sell; it looks more like a group of large investors quietly managing their positions at the rebound’s peak. When we watch the market, it’s easy to get caught up in the attractive price gains and rush in. But on-chain data tells a different story: prices are hitting new highs, but liquidity is systematically draining.
Whether the rally can continue depends on whether fresh, real capital is willing to step in. If it’s just existing capital deleveraging, then the foundation of this rally may be much more fragile than it appears. Do you think this could be a sign of a pump-and-dump setup?Behind KNTQ's 30% Surge in One Day Lies a New Layer 2
In the afternoon, an inconspicuous piece of news pushed a coin called KNTQ up by 30% within a few hours, with its valuation briefly reaching $270 million. Many people hadn't yet realized what exactly was driving this coin's rise.
In essence, the Kinetiq team launched a high-performance Layer 2 network specifically for the Hyperliquid ecosystem, named Elysium. According to them, this chain uses HYPE directly as the gas fee, and half of the earnings made by the sequencers will be used to buy back and burn KNTQ. In other words, the busier the chain runs, the faster KNTQ is bought back and burned, which sounds like a self-sustaining value loop.
We all know that in the past two years, the hottest terms have been dedicated chains and Layer 2s; any project with some reputation wants to build their own. But directly writing token burn into revenue sharing like this has indeed piqued many people's interest. Once the news broke, some in the community called for a valuation reassessment, and some added KNTQ to their watchlists overnight, causing the market to move.
But looking at it calmly, the contrast is quite obvious. A newly announced Layer 2 with few people actually running business on it, yet the token price has already priced in all future expectations. The buyback and burn sounds great, but the premise is that sequencers actually receive money and are willing to give up half of it. Burning half the revenue is effectively a disguised dividend to holders, a design that is especially easy to spin stories around when sentiment is good. At this stage, it feels more like injecting a shot of adrenaline into the current price with a blueprint that hasn't been realized yet.
What’s more worth pondering is the Hyperliquid line. HYPE itself is already a giant, and now a dedicated Layer 2 has grown around it, indicating that the ecosystem players are scrambling to lock in traffic and assets within their own territory. For ordinary players like us, this narrative is the easiest to get hyped about and the easiest to jump in before fully understanding it.
Looking back, these new chains with attractive tokenomics were all hailed as ecosystem cornerstones at launch, but few have actually generated sustainable revenue. Whether Elysium’s confidence to burn half its revenue comes from real demand or from expectation management to pump the price first, time will tell.
The person who flipped KNTQ in one day—did they bet on the infrastructure or just catch the wave of sentiment? When this heat dies down, will Elysium deliver revenue on time, or will it just become another pie drawn on a whitepaper? How long do you think this buyback and burn model can last? New whales trapped for months wiped out $1.2 billion in three days
Over the past few months, a group of people who only started heavily accumulating Bitcoin from the end of last year to the beginning of this year have been stuck below their cost basis. The market calls them new whales, with long-term unrealized losses on their books, and many barely dared to open their accounts during that period. But in the last three days, this group suddenly collectively broke even and cashed in their profits all at once.
Moreno, an analyst from on-chain data company CryptoQuant, provided some surprising numbers. This batch of new whales realized profits exceeding $1.2 billion in the past three days, marking the largest profit-taking event on record for this group. On August 20 alone, they locked in about $614 million in profits, setting a single-day record.
Interestingly, all this happened during a price rebound. Bitcoin climbed from a low back above the short-term whale cost basis of about $68,900 to a trading price near $77,700 on August 23, roughly 12.8% higher than this group’s total cost basis. The funds trapped for a long time finally got a chance to exit fully above breakeven and even make a profit.
This group differs from the older whales who have held on for a long time. The old whales mostly have very low cost bases and thick unrealized gains, moving more slowly. The new whales entered this cycle and got trapped right away; once the rebound arrived, they prioritized taking profits, behaving more like traders than believers.
This is generally a good thing, but it hides an unavoidable problem. When a group collectively dumps their chips on the market, who will take them? Moreno calls the current trend an important demand test. If Bitcoin can firmly hold above the roughly $70,000 whale cost basis and profit-taking gradually returns to normal levels, it means new incoming funds are absorbing the selling pressure, and this rebound has real strength to continue.
Conversely, if profit-taking remains high and the price falls back below that cost basis, this rally might just be a breakeven exit rebound. Those who were trapped have exited, turning into selling pressure above, and the pressure from new incoming funds will only increase.
The market is now profitable again, that’s a fact. But whether it can digest the pressure from this wave of profit-taking is what really matters next. What do you think? Has someone caught this $1.2 billion, or is it just passing the risk down the line?Vitalik made his first move in two years by buying this
The market almost forgot that Vitalik would personally step in to buy coins. The last time he publicly invested in a new project was in November last year when he spent 32 ETH to buy an NFT from a prediction market platform. Before that, he hadn’t made a move for nearly two years. But just last month, he quietly invested 16 ETH into a protocol called The Interfold, which was worth about $28,000 at the time.
This amount is pocket change for Vitalik. But people on-chain think differently. Once the news spread that Vitalik bought it, the story spread like wildfire. On August 19, the token FOLD launched, initially riding this narrative from a $28 million market cap all the way up to $140 million. Then, when South Korea’s largest exchange Upbit listed it, the price doubled immediately, and the market cap briefly touched $230 million.
Here’s the interesting part. Vitalik himself hasn’t claimed the batch of tokens from the auction yet. He only placed an order and paid in the public auction on Uniswap, but hasn’t moved since. In contrast, the NFTs he bought last year have been held without selling. So the strongest support logic on the market right now isn’t the technology, but the fact that Vitalik hasn’t run away yet.
If you really dissect this project, it’s about something else. The Interfold is an open-source multiparty privacy computation protocol developed by Gnosis Guild. Simply put, it allows several mutually distrustful parties to compute together in an encrypted execution environment without revealing their individual data. Each computation temporarily opens an encrypted environment, which is closed immediately after the calculation, leaving no trace. The most straightforward use case is anonymous DAO voting, where no one can see who voted for what, but everyone can verify the final result. Nodes must stake FOLD to participate in computation.
The problem lies here as well. Compared to privacy coins like ZEC, which are easy to understand at a glance, this multiparty computation has a much higher barrier to entry. The market is almost entirely focused on the name Vitalik rather than the technology behind it. With a circulating market cap close to $30 million and a fully diluted valuation around $100 million, and given the already thin liquidity on the ETH chain, the risk-reward ratio isn’t that attractive.
What’s more subtle is the rhythm. After the Upbit positive news was realized, FOLD didn’t continue to rise with the broader market; instead, it retreated back to the price level before the news. This means the market has pulled it back to the price range that the narrative of Vitalik buying it can support.
One person invested $28,000, the market inflated a $200 million bubble and then deflated it. Next, will the narrative continue to ferment, or will everyone suddenly realize the story is over? Maybe all that’s left is for Vitalik to move the batch of tokens he hasn’t claimed yet. Whether this move is a genuine endorsement or just casually picking up an apple, even he probably hasn’t decided yet.The supercomputer that claimed to do AI mining ultimately mined a house
A warehouse in Las Vegas was once packaged as a data center. The owner rented an office, hired a sales team, created a website, shot promotional videos, and prepared a full set of PPTs. The core selling point was just one sentence: we have an AI supercomputer that mines coins and verifies on-chain transactions, with stable returns that can be written into a contract.
This person is named Brent Kovar, and the company is called Profit Connect. On August 25, the U.S. Department of Justice announced that after a nine-day federal jury trial, he was found guilty on eleven counts of wire fraud, two counts of mail fraud, and two counts of money laundering—fifteen charges in total. Sentencing is set for November 30, with a statutory maximum sentence of 280 years.
Going back to the end of 2017, he offered conditions of a fixed annual return of 15% to 30%, plus a 100% principal refund guarantee, also claiming the company had hundreds of millions of dollars in crypto asset reserves. Some investors later recalled that they were led to believe the money was insured by the FDIC. The combination of bank-level protection plus AI-powered mining returns sounded almost flawless at the time.
The prosecution's claim is that nothing actually happened. No coin trading, no securities transactions, and the machines in the warehouse produced none of the promised profits. Investors' money was used to keep the company running, buy gifts for employees, buy a house for himself, and the rest was used to pay off earlier investors, making it look like mining profits on the books. Over 400 people, $24 million.
The timeline is the most intriguing part of this case. The scam ran until July 2021, when the SEC filed an emergency motion to freeze assets, and his mother's name also appeared in that document. From indictment to conviction, the case dragged on for another year and a half, which coincidentally was the same year and a half during which the AI narrative gained increasing weight in the entire market.
The same rhetoric is still circulating today, just with a different shell. Mining has become staking, the supercomputer has become a large model, fixed annual returns are still fixed annual returns, and principal protection promises remain principal protection promises. What really hooks people has never been those technical details, but that one sentence that sounds most reassuring: this money is guaranteed.
We usually have high vigilance when looking at contracts, on-chain data, and liquidation charts. Ironically, it’s the things dressed in suits, holding PPTs, and located in legitimate office buildings that most easily lower people's guard.
Do you think if Kovar had really used that $24 million to buy coins back then, this story would have taken a completely different path today? The smart money that promised to wait for a pullback ended up chasing the rally and dumped 40 million
This morning, the address known as the storage smart money was still empty.
It had a whole row of orders placed below the market price, between $1030 and $1060, with a total of about 100 buy orders amounting to roughly $20.9 million, clearly waiting for a pullback to slowly accumulate. This strategy is typical: not chasing highs, but reaching out when others panic.
But by noon, SKHX started moving on its own, rising nearly 4.6% in two hours. The price didn’t turn back but kept going up.
Then this address did something completely opposite to its previous setup. It canceled all those 100 buy orders below the market and after 11 o’clock directly chased the price, buying 35,600 units with a transaction amount of about $41.646 million at an average price of $1168.2.
The contrast is interesting. It originally planned to accumulate between $1030 and $1060, but the actual transaction price was $1168.2, over $100 higher than its intended buying range. The patience to wait for a pullback didn’t hold up against a rising candlestick.
Now it holds a long position worth about $43.014 million with 3x leverage, floating profit of $1.368 million, a return rate of 9.9%, and a liquidation price at $636.7. And it hasn’t stopped; it left two more add-on orders between $1162.6 and $1170, preparing to buy another $2.074 million.
What’s more worth pondering is what it did yesterday. Yesterday it closed 26,600 long units at an average price of $1210.9, pocketing $1.952 million. In other words, it sold near $1210 and bought back near $1168 today. The price was a bit cheaper, but the position size expanded by about 34% in one go.
Selling some and then buying back with a bigger hand doesn’t look like simple T trading; it seems more like it has more confidence in its judgment than yesterday.
So here’s the question. This address’s previous timing was quite accurate, but this time it actively gave up the carefully laid low-level ambush and chose to buy on the way up. Did it see something we can’t, or can so-called smart money also be swayed by a single bullish candle?
Personally, I’m more concerned about the cancellation action. The one who placed 100 orders should have been the most patient. If it were you, would you keep guarding those low buy orders waiting for a pullback, or would you also cancel and follow the rally? Where did Circle's injection of one billion USDC into Solana go?
This afternoon, an on-chain monitoring report stunned many people. In the past 24 hours, Circle has net minted about 1 billion USDC on the Solana chain. Printing one billion dollars worth of stablecoins at once, and stacking them all on Solana, is an action that is quite intriguing.
As usual, a large stablecoin minting is always interpreted by the market as a signal of off-exchange capital entering the market. Money first converts into USDC, then waits for the right moment to swap into Bitcoin, Ethereum, or various assets on Solana. So every time Circle prints money, the community's first reaction is: is there a big buyer coming?
But this time it's a bit unusual. Previously, Circle's minting mostly happened on Ethereum, but this time it was concentrated on Solana. And on the same day, SOL just climbed back above $100, rising over 5% in 24 hours. These two lines coming together inevitably make people wonder: is this billion dollars aimed at the Solana ecosystem?
This matter is worth highlighting because Solana is now the second largest network for USDC issuance. Circle shifting its liquidity focus here actually reflects the recent recovery of the Solana ecosystem. On-chain memes are active again, DeFi locked value is slowly climbing back, and daily settlement volume has also increased. Money flows to where the action is, which makes logical sense.
What’s even more interesting is the timing. The minting happened within the past day, indicating the money is already waiting on-chain but hasn’t actually started buying yet. This kind of money arriving but staying still often makes insiders itch more than a direct price pump. Retail investors are guessing the bottom, institutions are laying liquidity, and whoever moves first gains the advantage.
Those in the know will look at one detail: every Circle minting has a corresponding on-chain mint transaction, with publicly accessible addresses. This billion didn’t appear out of thin air; it’s backed by real redemption and minting demand. In other words, someone requested the quota from Circle first, then the money was printed. Who is requesting it is currently invisible to the market, but this demand itself is more honest than any candlestick on Solana.
Of course, some interpret it differently. Minting stablecoins doesn’t necessarily mean buying crypto; it could be for cross-border settlements, market-making reserves, or simply moving existing funds from elsewhere. A billion sounds impressive, but compared to the daily on-chain transfers of hundreds of billions, it might not cause much of a stir.
What’s truly worth watching is the next 48 hours. If this billion USDC starts flowing from Circle’s address to major exchanges and DeFi protocols on Solana, that will be a real signal of capital entering the market. Otherwise, if it just quietly sits on-chain, the story might end here. Where do you think this money will eventually flow?A patch that was supposed to save lives ended up becoming the key to emptying dozens of chain treasuries
In the past few days, the Cosmos ecosystem has experienced a disaster that could have been avoided. Several chains based on the Cosmos EVM module—MANTRA, TAC, KiiChain, and Nesa—were successively breached by the same method. Hackers transferred reserve tokens from the treasuries of these chains in batches and quickly dumped them on the market. Tokens like KII, TAC, and NES plummeted by over 90% within hours, leaving many holders wiped out overnight.
What chills the spine the most is not the vulnerability itself, but how it was handled. The source of the incident was an upgrade code that Cosmos Labs posted on GitHub on August 19. The announcement was very urgent, stating that this version contained important security fixes and recommending all chains to quickly apply the patch through coordinated upgrades. It also emphasized that this release was destructive in nature.
However, Cosmos Labs’ actual operation was baffling. They publicly posted the complete fix patch online but did not send any private warnings to teams relying on this module, nor did they mandate the upgrade. It was like hanging the keys to the treasury in the town square with a note saying "help yourself." Malicious actors had ample time to study the code and plan attacks, while dozens of downstream chains remained in the dark. Some project teams later revealed that the announcement bundled the fix with a batch of issues that had already been privately addressed, making it seem like it wasn’t an emergency that would cause permanent fund loss, so no one took it seriously.
Developer justde’s criticism was painfully accurate. He said vulnerabilities will always exist; the true measure of an infrastructure is who gets notified after a vulnerability is found, who receives the patch first, and whether customers or attackers get there first. Unfortunately, this time, the downstream teams received silence instead of coordination. KiiChain also publicly accused Cosmos Labs of irresponsibility, bluntly stating that this accident could have been avoided.
The technical details of the attack further highlight the problem. To succeed in the Cosmos EVM module, attackers had to exploit three upstream vulnerabilities simultaneously, one of which was an underflow bug when writing back balances after delegation in the staking precompile, plus two other undisclosed weaknesses. As long as the attribute account was enabled, all Cosmos EVM chains were exposed to the same risk. The attack continued until the night of the 24th, forcing Nesa to urgently suspend the entire chain. Its token price crashed from $0.22 to $0.011, a 94% drop. Even more absurdly, at least two days after the issue was exposed, some teams still did not take proactive defense measures, revealing a glaring lack of technical responsibility.
Ironically, Cosmos Labs’ public response came very late. Only after public outcry did they say they had advised their chains to pause block production. But by then, the treasuries had long been emptied.
This incident exposes a truth many are reluctant to face. We always think open source, modularity, and shared infrastructure mean efficiency, but when dozens of chains share the same foundation, if the foundation cracks, everyone collapses together. Cosmos itself has had a rough few years; ATOM has dropped 95% from its peak, with a market cap now only $800 million. Projects like Neutron, Mars, and Leap Wallet have shut down or left. A core team maintaining shared modules for dozens of chains failed to proactively push patches or provide clear deployment guidance in the face of a critical vulnerability, leaving the ecosystem to fend for itself in chaos. Whether this treasury emptying is an accident or a concentrated outbreak of deep-rooted issues in the ecosystem is something everyone still staking assets on shared modules should seriously consider.Biden's mentor blasts the Treasury Secretary he personally mentored
In mid-August, the U.S. Treasury quietly increased the repurchase scale of 10- to 30-year long-term bonds from $2 billion each time to at least $4 billion, with the execution window covering September 9 to November 4. The official explanation was polished, stating it was to support liquidity in the long-end Treasury market.
But today, a very influential figure could no longer stay silent. Legendary investor Stanley Druckenmiller wrote a commentary in The Wall Street Journal, directly targeting the Treasury Department. He said this is not liquidity management at all; essentially, it weakens the bond market's function of pricing U.S. fiscal risk and could be interpreted by the market as the Treasury deliberately suppressing long-end yields.
The real story lies in the relationship between these two men. Druckenmiller is not just any commentator; he is truly Biden's mentor. In 1991, Biden was invited by him to join Soros Fund's London office, and later they both participated in the famous 1992 shorting of the British pound. Biden himself has said that it was Druckenmiller who invited him into the industry, and Stan is his true business mentor.
Now the apprentice sits in the Treasury Secretary position, while the mentor publicly criticizes him in mainstream media — this scene is already quite awkward. Druckenmiller's concern is straightforward: rising long-end yields are the bond market's red flag on Washington's fiscal condition. U.S. inflation remains above target, the federal deficit is about 6% of GDP, and government debt has surpassed $40 trillion. Pressing yields down at this time is equivalent to relieving policymakers of the pressure to control the deficit.
What he really fears is another layer. If the Treasury buys long-term bonds but finances through issuing short-term debt, the market will see it as a Treasury version of mini quantitative easing. On the surface, it's a liquidity tool, but in reality, it facilitates continued easing expectations for risk asset trading. AI and high-valuation tech stocks, which are most sensitive to long-end rates, might become even more reckless.
This is not unrelated to what we hold. One of the fundamental constraints on pricing risk assets like Bitcoin and Ethereum is the long-end U.S. Treasury yield. How the Treasury handles long-end rates will directly transmit to U.S. stocks, gold, the dollar, and then to the crypto market. A mentor's public warning to his apprentice reflects the entire market's anxiety about fiscal discipline.
The question now is left for the market to answer: when yields become the core constraint for pricing risk assets, will Washington listen to the bonds or continue to use tools to suppress the signals? The country that has been the harshest on crypto is quietly putting bonds on-chain
In September, Mumbai will host a fintech annual conference, during which India will issue its first tokenized bond. The issuer is the state-owned power financing company REC, with a scale of less than 5 billion rupees, roughly equivalent to 57 million USD. Both issuance and settlement will be conducted on blockchain. When Reuters released this news, India's securities market regulator and central bank were jointly promoting this pilot.
The scale of 57 million USD is so small that it wouldn't even rank in a day's meme trading volume in the crypto world. But the significance of this event is not about the money.
Participants must hold two wallets simultaneously: one is a wholesale central bank digital currency wallet, and the other is an electronic securities wallet. India's custodial institution is rushing to develop an electronic wallet called DEMT 2.0, specifically designed to record who holds how many bonds on a distributed ledger. The initial bond term is only three months, initially open to a limited number of investors, and subsequent transfers are restricted to participants holding both types of wallets. The secondary market is planned to appear only by December, and it is explicitly stated that it will not be listed on traditional electronic trading platforms.
Here's the interesting part. The same country, a few years ago, imposed a 30% capital gains tax on crypto assets and an additional 1% TDS on each transaction, which forced local exchanges' volume overseas. The central bank repeatedly publicly stated that crypto is extremely risky. Yet now, it is taking the initiative to put bonds on the ledger.
Only the technology remains; everything else is controlled. The chain is permissioned, wallets are issued by the central bank, the ledger is maintained by the custodial institution, and who can buy, transfer, and to whom is all written into the rules. This is almost nothing like the kind of on-chain activity we are used to, except that it is called a chain.
India is not the first to take this path. The European Investment Bank issued digital bonds on-chain years ago, and Hong Kong has issued digital green bonds recorded on distributed ledgers. What is special about India this time is that it directly embedded central bank digital currency into the settlement process. The money is the central bank's money, the ledger is the custodial institution's ledger, both within the system, with blockchain used in the middle.
More subtly, India has always been one of the global leaders in crypto adoption, with an enormous user base and consistently high on-chain activity. The policy suppresses this group while simultaneously adopting the technology on-chain. It suppresses the channels but learns the technology.
The RWA (Real World Assets) narrative has been told for years, saying traditional assets will eventually move on-chain. Now sovereign states are actually starting to do it, but the way it unfolds is quite different from what was initially imagined.
So I want to ask, if in the end government bonds, stocks, and bonds all go on-chain, but every wallet must be registered and every transfer must be pre-approved for eligibility, does that really count as the day we've been waiting for? Everyone said UNI was useless, yet it burned 30 million tokens in a week
Last night on X, Hayden Adams dropped a line saying that Uniswap's UNI weekly burn volume hit a record high, with an annualized rate reaching 31 million tokens, roughly equivalent to $113 million, and it's still increasing. Many might have just scrolled past and forgotten, but I stared at this number for a while and the more I looked, the more something felt off.
During the worst of the bear market in the past two years, the most common phrase in the community was that UNI was useless. Transaction fees weren't distributed to token holders, governance rights were just for show, the price kept declining, and holders either played dead or cursed. At that time, many saw the Uniswap team's efforts as a losing bet; while others chased meme coins and dog tokens, they quietly built the protocol's foundation without making a sound all year.
Now that the market is warming up, the seed planted back then is suddenly bearing fruit. The UNI burn logic is actually straightforward: it relies on the protocol's own earnings—the more active the trading, the more tokens are burned. They never stopped building during the bear market, and when the bull market arrived, these revenues directly turned into real buying pressure and deflation. Hayden himself said the team kept building through the bear market and is now seeing early results in the bull market.
What does an annualized 31 million tokens mean? At the current price, it means over $100 million worth is being pulled out of circulation annually. This is no longer just empty buyback slogans; the tokens are genuinely disappearing from the market. For a governance token once widely dismissed across the network as having no value capture ability, this contrast is striking.
Looking back further, UNI's value capture has been a hot topic in governance circles for three to four years. Many initially bought it betting that protocol fees would one day be distributed to token holders, but after several bull and bear cycles, that never happened, and disappointed holders had long sold off. Although the distribution now isn't in cash but through burning, the shrinking supply itself is quietly rewriting the supply-demand balance.
What's more subtle is that this kind of thing often happens when no one is watching. UNI isn't a meme coin trending daily, nor does any big influencer hype it; it just quietly keeps burning. By the time the market reacts, the price may have already moved significantly.
So the question is, when the protocol itself starts large-scale deflation, is UNI still that useless governance token you remember? The debate about whether it has value might just be beginning.🔥$ETH weekly gain 30% standing above 2,500, but the real test is: can spot buying support the short squeeze? 🏃♂️🧵
On August 25, ETH was priced at $2,487, up 1% in 24h, with a weekly gain over 30%, marking the strongest week since May 2025. But unlike BTC breaking 80,000, ETH has a structural issue many have overlooked 👇
🐂 Three bullets for the bulls
ETF real money inflow: weekly net inflow of $697 million, the strongest this year; $185 million single-day inflow on August 21. This is genuine "regulatory entry" buying, not leverage.
Shorts were liquidated: $1.1 billion short liquidations on August 21 alone, with the largest single liquidation at $108 million. Short positions were forcibly closed, fueling the rally.
ETH/BTC relative strength: this week ETH rose 31.1% vs BTC's 23.5%, ETH is no longer just "BTC beta," showing independent alpha.
🐻 Three reasons shorts haven't given up yet
The first phase of the rise was driven by liquidations: MEXC analysts state—once leveraged shorts are fully liquidated, forced buying disappears, and subsequent gains must be supported by organic buyers, otherwise it’s a "sharp short-covering event" rather than a sustainable trend $XAU gold fell 1.2% today. $PAXG 4,602.1, intraday low dipped to 4,598.7—just one point away from 4,600, then bounced back. I wrote about this drop in full yesterday. The intraday high was 4,688.5, exactly hitting my first sell-off zone of 4,680–4,700; the intraday low was 4,598.7, precisely touching the 4,600 risk control line. The market didn’t exceed expectations; today was a day to test discipline. First, let's break down the three layers of reasons for today's drop. Layer one: a large sell order. Today, financial media kept reporting "a large transaction"—a big order slammed down, triggering a chain of stop-losses during the Asian session. Our own data confirms this: PAXG’s trading volume today was 2.1 million USD, compared to 1.53 million USD at the same time yesterday. Volume increased on the drop; the selling pressure was real. Layer two: rebound in the US dollar and US Treasury yields. Classic textbook pressure, the drop was respectable. Layer three: crowded positions + pre-event cooling off. Last week, gold rose over 5% in a single week, hitting a three-month high, with longs fully stacked. Tomorrow (8/26) at 20:30 is the July PCE report, and on 8/28 Warsh’s debut. Large funds are reducing risk exposure ahead of major data releases, which is not surprising. Today's drop is mostly a pre-event cooldown, not a failure in the test. What I did as planned: the sell order at 4,680 was executed. No heroics here. This isn’t me predicting the drop—it’s that I set the sell position yesterday, the market reached it, and the order was filled. OnlyThe money claimed to be the safety net was quietly used to buy the dip on Bitcoin
Today, someone uncovered a set of data showing that Binance's SAFU fund, which is specifically used as a safety net, now has an unrealized profit of 221 million USD.
The timing is very interesting. Monitoring shows that this money was gradually used to buy between February 2 and 12 this year, accumulating 15,000 BTC. Based on a scale of 1 billion USD, the average cost was around 66,666 USD. Today, Bitcoin just broke above 81,000 USD, rising more than 4% in 24 hours, and the book return on this batch of chips is 21.5%.
Think about what the situation was like in those days of February. Sentiment hit rock bottom, rumors spread that MicroStrategy was going to sell coins, and social platforms were full of discussions about whether to take losses and exit. Many people at that time converted their spot holdings into stablecoins for peace of mind. Meanwhile, the fund whose name literally means safety quietly converted 1 billion USD into Bitcoin during the same period.
The original intention of SAFU is insurance. A portion of the fees is set aside so that if the platform encounters problems and user assets are damaged, it can be used for compensation. Its primary attribute should be that it is always available and does not depreciate. So in the early years, it was always held in stablecoins, and no one cared about its yield. Later, the asset structure changed, adding BTC and platform tokens, which sparked controversy: why should an insurance fund bear price volatility?
The harshest criticism at the time was actually quite piercing. When a real incident happens, it is often when the market is at its worst, and Bitcoin is also falling at the worst market moments. The day compensation is needed is exactly the day this asset suffers the most depreciation, and this awkward issue has never been clearly explained. During the February downturn this year, doubts peaked, and at that time this position was at an unrealized loss.
Now with an unrealized profit of over 200 million, the sentiment immediately changed, and comments like "great foresight" started appearing. But if you think carefully, from unrealized loss to unrealized profit, the only thing that changed is the price; that structural problem hasn’t moved a bit. When above the cost line, it’s making money; if it falls below, it’s losing money. The safety net capability still rides the roller coaster with the market.
On the same day, there were two other scenes. A whale who placed nearly 100 million USD sell orders yesterday quietly placed buy orders of 25 million USD each at 75,888, 73,555, and 72,222 within eleven seconds after midnight, patiently waiting for a 6% to 10% pullback; and a short position opened near 76,000 USD is now at an unrealized loss close to 10 million USD. These people are gambling their own money on direction and admit losses if they lose. SAFU is different; behind it stands the trust quota of all users.
So I’m quite curious how we view this matter. Should insurance funds hold volatile assets? Is making a profit considered skill? If one day it loses and there’s a problem, who should bear the consequences?Bitcoin orthodox guardian Saylor suddenly changes stance
Michael Saylor, founder of Strategy, dropped a long article today that directly struck a nerve with many veteran Bitcoin players. In the past, everyone’s impression was that he was the figure who put the entire company’s balance sheet into Bitcoin and preached that self-custody was the only true path. But in this new article, he clearly wrote that self-custody should be a right, not an obligation.
This statement sounds light but carries great weight. He explicitly criticized a rigid tendency in early Bitcoin culture that treated self-custody as the only legitimate holding method, while lumping ETFs, bonds, preferred shares, derivatives, and other Bitcoin-linked financial products into the derogatory category of "paper Bitcoin." Saylor’s current judgment is straightforward: this orthodoxy was useful in the early days but can no longer explain what Bitcoin has become today.
He repositioned Bitcoin as digital capital. This means it no longer serves as a proxy for fiat currency but has become a scarce, globally liquid, programmable capital base that does not rely on any issuer. Banks, securities, credit, insurance, and companies can all layer on top to form a tiered financial system. In his view, self-custody, multisig, institutional custody, and exchange platform products can each play their role according to users’ risk tolerance.
The most striking sentence is that he changed the slogan from "don’t trust any institution" to "perform risk assessment on different institutions." This effectively brings the early absolutist slogan back to pragmatism. What really needs to be guarded against, he says, are not all counterparties but those that are opaque, unsegregated, lack governance, and cannot control risk.
He even listed a series of principles: protocol minimalism maximizing economic efficiency, replacing founder worship with first principles, and judging security based on evidence rather than brand. Every sentence seems to challenge old Bitcoin dogma.
The community reaction split instantly. Some felt Saylor finally spoke the truth for big capital—institutions entering the market must rely on compliant custody. Other veteran players felt this was tantamount to officially labeling "paper Bitcoin," transforming Bitcoin from electronic cash into Wall Street collateral.
Coincidentally, at the moment he published the article, Bitcoin had just surpassed $81,000, and Strategy, as a proxy stock for Bitcoin, also hit a new high in popularity. When the largest holder starts incorporating institutional products into the orthodox narrative, perhaps we should ask: is the coin in your hand faith or just another layer of capital going forward? Seventy percent of cryptocurrency trading in South Korea happens on this platform about to go public
When South Koreans buy crypto, seven or eight out of ten go through Upbit. This platform, which monopolizes the South Korean crypto market, has a parent company Dunamu that recently loosened its stance—they have indeed been in contact with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), so going public in the U.S. is no longer just a rumor.
Upbit is almost synonymous with crypto trading in South Korea. It alone accounts for over 70% of South Korea's spot trading volume, peaking close to 80%. The familiar "kimchi premium" for retail investors in South Korea often originates here; the same coin priced in Korean won is usually more expensive than in U.S. dollars. A domestic platform growing this large relies not only on first-mover advantage but also on the licensing barrier for Korean won deposits and withdrawals.
Dunamu is being honest but also leaving room for maneuver. They emphasize that the decision to ring the bell in the U.S. is not yet final, and their financial statements have not been converted to U.S. GAAP. However, actions are already underway: they are advancing a share swap with Naver Financial, with valuations of 15 trillion and 5 trillion Korean won respectively, and the swap ratio is set at about 2.54 Naver Financial shares for every 1 Dunamu share. Within a year after the transaction, an IPO committee must be established.
The most interesting part is the listing location. Naver is already listed in South Korea, and if Dunamu, as a subsidiary, were to list again in South Korea, it would violate regulations against duplicate listings of parent and subsidiary companies. Therefore, the market generally believes Nasdaq is the destination, most likely via ADR (American Depositary Receipt). The Korean entity, Upbit’s business, and Korean won payment services will most likely remain intact domestically.
This was unthinkable two years ago. The South Korean crypto market has always hovered in a gray area, with regulations fluctuating between loose and tight, and platforms constantly under threat. Now the biggest player is proactively embracing the strictest U.S. regulations, aiming for compliance status, institutional funds, and a seat at the capital table. In the bigger picture, Coinbase has long been public, Bullish is pushing forward, and even Strategy, a financial exchange, has broken into the top ten in U.S. stock trading volume. Exchanges going public is becoming a new wave.
For South Korean retail investors, the main concern is one question: after going public, will Upbit become more compliant, or will it hold onto users more tightly to make its financial reports look better? Once the platform becomes a public company, every quarter’s profits, trading volume, and user numbers must be disclosed to shareholders. So, the money from the kimchi premium—does it end up benefiting retail investors, or does it first fill shareholders’ pockets?
But the contrast lies here. An exchange built on Korean won payments and local retail investors is about to don Wall Street’s attire. Can it truly wash away its past, or is it just changing to a more respectable label? When exchanges themselves are lining up to ring the bell, are the coins in our hands more secure, or are they just tied to a faster-moving vehicle? The louder the bell rings, the more ordinary people should clearly see which end of the vehicle they are standing on.A whale pocketed $850,000 in four hours and then placed a $10 million buy order
Last night, an address quietly opened $71.8 million worth of BTC and ETH long positions. Today, after calculating, the position only lasted four hours before closing out, netting a profit of $852,000. Before the money even got cold, this person placed a limit buy order for 1,000 BTC between $72,611 and $74,222, worth about $73.53 million, just waiting for the price to drop to that range to buy in. On-chain analysts uncovered this transaction, noting that this person just opened the position last night and closed it early this morning.
The whole operation feels particularly complex. On one hand, it’s a quick in-and-out, locking in profits within four hours, clearly not wanting to hold on. On the other hand, they preemptively placed a multi-million dollar buy order, ready to catch the dip. You might say they’re bearish, but they placed a buy order. You might say they’re firmly bullish, but they only held for four hours before exiting.
This kind of tactic isn’t uncommon on-chain, but it’s quite representative at this current stage. Bitcoin has been hovering around $79,000 these past two days, with institutional buy orders moving coins in above and profit-taking orders unloading below. Players at Wang Chun’s level have already sold over 33,000 ETH in this rebound, pocketing more than $50 million. Even the largest on-chain bulls took profits early this morning, selling 60,000 ETH and 1,200 BTC, pocketing over $45 million. Funds are cashing out at highs while not wanting to fully exit; this dilemma is almost written into every large order.
No one says they want to leave, but everyone is quietly pocketing profits.
Interestingly, the whale placing the buy order is using the same logic. They didn’t add more at the highs but placed buy orders below their psychological price point, essentially taking some profit first and then waiting for a more comfortable entry point. Compared to those who go all-in and hold tight, this approach is clearly more composed and better reflects the market’s true sentiment now: it’s not that they’re bearish, but they don’t want to bet on direction at this level. Frankly, who doesn’t have a pile of unrealized gains right now, and who dares to confidently say where the price will go next?
Looking back, since the rise from $77,000, there have been too many positions with unrealized gains. Once profit-taking orders cluster, the buy wall below becomes critical. A limit order for 1,000 BTC like this is itself a signal, showing real funds are waiting for a pullback. Placing buy orders below $73,000 draws a line for the market: if it doesn’t drop there, they’ll keep waiting.
The question is, is this signal a bottom-fishing outpost or a smoke screen after a bull trap to exit first? On-chain data can tell you the order was placed, but it can’t tell you if it will be withdrawn tomorrow. That address that made $850,000 in four hours then placed a $10 million buy order—whether it wants another wave or just wants to hold a seat at the table, maybe even the person themselves hasn’t decided yet.Solana wants to lock supply but the community is too lazy to vote
The Solana community has recently been pushing two proposals that sound very significant. The two governance proposals, SGP-0002 and SGP-0003, have one core goal: to tighten the supply of SOL. One aims to double the speed at which annual inflation decreases; originally, it was planned to reduce the minimum inflation rate to 1.5% by 2032, but now they want to bring that forward to 2029. The other is even more aggressive, proposing to charge fees based on the network resources consumed by transactions and then burn those fees.
Doing the math shows how impactful these two proposals are. Just accelerating the inflation decline alone would reduce the issuance by about 18.9 million SOL over the next six years, which at current prices is worth roughly $1.89 billion. As for the resource-based fee and burn mechanism, if implemented, the number of SOL burned daily would jump from about 650 currently to between 7,500 and 9,000, meaning the daily burn value would increase from $65,000 to seven or eight hundred thousand dollars.
This should be a dream come true for token holders. Less supply means less selling pressure, making the tokens in hand theoretically more scarce. But the strange thing is this: despite such a huge benefit on the table, very few people actually voted. The turnout for SGP-0002 was only 16.71%, and SGP-0003 was even worse at 13.53%. For these proposals to pass, participation needs to exceed one-third, and they are still far from that.
This round of voting coincided with SOL just climbing back above $100. When the market is heating up, everyone sees the floating profits in their accounts, and few are willing to spend ten minutes reading proposals for the long-term supply structure. When the price cools down and the same topic is raised again, opponents will probably argue that deflation harms ecosystem incentives. The community’s attitude toward inflation seems to always follow the price.
This is quite thought-provoking. Usually, the community can argue for days over a meme coin or a tweet, but when it comes to a crucial vote that decides the long-term value of their holdings, they collectively fall silent. Is it that people think it doesn’t matter whether the proposals pass or not, or that they simply don’t realize how close these proposals are to their own positions?
A more practical issue is that the one-third threshold means the core group alone can’t pass it; they need to get the usually silent whales and retail holders involved. But voting itself is troublesome and offers no immediate reward—who wants to spend time finding their wallet, reading proposals, and clicking confirm?
When the voting window closes, if these two proposals fail due to lack of votes, will those who keep shouting that SOL is about to take off turn around and blame the community for not stepping up? Or do most people never really take governance seriously—if the price goes up, it’s their skill; if not, it’s just fate.ZEC surged to 888. Grayscale's Zcash spot ETF officially listed today on NYSE Arca under the ticker ZCSH, the world's first Zcash spot ETF. Less than a week ago it was under 500, rising over 70% in a single week, with a market cap reaching 14 billion.
This ETF was formerly the Grayscale Zcash Trust, operating for nine years with a 2.5% fee, and its revenue will be reinvested into the Zcash ecosystem. DCG's subsidiary is negotiating to inject about 200,000 ZEC into the fund—putting their own coins into their own ETF, is this to support the price floor or to find an exit for themselves?
Even more impressive is the derivatives market. ZEC perpetual contract open interest doubled from 960 million on August 19 to 1.8 billion in five days. Futures 24-hour trading volume reached 5.3 billion USD. Spot prices are rising, and derivatives are aggressively increasing positions.
This time is different from the June wave. Back then, the ETF news caused a 50% drop within two days. This time, three new factors are at play: first, the community started the NU7 upgrade vote on August 25; second, the Zcash Orchard shielded pool vulnerability was fixed in June, and the Ironwood upgrade completed in July; third, the Winklevoss brothers publicly expressed bullishness, emphasizing Zcash's scarcity.
After Monero was banned by exchanges, ZEC is the only privacy coin able to follow a compliant path. But the 2.5% management fee is the highest among peers, and the SEC's stance on privacy coins remains uncertain.
After doubling in a week, the risks outweigh the opportunities. But this story is more interesting than BTC hitting 80,000—it’s a bet on whether privacy can survive within a regulatory framework.You can now bet on Anthropic's pre-IPO stock price on-chain
A news flash this morning probably went unnoticed by many. A team called Entropy announced the completion of a $14 million funding round, led by Ribbit Capital, which has invested in many fintech companies, and also secured $40 million in HYPE staking support. What will the money be used for? They directly launched an Anthropic pre-IPO market on Hyperliquid.
In other words, the AI company that created Claude and has yet to ring the bell for its IPO now has its pre-IPO valuation continuously bet on-chain by everyone 24/7. If you’re bullish, go long; if bearish, go short. Behind this is not real stock but a perpetual contract tracking expectations.
What’s interesting is who’s behind this. The core members of Entropy come from Citadel Securities, Optiver, Polymarket, and Millennium — all veterans from traditional finance and prediction markets. Their goal is to bring stocks, commodities, indices, and even pre-IPO equity all into one trading venue. Their first product happens to be Anthropic, one of the hottest and most sensitive targets.
Why Anthropic? This company’s valuation has already been hyped sky-high; ordinary shares are inaccessible to regular investors, and primary shares are locked by institutions and insiders. This on-chain gateway lets you bet on its valuation without waiting for the IPO or needing an allocation — just connect a wallet. For many, this is far more exciting than waiting for an IPO subscription.
There’s another intriguing detail. The $40 million Entropy raised isn’t cash but HYPE staking support, effectively tying themselves to the Hyperliquid ecosystem. Creating derivatives for unlisted companies on-chain requires liquidity providers and traders; code alone isn’t enough — incentives must bind all parties.
This trend isn’t just Entropy’s doing. Coinbase recently brought tokenized stocks of Apple and Nvidia onto Base, and Robinhood is building its own chain. Tokenization of physical stocks and perpetuals for pre-IPO equity follow the same path: gradually moving assets locked in exchanges onto the blockchain.
I’m still curious: for a company that hasn’t released financials or rung the bell, who actually sets its on-chain price? Are true experts pricing it, or is it purely sentiment and herd behavior driving it? When more people bet than hold shares, does that number still count? What do you think — will this market ultimately be about price discovery, or just another relay game?Bitcoin is still below 80,000, while SOL first surged back to $100
This morning when checking the market, most people’s first glance was still fixed on Bitcoin. But the one that quietly started moving first was SOL. According to HTX data, SOL this morning climbed back above $100, currently just over $100, up more than 5% in 24 hours. At the same time, Bitcoin was hovering around $79,000, just a breath away from 80,000. It’s worth mentioning that Bitcoin itself had been dormant for 101 days before barely touching the 80,000 mark recently, and now it has slipped back down. The two biggest coins: one shrinks back just after lifting its head, the other silently climbs back to triple digits.
This scene is quite thought-provoking. In the last bull run, SOL was one of the most hyped coins, with stories in every direction—ecosystem, memes, institutional holdings. Later, it fell mercilessly from triple digits, and many said it was completely done for. But in the past few months, it quietly climbed back up, and today it’s back at the $100 line.
Sentiment is indeed warming up. Glassnode provided data a couple of days ago showing that 85% of altcoin funding rates have already exceeded their respective averages, marking the most optimistic moment since Bitcoin’s last peak. Bears are less willing to short, bulls are willing to pay interest to hold long positions. People in the community are starting to talk again about whether the altcoin season is really coming. After all, in the last cycle, SOL led the rally, often signaling capital flowing out of Bitcoin into smaller coins seeking higher volatility. High-beta coins like SOL tend to run faster than Bitcoin in such times.
Looking back, SOL’s resilience this round has exceeded many expectations. After FTX collapsed, the market once sentenced it to death, thinking that with its backers gone, it couldn’t recover. But the developers working on memes, DePIN, and high-frequency trading on-chain didn’t leave; active addresses and resources have been sustained. Its ability to return to key price levels ahead of Bitcoin is closely tied to these people still pushing forward.
But we need to stay calm. There was no SOL-specific positive news today, no new spot ETF approval, nor did any giant institution suddenly announce a position. Its rise seems more like a piece of the overall market’s risk appetite warming up, following the broader market and being chosen by capital as a pioneer. Rather than chasing calls of a reversal, we should be thinking about how long this warming trend can last.
So the question is for the viewers. This SOL-led rally—is it the old story of Bitcoin taking a breather while capital seeks volatility in altcoins, or is there something quietly happening that we haven’t seen yet? If you still hold SOL, are you breathing a sigh of relief now, or are you actually more nervous?The exchange talks about compliance on one hand while aggressively listing meme coins on the other.
That exchange, which constantly touts clear regulation and institutional entry, did something last night that doesn't quite match that narrative. Coinbase Markets announced it will launch spot trading for BASECAT and DebtReliefBot (DRB) on the Base network. Both are small-cap meme coins on Base, and one of them literally translates to "Debt Relief Robot," which doesn't sound like a serious financial instrument.
The interesting part is the contrast. Recently, Coinbase CEO Armstrong has been saying in various forums that Bitcoin could reach $300,000 to $400,000 long-term, that crypto regulation is becoming clear, and that institutions are entering the market. Before those words even settled, the exchange itself turned around and put two meme coins on the spot market. Whether this is institutions entering or just the kind of stuff retail investors like that makes more money, everyone knows the truth.
BASECAT has been called out before. Two months ago, it was included in Coinbase's listing roadmap. When that news broke, related small-cap coins surged nearly threefold, while large caps barely moved, as expectations were preemptively priced in. This time, moving from the roadmap to actual tradability opens another window for market realization. Coinbase even specified that trading pairs for BASECAT and DRB will only open in the App and Advanced sections once liquidity conditions are met, and institutional clients will use Coinbase Exchange. The process is written formally, but the products on the shelf hardly seem so. Meme coin play has always been like this: the most excitement is before and right after listing, and very few survive long-term.
Our veteran players here have probably seen similar scripts. A project team pumps community sentiment, the exchange lists it, early investors sell, and later ones buy in. This time it's DebtReliefBot, literally "Debt Relief Robot," which sounds like a joke, yet it’s listed on a compliant major exchange’s spot market. There are many such projects on the Base chain, each with increasingly creative names, but when it comes to the major exchange’s spot market, no matter how flashy the story, the ones left holding the bag are retail investors.
Interestingly, Coinbase has been very active on Base lately. Tokenized stocks just launched, bringing serious assets like Apple and Nvidia on-chain, and then they list meme coins—running both lines simultaneously. On one side is Wall Street’s serious narrative about institutional entry and clear regulation; on the other is the wildest part of the community traffic that the exchange clearly doesn’t want to miss. Armstrong recently said Bitcoin could reach $300,000 to $400,000 long-term, but before those words settled, the exchange listed a Debt Relief Robot.
At the end of the day, exchanges listing meme coins isn’t new; with traffic and fees on the line, no one wants to let go. But when the exchange that talks the loudest about institutions also relies on meme coins to boost activity, you know that in this market cycle, what’s truly scarce isn’t the story—it’s the person taking the last baton.
Do you think this listing is a positive realization or a trap? To me, meme coins listed on a major exchange do improve liquidity, but after the story ends, history has given us the answer many times over about who stands on the mountaintop. The exchange is playing both sides, but the real choice lies in the hands of every person opening the App.Gold at 4,611. Today's high was 4,688, just hitting the 90-day high of 4,689, then it briefly dropped back to 4,602, touching the day's low — the resistance is not speculation, it happened on the spot. But it's important to distinguish which level the resistance is at: there's still an 18.5% gap from the yearly high of 5,651 set 208 days ago. This is the neckline of a three-month rebound, not a historical peak. In the past seven days, three 4-hour candles touched the same spot and were pushed back. More crucial are the shadows: the lower shadows of the last six daily candles account for 63%, 60%, 31% of their full length, and the upper shadows are 17%, 16% — both sides are sweeping orders, indicating a two-way shakeout rather than a one-sided distribution. Profit-taking pressure is also real, with a 13.5% rise over 30 days, an additional 6.3% in the past seven days, and a 1.1% pullback today; the floating profits are thick and could be given back at any time. The long-term leg is still intact: +36.3% over one year, price standing at the 71st percentile of the one-year distribution, and the US dollar index at 98.9 still some distance from the 52-week high of 101.8. Over the same period, BTC is ahead with +20.7% over 30 days; the safe-haven money is not just betting on one side.Everyone says digital assets will rewrite the future, but a16z says money is flowing back to the physical world
a16z recently released two charts that left many seasoned crypto investors stunned. The message of these two charts is simple: money is quietly flowing from the digital world on screens back to real-world factories, power plants, and space. Even many long-time crypto bulls couldn’t help but take a closer look.
As one of the top funds in the industry most willing to bet on crypto, a16z itself lives off "bits." But its latest charts show that the focus of U.S. ETFs has shifted from clean energy to AI, nuclear power, and space. More specifically, the frantic construction of data centers is pushing blue-collar wages upward, and the usage of AI Agents is visibly surging. In a16z’s framework, capital and labor are moving from "bits" back to "atoms," meaning tangible physical industries.
This reversal is quite striking. In recent years, we’ve been used to hearing phrases like "code is law," "assets on-chain," and "digital native is the future," with many traditional institutions even putting Bitcoin on their balance sheets. Yet the fund that understands this narrative best turns around and uses data to tell us that the real capital expenditure this round is being poured into places that demand physical capacity. It’s not saying crypto is over, but it clearly points out a fact: the more virtual something is, the less money it’s attracting this time.
What’s even more noteworthy is the pace. a16z mentions that data centers are driving up blue-collar wages, and the connection between AI and the physical world is deepening. This means the underlying fuel for this market rally may no longer be just liquidity flooding but real electricity, computing power, and capacity. The usage of AI Agents is indeed rising, but what it’s driving is demand for GPUs, steel, and engineers—not another new token.
For ordinary people, this feels more like a reminder. We stay up late watching the markets, researching new public chains and narratives, but the real big money is betting elsewhere. It’s not that you should immediately exit, but you need to think clearly about which pool your profits are actually coming from.
Most people haven’t realized that the market they’re watching and the place where liquidity is truly being absorbed might no longer be the same battlefield. When the fund most bullish on numbers says money is flowing back to the physical world, are the "bits" in our hands really leading the future, or are they quietly being left behind? Which side do you trust more? Stocks of companies that haven't gone public yet are about to be made into perpetual contracts
In the past two days, Bloomberg dropped news that Trade.xyz and Hyperliquid are lobbying US regulators to open a previously untouched door: to directly create perpetual contracts for stocks of companies that haven't officially gone public yet, and trade them in the US.
It sounds complicated, but basically, a company still in the private funding stage, without even ringing the IPO bell, can have its valuation expectations speculated on-chain as a 24/7 perpetual contract. In the past, ordinary people who wanted to bet on the fate of a private company had to either wait for it to go public or qualify for the primary market. Now these on-chain players want to tear down that wall.
The most contrasting thing is the stance on both sides. Hyperliquid has always operated outside the US and never opened to US users, yet it is now turning around to knock on the door of US regulators.
Hyperliquid is not a small player; its perpetual contract market share already accounts for one-tenth of the global market, having taken a slice of the pie from established exchanges purely through on-chain matching. Its confidence to lobby regulators comes from this proven track record.
Their justification sounds respectable—they say this tool can improve price discovery and modernize the slow and expensive traditional IPO process. Translated, it means: we can use contracts to help you price companies that haven't gone public yet.
On the other side, Trade.xyz is also a veteran in derivatives. Together, the two are not aiming for small-scale operations but want to move the entire pre-IPO pricing chain on-chain. What they are targeting is the huge sentiment and liquidity around the IPO period.
This trend didn't arise out of nowhere. Just this week, Coinbase natively launched tokenized stocks on Base, with Apple and Nvidia among the first that can be used as DeFi collateral. Stocks have for the first time transformed from dead assets in accounts into programmable liquidity on-chain. The appetite for US stocks on-chain is visibly growing—from real holdings to derivatives.
What’s more subtle is the timing. Just as the industry is desperately moving toward compliance and Coinbase is heavily investing in the midterm elections, some are no longer satisfied with just defending existing assets but are reaching for assets that have never belonged to the crypto world. Once the boundary is cracked open, what floods in afterward could be far more than imagined.
But the risks are obvious. The pre-IPO stage naturally has asymmetric information, with no public financial reports and valuations relying on founders’ hype. Once leveraged perpetual contracts are created, retail investors could be thrown out much faster than in regulated markets. Whether regulators are willing to open this door remains a question mark.
What we really need to ponder is: when stocks, IPOs, and even valuations of companies not yet born can be on-chain, can the market boundaries we are familiar with still hold? Do you think such perpetual contracts can really land in the US?[🌍Planet News]
How likely is a stock market crash in the second half of 2026 during President Trump's term?
1. The CAPE ratio (Shiller P/E) is currently around 42-44. Historically, it has only exceeded 30 six times (including now). After the previous five times, the Dow Jones, S&P 500, or Nasdaq all experienced significant declines. High valuations have rarely been tolerated for long in Wall Street history.
2. Margin Debt has risen about 67% since April 2025.
In the past 30 years, there have been three instances where margin debt surged over 65% within 12-19 months, which corresponded to the bursting of the dot-com bubble, the financial crisis, and the 2022 bear market respectively.
3. Additionally, high national debt and investors possibly overestimating the speed and returns of AI and data center construction could also trigger a major crash.🤔
#TRUMP关联地址减持，抛压会否延续？
#BTC突破80000美元，能否站稳新关口 Here's some data, no direction prediction. The current fear and greed index is 73, in the greed zone, and the daily RSI readings have all hit extreme values, but the funding rates across exchanges have only mildly turned positive, around +0.01% over 8 hours, far from an overheated extreme. This indicates market sentiment is overheated, but leverage hasn't gone crazy out of control yet. Today's market is also diverging: ETH is weakening, $SOL is turning green against the trend, with money moving back and forth between mainstream and secondary coins. This stage is the most deceptive—it looks like a new round of rally, but it could just be the afterglow following a short squeeze retreat. My approach is to let the data speak and not rush to take sides. Do you think this is the start of rotation or nearing the end? The Bank of Japan, pressured by the U.S. Treasury Secretary to raise interest rates, has no way out.
Early this morning around six o'clock, news from Tokyo was actually more important than many people thought. Former Bank of Japan official Seiji Ando publicly stated that the conditions for Japan to raise interest rates next month are already in place.
His exact words are worth pondering. He said the Bank of Japan is basically caught in a dilemma; the market has fully priced in a rate hike, and if they don't raise rates this time, the yen could weaken significantly again. In plain terms, raising rates is painful, but not raising them is even more painful—the retreat path is blocked.
What’s even more intriguing is where the pressure is coming from. U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, after implementing foreign exchange intervention, clearly stated that policy action is needed and directly expressed hope that Bank of Japan Governor Kazuo Ueda would raise rates. Seiji Ando said Yellen has repeatedly hinted that the Bank of Japan will be the next institution to take action, and given this, the Japanese government cannot tell the central bank not to do so.
The fact that the monetary policy of a sovereign country is repeatedly named by another country's Treasury Secretary already says a lot.
Moreover, this may not be a one-time move. Seiji Ando mentioned that Japan’s inflation momentum is strong, and after the expected rate hike in September, it is very likely to continue rising. He believes there will be another move in January next year, and the rate hike cycle is very likely to last for some time, possibly even exceeding the levels previously considered the end point by the market at 1.25% or 1.5%.
Why should we care about an interest rate decision far away in Tokyo? Because the yen has long been one of the cheapest funding currencies globally. For many years, funds have been borrowed at low cost in yen, then converted into dollars to buy U.S. stocks, government bonds, and various risk assets, including Bitcoin. The cost of this chain is anchored to Japan’s interest rates.
This is not just theoretical speculation. When the Bank of Japan unexpectedly tightened in August 2024, yen carry trades were forced to unwind, global risk assets plunged simultaneously, and Bitcoin did not escape at that time. What has happened does not require imagination.
And now the situation is particularly delicate. Bitcoin has just rebounded from over 70,000 to around 79,000, and Ethereum is back above 2,480, with market sentiment clearly warming. On one side, the U.S. Treasury is using trillion-dollar account funds to support expanded Treasury buybacks, which many interpret as a disguised form of easing; on the other side, Japan’s interest rates are set to rise. Two completely opposite forces are squeezed into the same time window.
The real question is how much the market has digested. Everyone says the rate hike is fully priced in, but before August 2024, the market also thought it was fully priced in. Pricing in one hike is different from pricing in an entire rate hike cycle.
If Japan really acts in September, and as Seiji Ando judges, this is just the beginning, then the cost of the world’s cheapest money will be raised layer by layer. Do you think this time the script from two years ago will repeat, or has the market really learned to react in advance?People who call GPUs toll roads didn't include a bottom-line guarantee in the announcement
On August 10th, NVIDIA released an announcement stating that it had signed memorandums of understanding with six top global asset management firms: Apollo, BlackRock, Blackstone, Brookfield, Goldman Sachs, and KKR. The goal is to leverage over $500 billion in third-party capital to build data centers, chip factories, and supporting power infrastructure.
The most important part of this announcement isn't the money, but a redefinition. Jensen Huang said that GPUs should no longer be seen as rapidly depreciating tech hardware; they should be considered investable infrastructure assets with long-term predictable cash flows, similar in nature to commercial real estate and toll roads. He added that this is the first time tech chips have become an investable asset class.
The next day, CME followed up by announcing that on October 5th, it would launch the world's first futures contract linked to GPU computing power rental prices, using Silicon Data's index. ICE immediately partnered with Ornn to follow suit, with both veteran exchanges competing simultaneously for pricing power over computing power. The OTC side moved even earlier: FalconX completed the first computing power forward swap, Polymarket handled institutional-level on-chain bulk trades, and Kalshi launched AI computing power forward curves.
Everything sounds smooth, but one number stands out. At the end of 2023, an H100 could sell for about $40,000; by mid-2026, second-hand quotes have dropped to between $12,000 and $22,000, with some auction houses only seeing $8,200. This is not gradual depreciation but a cliff-like revaluation. Traditional collateral is recognized by banks because commercial real estate and cargo ships have mature secondary markets spanning decades, so prices don't fluctuate this wildly.
More interesting is the bottom-line clause. A popular market rumor is that NVIDIA is willing to provide up to 25% residual value support for some financing, covering the difference if the chip can't be sold at maturity. But a financial analysis firm carefully reviewed the original August 10th text and found that the announcement never mentioned "residual value" or "bottom-line guarantee"; it only stated the creation of a large-scale special capital pool with six institutions. Around the same time, NVIDIA's five-year CDS jumped 14 basis points in a single day.
We are also making moves here. Shanghai's computing power trading platform has been running spot trades since 2023. On June 2nd this year, the Shanghai municipal government’s document included computing power futures for the first time. The Shanghai Futures Exchange is researching demand-side pricing anchored to AI tokens, taking a completely different approach from the U.S. model that prices based on hardware rental rates.
An unavoidable old issue is the bandwidth futures from the 2000 telecom bubble, which also packaged a technical resource as a tradable commodity. Everyone older remembers how that ended.
So the question is here. If this system really takes off, will the residual value risk of GPUs ultimately be absorbed by the asset management capital pool, or will it be passed on to the people buying the contracts? Do you think the bottom-line guarantee, which was not written into the announcement, will eventually be added?A stock that only hoards Bitcoin has become more popular than Microsoft
There was some pretty magical data early this morning. Strategy, the Bitcoin treasury company formerly known as MicroStrategy, surpassed both Microsoft and Meta in single-day trading volume, ranking tenth among all U.S. stocks. A company whose main business is basically buying and holding Bitcoin has outpaced two major tech giants in trading activity—no one would have believed this two years ago. Many people still associate it with selling enterprise software. In fact, it has long stopped relying on software to tell its story; the market now treats it as the purest proxy stock for Bitcoin. Institutions that want Bitcoin exposure but find managing wallets troublesome just buy it; retail investors who want to leverage and speculate but avoid futures contracts also buy it. Both groups rush in together, pushing up the trading volume. The key is the stash it holds. Strategy currently holds over 600,000 Bitcoins, which at current prices is an astronomical position, effectively turning the company itself into a large Bitcoin position listed on the U.S. stock market. Because of this, every twitch in Bitcoin price is amplified in this stock, attracting both bulls and bears who see opportunities here, naturally increasing turnover. Even more intriguing is its owner, Michael Saylor. In recent years, he has turned almost every public appearance into a buy signal event, issuing bonds while buying Bitcoin, tying the company's debt to Bitcoin prices in a tight knot. He is betting that U.S. retail and institutional investors will ultimately use this stock to gain Bitcoin exposure, and it seems he has won this bet. But beneath the excitement, there is an easily overlooked point. High trading volume does not mean the company’s business is good; it reflects the intensity of speculation, not profitability. When a stock’s trading volume starts to rival giants like Microsoft and Meta, which are supported by real revenue, it means the market is moving Bitcoin’s volatility directly into the traditional stock market’s trading arena. This week, as Bitcoin bounced from 77,000 back to around 80,000, Strategy’s stock price was repeatedly squeezed by capital flows. Some treat it as a long-term holding, others use it for intraday high-sell and low-buy trades. These two groups have completely different goals but meet on the same stock. How long this heat can last is actually tied to Bitcoin’s price. If the price is stable, it’s a favorite among institutions; if the price falls, it will be among the hardest hit, since its narrative is too singular. A company that made it into the top ten in U.S. trading volume by hoarding Bitcoin—could this be the most exaggerated footnote of this cycle?People who let AI spend money for them don't dare to hand over their private keys to it
On the evening of August 24th, Sui officially posted a rather inconspicuous message. They said that from now on, you can assign a wallet to an AI agent without giving it the private key.
Breaking down this statement is quite interesting. For the agent to spend money on-chain, it needs to be able to sign; to sign, it usually requires the private key. The feature Sui launched this time is called Squid Mode. The approach is to execute the strategy outside the agent, splitting each signature into several parts distributed among independent validators. No one gets the complete key, so there's no risk of losing everything if one part is compromised. Underlying this is the ika 2PC-MPC protocol, which is now running on the Sui mainnet.
In plain language, it means I let you work for me, but I don't give you the safe's key—only a temporary key that needs others to help turn it halfway every time.
Even more interestingly, something else happened the same day. Coinbase's Armstrong tweeted that their team integrated x402 into Slack. You ask the agent questions in Slack; if the full answer requires purchasing a paid service, the agent buys it itself and sends the answer back in the same message. He emphasized it only supports micropayments, not subscriptions. The reason is practical: no need to apply for budgets, no reimbursement forms, and no waiting days for approval for a few dollars.
The day before, he also said that in the U.S., AI agents can now trade derivatives.
Putting these three events together, you see a rather awkward posture. Spending money is being generously handed over, while signing authority is being guarded more and more carefully. The former sounds like a product launch tone, the latter like risk control, yet both come from the same group of people.
Why only micropayments and not subscriptions? Because the limit itself acts as a brake. Spending a few dollars per API call is a one-time risk; if it were a monthly subscription, it might go unnoticed until the third month, making the accounts unmanageable. Similarly, splitting signing rights among independent validators is not just for security's sake but also so that if something goes wrong, someone can be held accountable for approving that transaction.
The real unanswered question is here. If the agent buys the wrong service, is the questioner responsible or the company deploying the agent? If the agent signs a transfer it shouldn't, is it the model's fault or the fault of the person who granted the permissions? The current approach basically sidesteps this issue—by not giving the private key, they avoid having to answer who is responsible first.
A quick note on the market background. In the past seven days, Bitcoin has risen over 20%, with more than 170,000 short positions liquidated across the network, totaling about $3 billion. In such a market, even people placing orders themselves can be shaky. Now imagine an agent running on a server, working 24/7 without sleep, and able to spend money on its own—when would it press that button?
My own feeling is that technically, agents can already spend money; the real bottleneck is how much limit we dare to give them. Squid Mode and x402's micropayment-only approach are essentially two ways of saying the same thing: you can let it out, but keep the leash in your own hands.
So I'll ask you: if tomorrow there is an interface that lets you open an on-chain wallet for your AI assistant, would you do it? What limit would you set—ten dollars, a hundred dollars, or would you not dare to flip that switch at all? The Treasury Department's Quantum Task Force has set its sights on your crypto
The U.S. Treasury Department recently quietly established an agency called the Quantum Security Task Force, leading the push for the entire financial industry to migrate to post-quantum cryptography. On the surface, this looks like just a technical upgrade, but looking closely at its responsibilities, there is a specific focus on assessing the risks brought by digital assets and emerging technologies. In other words, the government has officially started including cryptocurrencies on the defense list for the quantum era.
Why is crypto singled out? Currently, the security of all on-chain assets relies on a set of public key cryptography at the base layer. Bitcoin addresses, wallet signatures, cross-chain bridge verifications—all are built on this mathematical assumption. But once quantum computing matures, the elliptic curve cryptography used today to protect assets can theoretically be reverse-engineered by sufficiently powerful quantum computers. When that day comes, attackers won’t need to steal your password; they can directly calculate your private key. The elliptic curve signatures protecting Bitcoin wallets are exactly the prime targets most vulnerable to quantum attacks. Mainstream institutions are already pushing for the implementation of post-quantum cryptography standards, but the crypto community is lagging behind.
Even more insidious is a tactic already happening now, known in the industry as "intercept first, decrypt later." Attackers are currently intercepting and storing your on-chain data, waiting for quantum computers to become powerful enough to decrypt it slowly. You think your assets are safe, but your cryptographic keys have long been stored on someone else’s hard drives. Any address that has ever been active on-chain has its public key exposed in the open, effectively handing over the chain’s structure. The U.S. national security community is taking this seriously and pushing for industry reforms. The Treasury Department’s decision to explicitly include digital assets in its risk assessments sends a very clear signal.
An interesting contrast is that this week the market is all focused on Bitcoin surging to $80,000, ETFs seeing billions in net inflows, and which whale is adding more positions. The price excitement overshadows a slow-moving but critical variable: quantum migration requires replacing the underlying cryptographic locks for payment systems, digital identities, and market infrastructure. The Treasury Department states that early deployment of post-quantum cryptography is a key step in maintaining financial resilience.
So where is the crypto community in all this? Honestly, the vast majority of projects and wallets still rely on traditional cryptographic systems. There has been ongoing discussion about quantum-resistant algorithms in the industry, but actual implementation is scarce. Once the official timeline accelerates, those who complete the migration first will reduce systemic risk, while lagging protocols may not even be able to protect user assets in the future.
What can ordinary people do? Our options are limited, but at least we should realize that the cryptography protecting our assets is not an eternal fortress. When even the Treasury Department is setting a timeline for quantum readiness, maybe it’s time to consider whether your private key can really withstand the computing power of the next decade. Traditional derivatives giant incorporates on-chain synthetic USD
A few days ago, if someone told you that one of the world's oldest derivatives exchanges would include an on-chain minted USD in its official benchmark index, most people might have laughed it off. But this really happened. CME Group added Ethena's governance token ENA to its cryptocurrency benchmark index this week, alongside a bunch of mainstream assets.
The synthetic USD called USDe issued by Ethena maintains its peg by opening short positions on exchanges and hedging with staked Ether longs, sustaining the peg through the spread between the two sides. Controversy within the community has never ceased. Supporters highlight USDe's scale surging to billions of dollars over the past year and its once extraordinarily high yields. Critics worry about exactly this point: its underlying logic is based on perpetual contract funding rates, which are driven by market sentiment. If the market reverses sharply and funding rates turn negative, the entire structure could instantly come under pressure, and no one dares to guarantee its stability.
Many analysts have previously compared it to the algorithmic stablecoins that collapsed in the last cycle. Although the mechanisms are not exactly the same, the flavor of high yields built on leverage is very similar. So CME's move is quite intriguing. As a regulated traditional financial giant, its index components are always carefully selected. Being incorporated by CME is like a stamp of approval in mainstream eyes. This is no isolated case; over the past year, from BlackRock entering the crypto market to stablecoins being included in corporate financial reports, traditional institutions are increasingly welcoming on-chain native assets. Ethena is just the latest example.
For the Ethena team and those holding ENA, this is obviously good news, meaning more institutional capital might passively flow in through the index, and it adds prestige. But for ordinary players, the hidden contradictions here are worth pondering: a project that has been controversial within the community for nearly two years is suddenly invited into a traditional exchange's index. Does this mean it has truly been validated, or is it just another narrative looking for someone to take the risk?
What’s more subtle is that this happens while the whole market is searching for new stories. Bitcoin is pushing toward the 80,000 mark, and capital is switching back and forth between mainstream coins and on-chain native assets. Everyone fears missing the next wave. Ethena, which carries both a decentralized banner and strong financial engineering traits, is perfectly positioned at this hot spot, making it easy for people to get excited.
Zooming out, this is not just about Ethena. More and more on-chain yield products are lining up to be recognized by traditional finance. The problem is, when these highly leveraged products are packaged into compliant shells, ordinary people see seemingly stable yields but don’t see the underlying hedging logic that could fail at any time.
I can’t tell you whether it’s worth engaging with or not, but this crack is very real. When traditional giants start treating on-chain synthetic USD as legitimate assets, should we believe this is a milestone of industry recognition, or should we be wary of another risk dressed up more and more elegantly? What do you think—this stamp, is it an endorsement or a warning? Just deposited 130 million stablecoins and then moved 1,524 bitcoins
In the past half hour, Binance's institutional custody platform Ceffu made a subtle move. It first deposited 136.5 million USDC into Binance, then immediately withdrew 1,524 bitcoins and 59,484 ETH. Roughly calculated at the market price at the time, the withdrawn bitcoins were worth about 118 million USD, and the ETH about 146 million USD, totaling over 260 million USD. Ceffu is a custody channel shared by many institutions and market makers; such a volume of inflow and outflow is beyond the reach of ordinary retail investors.
The interesting part comes next. What was deposited were stablecoins, but what was withdrawn were spot assets. In other words, this operation essentially converted the dollar stablecoins on the books into real coins. Moreover, the 130 million USD deposited was far from enough to cover the 260 million USD withdrawn, indicating that the party not only used this deposit but likely also leveraged other funds in the account to make the purchase. This means the ammunition entering the market is thicker than it appears on the surface.
When we usually watch the market, we tend to think that after such a big rise, who would dare chase higher? But on-chain data doesn't lie; the flow of money is recorded in black and white. An institutional custody address completing a conversion from stablecoins to BTC and ETH within half an hour looks more like a pre-planned position build rather than an impulsive move. It's often said in the community that stablecoins are an off-chain ammunition depot, and now the money in that depot is moving into spot assets.
Even more intriguing is the timing. Over the past two weeks, Bitcoin has rebounded more than 20% from its low, and many in the group are still debating whether to take profits, while some have quietly shifted their positions from cash back into crypto. People often say institutions are half a step slower than retail investors, but this transaction seems to show the opposite. Big money never waits for everyone to think it through before moving.
Of course, Ceffu is connected to many institutions and market makers, so a single move doesn't reveal the entire direction. But it at least reminds us of one thing: while retail investors are still debating whether the bull market has arrived, the big money on-chain is already voting with its feet. It doesn't care whether you are optimistic or not; it only cares whose hands the chips end up in. Do you think you understand the rhythm of this round?Institutions quietly sold for ninety-seven days until last Friday when they finally stopped
First, let's talk about a number that almost no one looks at. Coinbase's Bitcoin premium index has been negative continuously since May 19 this year, lasting 97 days straight, the longest on record. Last Friday, it finally turned positive, reporting 0.0032%.
What does this index measure? Many people might not have noticed. It compares the price difference of Bitcoin on Coinbase versus other exchanges at the same moment. Coinbase is the main gateway for U.S. institutions and users, and its price has long been lower than elsewhere, which translates to people in that pool continuously selling out. Being negative for 97 consecutive days means that from mid-May to mid-August, a full quarter, the selling pressure on the U.S. side never truly eased for a single day.
What really stings is the timing. These 97 days exactly cover the toughest period in June and July. Back then, the most popular narrative in various groups was that institutions were quietly entering the market, supporting the bottom from below. Many people held on through floating losses and repeated sharp dips based on this story. Now, looking at this obscure data openly, the U.S. institutional side was actually reducing positions all along during that time, but no one wanted to mention it. The story you heard and the market data gave opposite directions.
Then came last week. Bitcoin rallied from below 63,000 to an intraday high of 79,500, a weekly increase of over 26%, the strongest week since March 2023, and the first time since November 2025 it reclaimed the 200-day moving average. Ethereum rose from around 1900 to 2546 in the same period, nearly a 30% weekly gain, with the ETH to BTC rate returning to about 0.031. U.S. Bitcoin and Ethereum spot ETFs saw a combined net inflow exceeding $2.6 billion in one week, the strongest since October 2025, with about $1.918 billion for Bitcoin and $697 million for Ethereum. The Fear & Greed Index climbed from freezing point to 73. The premium index barely turned positive against this backdrop.
But don't rush to celebrate. The positive margin was only 0.0032%, basically brushing the zero line, far from institutions aggressively buying, more like sellers finally catching a breath. More worth pondering is another set of numbers at the same time. Abraxas Capital, Fasanara Capital, and Wintermute together hold over $600 million in shorts on-chain, including about 138,600 ETH worth approximately $338 million and 3,425 BTC worth about $265 million. While spot selling just stopped, professional funds on the derivatives side are still betting in the opposite direction.
There are also some on-chain details that align. F2Pool co-founder Wang Chun apparently transferred 12,765 ETH to Binance within three days to repay loans, a deleveraging move during the rebound, not an accumulation. In the same week, several large addresses moved coins to exchanges. Who is taking profits and who is catching the dip during the rebound—these flows are more straightforward than any opinion.
So the current picture is quite divided. There is a thick wall of sell orders around 79,000 to 80,000, with the price stuck below, repeatedly testing and being pushed back down. Most traders are watching the 75,000 to 73,000 range below, near the cost line of short-term holders. This week also has Nvidia earnings and U.S. PCE data, two key events, and macro factors could hit hard anytime. At times like this, position discipline is probably more important than directional judgment.
For those of us watching the market daily, we've heard too many stories about institutions quietly entering over the past 97 days. The data tells the opposite—they were quietly exiting. So this time the premium turning positive, is it because they really changed their minds, or have they just run out of bullets and are taking a breather? The company that shouted it would never sell coins spent money elsewhere this week
A detail in a disclosure on August 23 went unnoticed by many. The dollar reserves in Strategy's account increased by 1.885 billion within a week, bringing the total to 6.685 billion. In the same week, it spent 136 million to buy back its own STRC, without adding a single Bitcoin.
We all saw the market situation this week. Bitcoin stood above 80,000 again after 101 days, rising more than 26% in a single week, marking the strongest weekly performance since March 2023. The US spot ETF saw a net inflow of 2.6 billion dollars last week, the highest since October last year, and the total short liquidations across the network exceeded 3 billion. In this scenario, the company regarded by the market as the biggest buyer remained inactive.
The money wasn’t idle, just not going into coins. The 136 million was used to repurchase STRC, a preferred stock instrument it previously issued, which had been under significant pressure during the recent price drop. The remaining money stayed in the account, increasing from about 4.8 billion to 6.685 billion. In plain terms, the management’s priority this week was to protect its issued securities and bolster cash reserves, rather than taking advantage of the rebound to buy more coins.
This matter makes more sense when viewed in the context of the treasury company’s logic. The flywheel has always worked by the stock price having a premium over net assets, then issuing shares and bonds to raise funds, using the raised money to buy coins, which makes the book value look better, maintaining the premium, and then raising another round. When the premium narrows, this machine stops turning. At this point, management either has to grit their teeth and issue shares diluting existing shareholders or honestly repair their own balance sheet first. This week, they chose the latter.
Interestingly, on the other side during the same week, BitMine increased its ETH holdings by 32,447, bringing the total to 5.8476 million, about 4.8% of Ethereum’s total supply, with 87% already staked, generating an annualized staking income of about 330 million at current levels. The Ethereum treasury is still adding, while the Bitcoin treasury is hoarding cash. The same playbook, two directions.
I don’t think this is bearish. Hoarding cash and protecting one’s own securities are very normal corporate behaviors, and can even be said to show a lot of sobriety after this round of declines. But the contrast is here: on one side, there is continuous external emphasis on never selling and holding long-term; on the other, during the hottest market week, they quietly kept their ammunition in hand. Retail investors rushed to chase at 80,000, but those with 6.6 billion cash on the books were not in a hurry.
Who exactly got it wrong? If this price is really the good price in their minds, why not add a single coin this week? If it’s not a good price, then how should the coins bought at higher prices earlier be accounted for?
Do you think not buying this week was discipline or hesitation? $BTC quickly broke above $80,000, with momentum indicators entering extreme overbought territory. The market is shifting from a passive short squeeze-driven rally to cautious trading ahead of macro events.
Short-term strength and weakness indicators across the board have dulled, and the upward pressure from the previous short squeeze is gradually easing. Price is showing volume divergence in the $80,000 to $81,200 range.
Off-exchange capital is rapidly turning its attention to this week's dense macro events: Nvidia earnings, the Jackson Hole meeting, and core PCE data, which are set to reshape overall market risk appetite through inflation expectations and U.S. Treasury yields.
For the prior rally driven by fiscal liquidity and short squeezes to continue, spot ETF funds need to keep stepping in after the macro events. Otherwise, risk-off deleveraging at high levels will amplify volatility.
If core inflation cools, prompting risk appetite expansion and continued spot buying, a break above the $84,000 to $85,000 resistance zone will open the door to a higher-level upward move.
If macro events rekindle tightening expectations, triggering a pullback in tech stocks and risk assets, a price drop below $70,000 will test $68,000. A daily close back in the $65,000 to $66,000 range would indicate this breakout has failed.
In the coming days, the key variable to watch is the strength of spot fund support in the $71,000 to $73,000 range around the release of core PCE and other macro data.
#杰克逊霍尔临近，沃什能否明确政策路径 #宇树上市后连续回落，估值如何定价？Stock price increases have nothing to do with the company; price increases in the crypto space directly feed the protocol.
Everyone has always had the impression that the crypto space is purely speculative, with no fundamentals. Price fluctuations rely entirely on sentiment and capital, unrelated to whether the company is profitable. But a set of data from last week slapped that notion in the face.
Blockworks Research analyst Shaunda Devens, after reviewing on-chain data, found that the overall cryptocurrency price rose by as much as 60% in the past week. More interestingly, protocol revenue in sixteen sub-sectors saw ten sectors' revenue growth outpace the price increase itself. The most extreme case was perpetual contracts, with revenue surging 243% in one week, while the price only rose 43% during the same period.
This situation makes no sense in the stock market. If Apple's stock price doubles, the company's business remains the same, and revenue does not increase accordingly. But crypto protocols are different; the token's business is essentially financial asset speculation. The higher the price, the more people want to trade and leverage, so fees and trading volume rise accordingly, and protocol revenue goes up directly.
So there is a strange loop here. Price rises, revenue rises; revenue rises, the story becomes more compelling, and the price rises again. Analysts bluntly say this loop means tokens have no real short-term value ceiling, and mechanisms like buybacks and treasury companies only tighten the spring further.
But thinking in reverse, this loop is two-way. Liquidations never stopped last week; in just the past four hours, nearly $185 million in positions were forcibly liquidated, and over 80,000 people were liquidated within a day. The more it rises, the heavier the leverage, and the harsher the fall.
We always say the crypto space has no fundamentals, but its fundamental is precisely the price itself. Whether this makes it more fragile or sharper may have to wait for the next crash to answer.CME Incorporates Controversial Synthetic USD Token ENA into Its Index
The synthetic USD protocol that once attracted tens of billions of dollars with high yields and ranked among the top stablecoins has recently been endorsed by a traditional financial giant that no one can ignore.
CME Group has officially added Ethena's governance token ENA to its cryptocurrency benchmark index in recent days. Anyone who has traded U.S. stock futures knows CME’s background—it is one of the world’s largest derivatives exchanges, and countless institutions use its indices as pricing anchors. An exchange that primarily deals with traditional commodities and interest rate futures has now incorporated a synthetic USD token issued on-chain into its basket. This development is far more interesting than a few points of market gains. Previously, CME’s crypto benchmarks mostly included established assets like Bitcoin and Ethereum. The inclusion of ENA, a token entirely native to the blockchain and maintained through algorithms and hedging, effectively pushes the boundaries of traditional pricing mechanisms outward, blurring the lines between legacy institutions and on-chain native assets with each trade.
Why has Ethena been controversial since its inception? The skepticism has never ceased. Its USDe is not backed by actual USD deposits in banks but is maintained at a 1:1 peg through a hedged position. Simply put, it holds Ethereum spot assets while shorting perpetual contracts, feeding the yield generated from the spread to token holders. In favorable market conditions, the annualized yield can reach double digits or even higher. This strategy works smoothly during a unidirectional uptrend, but when the market experiences sharp volatility or funding rates invert, the short side starts losing money, causing the cost of maintaining the peg to soar. Last year, some traditional analysts explicitly called it a ticking time bomb. More troubling is its reflexivity: the larger the USDe supply, the heavier the short-side selling pressure. Once positive feedback reverses, both the peg and yields can collapse simultaneously.
The interesting contrast is right before us. Over the past two years, bearish voices against Ethena have never stopped, yet its scale has only grown despite the criticism. Now even CME has given it a stamp of approval, marking a plot twist. This indicates that large institutions’ attitudes toward such assets have shifted from avoidance to actively integrating them into their measurement systems. For Ethena, inclusion in the index is equivalent to receiving a seal of approval from mainstream pricing mechanisms, opening doors for more compliant products in the future.
What signals should ordinary people pay attention to? Inclusion in an index does not mean it is safe, nor does it guarantee no issues during extreme market conditions, but it is a directional indicator that on-chain native yield products are being taken seriously by traditional markets. Previously, these products were only entertaining themselves within the crypto community; now even the most conservative pricing institutions are starting to acknowledge them. This change is more noteworthy than daily price fluctuations.
Looking back over the past year, traditional exchanges have successively integrated on-chain assets into their own systems—from spot ETFs to index inclusions, the gap is widening. For those of us standing at the threshold, at least we should understand where the yields we buy actually come from, so we don’t realize who was swimming naked only after the tide goes out. Do you think this kind of synthetic USD is a financial innovation or just another seemingly stable but actually fragile equilibrium?The person who said they would blacklist her controls seven hundred million dollars
On August 23rd, someone who has been in the crypto circle for nine years posted a very long personal account.
Her name is Hsin-Ju. She officially joined Hack VC full-time as a partner and general manager last March, with an annual salary of $300,000, but left in September of the same year. She went from partner to resignation in half a year, and this time she wrote everything that happened.
Her resume is not bad. In 2017, she was the head of growth at Stellar and worked with Mt.Gox founder Jed McCaleb; in 2018, she joined the early Solana team as Head of Growth; later she founded Dystopia Labs and organized more than seventeen Ethereum developer conferences.
She said that during her full-time period, she was diagnosed with Graves' disease and hyperthyroidism, accompanied by severe insomnia, sometimes sleeping only zero to four hours a day at the worst times. But the work intensity did not decrease at all, working thirteen to fourteen hours a day, six days a week. At that time, it was the Korean Blockchain Week, and Hack Summit and a bunch of supporting events were all on her shoulders.
She mentioned resigning several times but was not approved. According to her, Hack VC co-founder Alex Pack and partner Daniel Bulaevsky made it very clear that if she left before the summit ended, they would use their industry connections to affect her future path. She also quoted that Alex Pack emphasized his long-standing private relationships with many managing partners of venture capital firms, so he had the ability to blacklist her in the industry.
After nearly a month of high pressure, she attempted suicide.
She said at that time she never thought about suing, just wanted to leave normally, provided the company would not retaliate or publicly smear her.
After leaving, things became even more troublesome. COBRA continuation health insurance had issues lasting nearly four months, with back-and-forth communication unresolved until she hired Sanford Heisler law firm to intervene and fix it. A person just recovering from a serious health crisis couldn’t even continue her health insurance, which completely ignited the conflict.
In nearly a year of legal negotiations afterward, she accused the company’s lawyers, some partners, and employees of making false statements, naming several people. She casually mentioned the common VC circle arrangements of carry and clawback, saying that when interests are tied together, some people choose to avoid the facts.
The two sides almost reached a settlement, but the plan included a confidentiality clause. She refused, fired her own lawyer, and then made the whole matter public. She said she was not seeking compensation, just wanted the truth to be known. She also understood the huge risk of one person standing up against an institution managing six to seven hundred million dollars in assets.
Hack VC’s response was very brief, saying they had noticed the relevant content and expressed concern for her health, but there were major differences between the parties, and they would not say more out of respect for privacy. The three specific issues of workplace pressure, health insurance, and industry threats were not addressed at all.
One detail is worth looking at together. RootData shows that in the past year, besides her, Hack VC lost at least three partner-level executives: Alex Botte, Roshun Patel, and Sean Brown. At the same time, this institution publicly invested in only four projects this year, the lowest since its establishment.
Now it’s still a stage of each side telling their own story. Her account currently has no hard evidence to support it, nor have other well-known industry figures publicly stood up. She said she would release evidence on August 26th or earlier.
In our industry, we talk every day about decentralization, permissionless, and anyone can participate. But when it comes to job hunting and career, just saying "I know all the managing partners" is enough to make people afraid to hand in their resignation letter. What do you think she will bring out on the 26th?Apple and Nvidia stocks can actually be tokenized and used as collateral on-chain now
A few hours ago, Coinbase quietly dropped a bombshell. They announced that tokenized U.S. stocks have natively launched on the Base chain, using a standard called B20. The first supported stocks are Apple and Nvidia, two companies that best represent American tech faith. In other words, a token in your wallet is backed 1:1 by real stocks held by a regulated custodian, no need to open a brokerage account, no settlement wait, and you can trade on-chain 24/7.
This would have been unthinkable a year ago. We were used to exchanges only having BTC, ETH, and various altcoins; to trade U.S. stocks, you had to switch back to traditional brokerage apps, deal with T+1 settlement, limited trading hours, and various account barriers. Now Coinbase has cracked that wall open with B20. More importantly, these tokens aren’t just static numbers in your account. You can use Nvidia stock on-chain as collateral to borrow funds directly on Aave, or deposit Apple stock into decentralized exchanges to earn yield. For the first time, stocks have transformed from a static holding into a fundamental liquidity unit that can move on-chain.
Projects like Aerodrome and Aave have publicly supported B20, and Coinbase has promised to add more assets in the coming weeks. You can see their ambition isn’t just to list a few more trading pairs, but to weld traditional financial assets and the crypto-native ecosystem tightly together. In the future, what you mess with in DeFi might not just be stablecoins and memes, but real, tangible U.S. stock positions.
But there’s a catch you can’t avoid. The so-called 1:1 backing means the underlying stocks are still held by a centralized custodian, Alpaca, using a bankruptcy-remote structure. In other words, it’s decentralized on the surface, but the custody rights underneath still follow traditional finance rules. If something goes wrong, you hold tokens, but the actual stock rights aren’t in your hands. This is fundamentally different from the self-custody we usually talk about.
Another detail worth noting: this door is currently only open to non-U.S. users and must be within global compliant jurisdictions. U.S. domestic users can’t access it yet. This precisely means that while tokenized stocks have started, the regulatory gate has only just cracked open a little.
So think about it: when U.S. stocks can casually be used as DeFi collateral, will those who only played with altcoins start to seriously consider putting traditional assets on-chain? Or will everyone only realize, when the underlying custody line loosens one day, that beneath this on-chain prosperity, someone else is still calling the shots.