The collaboration could set new standards for AI safety, influencing industry practices and regulatory frameworks for autonomous systems.

The post Anthropic collaborates with Nvidia to enhance agent security with new open platform appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Robinhood's crypto trading growth signals increased market engagement, yet historical comparisons highlight volatility and evolving strategies.

The post Robinhood reports 24% increase in daily crypto trading volume in September appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Coinbase's move into tokenized Pokmon cards could revolutionize the collectibles market by enhancing liquidity, security, and accessibility.

The post Coinbase teases Pokémon card packs backed by physical collectibles appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Manus 2.0's launch and valuation ambitions highlight the growing consumer AI market's potential to reshape digital interactions globally.

The post Manus 2.0 launches with new Cascade architecture as AI agent startup eyes $4B valuation appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Meta's leadership shift highlights its strategic pivot towards AI, potentially reshaping its approach to societal impacts and communications.

The post Meta elevates Tucker Bounds to head communications as David Ginsberg shifts to AI role appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Bitcoin Magazine

Belarus Approves the Country’s First Crypto Banks: Report 

The first crypto banks have opened in Belarus, according to reports, after the European country earlier this year created a legal framework for Bitcoin banks. 

While not yet named, the crypto banks will start operations after obtaining accreditation from the National Bank of Belarus, Russian news agency Interfax reported Monday. 

Back in January, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko signed Decree No. 19 “On Cryptobanks and Certain Issues of Control in the Field of Digital Tokens,” officially creating a legal framework for bitcoin and crypto banks in the country. 

“The practical outcome of today’s discussion is the launch and registration of the first crypto banks in the country’s history,” Interfax reported the press service of High-Tech Park saying in a statement.

High-Tech Park is a tax and legal regime in Belarus. Digital asset transactions are permitted in the zone. 

The statement added that banks would be regulated by Hi-Tech Park and the National Bank. 

Dmitry Kalechits, first deputy director of the High-Tech Park supervisory board secretariat, was quoted saying that the move would “improve the flow of the financial ecosystem” and drive foreign investment to Belarus. 

President Lukashenko last September backed the National Bank’s initiative to establish crypto banks in the country. 

The country has long pushed pro-crypto regulations. A 2017 decree legalised crypto mining and trading and temporarily exempted individuals’ crypto income from tax and declaration. That exemption was extended to 2025 and has since been narrowed, with income from foreign platforms now taxed at 13%.

Lukashenko has repeatedly promoted Bitcoin mining as a use for surplus electricity, and in 2025 the Mogilev region began preparing sites for mining farms with his backing.

This post Belarus Approves the Country’s First Crypto Banks: Report  first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Bitcoin Magazine

UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Blasts Nigel Farage’s ‘Bitcoin Account’ 

UK Chancellor of the Exchequer John Healey has appeared to slam Reform Party leader Nigel Farage’s use of Bitcoin. 

In a Monday speech, the finance minister said that Nigel Farage — a pro-crypto member of parliament — was “Liz Truss with a Bitcoin account.” 

Farage, who is leading the increasingly popular Reform Party, has come under fire recently for receiving donations from crypto entrepreneurs. Liz Truss was the UK’s shortest serving Prime Minister who was heavily criticised for her debt-fueled 2022 mini budget. 

“Nigel Farage — he wants you to think he’s a man of the people,” Healey said. “But when it comes to the economy, he’s Lizz Truss with a Bitcoin account.” 

Healey went on to say that his leading Labour Party would help the UK get ahead “through fiscal discipline, through good work, through strong industries.”

His comments were criticized by the Bitcoin community on X, who asked what a “Bitcoin account” even was. 

“Apparently ‘Bitcoin account’ is now a thing,” the Simply Bitcoin account wrote on X. “Incredible stuff from one of the people running Britain.”

Populist Farage has long been a pro-crypto politician. Since 2020, he has framed Bitcoin mainly as a question of personal freedom and opposition to state control of money.

Farage has also said that he was debanked by private British bank Coutts and that led him to develop more interest in digital assets. 

Just last year, he said at the Bitcoin 2025 Conference at Las Vegas that he’d slash crypto capital gains taxes and force the Bank of England to establish a Bitcoin reserve if elected as the next Prime Minister.  

Farage has come under fire this year for receiving millions of dollars in the form of crypto donations from tech entrepreneur and Tether investor Christopher Harborne, and Ben Delo, one of the founders of the now-closed BitMEX crypto exchange. 

The Metropolitan Police have opened an investigation into reports that Reform broke rules against overseas donations. Reform denies wrongdoing and says it will cooperate.

This post UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Blasts Nigel Farage’s ‘Bitcoin Account’  first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Bitcoin Magazine

Citi and Coinbase Working Together To Build Stablecoin Infrastructure for Businesses

Citigroup is working with America’s biggest crypto exchange, Coinbase, in its latest blockchain-based venture. 

The two companies said in a joint statement Monday that they were teaming up to allow Citi clients to move between regular money and stablecoins without having to build or manage both banking and crypto systems themselves.

The announcement comes as banks worldwide utilize Bitcoin’s underlying technology to speed up their processes and cater to crypto-hungry customers. 

Citi last month said it would allow institutional investors to custody both traditional assets and bitcoin within one framework, rather than needing separate systems, later this year. 

“Our clients operate in an increasingly fast-paced and complex global economy, and we’re focused on delivering the solutions they need,” said Debopama Sen, Head of Payments, Services, Citi. 

“Our goal is to build the next generation of payments infrastructure — one that is seamless, interoperable, and operates across both traditional and digital payments instruments and networks.”

There are two parts to the deal, the announcement said. Firstly, Coinbase Virtual Accounts, built on Citi’s banking-as-a-service platform, will give Coinbase’s payments customers bank-account-like features so they can accept, hold, send funds. Citi will provide the regulated banking backbone so that incoming fiat can be automatically converted to stablecoins. 

Secondly, Citi’s merchant platform, Spring by Citi, will use Coinbase’s infrastructure so that Citi’s enterprise clients can accept stablecoin payments at checkout. Coinbase will convert the stablecoins to fiat, and Citi settles the funds, so merchants never have to hold or manage crypto directly.

“Fintechs building on Coinbase have always needed a fast, compliant bridge between fiat and stablecoins, and Citi gives us that at scale,” Coinbase’s Head of Infrastructure Product, Alec Lovett, said. 

Coinbase and Citi first announced last year that they would partner to enhance digital asset payment capabilities for institutional clients.

Citi has a number of blockchain offerings, including Citi Token Services, which enables real-time cross-border payments using tokenized deposits.

The firm since last year has also been working with other top banks — including Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, and Bank of America — to explore issuing a stablecoin product.

This post Citi and Coinbase Working Together To Build Stablecoin Infrastructure for Businesses first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Bitcoin Magazine

Strategy and Strive Scoop Up More Than 2,700 Bitcoin in a Week

Bitcoin treasuries are loading up again. 

Strategy, the largest corporate holder of bitcoin, announced Monday that it had bought 1,665 coins last week for $142.7 million — its second buy in a row after a brief hiatus. 

The Nasdaq-listed company added that it had also bought back $152 million in its preferred stock, STRC. Strategy now holds 847,666 bitcoins worth $70.5 billion, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. 

Elsewhere, the fifth biggest bitcoin treasury, Strive, said it had last week snapped up 1,107 BTC for a total cost of  $94.5 million — bringing its holdings to 27,462 coins. 

The two companies have continued to stack coins despite the bitcoin treasury model taking a hit. Major treasuries like Strategy, Satsuma, Smarter Web Company, Sequans, Nakamoto, and Empery Digital have all sold bitcoin this year to repay debt, fund operations or finance buybacks, while others have folded or pivoted to AI infrastructure as their share prices collapsed. 

Strategy stock (MSTR) has lost over 50% of its value over the past year. Strive (ASST) is down by more than 30% over the same period. 

Still, both Strategy and Strive have reassured investors that it’s just business as usual and bitcoin will bounce back. 

Strive CEO Matt Cole has repeatedly said that the company is debt-free, with zero margin requirements, and zero encumbered bitcoin, calling it a balance sheet built to thrive through volatility. 

Strategy has defended having to sell bitcoin this year, with CEO Phong Le boasting that the company now has a “bullet-proof balance sheet” because of the sales, and that it was the “right trade at the time” to sell when it did.  

The software company last week announced it plans to pay investors daily dividends on four of its preferred stocks — STRF, STRC, STRK, and STRD.

Bitcoin’s price recently stood at close to $83,409, down 3% over the past week. 

This post Strategy and Strive Scoop Up More Than 2,700 Bitcoin in a Week first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Bitcoin Magazine

Dollars In, Bitcoin Out: Breez SDK Debuts New Stablecoin Feature

Despite being so-called digital dollars, stablecoins aren’t always simple to use. They run on various crypto networks that need different digital wallets — the type of thing that can put crypto newbies and seasoned bitcoiners alike off. 

But Bitcoin software provider Breez has come up with a solution: Apps built on its Breez SDK can now let users with a bitcoin balance accept stablecoin payments from over 30 networks. 

Breez’s SDK is a developer toolkit that lets apps add bitcoin payments without building the payment infrastructure themselves. It handles wallet creation, sending and receiving and Lightning Network payments. Developers can offer bitcoin features with a few lines of code instead of running nodes or managing liquidity.

Breez said Monday that with the new feature, the receiver picks the sender’s network and an amount. The SDK generates a deposit address and shows what will arrive, and the sender pays from their usual wallet as normal. 

Flashnet converts the payment in the background, and the funds land in the receiver’s non-custodial wallet as bitcoin, or as dollars if they use the stable balance feature. 

Breez released its send USDT/USDC feature in June, allowing a single Breez-powered balance to now move stablecoins in both directions across nearly any network. 

It’s the latest in a series of usability upgrades, after Passkey Login, instant Cash App onboarding, and Stable Balance.

Breez has been layering on features to make bitcoin apps feel more like regular fintech apps: passkey login instead of seed phrases, instant onboarding, dollar-denominated balances, and now cross-chain stablecoin payments. Breez’s Glow, which debuted in August, is its reference app for showing what the SDK can do.

Breez in July announced it was working with Turnkey in a deal letting developers add non-custodial Bitcoin to apps running wallets from their own servers — solving a custody problem that has kept many of the largest consumer platforms from integrating Bitcoin at all.

This post Dollars In, Bitcoin Out: Breez SDK Debuts New Stablecoin Feature first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

When stETH holders seek ETH through Lido’s withdrawal queue, the protocol can use ETH in its buffer to finalize their requests. Some of that buffer is also protected for new validator deposits. The more ETH set aside for deposits when both uses compete, the less is immediately available to the withdrawal queue.

Lido’s Curated Module Committee gained the power to change that priority on Sept. 25. As of Sept. 27, the configured deposit reserve remained at 1,500 ETH, and the committee had yet to open a motion to adjust it. Its first published plan would remove the protected slice temporarily, then consider restoring it for a new staking module. The timing effect for stETH holders depends on how much ETH enters the buffer, how many withdrawals await finalization and whether validators are ready to accept deposits.

Where the buffer goes

Lido’s contract documentation describes three portions of buffered ETH, allocated in order. A deposits reserve comes first, followed by a reserve for unfinalized stETH requests. ETH left over after both allocations is unreserved and can also fund validator deposits. This order keeps some validator-deposit capacity available when withdrawal demand would otherwise absorb the buffer.

The 1,500 ETH target governs the protected portion. The effective reserve can be smaller if the buffer holds less ETH; it is spent as deposits are made and restored toward the target with an accounting oracle report. A reduction below the reserve already in place takes effect immediately. An increase waits for the next report before more ETH receives deposit priority.

The setting matters most when both withdrawal requests and executable validator deposits seek a limited pool of ETH. Setting the target to zero would let the withdrawal reserve claim ETH that had been protected for deposits. Actual finalization still depends on available ETH and the queue, while validator deposits can continue from any unreserved buffer. With enough ETH to cover both uses, the target makes little difference to pending withdrawals.

The committee said in a Sept. 2 statement that the original 1,500 ETH target helped seed Curated Module v2 during a migration from its earlier curated module. It now says the keys needed for that migration have been seeded and the existing Community Staking Module has few depositable keys before its planned 0x02 version launches. In the committee’s view, today’s protected reserve mainly directs stake toward the older curated module. It proposes setting the target to zero until 0x02 CSM is live.

The second step would serve different operators. Lido describes 0x02 CSM as a permissionless module approved by the DAO, with a mainnet launch still pending. The committee says it could restore a 1,500 to 2,000 ETH target after launch if node operators provide demand for new validators. That reserve would keep ETH available for deposits into the new module even during withdrawal pressure. The precise setting remains undecided, and a larger target alone cannot create depositable validator keys.

The committee has pointed to an expected October launch, while Lido’s documentation describes a broader fourth-quarter target. The return of deposit priority therefore depends on a launch and on actual operator capacity. For stETH holders in the protocol queue, the tradeoff would become more acute if withdrawals remained heavy as those new keys became available.

What Lido’s stress model shows

The analysis used to size the initial reserve simulated how this choice could affect withdrawals. It took 360 days of historical staking inflows and withdrawal requests, then ran 500 simulations that each resampled 100 days. Its high-stress case assumes a roughly 30-day Ethereum validator exit queue plus about five days for skimming and oracle processing. The output measures ETH-weighted average time from a stETH withdrawal request to Lido finalization in those scenarios. Actual exit times may differ.

The 10,000 ETH row is a model scenario above the committee factory’s 9,600 ETH limit; the study has no 9,600 ETH row.

In the model, protecting 1,500 ETH for deposits changes normal-case average finalization from 2.3 to 2.6 days compared with zero. Under high stress, the corresponding averages are 6.3 and 7.9 days. A 2,000 ETH target extends the modeled stressed mean to 8.5 days. Those comparisons show the modeled cost of guaranteed deposit capacity when the buffer is contested. Today’s queue and each holder’s wait depend on live conditions.

The distinction between protocol finalization and other exits also matters. A stETH holder can seek ETH by selling the token on a secondary market, where available liquidity and price govern the exchange. Lido’s withdrawal queue has its own finalization process; an Ethereum validator’s exit from the network is a separate step that can influence how quickly funds reach that process.

The governance proposal gives the committee’s 5-of-9 multisig authority to initiate Easy Track motions for this single target, up to 9,600 ETH. The DAO can object to a motion, set the target directly, revoke the permission or remove the factory. The ceiling limits the committee’s setting through this route, while a single motion can still span the permitted range.

On-chain target-setting events still showed 1,500 ETH on Sept. 27, and the reserve factory’s motion records showed no creation since the Sept. 25 activation. The operational question is which condition will prompt the committee to use its new authority: the limited deposit capacity it cites today, or future operator demand for 0x02 CSM. The withdrawal consequence will be determined by whether those deposits and a heavy stETH queue compete for the same buffered ETH.

The post Lido’s 1,500 ETH reserve target could slow stETH withdrawals in a crunch appeared first on CryptoSlate.

At about 04:20 UTC Monday, Bitget's public feed showed BTC and ETH futures trades taking place after the exchange's Sept. 24 security breach. On Sept. 28, Bitget said it had opened BTC withdrawals on the Bitcoin network, the first stage of its phased plan. The notice says the service is open; it does not document a completed customer withdrawal. Trading activity and the ability to send assets off the exchange face separate tests.

Bitget said its security systems detected unauthorized transfers from some hot wallets at 18:31 UTC on Sept. 24. It suspended withdrawals while keeping trading and deposits open. The exchange initially estimated affected assets at about $351.6 million. A Sept. 25 update raised the estimate to approximately $387.5 million after it identified more transactions from the original incident; Bitget said the revision did not reflect additional unauthorized transfers.

Bitget says customer balances remain unaffected and its Protection Fund will cover the incident's financial impact. Those assurances come from the exchange. The practical question for customers is whether they can successfully transfer assets or trading proceeds out of their accounts.

The company's phased reopening plan sets 08:00 UTC for each of these dates:

The first scheduled restart was still ahead when the public trading snapshot was taken at 04:20 UTC. Bitget has since said BTC withdrawals on Bitcoin are open. Its service notice does not establish whether individual transfers have completed. A customer with ETH on a network scheduled for Sept. 29, for example, would face a different timetable from a customer withdrawing BTC on Bitcoin.

Bitcoin withdrawals and futures trading are separate tests

Bitget's public trade feed returned 100 BTCUSDT futures fills between 04:20:25 and 04:20:49 UTC on Sept. 28. It returned 100 ETHUSDT fills between 04:20:34 and 04:20:52 UTC. Those records show that the two USDT-margined contracts matched trades during those seconds. The records cover those two contracts and those seconds; other markets and customer-specific execution prices remain outside their scope.

A separate snapshot around 04:21 UTC showed $22.14 million of displayed BTC futures buy and sell orders and $10.29 million of ETH orders within 0.05% of each contract's midpoint. That band counts orders priced no more than 0.05% away from the middle of the best buy and sell quotes. The BTC quoted spread was about 0.012 basis points and the ETH spread about 0.038 basis points.

A hypothetical $500,000 sell against the displayed buy orders would have averaged 0.0095% below the BTC midpoint and 0.0183% below the ETH midpoint, before fees. The calculation models a static book; no customer order produced those prices. Orders can be canceled, replenished or changed while a trade is placed. The snapshot captures one moment during the withdrawal suspension.

A TokenInsight study provides the historical comparison. Sampling nine venues every 30 minutes from Aug. 16 through Sept. 14, it put Bitget first for combined BTC and ETH futures depth within the wider 0.05% band, at a $41.60 million median. At the tighter 0.03% band, Bitget ranked third at $15.25 million, behind MEXC and Hyperliquid. The study ended before the breach. Their different windows and methods preclude a measured before-and-after change or a current peer ranking.

A futures book measures displayed interest in a derivative. Withdrawal access requires separate evidence about conversion and transfers across the intended network. The public fills establish trading in two contracts at a particular time; Bitget's timetable and its BTC reopening notice describe the phased return of off-platform transfers. The next observable test is whether Bitcoin withdrawals complete in practice, followed by each asset and network in the plan.

The post Bitget says Bitcoin withdrawals are open after $387M hack, but ETH and USDT must wait appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Brazil will require regulated financial institutions to report large crypto transfers involving self-custody wallets from Oct. 1.

Under Resolution BCB 588, institutions authorized by the Banco Central do Brasil must notify the Financial Activities Control Council (Coaf) whenever they send virtual assets worth at least $10,000 to a self-custody wallet or receive the same amount from one.

The requirement covers both deposits from and withdrawals to wallets controlled directly by users. The filing obligation falls on the institution processing the transfer, with qualifying transactions reported to Coaf by the next business day under Brazil’s existing anti-money-laundering framework.

The threshold operates automatically. Institutions do not need to determine that a transaction is suspicious before filing a report, meaning legitimate transfers between an exchange and a customer's personal wallet can enter Coaf's reporting system solely because they meet the amount and transaction-type criteria.

Brazil already requires financial institutions to separately report transactions they assess as suspicious.

The new provision adds another layer by giving authorities visibility into large movements crossing the boundary between regulated platforms and self-custody, even where no suspicious activity has been identified.

The October measure also precedes tighter controls on some outbound crypto transfers.

Resolution BCB 584, scheduled to take effect Jan. 1, 2027, establishes a precautionary holding procedure for certain virtual-asset transfers leaving regulated institutions. Those transactions may be delayed while additional checks are conducted, although the framework allows earlier release where specified conditions are met.

Together, the measures increase scrutiny at the point where crypto enters or leaves Brazil's regulated financial system.

Exchanges, banks and other covered providers will need to identify self-custody counterparties, calculate transaction values and integrate automatic Coaf reporting into their monitoring systems before the October deadline. By January, some will also need processes that can hold outbound transfers for further review.

Rules land as Brazil's crypto market expands

The tougher oversight is being introduced in one of the world's largest crypto markets.

Brazil accounted for $252.5 billion of crypto activity during the period measured by Chainalysis, giving it the largest market in Latin America and helping it rank first in the firm's 2026 global crypto adoption index.

That ranking reflects broad participation rather than dominance in every category. Brazil placed third in flows through crypto services, fourth in on-chain balances, third in domestic peer-to-peer activity, and second in cross-border flows. The US ranked second overall.

The scale of those flows makes the self-custody threshold commercially significant. High-value users, trading firms, and businesses that regularly move assets between regulated platforms and private wallets are more likely to trigger automatic regulatory filings, while exchanges will bear the operational cost of identifying and reporting them.

Brazil's measured crypto economy nevertheless contracted 1.6% during the latest period, showing that the regulatory expansion is arriving even as near-term activity has cooled.

The post Brazil’s $252 billion crypto market gets $10,000 self-custody reporting rule appeared first on CryptoSlate.

More USDT was issued without a sustained rise in balances held by smart-contract accounts on Ethereum, according to a Bank for International Settlements working paper published Sept. 15, 2026. On Tron, those accounts held about 1% of USDT through most of the study's historical series. Together, the findings challenge the assumption that a larger stablecoin supply automatically means more capital has entered decentralized finance.

The BIS paper tracks where tokens sit, not why every holder owns them. Its holder-balance chart stops before 2026 on its date axis, so its percentages cannot be read as September 2026 measurements. That timing matters as current dashboards continue to show large USDT balances on both networks.

On Ethereum, smart-contract accounts held more than 20% of the network's USDT during part of 2021 and 2022. Their share hovered around 15% to 20% until late 2024, then moved down to roughly 10% to 15% as issuance expanded. The drop is a change in the proportion of tokens in contracts, not a finding that the absolute balance kept falling. The BIS authors say the issuance growth did not bring a sustained increase in contract holdings.

A lower share can result when newly issued tokens accumulate outside contracts even if the amount in contracts stays near its earlier level. The study's Ethereum series reflects that distinction: it shows far more USDT in non-contract accounts as issuance grew, without a comparable sustained increase in smart-contract holdings. The percentage change alone is therefore a poor way to infer a withdrawal of dollars from DeFi.

Figure 10 of the study places Ethereum contract-held USDT at roughly $10 billion to $15 billion toward the end of its plotted period, and Tron's at around $1 billion or less. These are approximate chart values. Ethereum's dollar balance fluctuated in the low tens of billions while the share shrank; on Tron, contract balances remained a small slice of a much larger supply. The two percentages have different chain-specific denominators and cannot be treated as a single measure of DeFi adoption.

What a token balance can reveal

The researchers reconstructed USDT holdings from Ethereum and Tron transfer event logs. They identified smart-contract accounts from contract deployments, classified other addresses as externally owned accounts, and cross-checked token supply against mint, burn and blacklist-destruction events. Following the token itself gives a different view from adding up deposits reported by DeFi protocols, where the same tokens may be counted more than once.

Protocol-level total value locked measures assets assigned to particular DeFi applications. The BIS reconstruction instead follows one token across addresses on two networks, including holdings outside those applications. It is better suited to asking how USDT is divided between account types, while protocol TVL can describe the scale of selected venues. Neither turns a balance into a verified description of the holder's purpose.

That distinction improves the measurement, but an account type is still an imperfect guide to economic use. A smart contract may hold USDT for a bridge, wrapper or custodian rather than a DeFi lending or trading strategy. An externally owned address may be used for payments, savings, remittances or exchange custody. Tron's roughly 1% contract-held share therefore does not show that the remaining tokens were spent as payments. Nor does Ethereum's falling share prove that DeFi use contracted.

The current scale is substantial. When checked on Sept. 28, DefiLlama showed about $183.7 billion in USDT market cap across chains, including about $73.3 billion on Ethereum and about $92.5 billion on Tron. Those figures are a later, third-party supply snapshot, not an update of the BIS holder breakdown. They cannot show whether today's tokens are in DeFi contracts, exchange wallets or other accounts.

A current claim about DeFi deployment would require a current breakdown of balances in identified DeFi contracts on each chain, with bridges and custody separated where possible. The historical BIS percentages cannot supply that update. Rising USDT totals, by themselves, establish neither more DeFi deployment nor more payments, and they say nothing about demand for ETH or TRX.

The post USDT grew on Ethereum through 2024, but smart contract holdings stalled, BIS data show appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Crypto exchange operators and digital depositories in Russia will be able to apply for entry into official registers from October 5, when new Bank of Russia admission rules take effect. The move gives firms a route into the regulated crypto market envisioned by a law that took effect in September. Each applicant still needs a separate regulator decision.

In a September 24 notice, the Bank of Russia said the rules also cover operators of information systems used to issue digital financial rights. Its Russian regulation sets qualifications for managers and certain officers, lists documents applicants must submit and governs decisions on register entries. A firm seeking admission must document that it meets those requirements before the bank considers its entry. The published rule tells applicants what to provide and how the bank will make its decision. It does not grant a particular applicant the status it is seeking.

How firms enter the market

The bank's exchange-operator guidance says its electronic application form becomes available on October 5. Under the ordinary route, the regulator has 30 working days to decide after receiving the last required document. For a digital depository, that decision window is 60 working days. These are periods for a decision, not promised approvals or dates for customer trading. The clocks begin with a complete set of required documents, rather than with the October 5 effective date itself. Exchange operators and depositories also face different ordinary review windows, so the single start date for the rules cannot be read as a common timetable for admitting firms.

Some existing banks, brokers and participants in an experimental regime can use a faster notification route, with eligibility depending on the role sought. The regulator says qualifying firms must submit documents before September 1, 2027. That route also requires a decision on a register entry.

Russia's crypto law took effect on September 1 and envisages buying and selling through regulated intermediaries. It requires testing for both qualified and non-qualified investors and sets a 300,000-ruble annual purchase limit per intermediary for the latter group. Those terms describe the intended market; the October rules address how firms can enter it.

The assets that non-qualified investors may buy are being handled separately. In August, the central bank named Bitcoin, Ethereum and Tether's USDT for public exchange trading in a draft directive open for comment. The October admission procedure does not finalize that proposed list.

For investors, the next markers are the Bank of Russia's decisions on individual firms and the status of the separate asset rules. An effective admission procedure alone does not establish that regulated retail trading is available.

The post Russia lets crypto exchanges apply October 5 – but even Bitcoin lacks final retail clearance appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Polygon was for years the answer to every fee question: anyone who found Ethereum too expensive moved to Polygon. Today it looks as if nobody is left there. Our own measurement on September 28, 2026 gives a more precise picture, and it is less comfortable than the impression. The chain holds $765 million, and over 30 days it produced $37.05 million in fees, of which $30.98 million came from a single protocol. That is 83.6 percent. And that very protocol, the prediction market Polymarket, has announced that it is leaving Polygon.

This overview works through the ecosystem in order: what the chain is today, who actually uses it, where POL stands against its all-time high, how you get there in practice, where trading happens, and which risks an investor in Germany should know beforehand. cryptoticker.io collected all figures itself on September 28, 2026 from DefiLlama and CoinGecko data.

Polygon at a Glance: Chain ID 137 and POL as Gas and Staking Token

Polygon is an independent network with chain ID 137 that presents itself as a fast and cheap complement to Ethereum. Technically it is EVM-compatible: the same smart contracts, meaning self-executing programs on the blockchain, run unchanged on both networks, and tokens follow the ERC-20 standard.

Since the switch, the network token is called POL and has replaced MATIC. POL does two jobs at the same time: it pays transaction fees, and it is the deposit in staking, meaning locking up tokens to secure the network in return for a reward. If you still hold old MATIC balances in a wallet, check whether the switch has gone through. On exchanges it usually ran automatically; in self-custodied wallets it did not always.

The project has also repositioned itself strategically. What was once a playground for applications of every kind has turned into a claim to be infrastructure for payments and stablecoins. That direction explains the changes to the network described further down.

Who Still Uses Polygon in 2026: $765 Million TVL and $37 Million in Monthly Fees

Total value locked, or TVL, is the sum of the values held in a network's contracts. For Polygon, DefiLlama reported exactly $765,279,235 on September 28, 2026. For comparison, on the same day: Arbitrum $1.43 billion, the Robinhood Chain that launched only in July $1.02 billion, and Base $6.19 billion. A chain that ranked among the industry's largest in 2021 now sits behind a network three months old.

Trading looks similar. Polygon's decentralised exchanges handled $6.73 billion over 30 days, $1.35 billion over seven days and $207 million in 24 hours. Fees across all protocols together came to $37.05 million over 30 days, $7.10 million over seven days and $929,000 in 24 hours.

The impression of an abandoned network is therefore wrong, but only by half. Trading continues, and it runs into the billions. The question is who is doing it.

One Protocol Carries 83.6 Percent of Polygon Fees, and It Wants Out

Of the $37.05 million in fees over the past 30 days, $30.98 million traces back to Polymarket, the largest prediction market in the industry. A prediction market is a venue where shares in the occurrence of future events are bought and sold. Measured by trading volume the share is smaller, though still large: $2.20 billion of $6.73 billion over 30 days, or 32.7 percent.

Polymarket has publicly announced a move to its own chain. Josh Stevens, responsible there for engineering in the DeFi area, wrote on April 25 that Polymarket's development had clearly outgrown its own infrastructure. The reason given for the move is competition for blockspace: when many applications compete for room in the blocks at the same time, fees fluctuate and confirmations are delayed, and a high-frequency venue copes badly with both. Its own chain gives full control over block time and fees.

Figures on the scale of the dependency differ, and the range itself is the news. Reporting on the move put Polymarket's share of Polygon fees at 56.3 percent. My own measurement on September 28 produces 83.6 percent. The dependency therefore grew while the move was being prepared. For Polygon that means the departure takes away the main source of revenue rather than one important customer among many. We described how Polymarket is positioned in regulatory terms in Europe in Polymarket and its EU authorisation.

No date for the move has been set publicly, and the target chain was not finally settled as of the most recent word on it. If you hold POL, follow that date, because it is the single most important factor bearing on the network's revenue.

Courtyard, Quickswap, Aave: What Is Left Without Polymarket

The second tier deserves a close look, because it shows what the chain carries under its own power. In the 30 days to September 28 the network itself collected $2.21 million in fees. Behind it comes Courtyard with $2.17 million, a service that stores physical collectible cards in a vault and makes them tradable as tokens. Then follow Quickswap with $908,000, Uniswap version 4 with $680,000 and version 3 with $496,000, the prediction feature in MetaMask with $426,000 and the lending protocol Aave version 3 with $265,000.

Take Polymarket out of the count and around $6.07 million in monthly fees is left across all remaining protocols. This is not a dead chain, but it is a small one. The composition is worth noting: the strongest remaining single item is the tokenisation of real collectibles, ahead of every trading and lending protocol. Anyone testing the payments-chain story finds the first piece of evidence here that Polygon really is used away from pure crypto trading.

POL Against Its All-Time High: 90.8 Percent Below the March 2024 Peak

The plain figures, measured on September 28, 2026 at CoinGecko: POL trades at $0.1191, which converts to €0.1048. Market capitalisation stands at $1.265 billion, with roughly 10.62 billion tokens in circulation. The all-time high is $1.29 and dates from March 13, 2024. That leaves the token 90.8 percent below its peak.

The short view is friendlier than the long one. Over 30 days the price gained 13.6 percent; over twelve months it shows a loss of 46.3 percent. Both are observations and neither is a forecast. We do not issue a price target, and anyone who reads one should look at who set it and what it rests on.

The supply side matters for the classification. Circulating and total supply are practically identical for POL, so no large release of locked tokens is still pending that could weigh on the price on top of everything else. What does exist is a continuing issuance of new tokens that pays for staking rewards and an ecosystem fund. Holding POL without staking it means carrying that dilution without taking a share in it. The usual ways to change that are set out in our comparison of staking providers.

Payments and Stablecoins: $2.99 Billion Sits on the Chain

A stablecoin is a token tied to a currency whose value it is meant to track. On Polygon, DefiLlama measured $2.99 billion in such tokens on September 28, 2026. That is more than the chain's entire TVL and the real reason the project sees its future in payments: whoever sends a transfer has no use for credit or yield; what they need is a fee in the cents range and a confirmation that arrives reliably.

On its own site the project puts this focus front and centre and describes the network as groundwork for moving money rather than a field for speculation, see the official Polygon site. Part of it is the Agglayer, a layer intended to pool liquidity across several EVM networks so that a balance does not fragment across dozens of chains.

For you as a user in Germany the practical point lies elsewhere: a stablecoin on Polygon is no bank deposit. There is no deposit insurance, and the peg to the reference value depends on the issuer's backing. If you genuinely want to use crypto for paying, a card is the more common route; the differences are set out in the comparison of crypto credit cards.

The Ithaca Hard Fork of July 29, 2026: Failover for Payments

A hard fork is a change to the network rules that every participant has to adopt. On July 29, 2026 the fork named Ithaca went live on Polygon's mainnet, according to the accompanying reporting the fourth update within five months.

Its content fits the payments strategy exactly. Ithaca brings automatic failover that keeps operations running when a block producer drops out, additional checks that filter out particularly demanding transactions, and better monitoring tools for node operators. None of that excites investors. These are the properties a payment provider demands before it sends real money across a network.

For holders one thing matters above all: exchanges suspend deposits and withdrawals for a few hours around such changes. Anyone who wants to withdraw at that moment has to wait. Ahead of an announced date, look up whether your provider has flagged a pause.

Adding the Network, Bridging, Polygonscan: The Practical Route onto the Chain

There are two routes onto Polygon, and the more convenient one is rarely the one guides name first.

The simple route runs through an exchange: buy POL or a stablecoin and withdraw it directly to the Polygon network. Look closely when selecting the network, because the same currency often exists on several chains, and a withdrawal to the wrong network is lost in the worst case. Always send a small test amount first.

The second route is a bridge, a service that locks an amount on the source network and credits it on the target network. It costs fees on both sides and pays off above all when your balance already sits in a self-custodied wallet. You enter the chain with chain ID 137; most widely used wallets now know Polygon on their own, so there is nothing to type in by hand. Never enter a network access point that somebody sent you in a message.

You can look up every movement in the Polygonscan block explorer. An explorer is the network's public ledger search, in which every transaction, every address and every contract can be viewed. For everyday use two functions matter most there: the overview of the approvals you have granted, and the option to trace a stuck transaction.

Where Trading Happens on Polygon: Uniswap Version 4 and Quickswap

Measured by trading volume over the past 30 days Polymarket leads with $2.20 billion, followed by Uniswap version 4 with $1.79 billion, Uniswap version 3 with $727 million, Ramses with $579 million, Metric with $510 million and Quickswap with $302 million.

Quickswap deserves a mention because it is one of the few large venues that grew up on Polygon alone and still runs today. On fees it even sits ahead of both Uniswap versions. If you swap on the chain, compare two things beforehand: the venue's fee and the depth of the market in the pair concerned. In thin pairs the spread costs more than any fee.

NFTs on Polygon: Collectible Cards in a Vault Instead of Profile Pictures

In 2021 and 2022 Polygon was the standard choice for cheap NFT projects, because minting there cost cents instead of dozens of dollars. Little of that wave is left. What has taken its place is more interesting: the chain's second strongest fee earner after Polymarket, at $2.17 million over 30 days, is a service for physical collectible cards that makes the stored cards tradable as tokens and provides for redemption against the real card.

This is a different kind of NFT from a profile picture: behind it sits an object in a vault. For valuation that means two risks come together, namely that of the collectors' market and that of the custodian who holds the object and has to hand it over in a dispute.

Risks: Dependence on One Protocol, Stale Approvals, Thin Pairs

Four points belong on the list before money goes onto this chain.

Concentration risk. A chain that draws 83.6 percent of its fees from a single application depends on that application. This risk is currently the largest at Polygon, and it has already been announced.

Stale approvals. Anyone active on Polygon since 2021 has in all likelihood granted approvals there to contracts that have long stopped being maintained. An approval stays valid until you revoke it, and a contract taken over later can use it. Work through the list in Polygonscan once; it is the most effective half hour a long-standing user of this chain can invest.

Thin liquidity in old tokens. Many projects from Polygon's heyday are barely traded any more. A quoted price does not mean there is a buyer at that price.

Custody. Leaving POL on an exchange means trusting the provider. For longer-term holdings a wallet whose keys you hold yourself is the obvious choice, with the recovery phrase secured away from your home.

Crypto Tax in Germany: POL Staking Is Not a Tax-Free Side Effect

Three points are relevant for investors in Germany, and the second is regularly overlooked.

First, the sale. Under Section 23 of the German Income Tax Act (EStG) selling or swapping POL is a private disposal. After a holding period of one year the gain stays tax-free; below that an exemption limit of €1,000 per calendar year applies to all such transactions together, and once it is exceeded the entire gain becomes taxable. Swapping POL into a stablecoin already counts as a sale here.

Second, the staking rewards. They have to be recorded as other income, valued at the time they arrive, and a separate and much lower exemption limit of €256 a year applies to them. The amount received is at the same time the acquisition value for a later disposal, from which the one-year period starts again. Receiving rewards monthly therefore builds up twelve individual items over the year.

Third, the switch from MATIC to POL. Whether such an exchange counts as a disposal for tax purposes or as a mere renaming depends on the specific technical arrangement and is a question for a tax adviser, not for a line in an article. Keep the record of the date and the price of the switch to hand, and you can support either reading.

Polygon: What to Take Away

Polygon is still in use, and heavily dependent on one application. The network earns real money, but the largest part of it comes from an application that wants to leave. Alongside that, a smaller and self-standing ecosystem has grown up in which payments, stablecoins and tokenised collectibles set the tone, while the token trades 90.8 percent below its high of March 2024.

1. Put Polymarket's migration date on your watch list. It is the single most important factor bearing on the chain's revenue. Until then: size the position so that a drop in network revenue stays bearable, and pick venues by fees, for instance with the exchange comparison.
2. Decide deliberately between holding and staking. Holding POL alone means bearing the continuing issuance of new tokens without sharing in it. The terms and lock-up periods of the providers are set out in the staking comparison.
3. Clear out stale approvals and keep a record of staking income. Both cost time once and far less money later. For recording the inflows as they arrive, a tool from the tax tool comparison helps.

(As of September 28, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)

Shiba Inu stands at $0.0000056 on Monday, September 28, 2026, equivalent to €0.00000493. That is 5.31 percent below the level of 24 hours earlier, 0.23 percent below seven days ago and 11.81 percent above 30 days ago. All values according to CoinGecko on Monday afternoon, September 28, 2026. The short answer to the question in the headline is this: the price currently hangs less on the meme and more on an infrastructure that is not running properly again. Anyone drawing up a Shiba Inu price prediction without looking at activity on Shibarium is working with half a data set.

Shiba Inu Today: Where SHIB Actually Stands on September 28, 2026

Market capitalisation is $3.295 billion, ranking 37th in the overall market. 589.24 trillion SHIB are in circulation. The high of October 27, 2021 was $0.00008616. The price today is 93.5 percent away from that level, and that is the figure against which every expectation for the coming months has to be measured.

More important than the distance to the record is the range of recent weeks. SHIB climbed briefly above $0.000006 after the news of the Shibarium fix and reached a multi-week high of $0.000006254. The coin has not held that level. It currently trades around ten percent below it again.

A word on notation, because with SHIB it is the most common source of error. Many exchanges and apps show the price to eight decimal places, others in units of one million tokens. Confuse 0.0000056 with 0.000056 and you are out by a factor of ten. When comparing two providers it is therefore worth checking which unit each interface is working in.

Shibarium After the Reorg Fix: 1,680 Transactions a Day Against 4.69 Million in August 2025

Shibarium is the project's own layer-2 chain, a side chain that settles transactions more cheaply and then anchors the result on Ethereum. The chain launched in 2023 and was long the strongest argument that there is more behind SHIB than a dog logo.

That very argument is under pressure. According to an analysis by The Crypto Basic of September 22, 2026, Shibarium most recently processed around 1,680 transactions a day. On August 21, 2025 the figure was 4.69 million. That amounts to a fall of 99.96 percent. The developers have fixed the underlying reorganisation problem of the chain, but the switch to the new RPC service is, according to the same report, not yet complete.

For a price forecast that is the central open question. A chain that is barely used generates barely any fees, and without fees the burn mechanism has no fuel. The causal chain is therefore not speculative but arithmetically traceable.

The Explorer Shows Only 53 Percent: Why the Shibarium Figures Are Currently Too Low

There is an objection to the figures above, and it is a fair one. The block explorer Shibariumscan rebuilt its data set after the fix and was about 53 percent through on September 20, 2026. An explorer is a blockchain's search engine: it reads out the blocks and makes them searchable. While that rebuild runs, it shows less than actually took place.

The order of magnitude can be quantified. The explorer most recently listed 611.96 million transactions, while the chain has processed more than 1.56 billion over its entire life. The stock on display therefore stands at just under 40 percent of the real one.

From that follows a rule of caution for every figure quoted from Shibarium statistics in the coming weeks, including those in this text: each of them is an interim reading. Full reindexing is announced for the fourth quarter of 2026. Only afterwards will it be possible to say whether 1,680 transactions a day reflect reality or merely the section the explorer has sorted so far.

Burn Rate and Circulating Supply: What 589 Trillion SHIB Mean for Every Price Forecast

The burn is the most quoted argument in SHIB forecasts. It means the permanent destruction of tokens by sending them to an address from which nobody can retrieve them. At the end of September, destructions ran at around 476.96 million SHIB within 24 hours. That sounds like a lot.

Set against the circulating supply it looks different. 476.96 million out of 589.24 trillion tokens is 0.000081 percent. Extrapolated to a full year at an unchanged pace, that would be around 0.03 percent of the circulating supply. For the stock to halve by this route, more than two thousand years would pass. The calculation is deliberately rough, because the daily burn rate swings sharply, but the order of magnitude does not change with it.

Anyone who has worked that figure out once reads price targets differently. A SHIB price of one cent would, at today's circulating supply, require a market capitalisation of around $5.89 trillion. That is roughly three and a half times what Bitcoin weighed in at on the same day. Such targets circulate all the same, and they are the reason a look at the supply should come before a look at the forecast.

Levels for SHIB: $0.0000052 Below, $0.0000063 Above

Two traceable reference points emerge from the recent trading range. On the downside the next watched zone is at $0.0000052. That support comes from the area in which the price turned several times before the Shibarium news. If SHIB falls below it, that support is gone and the next reference would be the September low.

On the upside the level is the multi-week high at $0.000006254. It is relevant because it is the point at which willingness to buy ran out after the good news. A close above it would be the first sign that the market does after all reward the infrastructure work.

Both levels are observation points, not predictions. Neither replaces the question of whether use of the chain comes back. If it does not, the range simply shifts downwards over time, no matter how often it has held before.

Liquidity in SHIB: $97 Million in Daily Turnover on a $3.3 Billion Market Cap

This measure is rarely named and yet decides the price at which an order actually gets filled. In the 24 hours to Monday afternoon, SHIB worth $97.3 million changed hands. Measured against the market capitalisation of $3.295 billion, that is 2.95 percent.

For comparison, the obvious neighbour: Dogecoin came to $1.038 billion in turnover on the same day at a market capitalisation of $14.36 billion, or 7.23 percent. The meme coin with the bigger name is currently traded more than twice as intensively as SHIB. If you are weighing the two against each other, the assessment is in our Dogecoin price prediction.

In practice a thinner order book means a larger market order moves the price against whoever placed it. With a price carrying seven decimal places that is barely noticeable, because the difference looks minuscule. Calculated in percent, it is not. A limit order that fixes the maximum price costs nothing in this market situation but patience.

Buying Under MiCA: Which Providers May Trade SHIB in Germany Since CASP Authorisation

Since the European Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation applies in full, every trading venue addressing customers in Germany needs an authorisation as a provider of crypto-asset services. The abbreviation for that is CASP, for crypto-asset service provider. The authorisation is granted by the national supervisor and then applies across the single market.

For everyday use that means one concrete check: BaFin runs a company database in which a provider's status can be looked up by name. Anyone using a trading venue for the first time can find out there within a minute whether it is supervised. Which houses carry SHIB and how their fees differ is set out in our overview of the best crypto exchanges.

On costs there is a peculiarity that applies specifically to tokens with very small unit prices. Some providers round the quantity to whole tokens, others to eight decimal places. On a purchase of €200 the difference is not material; with automated savings plans executed weekly, the rounding adds up measurably over a year.

SHIB as an ERC-20 Token: Custody Between Exchange Account, Software Wallet and the Shibarium Bridge

SHIB is an ERC-20 token, so it normally lives on Ethereum. ERC-20 is the technical standard by which tokens behave on that chain, and it is the reason practically every Ethereum wallet can display SHIB without being adapted for it.

Anyone moving tokens to Shibarium uses a bridge for it. A bridge locks the balance on the source chain and issues an equivalent on the destination chain. This construction is the point at which the largest sums in the crypto market have been lost in recent years, and during the chain's ongoing rebuild it carries additional uncertainty. If you use no application on Shibarium, you have no reason to leave a balance there.

For holdings kept longer, storing the keys separately remains the most effective protection against account takeovers and exchange failures. The devices differ above all in which chains they support and how recovery is organised; those differences matter more before a purchase than the price does.

Holding Period and Exemption Limit: How the Tax Office Treats SHIB Gains in 2026

Gains on the sale of crypto assets fall in Germany under private disposal transactions per Section 23 of the Income Tax Act. If more than twelve months lie between purchase and sale, the gain stays tax-free. Below that, an exemption limit of €1,000 per calendar year applies, and the word limit is to be taken literally: exceed it and the entire gain is taxable, not merely the part above it.

With SHIB that has a consequence which arises less often with more expensive coins. Because the quantities are large and the unit prices tiny, many part-purchases quickly build up, for instance through savings plans. For calculating the period, every additional purchase counts on its own, usually under the method in which the tokens bought first count as sold first. A sale in December can therefore be partly tax-free and partly taxable.

Anyone using several trading venues will barely get that allocation right by hand. Tools that merge purchase and sale data and track the periods for each tranche take exactly this work off you, and the box below in this text leads to the common providers. The text of the law itself can be read at the Federal Ministry of Justice: Section 23 of the Income Tax Act.

Bull Case and Bear Case for SHIB: What Forecasting Models Assume for 2026

The published models lie far apart, and that spread is part of the information. One model assumes a median of €0.00000238 for the end of 2026, which against today's level would be a fall of around 46 percent. Another arrives at an average of €0.00000657 for the same period, a gain of about 75 percent. Further models name corridors that go considerably beyond that.

These values come from automated forecasting sites and are not analyst estimates in the sense of a named person with a rationale. The models extrapolate past price paths and know nothing about the state of Shibarium. Anyone quoting them should label them as what they are: extrapolations, not assessments.

More reliable than any of these figures is observing chain usage itself. If daily transactions climb back into the six- or seven-figure range once reindexing is complete, the bull case has a basis. If they stay in four figures, the bear case carries, regardless of which model outputs which median.

Shiba Inu Price Prediction: How to Proceed Now

1. Look up chain usage yourself before you believe a figure. Call up the daily statistics at Shibariumscan and note the previous day's transactions. Remember today's value, and in four weeks you will have your own reference point instead of a quoted number. If you would rather not write the figure down by hand, tools with a history function are in the overview of the best analytics platforms.
2. Work through buying routes and rounding. Compare the same amount at two providers, once as a market order and once as a limit order, and look at the quantity actually credited. Given SHIB's low liquidity that is the cheapest test you can run. If you buy in fixed instalments instead, hold the execution intervals and minimum amounts against each other; the differences are in the savings plan comparison.
3. Put periods and custody in order while the year is still running. Enter the purchase date for every tranche and see which of them reach the twelve-month mark before December 31. Holdings you want to keep longer belong off the exchange and in your own custody; which device fits your chains is set out in the hardware wallet comparison.

Back to the opening question: nothing dramatic is going on with SHIB right now, and that is precisely the finding. The price moves in a narrow range while the chain meant to carry it is being rebuilt. The next solid piece of news is therefore not a price figure but the completion of reindexing in the fourth quarter.

The figures on chain usage come from the analysis by The Crypto Basic of September 22, 2026, the price and market data from CoinGecko.

(As of September 28, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)

The Robinhood Chain is the broker's own layer-2 network, running on the Arbitrum Orbit toolkit, storing its data on Ethereum and settling gas in ETH. Since launching on July 1, 2026 it has become the costliest surprise of the year: $1.02 billion sits in its contracts, more than on Polygon, and $93.5 billion in volume has passed through its venues since the start. What has carried that so far is something few would have expected on a stock chain: meme tokens from a mass-market launchpad. On September 29 the start-up funding that paid for this growth falls away.

This overview takes the chain apart piece by piece, with figures cryptoticker.io collected itself from DefiLlama data on September 28, 2026, and with the wording Robinhood itself uses in its documents for the European market. It tells you what actually runs on the network, how you get there in practice, what the tokenised stocks are in legal terms and which points you should settle as an investor in Germany beforehand.

Robinhood Chain at a Glance: A Layer-2 Rollup on Arbitrum Orbit with Chain ID 4663

A rollup is a network that executes transactions itself but stores their data in bundles on a larger blockchain and draws its security from there. The Robinhood Chain is one such rollup: it uses the Arbitrum Nitro software on the Orbit framework, is EVM-equivalent, writes its data as blobs under the Ethereum standard EIP-4844 to Ethereum, and carries chain ID 4663. Without that identifier you cannot add the network in any wallet, which is why it comes first here.

The technical parameters are set out in the official developer documentation at docs.robinhood.com/chain and in the public network list chainlist.org/chain/4663. Gas is paid in ETH; there is no separate gas token. Data availability, meaning where the raw transaction data can be read permanently, is solved via blobs on layer 1. Because the chain is EVM-equivalent, the same smart contracts run as on Ethereum, and tokens follow the ERC-20 standard. Developers also have a testnet. That matters more for classification than it sounds: every movement on this chain consumes ether, and in Germany ether is an economic asset with its own tax consequences.

The purpose of the network is so-called stock tokens, that is, replications of share prices tradable on the blockchain, together with real world assets in the wider sense, meaning values from traditional finance represented on chain. What has become of that in practice is set out below.

Who Uses the Chain: $1.02 Billion in TVL, More Than Polygon

The usual yardstick for the use of a network is total value locked, or TVL: the sum of all value sitting in the network's contracts. On September 28, 2026 DefiLlama reported $1,020,163,244 for the Robinhood Chain. For comparison, on the same day: Polygon $765 million, Arbitrum $1.43 billion, Base $6.19 billion. A network not yet a quarter of a year old is thereby ahead of a chain that has been running since 2020.

On trading volume the gap is wider still. $55.28 billion passed through the chain's decentralised exchanges over the past 30 days, $9.65 billion over the past seven days and $947 million over the past 24 hours. Since launch that adds up to $93.50 billion. The fees all protocols on the chain take together stand at $373.11 million over 30 days and $694.40 million since launch. 207 protocols contribute to that.

These figures are impressive and at the same time misleading if read without the next section. They describe the past, and the trend inside them points down.

One question upfront, because it is asked often: the Robinhood Chain has no token of its own. There is therefore no market capitalisation, no all-time high and no price for the chain. Anyone who nonetheless finds a price page under this name should look closely: the name also appears on price pages as the label of a token issued on an entirely different network, which has nothing to do with the network described here. Payment on the chain is in ETH, and the prices of the represented securities are supplied by a price feed, a service that feeds market prices into the contracts.

The Gas Subsidy Ends on September 29, and Fees Are Already Falling

At launch on July 1, 2026 Robinhood covered transaction fees for 90 days, provided the transaction came from the Robinhood Wallet. That period expires on September 29, 2026. After it, every movement pays its own gas in ETH. A free transaction is the most effective tool for pulling users onto a new network, above all for small speculative amounts where a fee of a few cents makes trading unattractive. That tool is now going. Our report on the switch is in Robinhood Chain: The Free Gas Ends in Late September.

What the measurement on September 28 shows, a day before the deadline, is interesting. Fees across all protocols on the chain came to $373.11 million over the past 30 days, or $12.44 million a day. Over the past seven days they were $41.49 million, or $5.93 million a day. The weekly average is therefore less than half the monthly average. On trading volume the decline is milder: $1.84 billion a day on the monthly average against $1.38 billion on the weekly average.

The cooling has thus begun before the subsidy ends. That is a finding about the state of the chain, not a forecast of its price: anyone seeing a decline after September 29 cannot simply attribute it to the fee switch, because the move set in beforehand. How the values look after the deadline cannot, in the nature of things, be measured on September 28. Daily values also fluctuate sharply, because a day in progress can be incomplete at DefiLlama; the weekly and monthly windows are the reliable ones.

Is Robinhood Permitted in Germany?

Yes, through a European entity. On its EU site Robinhood names as the responsible entity Robinhood Europe, UAB, company identifier 306377915, based in Vilnius. The wording there is: "RHEU is authorized and regulated by the Bank of Lithuania as a financial brokerage firm and a crypto-asset service provider." The competent supervisor is therefore the Lithuanian central bank, not BaFin. An authorisation as a crypto-asset service provider in one EU state takes effect across the single market under the European crypto regulation MiCA, so German customers are served through this entity and not through a German branch.

In practice that means two things. First, complaints and questions of deposit protection run under Lithuanian law and that country's supervisor, not the German financial regulator. Second, the offering for the EU market is not the same as in the United States. German users have access to cryptocurrencies and to the stock tokens described below; no German securities account holding real shares arises in the process. If you would rather stay with a provider whose authorisation you can look up yourself, our comparison of crypto exchanges helps you line up the licences and the fees.

Stock Tokens and Real World Assets: Derivative Contracts, Not Shares

This is the point at which most accounts turn too vague. Robinhood describes its tokenised stocks on its own EU site in these words: "Classic Stock Tokens are derivative contracts between you and Robinhood. They are priced at the prices of the underlying securities without granting rights to them."

A derivative is a contract whose value is derived from another value. Everything else follows from that definition. You do not become a co-owner of the company. You have no vote at the annual general meeting. You have no direct claim to a dividend, at best a contractual replication of one. And on top of the price risk you carry the risk of your counterparty: if the provider fails, the claim fails with it, because the claim is against the provider and not against the exchange on which the share is listed.

In tax terms this is a category of its own. German income tax law treats cryptocurrencies as other economic assets, with the one-year holding period of Section 23 of the Income Tax Act. Derivative contracts instead fall under the rules for investment income, and there is no holding period there after which a gain becomes tax-free. How an individual contract is to be classified depends on how it is constructed; that is for a tax adviser to settle, not a line in an article. Anyone holding both in the same account should separate the entries early, or the tax return gets expensive. A tool that keeps the two types of entry apart saves you this work in the spring.

Pons: 646,000 Tokens Since July, and a Mountain of Fees That Is Melting

The chain's actual main application so far is a launchpad called Pons. A launchpad is a service that lets a new token be created in a few steps and made tradable immediately. At Pons that costs around one dollar in launch fees according to CoinDesk: enter a name, choose a ticker, done, and a market for it opens on the Robinhood Chain.

The success was extraordinary. CoinDesk reported on September 3, 2026 that Pons took around $5.95 million in fees in 24 hours, putting it fourth among all services tracked by DefiLlama, ahead of the chain it runs on. On September 2 just under 25,000 new tokens were created there in a single day, on $544 million of daily volume. Since July there have been around 646,000 tokens from more than 167,000 different creator addresses.

Our own measurement of September 28 shows how quickly that has cooled. Pons in its current version took $1.24 million in fees over 24 hours. Over seven days the launchpad comes to $14.83 million, or $2.12 million a day; over 30 days to $146.35 million, or $4.88 million a day. The peak day in early September was therefore not a level but a spike, and the weekly average is less than half the monthly average. Since launch Pons has taken $179.85 million in fees.

For placing meme tokens, what we describe in our overview of the meme coin section still applies: a token created for a dollar has no issuer liable for anything, no audit and as a rule no market once attention moves on. Of 646,000 tokens created, only a very small share is traded at all. Total loss is the normal case in this asset class, not the exception.

Where Swapping Happens on the Chain: Uniswap v3 and v4 Carry the Volume

The venues on the chain are decentralised exchanges, or DEXs: programmes that settle swaps directly between wallets without a company holding the balances. Measured by volume over the past 30 days, Uniswap version 3 leads with $24.02 billion and version 4 follows with $19.39 billion. Together that is around 78 percent of the chain's entire trading volume. Behind them, at a clear distance, come GMGN with $4.30 billion, Pons itself with $2.45 billion, Ramses with $1.90 billion, Fables with $1.68 billion and Uniswap version 2 with $1.26 billion.

What barely features on this chain so far are lending markets, meaning protocols for collateralised credit, and other quiet applications. By way of comparison, on Base, Coinbase's chain, usage spreads far more widely across lending and yield protocols. On these figures the Robinhood Chain is a trading venue and not yet financial infrastructure.

The second group stands out: trading apps. GMGN took $30.70 million in fees over 30 days, the wallet app fomo $17.64 million and Axiom $7.23 million. These applications are front ends for fast meme token trading and do not belong to Robinhood, even though they run on its chain. Anyone using such an app generally grants it far-reaching permissions over their balance. More on that in the section on risks below.

Adding the Network, the Bridge, the Explorer: The Practical Route onto the Chain

Anyone wanting to use the chain without the Robinhood app needs three things: the network entry in their own wallet, ETH for gas, and an explorer for looking things up.

The network entry consists of chain ID 4663 and the public access point rpc.mainnet.chain.robinhood.com. An RPC endpoint is the address through which your wallet talks to the network. Many wallets now add well-known networks themselves; if you cannot find the chain in yours, you can add it through the network list chainlist.org/chain/4663. Never enter an access point that somebody sent you in a message.

The gas comes across a bridge. A bridge locks an amount on the source network and credits it on the destination network. The official route runs through the Arbitrum portal at portal.arbitrum.io; a deposit of ether onto the chain takes about ten minutes there. The return journey takes considerably longer with rollups of this design, because a challenge period runs before the withdrawal is released. Anyone wanting out faster has to use a third-party provider and pay for it. Plan that time in before you move larger amounts across.

You can look everything up in the block explorer robinhoodchain.blockscout.com. An explorer is the network's public ledger search: every transaction, every address and every contract can be inspected there. Beware of imitators: after the launch several community-built sites appeared under names such as "RobinScan". None of them is the official explorer, and a site asking you to enter a recovery phrase is always an attack.

NFTs and Collectibles on the Chain: Marketplace Present, Liquidity Thin

An ecosystem only counts as complete once it also has trading in non-fungible tokens, or NFTs. On the Robinhood Chain that part exists, but it is narrow. The large marketplace OpenSea supports the chain, and collections have appeared that pick up the network's equity character. Volume and price formation remain far behind swap trading in tokens.

For valuation that is a sober finding: a collectible needs buyers, and where few trade, the last price paid is not a sound valuation of your own holding. If you want to look at the wider field, the established venues are in our comparison of NFT marketplaces.

Arbitrum: 10 Percent of Net Revenue Flows to the DAO

The chain has no token of its own. Anyone wanting to bet on its success therefore ends up at the token of the toolkit it runs on: Arbitrum, ticker ARB. The reason is a levy: the Robinhood Chain passes 10 percent of its net revenue to the Arbitrum ecosystem, of which, on the reporting, 8 percentage points go to the DAO's treasury and 2 percentage points into a developer fund. A DAO is an organisation whose use of funds is decided by votes of token holders.

Important for placing this: the money goes to the common treasury and not to holders. An ARB token conveys no claim to a distribution. The Arbitrum Foundation has reported that fees from the expansion programme accounted for 35 percent of DAO income in July. Our own measurement also shows how small the share is that reaches the chain's own sequencer: $39.31 million over 30 days, against $373.11 million across all protocols on the chain together. Most of the fees arise at applications, not at the network operator.

Analyst views on this differ widely and are to be read as views. According to a CoinDesk report of September 15, 2026, Standard Chartered named a price target of $10 for ARB and expressly pointed to revenue from the Robinhood Chain. On the other side stands an unlock date: in mid-October, on the reporting, around 92.6 to 92.7 million additional ARB become available, which increases supply. Our assessment of the coupling between chain and token is in Arbitrum up 150 percent in a month. A price target is not a promise, and we issue none.

Risks: One Sequencer, Old Approvals and Tokens Without a Market

Four points belong on the list before money goes onto this network.

Centralisation. Rollups of this design are run by a single sequencer, an instance that determines the order of transactions. If it fails or holds transactions back, the network stalls. The L2BEAT project collects assessments of such dependencies publicly; anyone entrusting larger amounts to a new chain should look there first.

Old approvals. Anyone working with trading apps and launchpads continually grants contracts permission to access balances. Such approvals persist until you revoke them, and a contract compromised later can use them. Go through the approvals you have granted regularly and remove what you no longer need.

Custody. Self custody means you hold your own keys and nobody else can dispose of your balance. It is the most effective protection against the failure of a provider and at the same time full responsibility for safekeeping. For longer-term holdings a device with separate key storage is the obvious choice, because the key never leaves the device.

Market risk of the tokens themselves. A launchpad with a one-dollar launch fee does not produce an audited investment product. For the great majority of these tokens there is no buyer left after a short time, and a price without buyers is not a value.

Tax in Germany: Every Swap on the Chain Is a Disposal

Here lies the part investors in Germany regularly underestimate. Under Section 23 of the Income Tax Act, swapping one cryptocurrency for another is a private disposal transaction. On a chain whose main application is a launchpad, exactly that happens continually: ETH for a new token, that token back for ETH, and again on the next attempt. Each of these steps is a separate transaction with its own acquisition date, its own price and its own holding period.

Three things follow. The one-year holding period starts afresh with every swap, which is why active trading practically never reaches it. Gains from such transactions stay tax-free only within the exemption limit of €1,000 per calendar year, and once it is exceeded the entire gain is taxable. The gas itself is also a transaction: paying with ETH means giving ETH away. While the subsidy ran, that question did not arise for transactions from the Robinhood Wallet; from September 29 it arises on every movement.

In practice that means: download your transaction history regularly while you have access, and store it outside the app. The chain is new, and so are the reporting channels between providers and the tax authorities. Missing records are for the investor to produce in the end, not the exchange.

Robinhood Chain: What to Take Away

In barely three months the Robinhood Chain has become one of the largest layer-2 networks by value deposited, carried above all by a meme token launchpad. The fee figures show that this wave had already flattened noticeably before the start-up funding ended on September 29. The tokenised stocks that were meant to be the point are, on Robinhood's own description, derivative contracts against the company and not shares.

1. Settle the provider and the supervisor first. Who your counterparty is and which authority supervises it decides whom you turn to in a dispute. Set that beside the terms of the established venues in the exchange comparison.
2. Separate play money from holdings. What goes onto a launchpad can be lost in full. What you want to keep belongs in custody you control yourself; the selection is in the hardware wallet comparison.
3. Keep the tax file from the first transaction. Every swap is a separate transaction, and it can barely be reconstructed after the fact. A tool from the tax tool comparison takes the work off you.

(As of September 28, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)

Hedera's HBAR token stood at $0.1217 on Monday afternoon, September 28, 2026, 27.3 percent higher than 24 hours earlier (source: CoinGecko). The wider market moved the other way over the same window: Bitcoin gave up 1.8 percent, Ether 1.2 percent. The documented trigger is not a price fantasy but a corporate announcement dated September 23: Switzerland's Hashgraph Group said that IDTrust, its identity platform built on Hedera, had been validated by IBM and added to the IBM Cloud Catalog.

For you as an investor in Germany that splits into two questions, which this article answers separately. First: what exactly happened, and does it carry the price move? Second: if you want to buy, hold or sell HBAR, where does that run, what does it cost you in tax terms and where are the pitfalls in custody?

HBAR Price: 27 Percent in 24 Hours, 63 Percent in a Month

HBAR trades at $0.1217, equivalent to €0.1070. The intraday low of the past 24 hours was $0.0931. Roughly 31 percent lie between that low and the current level, so the move arose within a single day rather than growing over weeks.

Over longer windows the picture looks like this: plus 35.3 percent over seven days, plus 58.7 percent over 14 days, plus 62.9 percent over 30 days. Over twelve months, by contrast, there is a loss of 41.6 percent. Anyone who bought HBAR a year ago remains well behind despite this rally.

Market capitalisation is $5.33 billion, equivalent to €4.69 billion. That puts Hedera 25th among the largest crypto assets by market capitalisation. Trading volume over the past 24 hours was around $800 million, roughly 15 percent of market capitalisation. Volume on that scale means the move is carried by real trading and not by a handful of orders in a thin book.

43.83 billion HBAR are in circulation. The maximum supply is 50 billion and is fixed in the protocol. Around 88 percent of the total supply has therefore already been issued. In a separate piece on September 21 we described how Hedera's trading volume was then rising faster than its price. That gap has now closed in the other direction.

IDTrust in the IBM Cloud Catalog: What the Hashgraph Group Announced on September 23

The Hashgraph Group, or THG, is a Swiss technology company based in Schwyz that builds enterprise applications on Hedera technology. On September 23, 2026 it published an announcement with three concrete points, all of which can be checked.

First, IDTrust was validated by IBM and officially listed in the IBM Cloud Catalog. On THG's account it is thereby the first commercial Hedera-based enterprise application that can be bought directly as a software subscription through a major cloud marketplace. Second, THG reached IBM Silver Partner status, which is tied to technical certification requirements. Third, a global Embedded Solution Agreement with IBM was signed. That is a licence contract allowing a partner to build IBM technology into its own product and sell it as a single solution under its own name.

Stefan Deiss, co-founder and chief executive of THG, is quoted in the announcement saying that companies are deploying AI agents at scale that can negotiate contracts, process sensitive data and execute financial transactions on their own. The question exercising everyone, he says, is: how do I know this agent is authorised to act on my behalf? Naemi Benz, responsible at IBM for the partner ecosystem in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, is quoted as saying that IBM has recognised the commercial potential of Web3 solutions and that THG's work on agent-capable identity infrastructure on Hedera fits that.

Know Your Agent: Verifiable Identity for AI Agents as an Enterprise Topic

Behind the abbreviation KYA sits an extension of a term you know from finance. Know Your Customer (KYC) describes a provider's duty to establish the identity of its customers. Know Your Agent (KYA) carries that idea over to software: when an AI agent places an order or grants an approval in a company's name, the counterparty has to be able to check whether that agent is entitled to do so and who stands behind it.

For the urgency of this, THG's announcement cites a forecast from the research firm Gartner, according to which around 40 percent of enterprise applications should contain task-specific AI agents by the end of 2026, against less than 5 percent in 2025. As further evidence it notes that Akamai launched its own agent verification procedure in June together with Visa and Experian. These figures and references come from the company's own announcement; they are a vendor's arguments for its own market and not an independent measurement of it.

Why this can matter for the price is easy to state soberly: Hedera has positioned itself for years as a network for companies rather than for speculation. An entry in the purchasing catalogue of a group such as IBM is a sales channel, not an advertising banner. Whether revenue follows, and whether that revenue ever reaches the HBAR price, is a separate matter and not settled by this.

DIDs, Verifiable Credentials and eIDAS 2.0: The Technology in the IDTrust Stack

By the provider's account, IDTrust is a platform for self-sovereign identity (SSI). The term describes a model in which a credential sits with its holder and does not have to be queried from the database of a central issuer.

Two building blocks carry this. A decentralised identifier (DID) is an identifier that can be created and checked without a central registration body. A verifiable credential (VC) is a digitally signed statement about the holder of that identifier, for instance that a particular agent is cleared for a particular task. Both formats are described at the W3C standards body, so neither is an in-house invention.

THG states that the platform is being aligned with the European eIDAS 2.0 framework, which governs the legal requirements for electronic identification in the EU. On the technical side the announcement also mentions MCP servers through which AI agents in IBM's watsonx Orchestrate environment can obtain their own identity credentials. Every credential issued is anchored on the Hedera ledger, which produces a record of permissions that cannot be altered afterwards without it showing.

According to the company, the application is already in use at a European telecommunications provider for checking caller identities. Alongside that, the announcement names partnerships from the past twelve months with the Merck group on EU digital product passports, with PwC on infrastructure for emission certificates, and with the logistics provider Teleport on customs documents in South-East Asia.

The Hedera Network: What HBAR Is Needed For in Proof-of-Stake Consensus

Hedera works with a proof-of-stake procedure in which a node's influence on consensus depends on how many HBAR are assigned to it. Under the official documentation, a transaction counts as confirmed only once nodes holding together more than two thirds of all staked HBAR have processed it.

Something practical follows from that: in this network HBAR serves both as the means of payment for fees and as the material the security of the system is made of. Every credential anchored on the ledger via IDTrust generates transactions, and transactions cost fees in HBAR. That is the path by which business use theoretically feeds through to demand for the token. How much that path carries in practice depends on volumes that Hedera does not disclose for individual applications.

On staking itself, the Hedera documentation names two points that are often misremembered in Europe. There is no lock-up period: staked balances remain available at all times and can be traded without waiting. The size of the reward is moreover set by the Hedera Council and updated on the mainnet; the market does not form it. Rewards do not expire, but they can only be collected for the most recent 365 days if no payout was triggered in between.

Distance to the 2021 All-Time High: 79 Percent, Rally Notwithstanding

A daily gain of 27 percent reads differently when you set it against the longer record. HBAR's all-time high is $0.5692 and dates from September 15, 2021. From the current level, 78.6 percent are missing to get there, so the price would have to more than quadruple.

Two levels are verifiable for the coming days and therefore more useful than any price target. On the downside, the low of the past 24 hours sits at $0.0931; if the price falls back there, the whole day's gain would be handed back. On the upside, the next objective reference is the level of twelve months ago, because only above that would buyers from the autumn of 2025 be in profit again, and at minus 41.6 percent that is around $0.208.

Everything circulating beyond that in the way of price targets comes from individual research houses and is their opinion. Anyone reading such figures should check whether a name and a date are attached. We deliberately name none here, because we could not verify a sound derivation for any of them.

Buying HBAR in Germany: MiCA Authorisation and the Route via an Exchange

Since the EU's Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation, MiCA, has applied in full, trading platforms may only offer their services in Germany with an authorisation as a crypto-asset service provider. For you that is the first test. A provider without that authorisation may not serve you here, and in a dispute you stand outside the European supervisory framework.

HBAR is listed on the large European venues, so buying it is not a niche exercise. What counts are the costs: the spread between bid and offer, the trading fee and, if you later move the token to your own wallet, the withdrawal fee. Those three items differ between providers far more sharply than the prices do. Which platforms are authorised in Germany and what they charge is set out in our comparison of crypto exchanges.

One note on sequence that is easily lost on rally days: buying on the day of a 27 percent jump means you pay for the jump. That is meant as a statement about your entry price, not as a warning. Anyone entering through a savings plan spreads precisely this risk over time.

Holding Period, Exemption Limit and Staking Income: The Tax Rules for HBAR

For private individuals in Germany, a gain on the sale of crypto assets falls under private disposal transactions per Section 23 of the Income Tax Act. Two figures decide your tax burden.

The first is the holding period. Sell a coin more than a year after buying it and the gain is tax-free. Sell within the year and it is taxable at your personal income tax rate. The second is the exemption limit: if the total gain from all private disposal transactions in a calendar year stays below €1,000, no tax arises. Exceed the limit and the full amount is taxable, not merely the part above it. That is the difference between an exemption limit and an allowance, and in close cases it costs money.

Income from staking is treated separately by the tax authorities as other income. These inflows have to be recognised at the market value on the day they arrive, and a separate, markedly lower exemption limit applies to them. Because Hedera has no lock-up period and rewards arrive irregularly, active staking quickly produces a large number of small inflows, each with its own date and its own price. Without clean record-keeping that is barely reconstructible later.

This account does not replace tax advice. Where larger amounts, staking income or sales within the one-year period come together in your case, the case belongs with a tax adviser.

The Canary HBAR ETF on Nasdaq: No Route in for German Retail Investors

In the United States an exchange-traded product on HBAR has existed since the autumn of 2025. The quarterly report of the Canary HBAR ETF to the US Securities and Exchange Commission for the period to June 30, 2026 shows that the shares trade under the ticker HBR on Nasdaq and that the trust is managed by Canary Capital Group.

Two figures from that report are instructive. As at December 31, 2025 the trust held 473,456,805 HBAR with a fair value of $50.6 million. As at June 30, 2026 it held 663,209,584 HBAR, valued at $46.2 million. The number of tokens held therefore rose by roughly 40 percent while the dollar value of the holding fell. The product saw inflows in that half-year, and the price decline more than offset them.

For you as a retail investor in Germany the product is nonetheless not tradable as a rule. US funds do not produce a key information document under the European PRIIPs Regulation, and without that document brokers in the EU may not offer retail clients the purchase. Which exchange-traded routes exist instead with European authorisation, and how they differ from buying directly, is set out in our overview of crypto ETFs in Germany.

Storing HBAR: Account ID, Auto-Renew and the Most Common Traps

Hedera handles custody differently from the networks you know from Ethereum or Bitcoin, and that is exactly where withdrawals fail.

An address on Hedera is an account ID in the form 0.0.x. That account has to be created on the network before you can send anything to it. A freshly generated wallet with a key pair is not enough on its own. Anyone sending HBAR from an exchange to an account ID that has not yet been created risks the withdrawal failing or the funds being untraceable.

The second point concerns running costs. Accounts and entries on Hedera carry a renewal logic that incurs fees in HBAR. An account holding no HBAR for those fees is not an account you should leave unattended for years. So check three things before a withdrawal: that the destination account exists and that the wallet itself shows you the account ID, that you send a small test transfer ahead, and that the wallet supports the token at all.

If you hold larger amounts, the key does not belong on a device that hangs on the internet every day. That applies to any crypto asset capable of a triple-digit percentage move in either direction, and is no peculiarity of Hedera.

Hedera Rally: What to Take Away

The move has a documented trigger, and that trigger is a distribution agreement, not a revenue report. It is a distinction the price does not reflect on a day like this. Three steps that make sense regardless:

1. Document your holding periods. Note the purchase date, quantity and price for every HBAR holding before you think about selling. The one-year period decides the tax rate, and it cannot be created after the fact. Tools for it are in our comparison of crypto tax tools.
2. Recalculate the staking terms. Because Hedera has no lock-up period, the return is decided by the size of the reward and how it is recorded for tax; availability is a given anyway. How other platforms handle it is shown in our overview of staking providers.
3. Settle custody before you move anything. Create the Hedera account ID and test the withdrawal with a small amount. Which devices are suitable is set out in our hardware wallet comparison.

The sources for this article are the Hashgraph Group's announcement of September 23, 2026 and the official Hedera documentation on staking. Both can be read directly here: the Hashgraph Group announcement on the IBM partnership and the Hedera documentation on staking.

(As of September 28, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)

The price of Ethereum stood at $2,675.39 on Monday, September 28, 2026, at 14:42 German time, equivalent to €2,359.14. That is 1.44 percent below the level of 24 hours earlier. What matters over the next few days is not that single figure but the distance above it: the supply zone sits between $2,750 and $2,800, and ETH has bounced off it several times since mid-September. Break that zone, and on the reading of several chart analysts the path towards $3,000 is clear. Fail to break it, and the price returns to support between $2,530 and $2,570.

There is also a date falling due within the next eight days that many investors overlook, because it happens on a test network. On October 6, 2026, Sepolia forks to Glamsterdam. It is the first public rehearsal for Ethereum's next major upgrade, for which the Ethereum Foundation still gives no more than the fourth quarter of 2026 as a mainnet target. This article puts the two side by side: the levels in the price and the deadlines in the protocol. And it tells you which of them actually matters for your German tax return.

Ethereum Price on September 28: $2,675 and the Distance to the Supply Zone

According to CoinGecko, ETH traded at $2,675.39 on Monday afternoon with a market capitalisation of roughly $326.8 billion. That leaves the all-time high of $4,946.05 almost 46 percent away.

On the day, Ethereum is holding up better than the rest of the market. Bitcoin lost 2.01 percent over the same period and stood at $83,272; Solana gave up 3.75 percent and traded at $119.46. A decline of 1.44 percent counts as the quiet move this week. That is no argument for buying, but it explains why the supply zone at $2,750 is getting so much attention in commentary right now: the distance to it is only around 2.8 percent.

What a Supply Zone Is

A supply zone is a price range in which an unusually high number of sell orders were filled in the past. It is not a fixed line: think of it as a band, because sellers do not place their orders to the cent. When a price approaches such a zone from below several times and falls back each time, the zone counts as confirmed. It counts as broken only once the price closes above it and holds there for some time, not on the first brief excursion.

The Supply Zone Between $2,750 and $2,800: Where the Resistance Sits

The $2,750 to $2,820 range has appeared in the analysis of several market observers since mid-September. On September 27, 2026 ETH traded at $2,714.60, directly below the lower edge. Since then the price has moved roughly $40 away from it again. The view that a sustained advance above this zone would point to $3,000 comes from technical analysts and is explicitly their expectation, not ours.

For you the practical value of this zone is one thing above all: it gives you a point at which to test your own assumption without relying on instinct. If ETH closes several daily candles above $2,800, the sideways phase so far was accumulation. If the price is rejected again, it was distribution. Either way this is an observation, not a forecast, and either way it costs you nothing but attention.

Anyone looking to build an ETH position in the first place should check where the fees sit on the way in. The gap between an exchange charging 0.1 percent in trading fees and a provider with a wide spread eats more on small amounts than most price moves in a month deliver. You will find an overview of the terms in our comparison of the best crypto exchanges.

Support at $2,530 to $2,570: The Area That Catches a Break

On the downside the same analyses name the $2,530 to $2,570 range as the next line of support. From the September 28 level that is roughly 4 to 5.4 percent away. That number matters more than it looks, because it governs your position size: anyone working with leverage measures the distance to liquidation not in dollars but in percent.

A worked example, and not a recommendation: at five times leverage a long position is liquidated on paper after a move of about 20 percent against it, at ten times leverage after roughly 10 percent, in each case before fees and funding costs. The distance to support is well below that. Which means an entirely ordinary pullback to $2,540 does not automatically take out a leveraged position, while a second pullback in the same week very much does, once funding costs have been running in between.

Funding Rate in One Sentence

The funding rate is the payment that holders of perpetual contracts make to one another at fixed intervals so that the contract price tracks the spot price. Settlement is usually every eight hours, and when the rate is positive the long positions pay the short positions. Anyone holding a leveraged position for weeks pays it without noticing.

Sepolia Fork on October 6: What Glamsterdam Has to Prove on the Test Network

Glamsterdam is the name of Ethereum's next major upgrade. The roadmap on ethereum.org names the fourth quarter of 2026 as the mainnet target without confirming a date. The first verifiable deadline is therefore October 6, 2026: on that day the Sepolia test network forks to the new rule set.

A testnet fork is a dress rehearsal, not a delivery. That is precisely what makes it useful for the price question. If Sepolia runs through cleanly, the remaining test networks and with them a mainnet date come into view, and the odds improve that the upgrade really does land in the fourth quarter. If there are problems, the whole schedule slips, and typically not by days but by weeks. Toni Wahrstätter, a researcher at the Ethereum Foundation, said recently that Glamsterdam was on the home straight with EIP-7928 and that things looked good. That is the assessment of a participant, not a commitment to a date.

EIP-7732 and EIP-7928: The Two Proposals Carrying Glamsterdam

An EIP is an Ethereum Improvement Proposal, a formalised change to the protocol that receives its own number and goes through a public discussion process. Glamsterdam rests on two of them.

EIP-7732 writes the separation of block proposal and block building into the protocol itself. Until now that separation has run through software outside consensus. Build it in, and a central part of block production no longer depends on individual providers. For holders that is not a price event; for the censorship resistance of the network it is.

EIP-7928 introduces block-level access lists. That establishes before execution which parts of the state a block will touch, and clients can process transactions in parallel rather than strictly one after another. Added to that are a simplified synchronisation procedure and measures against uncontrolled growth of the state database.

The common denominator of the three goals is this: process faster, synchronise faster, stay operable in the long run. None of them lowers gas fees noticeably on the day of the upgrade. Anyone buying in the expectation of cheaper transfers on October 6 or on the day of the mainnet fork is buying the wrong story.

ETF Inflows of $746.5 Million: Where the Institutional Demand Comes From

The second force behind the price sits not in the protocol but in exchange-traded funds. US spot Ethereum ETFs took in roughly $746.5 million in total across five consecutive trading days at the end of September. On September 18 a single day brought net inflows of $143.8 million. Across September as a whole, net inflows added up to around $445 million, which means Ethereum ETFs gathered more that month than Bitcoin ETFs did. Cumulatively over their entire life, all ETH ETFs together stand at roughly $13.85 billion in net inflows.

The most common explanation for this is the staking yield. Since January 5, 2026, Grayscale's ETHE has been the first US crypto exchange-traded product to distribute staking income to shareholders. That turns a pure price product into a product with running income, and that property is exactly what Bitcoin ETFs structurally lack. Whether it becomes a lasting advantage is open; one month of inflow figures is a snapshot, not a series.

Staking Yield and ETF Distribution: The Difference for Your Tax Return

Here two paths separate that look identical on the chart and are treated entirely differently by the tax office.

If you hold ETH yourself and stake it through a provider or your own validator, the rewards allocated to you are, in the view of the German tax authorities, income from other services under Section 22 No. 3 of the Income Tax Act. They are taxed at your personal income tax rate, and an exemption limit of €256 a year applies. Exemption limit means this: at €255 you are below it and pay nothing. At €257 you are above it, and the entire amount is taxable, not merely the part above the line. That is the difference from an allowance, and the two are regularly confused.

If instead you hold units in a fund that stakes internally and distributes, you are dealing with a security and with investment income. There, withholding tax, the saver's lump-sum allowance and, as a rule, the automatic deduction by the custodian apply. The one-year holding period from private assets does not exist there. Anyone mixing the two paths is in effect running two separate sets of books. Anyone starting out should compare provider terms first; the yield figures and minimum lock-ups are in our comparison of staking platforms.

DAC8 from 2026: The Reporting Duty of the Exchanges Changes Your Starting Position

Under the EU's DAC8 directive, regulated crypto service providers in the EU report transaction data to the tax authorities automatically from 2026. In practice that means the assumption that the tax office learns of a sale only if you declare it no longer holds. For complete returns nothing changes apart from the order of events. For incomplete ones, the probability of being found out changes.

What matters in practice is that the reporting rests on providers with an EU connection. Holdings on your own hardware wallet are not reported, because no service provider sits in between. They are taxable all the same as soon as you sell or swap within the deadline. Anyone pulling holdings off an exchange therefore shifts the burden of proof onto themselves and should document acquisition data cleanly, meaning date, quantity and value for each inflow.

Holding Period, Exemption Limit and Staking Income: What You Can Do Now

The legal position for private holders in Germany is currently more stable than the debate suggests. Under Section 23 of the Income Tax Act, the gain on a sale of crypto assets is tax-free if more than a year lies between acquisition and sale. The Finance Ministry letter of March 6, 2025 on individual questions of the income tax treatment of certain crypto assets revised the May 2022 version, and in doing so confirmed that the holding period stays at one year even when the coins were lent out or used for staking in the meantime. The extension to ten years once feared does not apply in these cases.

Within the one-year period, an exemption limit of €1,000 per calendar year applies to gains from private disposals. That too is an exemption limit and not an allowance: a gain of €1,001 is taxable in full.

From that follow four points you can settle this weekend in half an hour, whichever way the price runs:

• Dig out the acquisition data for each tranche. What counts is not when you first bought ETH but when the tranche in question was bought. Without those dates the one-year period cannot be evidenced.
• Add up the staking income for the year. If the total sits just below €256, one further payout in December costs you the entire tax exemption for this category of income.
• Set the realised gains of the year against its losses. Losses from private disposals can only be offset against gains of the same kind, not against salary and not against investment income.
• Pull the export files from your exchanges while you still have access. Close an account, or have your exchange leave the market, and you lose access to the history, while the duty to produce records stays with you.

Bull Case $3,000 and Bear Case $2,400: Two Scenarios to the Quarter End

The quarter ends on September 30, the day after tomorrow. Two days is little for a price move and enough for a position decision.

In the friendly case ETF demand holds, ETH closes above $2,800, and the Sepolia fork on October 6 runs without incident. Then the $3,000 level named by analysts is the next visible target, roughly 12 percent above today's reading. That expectation comes from third-party technical analysis and is reported here, not shared.

In the unfriendly case the inflows run into nothing, the broader market keeps giving way, and ETH falls through the zone at $2,530. The next relevant area then lies around $2,400, roughly 10 percent lower. A postponed testnet fork would be read as confirmation in that situation, even though a delay says nothing technically about the value of the network.

Both scenarios share the same blind spot, namely the assumption that the price reacts to these dates at all. In the past, Ethereum upgrades have rarely moved the price on the day of the event, because the expectation was already priced in. The Sepolia fork is moreover a testnet event that almost nobody outside the developer community follows.

Ethereum Price Prediction: What to Take Away

1. Fix the two levels, not the price. $2,800 on the upside and $2,530 on the downside are the points at which the picture changes. If you were going to add anyway, compare trading fees first in our exchange comparison, because on small amounts they matter more than the difference between $2,675 and $2,700.
2. Separate staking income and price gain in your books. A €256 exemption limit for the income, a €1,000 exemption limit for the gain within the one-year period, two different sections of the law. A portfolio tracker makes that separation automatically; the providers are in our comparison of crypto tax tools.
3. Treat October 6 as an information date, not a buy signal. If Sepolia runs cleanly, the remaining test networks follow. If you keep your ETH yourself, check by then that your recovery phrase is still complete and legible; suitable devices are in our hardware wallet comparison.

(As of September 28, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)

Coinbase and Citi expanded an existing deal so Citi's institutional clients can accept stablecoin payments, while Coinbase business accounts run on Citi's banking rails.

Anthropic's mid-tier model tops its own flagship on Terminal-Bench 4.0 and costs half as much per token, but an independent tester found it burns more tokens than any model it has measured.

Senator Sarah Hanson-Young has invited the OpenAI and Anthropic CEOs to a Canberra hearing on October 1, after an OpenAI agent quietly accessed Australia's Medicare data and nobody said a word for months.

OpenShell and Sentry give AI agents a hardware-enforced leash, arriving after a summer of agents breaching a government site, hacking their own tests, and going rogue during a security evaluation.

Strive bought 1,107 BTC for $94.5 million last week, lifting its holdings to 27,462 BTC, with its SATA preferred stock supplying 85% of the capital.

Galaxy Digital CEO Mike Novogratz remains bullish on Bitcoin despite the cryptocurrency hovering near a key technical level, saying he still likes the chart and would not be surprised to see BTC reach $100,000 before the end of the year.

Tom Lee's BitMine now holds over 6 million Ethereum as it continues to purchase the asset regardless of the crypto market conditions.

In exactly 11 days, XRP activates crucial smart-execution features designed to capture trillions in institutional asset volume.

Cardano (ADA)'s 68% price drop on a one-year basis has bulls watching October closely.

Stellar (XLM) breaks its historic speed record, hitting 217.4 TPS as institutional real-world asset funds flood the network.

TLDR

• AMD agrees to buy World Labs in an all-stock deal valued near $8.2 billion.
• The acquisition adds spatial intelligence and robotics research to AMD’s AI push.
• Fei-Fei Li will join AMD as executive vice president and its chief scientist.
• The all-stock structure limits cash use but could dilute existing shareholders.
• The deal expands AMD’s AI reach while adding integration and execution risks.

AMD (AMD) stock closed at $607.87, down 3.61%, after a sharp mid-morning selloff erased earlier gains. The decline followed AMD’s agreement to acquire artificial intelligence research company World Labs for about $8.2 billion. The deal expands AMD’s AI strategy while adding advanced spatial-intelligence research capabilities to its technology portfolio.

Advanced Micro Devices, Inc., AMD

AMD Expands AI Strategy With World Labs

AMD agreed to acquire World Labs through an all-stock transaction expected to close by the end of 2026. The transaction remains subject to regulatory approvals and standard closing requirements. AMD plans to integrate World Labs’ research expertise across its expanding hardware, software, and computing systems.

World Labs develops advanced models that create and simulate interactive three-dimensional environments from several forms of digital input. Its technology processes text, images, and video while supporting robotic training and simulation applications.  AMD gains direct access to research focused on emerging workloads that require increasingly specialized computing infrastructure.

The acquisition also strengthens AMD’s ability to connect model development with the design of future computing platforms. Modern AI applications increasingly include reasoning, robotics, simulation, and systems that interact with physical environments. As a result, AMD expects World Labs’ research to influence future hardware and software development.

Fei-Fei Li Takes Senior AMD Role

World Labs co-founder Fei-Fei Li will join AMD after the transaction closes successfully. AMD appointed Li as executive vice president and chief scientist under the planned structure. She will report directly to AMD Chair and Chief Executive Officer Lisa Su.

Li has played a major role in computer vision and modern artificial intelligence research. She currently leads World Labs, which operates from San Francisco and focuses heavily on spatial-intelligence technology. The company’s team will continue developing AI models after joining AMD under the acquisition agreement.

AMD gains researchers and model specialists who can provide direct insight into changing AI computing requirements. Their work could help AMD align processors and software with new generations of advanced models. The combination also supports AMD’s broader strategy of building infrastructure around an open technology ecosystem.

World Labs Deal Brings Investor Trade-Offs

The $8.2 billion all-stock structure limits immediate cash pressure but increases AMD’s share count after closing. That structure may create dilution for existing shareholders, depending on the final number of shares issued. However, AMD gains a research platform that could support broader long-term AI revenue opportunities.

The deal also increases AMD’s exposure to fast-growing areas such as robotics, simulation, and spatial computing. These markets could expand demand for processors, accelerators, software, and integrated computing systems. Therefore, the acquisition could strengthen AMD’s position across emerging AI workloads beyond traditional data-center applications.

Still, the transaction brings execution and integration risks alongside its strategic benefits. AMD must combine research teams while converting World Labs’ work into commercially useful products and platforms. Regulatory approvals and the timing of future AI demand will also influence the deal’s eventual financial impact.

The post AMD (AMD) Stock: Drops as $8.2B World Labs Deal Targets AI Growth appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR

• Century Communities stock trades at $61.96, down 1.11% during the latest session.
• Martins Glen will officially open in Antioch, Tennessee, on October 3, 2026.
• Five home plans will offer three to five bedrooms and up to 2,800 square feet.
• New Martins Glen homes will start in the low $400s near downtown Nashville.
• Planned community features include a playground, walking trail, and smart homes.

Century Communities stock traded at $61.96, down 1.11%, as the builder prepared another expansion near Nashville. The company will open Martins Glen in Antioch, Tennessee, on October 3, 2026. The project adds five single-family home designs within 18 miles of downtown Nashville.

Century Communities, Inc., CCS

Martins Glen Adds Five New Home Designs

Century Communities will introduce five two-story floor plans covering several household sizes and different living requirements. The homes will provide three to five bedrooms and range from 1,942 to 2,800 square feet. Prices will begin in the low $400s, giving the development a defined entry point within the Nashville market.

Each floor plan includes a loft, while several designs add extra rooms that support flexible household use. Select homes include private studies, covered patios, main-floor primary suites, media rooms, and electric fireplaces. Century Communities will also include its Century Home Connect smart-home package as a standard feature.

The company will debut its decorated Meadowlark model during the October 3 grand opening event. Potential homebuyers can tour the model and review available layouts across the new community. A limited number of wooded homesites will also form part of the Martins Glen development.

Tennessee Expansion Targets Nashville Area Demand

Martins Glen sits near major retail, recreation, and transportation routes serving the broader Nashville region. The development offers access to Tanger Outlets Nashville and major roads connecting Antioch with surrounding areas. Four Corners Marina on Percy Priest Lake also sits within a short drive from the community.

The site provides another option for households seeking suburban housing while retaining access to downtown Nashville. Downtown Nashville lies about 18 miles away, supporting access to major employment and entertainment districts. Century Communities also plans a playground and walking trail as part of the neighborhood amenities.

Century Communities operates as a national homebuilder and sells homes through traditional and online purchasing channels. Its Tennessee project expands the company’s housing inventory within one of the region’s major metropolitan markets. The Martins Glen launch also broadens its local portfolio with larger floor plans and several flexible interior options.

The project arrives as affordability and available housing supply remain important factors across growing metropolitan markets. Starting prices in the low $400s position Martins Glen within a defined segment of Nashville-area new construction. Larger layouts give Century Communities room to serve households seeking more bedrooms and adaptable living spaces.

The October opening gives Century Communities another opportunity to expand its presence around Nashville through new housing inventory. Martins Glen combines suburban access, multiple layouts, planned amenities, and proximity to major roads and recreation. The project now adds another Tennessee community to Century Communities’ broader national development pipeline.

The post Century Communities, Inc. (CCS) Stock: New Tennessee Project Targets Nashville Demand appeared first on Blockonomi.

Key Takeaways

• Legendary investor Michael Burry believes the White House has no option but to sustain AI sector growth.
• According to Burry, artificial intelligence infrastructure investment currently supports the entire U.S. economic framework.
• President Trump maintains his stance against limiting AI advancement regardless of potential dangers.
• Burry maintains bearish positions on Nvidia, Oracle, Palantir, Micron, CoreWeave, and Nebius.
• Presidential financial filings reveal extensive July trading in technology equities like Microsoft and Amazon.

Michael Burry, renowned for forecasting the 2008 subprime mortgage crisis, has declared that the AI boom now represents a systemic pillar of American economic stability. The investor shared these observations through a recent Substack publication.

According to Burry’s analysis, the current administration views artificial intelligence infrastructure expansion as the primary mechanism supporting economic momentum. This perspective suggests policymakers face severe constraints on allowing any deceleration in AI-related capital deployment.

“They cannot afford to let it fall,” Burry stated, as reported by Stocktwits. He further challenged whether Washington possesses viable instruments to prevent an economic contraction should one materialize.

Burry’s Contrarian AI Positions

The “Big Short” investor has established short positions targeting numerous prominent artificial intelligence companies. His portfolio includes bearish bets on Nvidia, Oracle, Palantir, Micron, CoreWeave, and Nebius.

These positions have been accumulated progressively beginning in Q3 2025. Burry’s fundamental thesis centers on the possibility that aggressive infrastructure expenditures may fail to generate sustainable profitability over time.

The investor has repeatedly challenged the prevailing narrative surrounding AI investments. While acknowledging unprecedented capital deployment into data centers and semiconductor manufacturing, Burry emphasizes that returns remain speculative.

Furthermore, Burry contends that federal authorities face significant limitations in addressing potential economic turbulence. He suggests the policy toolkit available today is substantially weaker than during previous financial emergencies.

Presidential Stance on AI Advancement

President Trump has publicly committed to maintaining unrestricted AI development trajectories. His position prioritizes American technological dominance over regulatory caution regarding emerging risks.

The President has characterized artificial intelligence as a multi-trillion-dollar opportunity. He has explicitly rejected approaches that would constrain sectoral expansion based on safety considerations.

This policy orientation aligns with Burry’s assessment that the administration lacks meaningful alternatives to continued AI sector support. However, Burry frames this as economic dependency rather than strategic optimism.

Presidential financial disclosures provide additional context regarding personal technology sector exposure. The most recent public records detail July trading activities.

These filings document over 1,000 individual transactions executed during that single month. Technology companies dominated the trading activity.

Specifically, Trump liquidated between five million and twenty-five million dollars in both Microsoft and Amazon holdings. Subsequently, he reacquired smaller positions in these same equities.

Additional disclosed transactions encompassed Oracle, Intuit, Marvell, and Salesforce. The trading records also referenced Meta Platforms, Nvidia, ServiceNow, Workday, and Adobe.

Burry’s fundamental argument suggests the federal government now possesses vested interests in perpetuating positive AI momentum. Any meaningful weakness in the sector, he contends, would rapidly transmit to broader economic indicators.

The investor has refrained from providing specific timing predictions for a potential downturn. His public commentary emphasizes accumulating vulnerabilities rather than imminent catalysts.

Both Trump and Burry recognize artificial intelligence infrastructure as pivotal to current U.S. economic performance. Their interpretations of this dependency, however, lead to starkly different strategic implications.

The post Michael Burry Warns Trump Administration Must Keep AI Sector Afloat appeared first on Blockonomi.

Key Takeaways

• Advanced Micro Devices shares declined approximately 3% during Monday’s premarket session amid mounting Treasury yields and escalating oil prices that weighed on technology equities.
• Brent crude surged more than 3% to reach $108 per barrel following President Trump’s rejection of Iran’s proposed ceasefire terms, intensifying inflation concerns.
• The 10-year Treasury yield exceeded 5.2% while the 30-year benchmark crossed 5.5%, approaching levels not seen in years.
• The chipmaker has gained approximately 30% in the last month, fueled by enthusiasm surrounding Meta’s Muse AI and its potential impact on CPU requirements.
• Bank of America elevated its price target for AMD to $720 from $620, projecting the server CPU market could expand to $211 billion by 2030.

AMD stock experienced a nearly 3% decline in premarket activity Monday, hovering around $613.64 per share. The retreat occurred against a backdrop of climbing Treasury yields and elevated oil prices that pressured technology shares across the board.

Advanced Micro Devices, Inc., AMD

Intel suffered steeper losses, declining more than 6%, while AMD dropped over 5% throughout the trading day. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index tumbled 3% as semiconductor stocks absorbed significant selling pressure.

Brent crude oil prices advanced more than 3% to reach $108 per barrel. West Texas Intermediate rose 3.5% to $95.64 following President Trump’s dismissal of ceasefire proposals from Iran.

Treasury yields continued their upward trajectory from the previous week. The 10-year note traded above 5.2%, while the 30-year bond exceeded 5.5%, with both benchmarks positioned near multiyear peaks.

Elevated oil prices typically amplify inflation concerns, which maintains upward pressure on interest rates. Rising yields particularly impact growth-oriented stocks by raising the discount rate used to value future cash flows.

Technical Indicators Suggested Overextension

AMD had experienced substantial gains prior to Monday’s downturn. The stock was trading 16.2% above its 20-day moving average and 68.2% beyond its 200-day moving average.

The relative strength index registered 73.24, surpassing the 70 level commonly associated with overbought territory. This positioning made the stock susceptible to selling pressure when market sentiment shifted.

The correction arrives after a significant rally fueled by enthusiasm regarding Meta’s Muse AI platform. Both AMD and Intel have climbed roughly 30% during the past month based on this narrative.

The underlying thesis suggests that increasingly sophisticated AI agents performing autonomous tasks will require additional computational resources. This development could expand the addressable market for server CPUs manufactured by AMD, Intel and Arm-based semiconductor companies.

Meta has indicated its computing requirements are “evolving to demand more CPU” as the company advances its agentic AI initiatives. Michael O’Rourke, chief market strategist at JonesTrading, noted that markets have interpreted Muse as a catalyst for an already constrained CPU market.

This positive sentiment propelled AMD past a $1 trillion market capitalization milestone for the first time last week.

Wall Street Upgrades Price Objectives

BofA Securities increased its AMD price objective to $720 from $620 on September 25 while maintaining its Buy rating. The firm anticipates the server CPU market will expand from $61 billion in 2026 to $211 billion by 2030, with $180 billion attributed to AI applications.

BofA also referenced the Anthropic-Akamai CPU infrastructure agreement as additional evidence that CPUs gain importance as AI systems become more agentic. Piper Sandler launched coverage on September 10 with an Overweight rating and a $600 price target. Raymond James upgraded AMD to Strong Buy on August 25, establishing a $641 target.

AMD holds a consensus Buy rating with an average price objective of $615.30. The stock commands a price-to-earnings ratio near 161, representing a significant premium valuation.

According to Benzinga’s Edge Rankings, AMD achieves scores of 99.29 on Momentum, 95.62 on Quality and 95.6 on Growth. Its Value rating stands at just 3.3.

AMD represents 8.74% of the iShares Semiconductor ETF, 6.79% of the First Trust Nasdaq Semiconductor ETF and 6.52% of the Pacer Data and Digital Revolution ETF.

The recent rally also benefited from Meta’s Connect event, where the company introduced Charm, a handheld device designed for direct Muse integration. Zuckerberg announced that Muse will soon become available on Meta’s smart glasses platform, and Meta is broadening Muse distribution through retail partners including Walmart, Best Buy, Sephora, Wayfair, Dick’s Sporting Goods and Gap.

The post Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) Stock Slides 3% Amid Macro Headwinds appeared first on Blockonomi.

Quick Overview

• Nvidia announced a massive $150 billion expansion to its share repurchase program, sending shares up almost 2%.
• Major U.S. indices declined as crude oil prices and government bond yields surged amid escalating U.S.-Iran diplomatic tensions.
• MongoDB experienced a significant share price decline following CEO CJ Desai’s departure to spearhead Meta’s enterprise AI initiative.
• SpaceX achieved a breakthrough as Starship successfully entered orbital space and released advanced Starlink satellites.
• Citigroup partnered with Coinbase for enterprise stablecoin payment solutions, while Bitcoin dropped closer to $83,000 despite robust ETF capital flows.

U.S. equity markets faced headwinds to begin the trading week. Escalating crude prices, increasing government bond yields, and renewed international tensions created downward pressure on major indices.

Meanwhile, significant corporate announcements and developments captured investor attention throughout traditional and digital asset markets.

Nvidia Unveils Unprecedented Share Repurchase Program

Nvidia expanded its stock buyback authorization by an additional $150 billion. This represents the most substantial single share-repurchase program ever disclosed by an American corporation.

The chipmaker’s stock climbed approximately 2% following the announcement. Year-to-date, the shares have appreciated more than 20%.

This strategic move provides Nvidia with substantial capacity to distribute capital back to investors. The semiconductor giant maintains robust cash generation driven by surging artificial intelligence processor demand.

The repurchase authorization arrives while Nvidia’s valuation metrics sit near decade-low levels relative to earnings.

Major Indices Decline on Energy Prices and International Concerns

Broader equity benchmarks moved downward. The S&P 500, Nasdaq Composite, and Dow Jones Industrial Average all posted losses.

Oil prices advanced following President Donald Trump’s dismissal of a diplomatic overture from Iran designed to de-escalate bilateral tensions.

Elevated energy costs can fuel inflationary pressures. Simultaneously, climbing Treasury yields reduce the relative attractiveness of high-multiple technology equities versus fixed-income securities.

MongoDB Leadership Transition to Meta Platforms

MongoDB experienced substantial volatility after Chief Executive Chirantan “CJ” Desai announced his resignation to accept a position at Meta Platforms.

Desai will oversee a newly established Meta division dedicated to delivering the company’s artificial intelligence capabilities to corporate clients.

This strategic expansion represents Meta’s ambition to extend its AI offerings beyond consumer applications into the enterprise software market. MongoDB’s stock price dropped significantly on the announcement.

SpaceX Achieves Orbital Milestone

SpaceX celebrated a significant achievement as its Starship vehicle successfully achieved orbital insertion during its fourteenth experimental launch.

The spacecraft successfully deployed upgraded Starlink communication satellites before the mission concluded prematurely following propulsion system complications.

Citigroup Expands Cryptocurrency Payment Services

The convergence between conventional banking and digital currencies accelerated. Citigroup has reportedly engaged Coinbase to facilitate stablecoin payment acceptance for major enterprise clients.

This collaboration extends their existing partnership. The financial institutions had previously announced joint development of cryptocurrency-based payment infrastructure targeting institutional customers.

Bitcoin Retreats Despite Institutional Investment Surge

Cryptocurrency valuations declined in tandem with equities. Bitcoin dropped approximately 1.7% toward the $83,000 level as energy prices climbed and market participants reduced risk exposure.

The comprehensive CoinDesk 100 benchmark declined roughly 2.6%, reflecting broader weakness throughout alternative digital assets.

This downward movement contrasts with powerful institutional appetite during the preceding week. American spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds captured approximately $2.4 billion in net inflows, while Ethereum ETFs registered around $690 million in new investment.

Investors currently face competing dynamics between artificial intelligence infrastructure investment, corporate capital return programs, and cryptocurrency ETF momentum against headwinds from elevated crude prices, rising bond yields, and international political uncertainty.

The post Market Wrap: Nvidia (NVDA) Unveils Massive $150B Buyback While MongoDB and Bitcoin Tumble appeared first on Blockonomi.

Charles Hoskinson has argued that Cardano’s Midnight network will eventually eclipse Zcash, citing developments including private agents, selective disclosure, and a DeFi kernel designed to work across major chains.

His claim comes as Zcash trades far above its level from a year ago, while Midnight’s NIGHT token remains nearly 78% below its all-time high.

Midnight’s Privacy and DeFi Design

In a September 28 post on X, Hoskinson quoted ratings provider Weiss Crypto, which had earlier suggested that NIGHT has a good chance of becoming “one of the best plays of the next 24 months.” He contended that Midnight will be “bigger than Zcash,” then laid out what the privacy-focused blockchain developed by Input Output, the same team behind Cardano, has got going for it.

“Selective disclosure, Private Agents, abstraction with a DeFi Kernel for all major chains,” wrote the developer.

He also mentioned three privacy techniques the network was working on, including zero-knowledge proofs, trusted execution environments, and multi-party computations, and linked Midnight’s planned architecture to Cardano’s 24/7 network uptime and the Leios upgrade.

The market data currently shows a wide gap between the two assets. NIGHT was trading near $0.027 at the time of writing, up over 2% in the last 24 hours and more than 9% in the past week. It also gained close to 30% across a fortnight and well over 36% in 30 days.

Zcash, meanwhile, was trading at around $1,600, an almost 7% dip in 24 hours, although it was up over 2% across seven days and nearly 36% over two weeks. The privacy coin’s one-month run was also better than NIGHT’s, after it gained 93% in that period, while remaining 2,660% higher than where it was a year ago.

Midnight is sitting about 77.5% below its record of close to $0.12 from December 9, 2025, while ZEC is about 51% under its own ATH of $3,191.

Looking at trading volume, it is about $14 million for NIGHT, an increase of 43% from one day ago, against roughly $1 billion for ZEC, which represents a 24% drop from what changed hands yesterday.

Mixed Fortunes for NIGHT and ZEC

NIGHT fell more than 43% on July 21 to record a low near $0.016 after 290 million tokens were dumped in the market following a withdrawal from a Wanchain bridge contract, with the Midnight Foundation stating that the network was not hacked.

On its part, Zcash topped $1,600 last week for the first time since 2016, then slid as the wider market fell, with analyst Crypto Patel arguing that a cup-and-handle pattern suggests the $1,600 to $2,000 range could be a local top, with a drop below $500 possible within one to three years.

The post Cardano’s NIGHT Will Be Bigger Than Zcash: Charles Hoskinson appeared first on CryptoPotato.

Unlike leading cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), and Ripple (XRP), HYPE — the native token of the popular decentralized exchange — has had quite a successful year, rallying by over 100% during that period.

Earlier this month, it hit a new all-time high of almost $100, but bears stepped in, and the asset is now worth roughly $90 (per CoinGecko). Meanwhile, recent whale activity suggests a further correction may be on the way.

Dumping HYPE

According to analytics platform Lookonchain, some large investors have started offloading their HYPE bags. One of those, known as 0xc745, deposited over $16 million worth of the cryptocurrency into OKX and Bybit. It is not guaranteed that this market participant has sold their position, yet such transfers are often interpreted as the step before that action.

Lookonchain also revealed that a wallet linked to Hypersphere Ventures dumped 62,869 HYPE (worth roughly $5.78 million) that were purchased a month ago, making a $2.13 million profit. Earlier this month, another whale deposited nearly $50 million in the cryptocurrency to Kraken.

For its part, X account BSCN recently disclosed that Multicoin has sent 4.23 million HYPE worth almost $300 million to Coinbase since the end of July.

“Presumably, the transfers were made with the intention of selling, though that is not confirmed,” the team explained.

This activity is widely seen as bearish for the price for two main reasons. First, offloading increases the amount of HYPE coins available on the market, which, combined with non-increasing demand, should lead to a price pullback.

Second, whales are regarded as experienced investors who rarely rely on instinct and instead make decisions based on information most market participants may not have. That said, their mass selling could spark panic across the space and prompt smaller players to cash out too.

X user Sjuul | AltCryptoGems noted HYPE’s pullback from its all-time high, hinting that a further plunge into the mid-70s is a plausible scenario. At the same time, he views that as “a good opportunity to hunt for longs,” arguing that the asset remains one of the strongest coins and a “must-have” in any crypto portfolio.

The Bullish Element

Contrary to the whales’ activity, recent HYPE exchange netflow suggests the price may be gearing up for another leg up.

Over the past several days, outflows have significantly outpaced inflows, meaning that investors have abandoned centralized platforms in favor of self-custody solutions. This, in turn, reduces immediate selling pressure and might pave the way for future upside.

The post Hyperliquid (HYPE) Drops 5% – Could Whales Trigger an Even Bigger Sell-Off? appeared first on CryptoPotato.

[PRESS RELEASE – Chicago, United States, September 28th, 2026]

AlgoQuant will deploy Liquid Mercury’s institutional-grade trading technology to scale its multi-strategy investment platform and enhance execution capabilities across global digital asset markets.

Liquid Mercury, a leading technology provider for digital asset marketplaces and crypto trading, announced today that it has been engaged by AlgoQuant Asset Management, an investment manager focused on solving inefficiencies in fast-evolving markets, to provide trading technology and infrastructure services.

The engagement will enable AlgoQuant to leverage Liquid Mercury’s institutional-grade trading technology and infrastructure to enhance its multi-strategy investment platform. AlgoQuant will gain access to deep liquidity, advanced execution capabilities, and professional-grade trading tools that support the firm’s commitment to quantitative excellence, risk integrity, and operational resilience.

Liquid Mercury’s battle-tested platform combined with AlgoQuant’s sophisticated quantitative strategies provides a powerful foundation for executing complex digital asset trades across global markets. This technology integration allows AlgoQuant to maintain 24/7 trading operations while scaling talent, capital, and technology without compromising precision.

With a team spanning key global financial and digital asset markets, AlgoQuant operates as a multi-strategy investment platform designed to perform across diverse market environments. Through Liquid Mercury’s platform, AlgoQuant will benefit from access to top-tier liquidity providers, low-latency infrastructure, and comprehensive middle and back-office tools designed to meet the demands of institutional asset managers operating in digital asset markets.

“AlgoQuant came to us with very specific infrastructure requirements that are unique to their sophisticated quantitative strategies,” stated Liquid Mercury CEO, Tony Saliba. “What sets Liquid Mercury apart is our ability to shape our tech stack to meet each client’s distinct needs. This level of customization isn’t something firms can always find off the shelf, but our battle-tested platform was built with the flexibility to adapt while maintaining institutional-grade standards. We’re honored to provide the tailored technology infrastructure that will support AlgoQuant as it continues to scale its investment platform.”

“Liquid Mercury has been an excellent technology partner for AlgoQuant Asset Management,” said Alexander Goncharov, President of AlgoQuant Asset Management. “We are very pleased with their sophisticated technology stack, collaborative approach, and willingness to tailor the platform to our specific needs. Their infrastructure delivers the speed, reliability, and precision required in today’s digital asset markets while integrating seamlessly with our proprietary systems and workflows.”

About AlgoQuant Asset Management

AlgoQuant is an investment manager with a clear mission: to solve inefficiencies in fast-evolving markets. From day one, the firm has been focused on building a platform that can scale talent, capital, and technology without compromising precision. At the heart of AlgoQuant’s model is a commitment to quantitative excellence, risk integrity, and operational resilience.

AlgoQuant operates as a multi-strategy investment platform with global reach, featuring team members and trading teams based in key global financial and digital asset markets. The firm’s structure supports 24/7 execution, oversight, and engagement with global allocators.

Further information can be found at www.aq.io

About Liquid Mercury

Liquid Mercury powers professional crypto trading and digital asset marketplaces. Founded by legendary trader Tony Saliba, who was featured in Jack Schwager’s “Market Wizards,” Liquid Mercury is the #1 choice for sophisticated buy-side and institutional sell-side trading professionals moving into crypto.

Mercury Pro is an institutional-grade trading platform designed specifically for professional traders navigating crypto derivatives and spot markets. The platform offers sophisticated trade execution tools including DMA routing, staging, execution algorithms, and anonymous multi-dealer RFQ to source block liquidity. Traders can manage all orders and trade data in a single platform with real-time views of balances and account positions.

Key capabilities include access to crypto derivatives at leading onshore and offshore exchanges, institutional-sized pricing with top OTC liquidity providers, and a wide range of spot products across leading exchanges. The platform supports both single-leg and multi-leg orders in net price structures, with low-latency infrastructure built for high-frequency and algorithmic trading strategies.

Liquid Mercury integrates with world-class custodians including Fireblocks, Gemini, and BitGo, and provides comprehensive APIs (FIX, WebSocket, and REST) for automated trading and workflow customization. Built by professionals for professionals, Liquid Mercury combines battle-tested trading technology with deep liquidity access and best-in-class workflow automation.

For more information about Liquid Mercury and the $MERC token, users can visit www.liquidmercury.com or merc.liquidmercury.com.

Disclaimer

This press release is for informational purposes only and does not constitute an offer to sell, or a solicitation of an offer to buy, any securities or fund interests in any jurisdiction. Any offer or solicitation of interests in any fund managed by AlgoQuant Asset Management Corp will be made only by definitive offering documents, and only to eligible investors in accordance with applicable law. No statement in this press release is, or should be construed as, a representation as to the past or future performance of any fund or strategy managed by AlgoQuant.

The post AlgoQuant Asset Management Selects Liquid Mercury to Enhance Digital Asset Trading Infrastructure appeared first on CryptoPotato.

[PRESS RELEASE – New York, NY, September 28th, 2026]

BNB Chain has appointed Thomas Chen as Chief Business Officer, a new leadership role focused on revenue strategy, institutional partnerships, and long-term value accrual for the BNB Chain ecosystem.

The appointment comes as traditional finance moves onchain in earnest. Banks, asset managers, and payment processors have gone well beyond pilots this year, issuing tokenised deposits and money market funds, building 24/7 settlement rails, and routing institutional liquidity through public blockchains. Stablecoins settled $7.2 trillion in February 2026, surpassing the U.S. ACH network, the backbone of American payments, for the first time.

BNB Chain is already one of the main venues for this activity. It is the second-largest blockchain for real-world asset (RWA) tokenisation, with over $5.6 billion in TVL, and leads all networks with 15 million monthly active stablecoin addresses. Chen brings deep TradFi experience across custody, market structure, and institutional sales. He will apply that expertise directly to BNB Chain’s focus on bringing more stablecoin issuers, RWA platforms, and institutional capital onto the network.

His remit covers:

• Institutional and capital markets: asset managers, banks, custodians and real-world asset issuers, together with the confidentiality and compliance infrastructure regulated institutions require before they transact onchain
• Stablecoins and settlement: issuer partnerships, cross-border payment rails, and agentic payment flows, making BNB Chain the default venue for dollar settlement.
• Trading and liquidity: market makers, exchanges and trading venues, deepening market quality and onchain volume.
• Ecosystem and distribution: protocols, wallets and market infrastructure, connecting builders to the largest distribution surface in crypto.

Thomas Chen, Chief Business Officer at BNB Chain, said: “BNB Chain has the largest user base in crypto, the deepest liquidity in the industry behind it, and a once-in-a-cycle window as real-world assets and AI-agent activity move onchain. My focus is making sure that activity settles here – more volume, deeper markets, and the institutional infrastructure serious capital require before it moves onchain.”

Chen joins from Function, a Bitcoin yield protocol that scaled to $1.6B TVL, where he served as CEO. Before that he was Managing Director and Global Head of Sales at BitGo, where he grew assets under custody to over $100B and helped set its course to IPO. His career spans 15 years, where he has spent more than 7 years building commercial teams across digital asset infrastructure, covering institutions in both traditional finance and DeFi.

About BNB Chain

BNB Chain is one of the largest and most active blockchain ecosystems in the world. Its multi-chain architecture spans BNB Smart Chain (BSC), opBNB, and BNB Greenfield, giving developers the flexibility to choose the environment best suited to their application. With high throughput, low transaction costs, and full EVM compatibility, BNB Chain is built for high-speed trading, AI agents, privacy, and instant payments. It is the blockchain with superior distribution and deep liquidity, built for global markets and the next billion users. For more information, users can visit www.bnbchain.org.

The post BNB Chain Appoints Thomas Chen as Chief Business Officer appeared first on CryptoPotato.

Crypto analyst ChartNerd argued in a YouTube video posted on September 28 that XRP could climb to $1.80-$1.90 if it clears resistance on its weekly and monthly charts.

The call depends on a level the asset has failed to break for six weeks, and the analyst warned that a rejection there could bring a deeper pullback first.

XRP Faces Resistance on Weekly and Monthly Charts

In a video posted on September 28, ChartNerd focused on XRP’s Gaussian Channel, a technical indicator built around regression bands that can track longer-term price trends.

The immediate test is the 50-week exponential moving average, currently around $1.52. XRP has failed to break that level for six weeks and was trading near $1.47 when the analysis was published. The monthly Gaussian Channel also adds another layer of resistance, with its upper regression band around $1.50.

ChartNerd’s scenario depends on XRP closing above these levels. According to him, a sustained move through the upper band could put $1.80 and $1.90 in reach, while a failure could produce a deeper retracement and a higher low later in the year, although he didn’t present any of the outcomes as certain.

XRP was down 3.5% in 24 hours but up by almost the same percentage in the last seven days. Its 24-hour range was roughly $1.47 to $1.54, while trading volume rose by more than 20% to about $3.23 billion. However, the asset is still nearly 60% below its $3.65 all-time high.

Meanwhile, as CryptoPotato reported previously, XRP exchange-traded funds recorded $75.89 million in net inflows last week, with the products extending their streak of weekly inflows to 11 weeks, taking cumulative inflows to about $1.79 billion.

That flow data provides a different backdrop from the chart structure, as it shows investors are still adding money to spot XRP funds even as the token remains below the levels identified as resistance.

What History Says

ChartNerd’s analysis leaned on XRP’s long history inside the Gaussian Channel. Past cycle bottoms often moved beneath the middle regression band before larger recoveries. For example, a bottom in June 2022 was followed by a 90% rise to the same lower band, where the Ripple token topped and pulled back before a later breakout. But the analyst cautioned that XRP does not have to repeat those patterns.

The monthly midline is around $0.94 to $0.95, a level the 2015, 2017, 2020 and June 2022 lows all tagged or dipped beneath, while the three-month channel’s upper regression band is near $0.80 and is yet to be tested.

But as things stand, the technical case rests on the $1.50 to $1.52 area, with a sustained close above it, in the analyst’s opinion, being able to change the chart structure he described. Failure to do so will leave the deeper retracement scenario on the table.

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