The U.S. initiative could reshape regional energy dynamics, reduce Iran's strategic leverage, and foster collaborative infrastructure investment.

The post US proposes $10B fund with Arab allies to bypass Strait of Hormuz appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Avalanche's Helicon upgrade fosters network efficiency and scalability, potentially reducing AVAX inflation and enhancing validator engagement.

The post Avalanche activates Helicon upgrade, enhancing staking and execution appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Renaming AI to "super intelligence" risks confusion in global tech discourse, potentially hindering international collaboration and policy clarity.

The post Trump proposes renaming artificial intelligence to super intelligence at UN appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

A potential US-Iran settlement could reshape diplomatic relations and influence geopolitical dynamics in the Middle East region.

The post Trump optimistic about US-Iran settlement amid ongoing talks appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Canada's unified tokenized deposit system could revolutionize banking by enhancing transaction speed, interoperability, and digital asset integration.

The post Canada’s Big Six banks to test tokenized deposit system for faster payments appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Bitcoin Magazine

White Hats Move Over $4.5 in Bitcoins From Coldcard to Recovery Trust

White hats have moved bitcoin from the hacked Coldcard signing devices to a trust for would-be victims to reclaim, Galaxy Digital’s Alex Thorn has said. 

Writing on X on Monday, Thorn said that the funds were taken by white hats to protect potential victims. They are now apparently sitting in an address controlled by Crypto Recovery Trust, a Wyoming Trust created to help white hats return funds to victims. 

A total of 52.37 of the bitcoins — worth over $4.5 million at today’s prices — were moved. Thorn added that the funds represented 2.8% of the coldcard exploit. 

Criminals started taking bitcoin stored using Coinkite’s popular Coldcard hardware wallet on July 31. 

Canadian company Coinkite said that a firmware bug in Coldcard devices caused seed generation to fall back to a weak software Pseudorandom Number Generator instead of the hardware true random number generator, allowing hackers to essentially guess investor seedphrases. 

Galaxy Digital tracked the movement of funds and said 1,789.28 bitcoins were lost in the attacks. That’s $154.1 million in bitcoin at today’s prices. 

Earlier this month, Nick Bax of universal market protocol Ump Labs said that he was involved in helping recover the funds. 

“Finally able to say that at the end of July, I was involved in the rescue of ~50 BTC which were “imminently going to be stolen due to the COLDCARD entropy flaw,” Bax wrote on X. 

He added: “The funds are currently held by a Wyoming trust, which will ensure that funds are returned to their rightful owners.”

Since the attack, cautious investors have been moving their coins to other storage solutions — including exchanges.

Coinkite said in a statement that the bug in its software “silently went unnoticed” and “its potential impact grew with every release” of its products. 

Days after the first hack, the company urged investors to update their software or move their funds off the popular hardware wallet.

This post White Hats Move Over $4.5 in Bitcoins From Coldcard to Recovery Trust first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Bitcoin Magazine

Feds Probing Binance Over Iran’s Bitcoin Use: Report

Federal prosecutors — including the U.S. Department of Justice — are investigating whether Binance has allowed Iran to dodge sanctions by using its platform, according to a report from Bloomberg. 

The outlet, citing people familiar with the matter, reported Tuesday that feds were investigating whether  Binance Holdings Ltd., which operates the world’s biggest crypto exchange, knowingly allowed Iran-linked entities to trade. 

It comes after the U.S. Department of Justice last week said it is seizing and seeking to forfeit $61 million in cryptocurrency that it alleges came from black-market sales of sanctioned Iranian oil. The funds, according to the DOJ, were laundered through Binance by Chinese entities. 

Iran has been using bitcoin — and other cryptocurrencies — to skirt around U.S. sanctions. The U.S. in April started targeting crypto wallets linked to the Iranian regime, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a statement. 

Bessent went on to say that the Iranian regime’s crypto had been frozen — mostly in the form of Tether’s USDT stablecoin. 

And last week, the Treasury designated BitBank, an Iranian crypto exchange, as part of Operation Economic Outcast — the Trump Administration’s whole-of-government economic campaign against the Islamic Republic of Iran and its enablers.  

Iran started a bitcoin-backed insurance service for its counties shipping companies earlier this year. Bitcoin cannot be frozen, unlike many other cryptocurrencies. 

The Financial Times this month reported that the Middle Eastern country was using bitcoin to settle cross-border transactions through Iranian crypto exchanges after the central bank advised its countrymen to do anything necessary to help the economy.   

Binance, which has no headquarters but is incorporated in the Cayman Islands, ran into trouble with U.S. authorities after it allegedly allowed funds linked to virtual theft and terrorism to flow through its exchange undetected. 

It exited the U.S. market and agreed to pay $4.3 billion. Its CEO and founder Changpeng Zhao stepped down after pleading guilty to anti-money laundering violations but was later pardoned by President Trump. 

This post Feds Probing Binance Over Iran’s Bitcoin Use: Report first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Bitcoin Magazine

No Bitcoin Payments in Russia — But the Digital Ruble Is Open for Business

While bitcoin is banned for making payments in Russia, the government is keen on one type of digital money: its own central bank digital currency. 

The digital ruble has been available for transactions in the country since September 1, according to a Tuesday report from Tass. 

Citing a talk given by Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, the news agency said that it was all part of “developing a convenient, fast, and independent payment infrastructure” in Russia. 

Russia has been fast regulating digital assets this year. President Vladimir Putin in August signed a law regulating the circulation of digital currencies and digital rights in the country. 

The law states that only registered entities can operate as exchanges, and puts limits on the amount of crypto retail investors can use. 

But what about Bitcoin? 

President Putin in 2024 seemed to praise the OG cryptocurrency. “For example, Bitcoin, who can ban it? Nobody,” he said at a forum at the time. 

“And who can prohibit the use of other electronic payment instruments? Nobody, because these are new technologies.” 

The president has also spoken about how the country has “competitive advantages” when it comes to Bitcoin mining due to the abundance of cheap energy in Russia. 

Though the Kremlin still has a tight grip on what its citizens can do with it: Retail investors are limited to trading bitcoin and other liquid cryptocurrencies, capped at 300,000 rubles ($3,556) per year, according to the August law. Qualified investors have no restrictions. 

And using crypto as a form of payment has been illegal in Russia since 2022. 

Central bank digital currencies — or CBDCs — are a centralized form of digital money, issued by a central bank. Bitcoiners have long criticized the idea of such a product because it can be used by governments to surveil its citizens and ultimately even control their spending. 

U.S. President Donald Trump even signed an executive order in 2025 prohibiting federal agencies from establishing, issuing, or promoting a CBDC. 

But in Russia, a digital ruble is the best way for keeping citizens in check. The Bank of Russia settled early on an architecture that mixes a centralized ledger it controls with distributed-ledger components. The 2021 concept described the preferred model as hybrid — distributed ledgers combined with centralized components — and the full technical details have never been published. 

Bitcoin payments, on the other hand, are being used by companies in international payments to counter Western sanctions, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov admitted in 2024.

This post No Bitcoin Payments in Russia — But the Digital Ruble Is Open for Business first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Bitcoin Magazine

Jeff Walton: How Strive Supercharged its Bitcoin Buying Strategy

Strive was one of the best performing stocks in the Russell 2000 over the past month, and Chief Risk Officer Jeff Walton says the company is on pace to double its Bitcoin holdings roughly every 12 weeks. In this conversation with Grace Remington and Sean Hagan, Walton explains how Strive manages its liquidity position while scaling that fast, why the balance sheet just crossed $2.5 billion in total strength, and how the common stock and preferred ATMs actually fund Bitcoin accumulation. He also breaks down the $700 million in warrants expiring October 13 and what their exercise would mean for leverage and future products. Walton closes with the systemic credit risk he thinks the entire market is underpricing.

Chapters:
00:00 — Jeff Walton Brings a Reinsurance Risk Playbook to Bitcoin
00:33 — Why a 24/7 On-Chain Market Is Easier to Model Than Equities
01:36 — Strive’s Russell 2000 Run and the $2.5 Billion Balance Sheet
02:15 — How the Common Stock and Preferred ATMs Fund Bitcoin Buys
03:54 — Staying Simple While Strategy and Metaplanet Stack Products
04:59 — Dividends, Cost of Capital, and Buying Bitcoin Near $86,000
06:19 — Why the Four-Year Bitcoin Cycle Is Fundamentally Breaking Down
08:26 — Trust as Capital Market Infrastructure and the Liquidity Test
10:28 — Inside Strive’s 25 to 50 Percent Bitcoin Hurdle Rate
12:07 — The Systemic Credit Event the Market Is Underpricing

DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed in this show are those of the participants and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of BTC Inc., Bitcoin Magazine, or any affiliated entities. This content is provided for informational and educational purposes only and should not be construed as investment, legal, tax, or accounting advice. Nothing contained in this show constitutes a solicitation, recommendation, endorsement, or offer to buy or sell any securities or financial instruments. Viewers should consult their own advisors before making financial or business decisions.

This post Jeff Walton: How Strive Supercharged its Bitcoin Buying Strategy first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Patrick Green.

Bitcoin Magazine

Jim Bianco: Macro Outlook, The 4th Turning and Bitcoin Adoption

The Fed just hiked for the first time in more than three years, and Jim Bianco of Bianco Research says the bond market had been signaling this was necessary for two years. He points out that during the cutting cycle the ten-year yield rose from 3.7% to 5% — the first time in over 50 years that long-term yields climbed while the Fed cut. In this conversation with Grace Remington and Sean Hagan, Bianco explains what he’d need to see in the long end of the curve to conclude the Fed has regained credibility with bond investors, and why the October 28 decision one week before the midterms matters more than Wall Street thinks.

Chapters:
00:00 — What the Long End of the Curve Says About Fed Credibility
00:31 — The Ten Year Went From 3.7% to 5% While the Fed Cut
01:17 — The October 28 Decision One Week Before the Midterms
01:39 — Pushing Back on the Debasement Trade Narrative
02:27 — Development Activity, DeFi Summer, and What Bitcoin Needs to Show
03:04 — Why Tether Is Effectively the Currency in Venezuela and Afghanistan
04:34 — Why the Bitcoin ETF Buildout Missed the Plot
05:26 — Stablecoins, the GENIUS Act, and Real Treasury Demand
06:56 — The Post-COVID Economy and Pushing Back on Jay Powell
08:00 — Multiple Wars, Ports in the Storm, and Fourth Turning Dynamics

DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed in this show are those of the participants and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of BTC Inc., Bitcoin Magazine, or any affiliated entities. This content is provided for informational and educational purposes only and should not be construed as investment, legal, tax, or accounting advice. Nothing contained in this show constitutes a solicitation, recommendation, endorsement, or offer to buy or sell any securities or financial instruments. Viewers should consult their own advisors before making financial or business decisions.

This post Jim Bianco: Macro Outlook, The 4th Turning and Bitcoin Adoption first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Patrick Green.

Aave governance has advanced a proposal that would give Bitcoin-backed borrowers materially more leverage while leaving less room before liquidation.

The proposal from risk service provider LlamaRisk would let users on Aave V3 Ethereum Core borrow as much as $0.81 against each $1 of WBTC or cbBTC collateral, up from $0.73. The liquidation threshold would rise from 78% to 85%.

LlamaRisk said on Sept. 21 that the proposal had advanced to Snapshot and voting would begin in less than 24 hours. The vote result and any implementation remained unverified at the reporting cutoff, so the higher limits are proposed parameters rather than live settings.

The case rests on one year of liquidation data showing that economically meaningful positions generally cleared within minutes. That history was recorded under existing parameters. It supports an argument for greater capital efficiency but cannot establish how the proposed settings would perform during the next extreme move.

Eight more cents of Bitcoin borrowing power

Loan-to-value, or LTV, sets the maximum debt that collateral can support. At 73% LTV, $100 of WBTC or cbBTC can support up to $73 of debt before reserve caps, available liquidity, asset eligibility and account-level constraints. At 81%, the same collateral could support up to $81.

The liquidation threshold marks the point where a position becomes eligible for liquidation. On Ethereum Core, the proposal would raise that threshold for WBTC and cbBTC from 78% to 85%.

The raw distance between LTV and the liquidation threshold would fall from five percentage points to four. The last table row expresses that distance as a collateral-price decline relative to the threshold, assuming debt remains unchanged and Bitcoin is the moving leg. Raising both parameters still narrows the borrower’s price cushion because the borrowing limit moves closer to the new liquidation line.

The changes extend beyond Ethereum Core. The proposal would raise Arbitrum WBTC’s ordinary LTV by five percentage points and Base cbBTC’s by eight points. Ethereum Core WETH, wstETH and weETH would each receive a 0.5-point LTV increase. Selected liquidation thresholds would also rise, while Base cbBTC’s liquidation bonus would fall from 7.5% to 6%. A separate Base cbBTC stablecoin E-Mode would move to 82% LTV and an 85% liquidation threshold.

These figures describe maximum capacity per dollar of eligible collateral. They do not quantify how much debt users would add. The proposal does not disclose a complete current dataset of collateral-enabled balances, debt attributed to each affected asset and account health factors. Total reserve supply would overstate usable collateral because some supplied tokens may be ineligible, disabled as collateral or unconnected to debt. Historical seized volume likewise does not reveal the live distribution of positions.

Minutes of liquidation history meet an hour-long tail model

LlamaRisk studied liquidation behavior from August 2025 through August 2026 across Ethereum Core, Arbitrum and Base.

On Ethereum Core, the analysis counted 7,206 ETH liquidations that seized $618 million and 2,621 BTC liquidations that seized $358 million. For both collateral families, the value-weighted 99th-percentile time a liquidation call spent at or below its execution price was five minutes.

That statistic measures a liquidation work-off window. It is different from saying that 99% of transactions executed within five minutes of an oracle update. Large positions can require several calls because a single liquidation generally repays only part of the debt.

The study separately measured processing after price-feed publications during the February and October 2025 stress windows. Its table reports that 100% of seized volume cleared within five minutes of the feed publication that made liquidation profitable in every listed market during those two events.

February produced no recognized deficit. October produced $0.39 million of event-level bad debt against roughly $128 million, although LlamaRisk said none affected the ETH- or BTC-family collateral analyzed for this proposal. The result suggests that liquidator response was not the binding constraint in those episodes; it does not recreate those events under the proposed higher leverage.

The model then combines a one-hour price excursion with each reserve’s liquidation bonus to derive a ceiling for the liquidation threshold. In the detailed table, the 99.9th-percentile adverse one-hour move was 11.85% for ETH and about 5% for BTC.

That percentile omits the most extreme 0.1% of one-hour observations in the two-year sample. The same record contained much larger moves: a worst one-hour ETH decline of 24.27% and a worst BTC decline of 10.72% in the detailed table. The proposal’s summary gives 11.15% for the BTC worst hour, an internal discrepancy, but either BTC figure is more than twice the roughly 5% percentile input.

The gap defines the residual risk. LlamaRisk’s framework assumes that regular oracle publications and responsive liquidators prevent a maximally leveraged position from sitting untouched for a full hour. A move beyond the percentile can become more damaging if price feeds stall, liquidation activity slows or market depth deteriorates at the same time.

The percentile therefore calibrates a protocol bad-debt buffer rather than a borrower protection level. A maximally borrowing BTC position could reach the proposed liquidation threshold after an approximately 4.7% collateral-price decline under the simplified single-asset calculation, even though the protocol model uses a roughly 5% BTC excursion plus the liquidation bonus to assess post-liquidation coverage.

The proposal leaves BTC thresholds below the model ceiling to account for depth, caps and concentration risks that price history does not capture. ETH receives less room: WETH is set at the model ceiling, while wstETH and weETH sit one point inside their ceilings.

The Bitcoin LTV vote weighs speed against leverage

Aave’s governance choice is whether observed liquidation performance under current parameters justifies allowing future positions to run closer to liquidation.

For Bitcoin collateral on Ethereum Core, the exchange is clear at the borrower level. Maximum LTV would rise eight percentage points, while the simplified collateral-price cushion at maximum leverage would shrink from about 6.4% to 4.7%. Existing borrowers would not automatically add debt, but the new limits would permit new or adjusted positions to carry more.

The protocol-level case is more favorable than the borrower-level cushion alone suggests. In LlamaRisk’s sample, economically meaningful liquidations were processed quickly, and the two studied stress windows left no bad debt on the reviewed ETH- and BTC-family collateral. The model also incorporates the liquidation bonus and keeps recommended BTC thresholds below its calculated ceiling.

Its limits are equally specific. Historical execution does not measure an outage that coincides with an exceptional price move. The worst one-hour declines in the same dataset exceeded the percentile inputs by a wide margin, and the model cannot remove liquidity, concentration or oracle risk.

The aggregate credit effect also remains unknown. Calculating it would require current collateral-enabled balances for every affected asset and market, the debt those positions already carry, their collateral settings and their health-factor distribution. The published proposal supplies the parameter change, not that full position-level dataset.

The forum says an implementation AIP would follow only after a positive Snapshot result. Until a vote and AIP establish the final values, the 81% Bitcoin LTV remains a governance proposal.

LlamaRisk’s study makes a measurable case that fast liquidation work-off can support greater collateral efficiency. The unresolved question is how much confidence Aave should place in that history when the danger lies in the hour that combines an unusually large market move with impaired pricing, liquidation or market depth.

The post Narrowing price cushions leave Bitcoin loans vulnerable to 4.7% price dips as Aave weighs higher leverage appeared first on CryptoSlate.

US spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) pulled in nearly $1 billion as BTC broke above $86,000, marking their strongest inflow day of 2026.

The funds recorded $999 million of net inflows on Sept. 21, the largest daily total since Oct. 6, 2025, when the products attracted about $1.2 billion, according to SoSoValue data.

Measured in Bitcoin, the move was even more pronounced. The ETFs absorbed about 11,530 BTC, their largest one-day net intake since Nov. 11, 2024, when they added roughly 12,560 BTC. The latest buying came as Bitcoin surged through $86,000 and briefly traded above $87,000, its highest level since January.

BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) led with $381.4 million, followed by $289.1 million for the ARK 21Shares Bitcoin ETF (ARKB) and $238.8 million for Fidelity’s Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund (FBTC).

The three accounted for more than $909 million of the total, while each of the six largest products contributed, Bloomberg Intelligence ETF analyst Eric Balchunas said.

For IBIT, the $381 million inflow ranked as its fourth-largest daily intake, Balchunas said. He pointed to the uneven pattern of recent creations as a constructive signal, arguing that irregular inflow days better reflect dispersed investor activity than allocations driven by a single large model or institution.

Record Bitcoin ETF inflows arrive without a trading-volume surge

Meanwhile, the scale of the creations contrasts with secondary-market activity.

Bloomberg Intelligence ETF analyst James Seyffart said US spot Bitcoin ETFs traded about $4.5 billion during the latest session, slightly below the roughly $4.6 billion recorded Friday. The relatively ordinary turnover stood out against Bitcoin’s sharp price move and the size of the reported inflows.

The timing also complicates attempts to connect Monday’s ETF figures directly to Bitcoin’s breakout.

Balchunas said much of the roughly $1 billion inflow probably reflects trading and creation activity from Friday because fund flows are reported with a lag. That means the next batch of disclosures may better show how investors responded once Bitcoin accelerated through $86,000.

“Look for more tonight,” Balchunas said.

That distinction raises the stakes for the next session. If Monday’s rally generated another wave of creations, the ETFs could extend a sharp reversal from the outflows that weighed on the market earlier this year and add a sustained source of spot demand as Bitcoin approaches $90,000.

The post Bitcoin ETFs just absorbed 11,500 BTC in their biggest buying day in nearly two years appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Coinbase Derivatives has filed a proposed framework for perpetual futures tied to individual US stocks and exchange-traded funds, but the contracts remain subject to regulatory approval.

The Securities and Exchange Commission notice, published Sept. 18, says Coinbase submitted the proposed rule change to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and that the CFTC had not approved it. The CFTC product register still listed the Single Stock Perpetual Futures Contract as “Approval Pending” when checked Sept. 22.

The filing therefore gives Coinbase a public rule proposal, not a product that traders can access. It describes how the exchange wants the contracts to work if the outstanding approval is secured.

Price exposure without share ownership

The proposal covers cash-settled futures on individual equity securities and ETF shares, including contracts with no fixed expiration date. A cash-settled contract resolves gains and losses through money payments instead of delivering the underlying stock or ETF shares.

That structure would give traders exposure to changes in an underlying security’s reference price without making them shareholders. The contracts would not deliver shares or convey ownership of the underlying security. They would provide a derivatives position whose value follows the referenced stock or ETF rather than the rights attached to holding that asset directly. Any gain or loss would arise from the futures position, not from owning and later selling the underlying shares.

Open positions would also be subject to funding payments. The broad rule framework does not establish one universal rate or interval for every contract. Instead, a product appendix or identified market reference materials would specify the funding methodology, payment mechanics, interval, publication practices and operational timing for each product.

The proposed trading week would run from Sunday at 8 p.m. Eastern through Friday at 5 p.m. Eastern. Holidays, maintenance windows and other exchange-specified periods could interrupt that schedule, while trading would remain subject to pauses, suspensions and regulatory halts.

Those hours broadly match the 24/5-style exposure described in an official @coinbase post. The wording of that announcement was prospective: @coinbase said it had filed and was “working to bring” the product to the US.

The proposal outlines no-expiry, cash-settled exposure and extended trading hours, but the CFTC register continues to show approval pending. Until the regulatory process advances and Coinbase supplies final contract-specific terms, the filing does not establish a launch or current availability. Claims that the product is already approved, launched or open to traders are therefore premature.

The post Coinbase targets stock futures but CFTC standstill blocks launch appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Bitcoin’s 11.65% weekly rebound now carries evidence of genuine spot and on-chain participation, widening a move that began with heavy short-covering.

During EU trading hours on Sept. 22, CryptoSlate market data placed Bitcoin at $85,877. In its latest market snapshot, Glassnode identified that the asset had risen more than 10% from the previous Sunday’s close and moved above $80,000 for the first time in nearly two weeks.

Glassnode said exchange spot taker flow flipped from net selling to net buying as volume increased, while the monthly change in realized capitalization moved above its high band. That combination shows the rebound had gained buyers beyond those forced to close bearish positions.

Demand quality improved, yet the market also accumulated a new vulnerability. Futures open interest, funding and realized profit-taking all sat above Glassnode’s bands. Bitcoin’s next phase therefore depends on whether spot participation can absorb leveraged positioning and sales from holders already sitting on gains.

Spot and on-chain participation improved

Bitcoin’s initial break above $85,000 had a large mechanical component. CryptoSlate reported on Sept. 21 that CoinGlass data showed more than $648 million of crypto short positions were liquidated as the price rose. Traders betting against Bitcoin had to buy back positions, adding momentum to the advance.

Forced buying eventually runs out as vulnerable positions are cleared. The earlier rally therefore left a specific durability question: would willing spot buyers remain after the squeeze faded?

Glassnode’s Sept. 21 reading provided the first affirmative evidence. Spot taker flow captures the balance of aggressive market orders on exchanges. Its move from net selling to net buying, accompanied by higher volume, showed buyers increasingly executing at available prices.

Perpetual taker flow also swung from heavy net selling to net buying, but that metric belongs to the derivatives market. Perpetual positions can employ leverage and face liquidation, while executed spot purchases represent a separate demand channel. The simultaneous shift broadened participation without establishing how persistent either group would be.

The on-chain reading reinforced the constructive side of the picture. Realized capitalization values each Bitcoin at the price when it last moved on-chain, providing an estimate of the network’s aggregate cost basis. Its monthly change standing above Glassnode’s high band showed coins were being repriced at higher levels.

The metric should be read as on-chain valuation rather than literal cash flow. It does not identify buyers or count dollars entering Bitcoin.

That definition sharpens the contrast with the prior week. CryptoSlate reported that realized cap contracted on Sept. 15 after 27 consecutive growth days. By Glassnode’s Sept. 21 report, the monthly change was back above its high band.

The two observations show that the earlier contraction had given way to a stronger monthly reading by the time Bitcoin tested $86,000. They do not establish every daily move between those dates, but they mark a clear improvement in the on-chain cost-basis signal.

Leverage tests the rebound

Glassnode’s derivatives readings put a limit on the bullish interpretation.

Futures open interest sat above its high band, and funding was also above its band as longs paid to maintain exposure. Higher open interest expands the pool of positions that can be forced out during a sharp move, while elevated funding raises the carrying cost for leveraged buyers.

Options positioning pointed to another imbalance. Open interest was above its high band near $41 billion, while Glassnode’s spread between implied and realized volatility had moved farther below its low band. Options were pricing less movement than Bitcoin had recently delivered. Skew edged toward puts but remained inside its range.

None of those readings predicts a reversal. Together, they show a market with more exposure to unwind if price moves abruptly.

Profitable supply creates a separate absorption challenge. Glassnode estimated that about two thirds of Bitcoin’s supply was in profit. Unrealized gains and realized profit-taking were both above their bands, indicating that holders had both the capacity and demonstrated willingness to realize gains.

Continued spot buying would give those sales a deeper pool of demand. A fading spot bid alongside rising open interest would leave price more dependent on leveraged traders, increasing the potential for liquidation-driven volatility.

ETF activity offered a reminder that the demand recovery was uneven. Glassnode’s Sept. 21 report put weekly ETF net flow at roughly negative $300 million. That dated measure covers institutionally mediated fund creations and redemptions over a weekly window, separate from exchange spot taker flow and the monthly change in realized cap. The three indicators describe different routes through which demand and valuation can change.

Deribit’s Bitcoin options expiry falls on Sept. 25 at 08:00 UTC under its published contract schedule. The date creates a potential hedging and volatility window, without supplying a directional signal on its own.

The more durable test will extend beyond that expiry. If exchange spot taker flow remains positive while realized-cap growth holds and futures funding cools, Bitcoin would have a stronger base for the next leg. If leverage continues to build as spot participation weakens, the rebound would become increasingly exposed to the same forced-position dynamics that accelerated its opening phase.

The post Massive ETF capital exits threaten Bitcoin’s fragile $86,000 price surge appeared first on CryptoSlate.

GameStop’s Bitcoin options strategy faces a key test Friday as the cryptocurrency trades well above its disclosed $70,000 call strike.

The company said in a Sept. 9 filing that covered-call contracts tied to roughly 2,000 BTC were outstanding as of Aug. 1, with maturities extending through Sept. 25. Bitcoin was trading around $85,662 on Sept. 22, leaving the token more than $15,000 above the strike.

If those calls remain open through expiration, GameStop would have capped its participation in further gains on the covered Bitcoin. At current prices, the difference between spot and the $70,000 strike amounts to roughly $31.3 million across 2,000 BTC.

That figure represents potential upside surrendered under the strategy rather than a realized loss. GameStop collected option premiums for selling the calls, and the final economics would depend on the contract terms, any premium received, and whether the company has since closed or rolled the positions.

The filing only establishes that the calls were open on Aug. 1. GameStop has not disclosed whether the same exposure remains in place today.

Bitcoin rally raises cost of income strategy

Covered calls allow an asset holder to generate premium income by selling another investor the right to participate in gains above a specified price. The trade becomes less attractive when the underlying asset rallies sharply through the strike because appreciation above that level is effectively surrendered while the contract remains outstanding.

GameStop has already acknowledged that its covered-call program limits participation in Bitcoin gains above the relevant strikes.

The latest rally has made that trade-off more visible. Bitcoin’s advance into the mid-$80,000s means a position that generated income when prices were lower could now constrain returns on a substantial portion of the company’s Bitcoin exposure.

Public filings leave several details unresolved. GameStop has not disclosed whether the private over-the-counter contracts settle in cash or Bitcoin, whether they can be exercised before maturity, or how automatic exercise, netting and closeout provisions are structured.

The company recorded a $2 million derivative liability for covered calls as of Aug. 1 and reported about $13.8 million in gains from changes in their fair value during the first half of fiscal 2026. Those results included earlier contracts that had already matured, making them an incomplete guide to the current position.

Previous filings show GameStop has actively adjusted the strategy. An earlier tranche expired before the company entered new contracts, indicating the outstanding amount can shift between reporting dates. Its Sept. 8 earnings release did not provide an update beyond the Aug. 1 snapshot.

The 2,000 BTC referenced by the calls is separate from the 4,709 BTC GameStop pledged to Coinbase Credit under a broader collateral arrangement. That agreement allows Coinbase Credit to rehypothecate, commingle, or sell pledged Bitcoin while GameStop retains a contractual right to receive equivalent assets.

Friday’s expiration therefore leaves investors with a narrower question: whether GameStop still has the $70,000 calls in place after Bitcoin’s rally.

If it does, the company may have traded tens of millions of dollars in upside for option income. If the position was rolled or closed, the outcome could look very different, and the next filing would be the clearest indication of how aggressively GameStop is managing its Bitcoin treasury as prices move higher.

The post GameStop may have surrendered $31 million of Bitcoin upside with one options trade appeared first on CryptoSlate.

$XRP spent three weeks getting rejected by the same falling line. Today it stopped asking politely. The daily candle opened at $1.5361, ran to $1.5955 and is holding $1.5699 at the time of writing, up 2.20% on the session. More importantly, it did that by closing above the descending trendline that has capped every rally attempt since the late August spike to $1.70.

Why Did The XRP Price Break Out Today?

Three things lined up on the daily.

• The descending trendline drawn from the August high finally gave way. Price had been compressing against it since early September, with each rejection landing a little higher. That is textbook coiling, and coils resolve.
• The $1.50 level flipped. It acted as resistance through the entire September range, capping the mid-month push. XRP is now trading above it with room to spare, which turns the old ceiling into the first line of defence.
• The 200 EMA at $1.3589 sits well below price and is flattening out after months of decline. XRP reclaimed it during the August move and has not lost it since, including on the dip to $1.30 in mid-September. A rising market above a flattening 200 EMA is a different animal to a bounce inside a downtrend.

The backdrop helps. Large holders added roughly 1.54 billion tokens during the recent rally, worth around $2.2 billion, although some of that flow also moved toward exchanges. US spot XRP funds also pulled in $153.55 million during August according to SoSoValue data, with the vast majority of that arriving in the final two weeks of the month. Flows do not move an asset of this size on their own, but they do explain why every dip since $1.00 has been bought quickly.

What Is The Next XRP Price Target?

The first real obstacle is $1.80.

There is nothing meaningful between current price and that level, which is exactly why the move can be fast if momentum holds. The August spike stalled at $1.70, so expect some friction there, but $1.70 is a wick level rather than a zone with volume behind it. $1.80 is the horizontal that has actually been defended.

Above $1.80, the chart opens into the $1.80 to $1.95 band highlighted on the daily. That is the pocket where the previous distribution happened, and it is the logical destination if XRP clears the breakout with conviction into October.

RSI backs the setup without screaming at anyone. It sits at 67.25 with its moving average at 54.49, so momentum is expanding but has not tipped into the overbought exhaustion that marked the top of the August candle. There is room to run before the indicator becomes a problem.

Where Is XRP Support If The Breakout Fails?

This is where discipline matters, because breakouts fail all the time.

The immediate line is $1.50. A daily close back below it would put this move firmly in the failed-breakout bucket, and the natural target from there is the $1.40 shelf where September spent most of its time.

Below that, $1.30 is the one that counts. It has held as support twice in the last month and lines up closely with the 200 EMA at $1.3589. Losing $1.30 on a daily close would hand the trend back to the sellers and reopen $1.20, with $1.00 as the structural floor that produced the entire August rally.

Track the levels live on the CryptoTicker XRP chart.

XRP Price Prediction: What Happens Into October?

Three scenarios, ranked by what the chart currently supports.

• Bullish (most likely while above $1.50): XRP consolidates between $1.55 and $1.60 for a few sessions, absorbs the profit taking, then pushes into $1.70. A clean break of $1.70 puts $1.80 on the table within weeks, with $1.90 to $1.95 as the extended target into late October.
• Neutral: The breakout stalls and XRP chops between $1.50 and $1.60 while RSI cools off. Frustrating, but healthy, and it builds the base for a second attempt at $1.80.
• Bearish: A daily close back under $1.50 traps the breakout buyers. Price slides to $1.40, then tests $1.30 and the 200 EMA together. That level decides whether the August recovery was a trend change or a relief rally.

The line to watch is simple. As long as XRP closes days above $1.50, the path of least resistance points at $1.80.

Of the 25 largest cryptocurrencies, on September 22, 2026 there are three you cannot buy directly against euros at any of the five trading venues we checked, and four more at exactly one. Anyone chasing a riser during the current rally therefore runs into a wall at a point that appears nowhere in the price rankings: the coin sits at number nine or number fourteen, but your euro cannot reach it.

cryptoticker.io compiled this analysis itself on September 22, 2026. What it means for your next order, which detours exist and what they cost is set out in this article.

What We Measured on September 22, 2026: Method, Sample and Limits

The method in one sentence: on September 22, 2026, between 09:48 and 09:52 UTC, we pulled the public trading pair directories of five trading venues active in the EU and checked, for each of the 25 largest cryptocurrencies, whether an active pair against the euro exists there.

We checked 25 coins against 5 trading venues, so 125 individual checks. The ranking of the 25 largest coins comes from CoinGecko's public market overview, retrieved on September 22, 2026 at 09:48 UTC. As trading venues we took Kraken, Bitvavo, Coinbase, Bitstamp and Bitpanda, because all five serve German customers and settle in euros.

A coin only counts as tradable if the directory lists a pair with the euro as the counter currency and that pair is flagged as active. A coin you can only buy against US dollars, against Tether or against bitcoin does not count as tradable in this analysis. That distinction is precisely the point, because it reflects what the euro in your bank account can reach without you swapping first.

What we could not check

Three gaps come with this, and we would rather name them ourselves. First, neobrokers such as Trade Republic, Scalable Capital or Bison have no public directory of their tradable assets that can be retrieved automatically; they are therefore missing from the sample, even though many investors in Germany buy precisely there. Second, at Coinbase we queried the public directory of the trading platform, not the offering in the retail app: in the app a purchase can run through an intermediate currency that does not appear in the order book directory. Third, Bitpanda's price directory lists precious metals and other assets alongside cryptocurrencies, which is why we only looked up the 25 coins on our list individually there and did not form an overall figure.

All the numbers in this article refer to this one retrieval moment. Trading venues add pairs and drop them again continuously; a finding from this morning may be out of date in two weeks.

The Result: Three of the 25 Largest Coins Have a Euro Pair at No Venue at All

Twelve of the 25 coins are available against euros at all five trading venues. They are the names you would expect: bitcoin, ethereum, XRP, Solana, Dogecoin, Cardano, Chainlink, Stellar, Uniswap, Bitcoin Cash, Avalanche and the stablecoin USDC. At the other end stands a group that ranks high in the table and barely features in euro trading at all.

Seven of the 25 largest coins therefore have at most a single euro trading venue in this sample. Figure Heloc at number ten, Rain at number sixteen and LEO Token at number nineteen have none at all. For an investor in Germany, that means the purchase is not impossible, but it runs via a detour, and every detour has a price.

How the individual venues compare

Across the top 25, Kraken lists 22 coins with a euro pair, Bitpanda 18, Bitstamp 17, Bitvavo 16 and Coinbase 13. The spread between the broadest and the narrowest offering is thus nine coins, and it does not run along the lines of how well known the providers are.

Zcash, Monero and WhiteBIT Coin: Why It Is the Rally's Risers That Are Missing

Zcash sits at number nine on the survey date at $1,504, up 31.5 percent over the week (CoinGecko, September 22, 2026, 09:48 UTC). A coin of that size would normally be available everywhere. In our sample, two of five trading venues list it against euros.

Monero, at number thirteen, stands at $569.75 and has exactly one euro trading venue. Both are so-called privacy coins, cryptocurrencies whose protocol obscures the sender, the recipient or the amount of a transfer. The connection to the trading offering is no coincidence, and there is more on that shortly in the section on anti-money-laundering law. How the situation for Zcash is developing in concrete terms we set out in our article on buying Zcash despite the EU trading ban.

WhiteBIT Coin sits at number fourteen at $86.50 and likewise has only one euro trading venue in the sample. Here the explanation is a different one: WBT is a trading platform's own token, and such tokens are rarely quoted widely outside their own platform. The same pattern shows in LEO Token at number nineteen, which has no euro pair at any of the five venues checked.

Hyperliquid is the counter-example and shows that a young riser can indeed arrive: HYPE sits at number eleven and has four of the five euro trading venues. Anyone wanting to buy there should nonetheless know what applies at a trading venue without European authorisation; we described that in our piece on how Hyperliquid can be used from Germany.

Euro Pair, Quoting and the Broker Model: What Tradable Means Technically

A euro pair is an order book in which buyers and sellers of a cryptocurrency place their bids directly in euros. If it is missing, that does not automatically mean you cannot get the coin at that provider. It means your euro has to be turned into something else first.

There are two designs here that you should keep apart. A trading platform with an order book matches you against other customers; the price arises from their bids, and you see bid and ask separately. A broker, by contrast, quotes you a price itself and earns on the spread in between. Broker models often list a great many assets, because they do not need an order book per asset, only a source for the price.

For you that has one practical consequence. At a broker you will find more exotic names more often, but you pay a spread that you rarely see itemised. On a trading platform with a thin order book, by contrast, the mark-up is visible, sitting right in front of you as the gap between the bids. Which design your provider uses is set out in its fee overview; we have put the common models side by side in our crypto exchange comparison.

Coinbase Lists Only 13 of the Top 25 With a Euro Order Book: What That Means for Your Order

The most striking single finding of our survey concerns Coinbase. On September 22, 2026, the trading platform's public directory held exactly 33 base assets with an active euro order book, and 13 of them belong to the 25 largest coins. At Kraken, the same directory query returned 499 base assets with a euro pair, at Bitvavo 426 and at Bitstamp 111.

That figure needs explaining, and we do not want to make it bigger than it is. The number describes the order book offering of the trading platform, which is aimed above all at professional users. In the retail app the same provider can offer more coins, by having the purchase run internally through an intermediate currency. What is incurred in conversion along the way is usually not itemised separately for you as a retail client, and that is exactly why it is worth a look at the order book before you move a larger sum.

The action that follows is simple: look up the coin you want to buy in your preferred provider's directory before you open an account, and check whether the euro really is listed there as the counter currency. At many providers you will find this list on a public price page, for instance in Kraken's price overview.

The Detour via USDT or USDC: Fee, Spread and an Extra Taxable Event

If no euro pair exists, the usual route is a two-stage purchase. You first buy a stablecoin, a cryptocurrency whose price is pegged to a currency such as the US dollar, and then swap it into the coin you actually want. Technically that works reliably. It becomes expensive in three places at once.

What the detour costs

First, you pay a trading fee twice instead of once, because one order becomes two. Second, you pay the gap between the bid and the ask twice, and in the second step often in a thinner market. Third, the exchange rate shifts between the two steps if the stablecoin is pegged to the dollar and you started in euros. You bear that exchange rate movement without ever seeing it as a line item on a statement.

The fourth point is a tax one and is the most frequently overlooked. In Germany, swapping one cryptocurrency for another counts as a disposal of the first. The intermediate step via a stablecoin is therefore a taxable event in its own right that needs documenting, even if hardly any gain arises in arithmetic terms. We dealt with this point in more detail on May 25, 2026 in our article on stablecoins and tax; for day-to-day record keeping, one of the tools from our overview of crypto tax tools helps.

MiCA Authorisation and Anti-Money-Laundering Law: Why a Coin Disappears From Euro Trading

That it is privacy coins of all things that are thinly represented in euro trading has a legal background. Providers offering crypto asset services in the EU have needed authorisation under the European regulation on markets in crypto assets, MiCA for short, since the end of 2024. Which activities fall under it and who supervises them is described by BaFin on its page on crypto asset services.

With the authorisation come obligations to make transfers traceable. With a cryptocurrency whose protocol obscures amounts or addresses, those obligations are hard to meet, and several providers have therefore removed the affected pairs from their European offering. What else follows from MiCA authorisation we set out in our overview of the MiCA obligations for crypto companies.

The distinction between trading and holding matters here. The fact that a coin is no longer tradable against euros at one provider forbids you neither from holding it nor from selling it elsewhere. It narrows the route, and it narrows it more for the future than for today.

Checking Liquidity and Spread: How to Spot a Thin Euro Market

Having a euro pair is one question, having a usable euro pair is another. Liquidity here means a market's ability to absorb an order without the price running away noticeably. There are three signs you can read yourself before buying.

First, look at the gap between the highest bid and the lowest offer, the spread. If it is well above half a percent for a large coin, the market is thin. Second, look at the depth of the order book, that is how much volume sits in the next price levels; if your planned order size clears several levels at once, you pay a mark-up that appears in no fee table. Third, check the turnover of the past 24 hours specifically in the euro pair and not in the dollar pair of the same coin, because the two can differ widely.

As a practical cross-check, a small test order helps before you move the actual sum. If the executed price deviates noticeably from the one displayed, you have your answer. Providers with European authorisation and a euro account we have compiled in our overview of regulated crypto exchanges.

Delisting Risk: What Happens if Your Venue Drops the Euro Pair

A coin with only one euro trading venue has no cushion. If that single provider drops the pair, nothing is left for you in euros, and in our sample that affects Monero, WhiteBIT Coin, USDS and Ethena USDe. A delisting, that is the removal of a trading pair, usually follows a fixed pattern: the provider announces it, halts trading on a cut-off date and then sets a deadline by which you can still withdraw your balance.

That second deadline is the more important one, and it is missed regularly. What happens technically in the process and which routes remain to you after trading stops we described in our article on what happens to your tokens in a delisting.

The precaution against it is unspectacular. If you hold a coin that hangs on a single euro pair in Europe, set up that provider's notifications and check in advance whether you could withdraw the coin to your own wallet. Both cost you ten minutes once and spare you, in an emergency, a deadline you only learn about afterwards.

Four Metrics Before the Order: The Short Version

Before you chase a name in a rally that has just appeared in the top 25, four checks are worth it. First: does your provider offer a pair against euros at all, or only against dollars and stablecoins? Second: how many providers list this euro pair, and what happens if one of them steps out? Third: how wide is the spread in precisely that pair at the time of day when you want to trade? And fourth: does your purchase run via an intermediate swap that you have to record for tax purposes?

None of these questions is hard to answer. All four are readily skipped, because the price is running and opening an account is quicker than checking.

Checking Your Buying Route: What to Take Away

1. Look the coin up before you open an account. Check in your preferred provider's public price directory whether a euro pair really is listed there. If the provider does not suit your selection, you will find alternatives with a euro account in our crypto exchange comparison.
2. Count how many euro pairs your coin hangs on. With a single trading venue, a fallback plan belongs in place before you buy, not after. Which providers are authorised in Europe and settle in euros is set out in our overview of regulated crypto exchanges.
3. Record the intermediate swap from the start. If your purchase runs via a stablecoin, log both steps with date, quantity and price. A tool from our overview of crypto tax tools takes that off your hands, as long as you set it up before the first swap.

(As of September 22, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)

The information provided in this article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice. Investing in cryptocurrencies carries a high level of risk.

A trading demo account is a trading account with play money: you place orders at real prices, but no money moves and no trade reaches an exchange. The point is not to practise making profits, but to make mistakes where they cost nothing. European regulators have put a figure on how expensive the alternative is: when ESMA adopted restrictions on CFD trading with retail clients on March 27, 2018, it cited analyses by national authorities finding that 74 to 89 percent of retail client accounts lost money, on average between 1,600 and 29,000 euros per client. This article explains what a demo account can do, how a broker's demo account differs from an independent simulator, and how you can start with 10,000 euros of play money at real prices without signing up.

What Demo Trading Is and What It Is Not

Demo trading means the prices are real and the execution is simulated. You see the same charts as a trader using real money, you place the same order types, and the account calculates profit, loss, fees and, with leveraged products, liquidation too. The difference lies in three points:

• No market contact. Your order moves no price, because it never reaches an exchange. In liquid markets such as bitcoin or ethereum that is no problem for retail position sizes; in thin markets it is.
• No pain. A 20 percent drawdown in play money is a number; in a real account it is a feeling. That is why demo accounts train discipline only in part.
• No barrier to starting over. A demo account can be reset, a real-money account cannot. Anyone who starts again after every loss learns how to start again, not how to handle a loss.

What a demo account does do very well, on the other hand, is test your rule set. Setting a stop loss before entering, calculating position size from your risk, keeping to a daily limit. Whether those rules hold shows up after two weeks with play money just as reliably as with real money, only without the bill.

Trading Demo Account Without Signing Up: How to Start

Most demo accounts require registration first. The CryptoTicker Trading Hub takes the other route, as of September 22, 2026:

1. Open the cockpit. No account, no email address, no payment details. 10,000 euros of play money are ready and the prices of 50 coins come in live from the exchange.
2. Place your first three trades without an account. An order ticket with stop loss and take profit, a chart with indicators, long or short, selectable leverage. Fees are calculated and reduce your result, so that you do not learn a strategy that only works without costs.
3. Create an account if you want to continue. After the third trade, one click creates the account, without an email address and password; you can add a mail address or Google sign-in later so that you find your progress again on a second device. There are no payment details.
4. Choose ranked or practice mode. Ranked, you trade in one of two leagues, up to 10x or up to 100x leverage, and appear under your pseudonym on the leaderboard as soon as you make your profile public. Unranked, you practise without elimination for as long as you like.

All of it runs in the browser, on a phone as on a computer, and can be added to the home screen as a web app. An app from the store is not needed.

Broker Demo Account or Independent Simulator?

Both simulate trades at real prices. The difference lies in whom the demo account serves. The statements about broker demo accounts apply to the market as a whole, not to any particular provider; individual brokers handle it differently.

A broker demo account is the right choice if you have already settled on a provider and want to get to know its interface. An independent simulator is the right choice if you want to learn the craft before you settle on a provider. Anyone who uses both in that order arrives at the broker with routine rather than with hope.

What to Look For in Any Demo Account

• Realistic starting capital. Anyone practising with 100,000 euros of play money who later deposits 2,000 euros has learned position sizes they will never trade. Set the demo account to the amount you would actually commit later, or convert every position to that amount.
• Real prices, not delayed ones. A demo account with a 15-minute price delay trains the wrong reflex. Ask whether the prices are live.
• Fees and spread in the demo. A demo account without fees makes every strategy more profitable than it is. At 20 trades a day, 0.1 percent per execution decides between profit and loss.
• No time pressure. A demo account that expires after 30 days pushes you towards a real-money account before the rules have settled. Four weeks are the beginning, not the end.
• The same rules as later. One percent risk per trade, stop before entry, daily limit. Anyone who trades differently in the demo account than planned is measuring nothing.

Crypto Demo Account: Three Differences From Equities and Forex

A crypto demo account differs in three respects from a demo account for equities or currencies, and all three are worth experiencing with play money before they cost money:

1. No close of trading. Bitcoin trades around the clock, seven days a week. A stop that is not triggered overnight is a bigger problem than on Xetra, where trading ends at 5:30 pm on weekdays.
2. Leverage up to 100x. Perpetual futures on crypto allow leverage that does not exist for retail clients in equities. Tenfold leverage means that roughly ten percent of adverse movement is enough to liquidate the position, before fees are even counted. How perpetuals work is set out in the comparison of the best perp DEXs.
3. Swings of ten percent in a day. They are normal with smaller coins. A stop that would be generous with equities is triggered constantly here; the position size has to be correspondingly smaller.

From the Demo Account to a Real Account

The switch is only worth it once three numbers hold up over several weeks: the number of rule breaches (zero), the largest drawdown (known and endured) and the result in relation to it (the Trading Hub calculates this as the CT score). Then the question is not which provider is the best, but which suits your style: a regulated exchange for spot without leverage, a broker or perp DEX for derivatives. Fees, regulation and test reports are in the comparison of the best crypto brokers and in the comparison of the best crypto exchanges. Your first real commitment should be smaller than the play money, not larger.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a trading demo account?

A trading account with play money: real prices, simulated execution, no money moving. It serves to test the platform and your rule set before real capital is in the market.

Is there a trading demo account without signing up?

Yes. In the CryptoTicker Trading Hub the first three trades work without an account, with 10,000 euros of play money at real prices. After that an email address secures your progress, as of September 2026.

Are demo accounts free?

As a rule, yes. Brokers finance them as a route to the real-money account. The Trading Hub is free during the current trial month. Everything is free to play until the first ranked season starts; after that, taking part in the ranking costs from 29 euros a month according to the terms of participation, while practising without a ranking stays free (as of September 22, 2026). A prize pool has been announced for the ranked seasons.

How long should I practise in a demo account?

Until you keep to your rules for several weeks without a breach and know your largest drawdown. A demo account that expires after 30 days is often too short for that.

Which demo account is suitable for crypto?

One with real prices around the clock, selectable leverage and calculated fees, so that liquidation and costs are realistic. The Trading Hub offers 50 coins, long and short, and two leagues up to 10x and up to 100x leverage.

Do gains in a demo account count anywhere?

Not as money. In the Trading Hub they count on the leaderboard, scored as the CT score, the result in relation to the largest drawdown.

The basic terms, the position-size calculation and the four-week practice plan are in our guide to learning to trade; anyone planning a first real trade after the demo account will find fees, regulation and leverage limits in the comparison of the best crypto brokers.

Sources

• ESMA, press release of 27.03.2018: "ESMA agrees to prohibit binary options and restrict CFDs to protect retail investors", https://www.esma.europa.eu/press-news/esma-news/esma-agrees-prohibit-binary-options-and-restrict-cfds-protect-retail-investors
• Deutsche Börse, Xetra trading calendar and trading hours, https://www.cashmarket.deutsche-boerse.com/cash-de/Handel/handelskalender-und-zeiten
• CryptoTicker Trading Hub, home page and terms of participation, https://trading.cryptoticker.io/ and https://trading.cryptoticker.io/agb (accessed on 22.09.2026)

US spot bitcoin ETFs took in a net $999 million on September 21, in a single trading day. It was the third consecutive day of inflows, and it met a bitcoin price that at times stood above $87,000. For you as an investor in Germany, that number is still only half the news, because these particular funds are out of your reach.

The short answer to what you can do now: check which product you actually hold your bitcoin through, what that product is worth in an insolvency, and how it is taxed. Those three points decide your result far more than whether $999 million or $600 million flowed into American funds on Monday. The rest of this article works through them in order.

$999 Million in One Day: What the ETF Numbers From September 21 Show

The figures come from the data service SoSoValue and were picked up by several industry outlets on September 22. On that reading, the American spot bitcoin ETFs received net inflows of $999 million on September 21. The group's net assets under management stood at $110.135 billion afterwards, equal to 6.3 percent of the entire bitcoin market capitalisation. Cumulative net inflows since launch add up to $56.16 billion.

Net inflow means that more fund shares were created than redeemed. An ETF share does not come into existence because someone buys it on an exchange, but because an authorised market participant hands the fund money and the fund buys bitcoin with it. That is exactly why the number matters more to the market than raw trading volume: behind a net inflow sits goods that were actually bought, that disappear from free supply and move into the fund's custody.

Two funds carried the day. BlackRock's fund took in $381 million, the product from Ark Invest and 21Shares $289 million. Together that is a good two thirds of the daily inflow, with the rest spread across the remaining issuers.

Why a Single Fund Has Gathered More Than the Whole Group

This is the point to look at a number that does not add up at first glance. Cumulative net inflows across all US spot bitcoin ETFs stand at $56.16 billion. BlackRock's fund alone comes to $64.506 billion on a cumulative basis. A component is therefore larger than the total.

The contradiction dissolves once you account for the legacy holdings. Several issuers, above all the Grayscale trust that was converted into an ETF in January 2024, have seen persistent outflows ever since. Investors who had been stuck there for years at a discount to the bitcoin price used the conversion to get out. Those outflows drag the group total down, while the newer products with lower fees keep gathering assets.

For interpretation, that means a strong day for the group is always partly a reallocation between issuers. Anyone reading inflows as a sentiment gauge should therefore watch the run, not a single daily amount. Three consecutive days of inflows are a signal; a record day in the middle of an outflow phase would not be.

Fed Rate Hike to 4 Percent: Why the Money Is Flowing Into Bitcoin Anyway

The timing is remarkable. On September 16 the US Federal Reserve raised its policy rate by 25 basis points to a range of 3.75 to 4.00 percent, the first increase since July 2023. All twelve voting members backed the step, and 16 of 18 officials expect another hike this year according to the published projections. They see core PCE inflation at 3.4 percent in December 2026.

Rising rates are classically seen as a headwind for assets that pay no running income. Immediately after the meeting bitcoin did indeed fall below $76,000. Since then the price has not merely recovered that move but more than made up for it. There is no clean explanation for this, and anyone selling you a single cause is overstating what they know. Two things are observable: equity markets rose broadly on Monday, and fresh money flowed into the bitcoin funds.

For you, there is mainly one lesson in this. The market does not trade the rate decision itself, but the deviation from what had been priced in beforehand. An expected hike can send a price higher, a surprise pause can send it lower. Sizing positions around central bank dates therefore rarely works.

Bitcoin Price at $86,000: How Far the Jump Really Carries

Our own CoinPaprika query on September 22 at 11:56 UTC shows bitcoin at $85,883, up 0.77 percent over 24 hours and 11.47 percent over the week. Market capitalisation stands at around $1.73 trillion.

When it comes to classifying the price level, the accounts diverge. The dpa-sourced report on finanzen.net speaks of the highest level since May 2026, while WirtschaftsWoche, citing the Bitstamp exchange, names a daily high of $87,248 and therefore the highest level since the end of January. Both readings stand side by side because every exchange quotes its own price and the comparison dates differ. For practical purposes the range is enough: bitcoin is trading at a level it has not reached for several months.

More important than the record framing is the distance to your own entry price. Anyone who bought in the spring is sitting on gains and faces the question of the right moment. Anyone who came in during the autumn of 2025 near the old highs is still down: from the all-time high, which CoinPaprika dates to October 6, 2025, the price is still around 32 percent away according to the same query. The news about billions in inflows changes nothing about that calculation.

Why You Cannot Buy a US Spot ETF as a German Investor

Now to the practical part. The funds reporting these inflows are approved in the United States and are not tradable for European retail investors. The reason is not your broker, but an EU regulation.

The PRIIPs Regulation, that is Regulation (EU) No 1286/2014, requires a key information document for every packaged investment product. It is a short, strictly formatted document in the local language that discloses costs, a risk rating and possible performance scenarios. Without that document a product may not be distributed to retail investors in the European Economic Area. American fund companies do not produce it for their home products, simply because European retail distribution is not their market.

On top of that comes the funds directive: a European retail fund has to diversify and may not sit entirely in a single asset. A bitcoin ETF in the narrow sense is therefore not approvable in the EU. What you get here instead, which abbreviations stand for it and what each of them means, we have broken down in our overview of crypto ETFs in Germany.

Crypto ETNs in Your Portfolio: How the Product Works and Where the Risk Sits

The European substitute is called an ETN, in full an Exchange Traded Note. An ETN is an exchange-traded debt security: the issuer contractually promises you to track the performance of an underlying. Such crypto products are widely available on European trading venues, many of them on Xetra, and they run through your ordinary securities account.

The difference from ring-fenced fund assets

A classic fund share is ring-fenced fund property. If the fund company goes bankrupt, the fund assets still belong to the investors and do not become part of the insolvency estate. That does not apply to a debt security. If the issuer becomes insolvent, you are one creditor among many.

What physical backing achieves

Most European issuers answer that objection with physical backing: for every ETN issued, real bitcoin sits with a custodian, often additionally pledged to a trustee. That substantially defuses issuer risk, but it does not remove it. What matters is what the base prospectus says, who the custodian is and whether an independent third party provides the collateral arrangement. You will find those details in the key information document and in the issuer's prospectus, not in the product marketing.

Also check the ongoing costs and the spread. The management fee is deducted from the value daily and weighs more heavily over long holding periods than the one-off order fee. In thin trading outside the main sessions, the gap between bid and offer can cost you extra on top.

Tax on Bitcoin: Holding Period in the Wallet, Withholding Tax in the Portfolio

For German investors, the tax difference between a direct holding and a security is often a bigger lever than the fee.

If you hold bitcoin directly, that is on an exchange or in your own wallet, a sale falls under private disposal transactions pursuant to Section 23 of the German Income Tax Act. The Federal Ministry of Finance summarised the details in its circular of March 6, 2025, which replaces the 2022 version. Under it, gains are tax free after a holding period of more than one year. Within the year your personal income tax rate applies, with an exemption threshold of 1,000 euros per calendar year covering all private disposal transactions together. An exemption threshold is not an allowance: if it is exceeded, the entire gain is taxable, not merely the excess.

An ETN in your portfolio, by contrast, is a security. Income from it generally counts as investment income and is subject to the 25 percent withholding tax plus the solidarity surcharge and, where applicable, church tax, regardless of the holding period. In return the saver's lump-sum allowance of 1,000 euros applies, and the institution holding your account usually remits the tax automatically.

The treatment of ETNs that carry an actual delivery claim on the deposited cryptocurrency is disputed. Parts of the tax law literature consider treatment along the lines of a direct holding defensible here; the ministry's circular does not address the point explicitly. On this question, do not rely on a product brochure, but clarify it with a tax adviser before you buy.

Check Your Buying Route: MiCA-Licensed Exchange, Brokerage Account or Savings Plan

None of the above amounts to a recommendation for a product, but to an order in which to check things. If you want to use the holding period and keep control of the keys, the route runs through a direct purchase. Since the MiCA transition period ended on July 1, 2026, only licensed providers may serve retail clients in the EU. Whether your exchange holds a licence and in which member state it was granted is set out in the supervisor's public register and usually in the provider's legal notices as well. Which venues meet these requirements and what they cost is in our crypto exchange comparison.

If instead you want to bundle everything in your existing securities account, because offsetting losses against other investments matters to you or because you would rather not handle custody yourself, the ETN is the obvious route. Doing both at once also works, but then demands clean documentation so that in the spring you know which holding falls under which rule.

Levels Above and Below: How to Measure the Next Move

For orientation without a price forecast, three documented levels from recent days. On the upside, the Bitstamp high of $87,248 cited by WirtschaftsWoche marks the upper edge of the current move. Below it lies the $84,000 mark, whose break we described on September 21. On the downside, the level of around $76,000 from the night of the rate decision remains the reference point should the move be given back entirely.

Besides the price, the inflow run itself is worth watching. If it breaks off and the daily figures turn negative while the price still holds, that is a hint that institutional demand is easing. The daily data is freely available to anyone; you do not need to subscribe to a service for it.

And one more sober point: an inflow of $999 million corresponds to a good 11,600 bitcoin at a price around $86,000. Measured against a market capitalisation of $1.73 trillion, that is a share of less than one tenth of a percent. The number sounds large because it is measured in millions, and for a single day it is. But an amount like that does not carry a price on its own.

Putting Bitcoin ETF Inflows in Context: What to Take Away

1. Settle the product first, then the price. Write down whether your bitcoin sits as a direct holding or as a debt security in your portfolio. Insolvency protection and taxation follow from that. For the direct route, check that your trading venue is licensed, for instance using our exchange comparison.
2. Get your holding periods onto one sheet. Anyone now thinking about taking profits at high prices should first know which part of the holding has reached the one-year mark and which has not. A portfolio tracker with tax reporting takes that work off your hands; you will find a selection in our comparison of crypto tax tools.
3. Do not let billion-dollar headlines set your buying rhythm. Inflow runs turn, and anyone chasing headlines regularly catches the most expensive days. Buying regularly in fixed amounts smooths that out; the providers for it are in our overview of the bitcoin savings plan.

The number from September 21 shows that institutional money has not vanished from the market after the rate hike. What it does not show is an entry point. The questions you can answer are the ones about product, custody, deadline and buying rhythm.

Sources: The inflow data comes from the SoSoValue ETF dashboard. The tax basis for direct holdings is set out in the German Federal Ministry of Finance circular of March 6, 2025.

(As of September 22, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)

The information provided in this article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice. Investing in cryptocurrencies carries a high level of risk.

No book turns anyone into a trader, but the right book at the right time saves months. An earlier version of this list sat until September 22, 2026 at the address of our guide on learning to trade, which now explains the first steps one by one. The twelve titles here are sorted by reading order: first what is enjoyable and lays the foundations, then the standard work on technical analysis, then psychology, and finally the specialist fields. We do not quote prices, because they change with each edition and each retailer; every title can be had through a bookshop or a library.

Practise first, then read

The order is not accidental. Anyone who has never placed a single trade with play money reads Murphy like a phone book. Anyone who has spent two weeks in a demo account, on the other hand, and knows how a stop loss feels when it is running against them, finds in those same chapters answers to questions they have since acquired. Getting started with play money is covered in practising trading without money; the books come after that, or alongside it.

To begin with: market technique as a story

1. Michael Voigt: "Das große Buch der Markttechnik" (FinanzBuch Verlag). The most widely read German-language introduction to market technique, meaning the question of how trends, corrections and moves in the price come about and how they are traded. Voigt uses a narrative frame to explain what a trend is, where entries lie and why stops are part of the craft. The tone is accessible, the content complete nonetheless.

2. Michael Voigt: the novel series "Der Händler" (eight volumes, published by FinanzBuch Verlag in three collected editions). The same market technique, embedded in a story about a trader's daily life. Anyone who finds technical literature dry gets through this without noticing.

3. Michael Voigt: "Das große Arbeitsbuch der Markttechnik" (FinanzBuch Verlag). Exercises on the first two titles, with chart examples to work through yourself. Worth having only once book 1 has been read.

The standard work on technical analysis

4. John J. Murphy: "Technical Analysis of the Financial Markets" (1999). The reference work every technical analyst has on the shelf: trend lines, patterns, indicators, volume, intermarket analysis. Not for reading cover to cover but for looking things up when something appears in the chart that you want to put a name to.

5. Steve Nison: "Japanese Candlestick Charting Techniques" (1991). Nison made the Japanese candle representation popular in the West. Today the candlestick chart is the standard view in almost every trading interface, the Trading Hub included. Anyone who wants not just to spot candle patterns such as the hammer, the doji or the engulfing but to understand them reads the original.

Psychology: why the rulebook breaks in your head

6. Mark Douglas: "Trading in the Zone" (2000). The book on the question of why traders break their own rules, and what discipline in trading actually means. Douglas writes for people who have mastered the technique and still lose. After the first few weeks in a demo account, that is the most common situation.

7. Daniel Kahneman: "Thinking, Fast and Slow" (2011). Not a trading book, but the foundational work on the thinking errors that make trading expensive: loss aversion, overconfidence, anchoring effects. Kahneman received the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences in 2002 for his work on decision-making under uncertainty.

8. Robert J. Shiller: "Irrational Exuberance" (2000, updated several times). Shiller, who won the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences in 2013, describes how bubbles form and why markets can stay irrational for a long time. For crypto traders this is required reading, because hardly any market runs into exuberance as often.

Mindset and investing

9. Lawrence A. Cunningham (ed.): "The Essays of Warren Buffett". Buffett is not a trader but the opposite, and that is precisely why the book is worth it: it shows how an investor thinks about valuation, patience and risk. Anyone who has read it no longer confuses trading with investing.

10. Benedikt Lotz and Joschi Häußler: "Blackbox Finanzen" (FinanzBuch Verlag, 2018). An accessible introduction to investing in the twenty-first century, for readers who want to sort out their finances before they start trading. Not for the advanced, but good ground to stand on.

11. Jack D. Schwager: "Market Wizards" (1989, with follow-up volumes up to 2026). Interviews with successful traders whose common ground is not their strategy but their risk management. The book demonstrates across dozens of examples what our guide to learning to trade shows in figures: the hit rate is not the decisive number.

Specialist field: Elliott waves

12. A. J. Frost and Robert Prechter: "Elliott Wave Principle", complemented by André Tiedje: "Elliott-Wellen leicht verständlich" (FinanzBuch Verlag). Wave theory is contested, a tool for some and tea leaves for others. Frost and Prechter are the standard work; Tiedje reduces the rulebook to the essentials and is the easier way in for German-speaking readers. Not necessary for beginners, but useful for anyone who reads wave counts in analyses.

The list at a glance

What no book replaces

No title on this list teaches you to leave a stop where it is while the price runs against you. That is learned only through repetition, and with play money the repetition is free: in the CryptoTicker Trading Hub you trade 10,000 euros of play money at real prices, the first three trades without an account, as of September 2026. Read a chapter, put the exercise into practice in the demo account, read the next one. That is how twelve books turn into twelve weeks of craft rather than twelve weeks of theory.

Frequently asked questions

Which book should I read first as a beginner?

"Das große Buch der Markttechnik" by Michael Voigt. It explains trends, entries and stops in narrative form, without assuming any prior knowledge.

Do I really need Murphy's "Technical Analysis of the Financial Markets"?

As a reference work yes, as a front-to-back read no. Look things up when a formation appears in the chart that you want to put a name to.

Are there books specifically on crypto trading?

The fundamentals of technical analysis and risk management apply to crypto just as they do to equities. The crypto specifics — round-the-clock trading, leverage of up to 100x, the fee models of the exchanges — are covered in our guide to learning to trade crypto.

Is reading enough to learn trading?

No. Reading explains, practice imprints. Combine every chapter with a task in the demo account, otherwise the knowledge stays theory.

The first steps one by one, with the basic terms, position sizing and the four-week practice plan, are set out in our guide to learning to trade. And anyone planning their first real trade after the reading will find in the comparison of the best crypto exchanges where the fees and the regulation fit their own style.

Sources

• FinanzBuch Verlag (Münchner Verlagsgruppe), publishing programme covering Voigt, Murphy, Nison, Tiedje, Lotz/Häußler and Cunningham, https://www.m-vg.de/finanzbuchverlag/shop/home/
• German National Library, catalogue used to check editions and years of publication, https://portal.dnb.de/
• The Nobel Prize, laureates in Economic Sciences 2002 (Daniel Kahneman) and 2013 (Robert J. Shiller), https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/economic-sciences/2002/summary/ and https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/economic-sciences/2013/summary/
• Vahlen, "Tradingpsychologie: Trading in the Zone" (Mark Douglas, 2023), and Siedler, "Schnelles Denken, langsames Denken" (Daniel Kahneman, 2012), editions per the German National Library

Anthropic's new flagship claims Fable 5.1-level performance at a fraction of the cost—but GPT-6 Astra still beats it on two published benchmarks.

Dogecoin is rallying, and once again, Elon Musk may have something to do with it.

The funds pulled in more on Monday than across the whole of last week, when they posted the weakest net inflow of their history.

Crypto is interesting again and that means attention is flowing back to the sector. And it’s starting to show in the data.

The two sides closed an equity placement and a five-year commercial deal on the same day, with money moving in both directions.

For the first time in 3 years, Bitcoin breaks above $80,500, flashing the rare long-term on-chain signal behind the 2019 and 2023 bull markets.

XRP has recovered sharply from its September low, while renewed ETF flows and improving technical momentum have brought the "Uptober" narrative back into focus.

Bitcoin holders are showing little appetite for profit-taking even after BTC surged 47% from its July low.

XRP surges past $1.50 as momentum continues to rise, with buyers continuing to absorb available supply on Binance, propelling it toward further upsurge.

Stellar clears its key 50-week moving average as XRP stalls at identical resistance, revealing a massive gap in local buying momentum.

TLDR:

• The Chainlink partnership gives Infosys a common integration framework for CCIP, compliance, reserve verification, workflow coordination, and market-data services.
• The agreement includes multiple Chainlink products, yet neither company identifies a bank, payment provider, asset manager, or production deployment.
• Infosys cites technology serving more than 1.7 billion banking and payments accounts, though that total does not measure new Chainlink users.
• LINK traded 1.24% lower on September 22 while the companies announced the partnership, with no financial terms or usage targets disclosed.

LINK traded 1.24% lower on September 22 as Infosys and Chainlink disclosed a strategic partnership for institutional blockchain infrastructure. The Chainlink partnership covers cross-chain connectivity, compliance controls, reserve verification, market data, and workflow coordination. It gives Infosys a defined integration framework for clients exploring tokenized assets, payments, settlement, and onchain financial services. 

The companies did not identify a bank, payment network, or asset manager using the tools. They also disclosed no commercial terms, deployment schedule, transaction volumes, or revenue targets. The announcement therefore establishes a technology channel rather than a confirmed production rollout.

Chainlink Partnership Defines a Broader Integration Path

Under the Chainlink partnership, Infosys plans to work across the infrastructure suite, rather than through a single application. The scope includes Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol, or CCIP, for transferring data and tokenized assets across networks. It also includes the Chainlink Runtime Environment, called CRE, for coordinating blockchain, API, and offchain workflows. Automated Compliance Engine supplies controls for policy-related requirements. Proof of Reserve verifies data associated with assets such as stablecoins and tokenized products.

Data Feeds and Data Streams complete the package by bringing external market information into blockchain applications. Financial institutions often need these functions together when they test tokenized securities or settlement workflows. A common integration pattern may reduce separate technical assessments for each service. 

Infosys can pair its consulting, engineering, and systems-integration work with Chainlink interoperability, data, compliance, and orchestration tools. The Chainlink partnership covers multiple industries, although its immediate focus includes financial-services clients.

That structure distinguishes the collaboration from a point solution across several institutional use cases. A client can assess interoperability, compliant workflow design, data delivery, and reserve visibility within a framework. It does not require every service to be used. The companies have not stated whether initial engagements will use the suite together or separately.

The parties describe their relationship as a strategic partnership focused on advancing digital assets and tokenization. Their public material lists joint solutions, customer engagements, enablement programs, and go-to-market efforts. That language frames the Chainlink partnership as a route for product adoption, not an implementation agreement. 

The announced services address different operational needs. CCIP handles cross-chain communications, while CRE connects onchain actions with external systems. ACE targets policy controls, and Proof of Reserve helps verify collateral or reserves supporting digital assets.

Infosys Reach Creates a Channel for Chainlink Tools

Infosys said its financial-services technology supports banking and payments systems serving more than 1.7 billion customer accounts worldwide. That figure describes the company’s wider financial-services footprint. It does not represent clients, accounts, or users of the Chainlink collaboration. Still, the disclosed reach explains why a systems integrator can matter for blockchain vendors. Institutions often use established technology providers to connect new systems with existing data, compliance, and operational processes.

The Chainlink partnership does not name an institution committed to deploy any service. No institution has committed to use CCIP, CRE, ACE, Proof of Reserve, Data Feeds, or Data Streams. The companies have not said which service would enter production first. 

They also have not published a timeline for pilots, client integrations, or live transactions. This distinction limits what can be inferred from the announcement. A partnership agreement supplies an available route to deployment, while a named implementation would provide evidence of client use.

Chainlink has pursued other financial-infrastructure collaborations involving payments, private data, and verification workflows. Those efforts address separate use cases from the Infosys relationship. The new Chainlink partnership consolidates several services under one institutional adoption model.

 It positions CCIP beside data and compliance tools instead of presenting it as a standalone offering. Future disclosures could name a specific bank, asset manager, payment provider, or tokenized-asset platform. Such details would show whether the agreement moves into production.

The post Chainlink Partnership Brings CCIP Tools to Infosys Customers appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR

• SpaceX stock rises 0.87% to $153.16 after rebounding from its intraday low
• Merger speculation adds attention as SpaceX extends its 10.9% monthly gain
• SpaceX trades at a 16.2x price-to-book ratio, above its closer peer group today
• NASA missions and Starlink expansion remain key parts of SpaceX’s growth story
• Negative free cash flow and heavy spending remain central valuation concerns

SpaceX (SPCX) traded at $153.16, up 0.87%, after rebounding from an intraday low near $150.70. The stock briefly approached $154.80 before easing and stabilizing around the $153 level. Merger speculation and fresh business developments added attention as shares extended their recent advance

Space Exploration Technologies Corp., SPCX

Space Exploration Technologies has gained 10.9% over the past month, strengthening its recent market performance. The advance has renewed focus on how the company’s market value compares with its balance sheet. Meanwhile, major contracts and infrastructure projects continue shaping the company’s capital needs and operating profile.

Government work remains important to SpaceX as NASA continues using its crewed mission services. Starlink also continues expanding the company’s commercial satellite and communications operations across multiple markets. In addition, SpaceX has pursued larger computing infrastructure projects that require substantial equipment and long-term investment.

Merger Speculation Adds Another Market Focus

Possible corporate tie-ups have become another topic surrounding SpaceX as the stock trades near recent highs. However, the supplied information does not identify a confirmed merger agreement or provide specific transaction terms. Therefore, the merger angle currently remains speculation rather than an announced corporate transaction.

The speculation comes while SpaceX expands across launch services, satellites, communications, and computing infrastructure. That broader operating footprint creates several businesses with different funding requirements and asset structures. It also places more attention on how corporate arrangements could fit within the company’s existing operations.

SpaceX reported 2025 revenue of $18.67 billion, representing annual growth of 33%. However, the company also reported a net loss and continued to face pressure from negative free cash flow. Large capital programs remain central as SpaceX funds equipment, facilities, launches, and network expansion.

Book Value Premium Remains Elevated

SpaceX trades at a price-to-book ratio of 16.2 times, according to the supplied valuation figures. That level stands well above the broader telecom industry average of 1.7 times. It also exceeds the closer peer-group multiple of 14.8 times cited in the same valuation review.

The difference shows that SpaceX commands a larger market premium relative to recorded shareholder equity. Its asset base supports rockets, satellites, communications systems, and expanding infrastructure across several operating areas. However, continued capital spending and free-cash-flow losses remain important parts of the company’s financial position.

The latest session left SpaceX near $153 after the stock recovered from its intraday low. Its 10.9% monthly gain has also kept attention on valuation, contracts, and corporate developments. Merger speculation adds another headline factor while SpaceX continues expanding its launch and infrastructure businesses.

The post SpaceX (SPCX) Stock: Advances as Merger Speculation Drives Attention appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR

• NVDA gains 0.57% as shares recover from an intraday low near $225.70 Tuesday
• Apple showcases four Mac Studios running a trillion-parameter model locally
• Nvidia’s data-center business generated $89 billion in its latest quarter overall
• Apple targets local AI workloads while Nvidia dominates large-scale data centers
• NVDA holds above $228 as the stock approaches resistance near the $229 level

NVIDIA (NVDA) shares rose Tuesday as Apple promoted new Macs for running artificial intelligence workloads locally. NVDA traded at $228.68, up 0.57%, after recovering from an intraday low near $225.70. The stock remained above $228 through midday and moved toward the $229 level.

NVIDIA Corporation, NVDA

Apple Pushes More Computing Onto Macs

Apple demonstrated four Mac Studio computers working together to run a model with one trillion parameters. The machines shared memory, allowing the setup to handle workloads linked with larger server infrastructure. Apple used the demonstration to show how processing can run on local hardware.

Local processing can keep workloads on company-owned devices instead of sending requests to remote servers. That approach can support private data handling, coding tasks, and inference workloads within computing environments. However, the demonstration used several connected Macs rather than one machine handling the full workload.

Apple has expanded computing performance across its Mac lineup through custom processors and unified memory architecture. Its hardware combines central processing, graphics, and memory functions within tightly integrated systems. The latest demonstration extends that strategy by connecting several Mac Studios for larger workloads.

NVIDIA Data Center Revenue Dominates Sales

NVIDIA still generates most of its revenue from data-center products used for accelerated computing. The company reported $89 billion in data-center revenue during its latest quarter. Total quarterly revenue reached $96.2 billion, putting the data-center share at roughly 92.5%.

NVIDIA’s data-center business supplies processors, networking products, and software for large computing environments. Cloud providers and enterprises use those systems for model training, inference, and other intensive workloads. Large deployments can connect many processors and servers to handle workloads beyond typical desktop hardware.

Apple’s local-computing approach addresses another part of the broader technology market. Macs can process some workloads closer to users, while NVIDIA’s infrastructure supports much larger deployments. Both approaches expand available computing capacity, but they operate at different scales and locations.

NVDA Stock Holds Near $229

NVDA recovered from morning weakness and moved back toward $229 during Tuesday trading. The stock reached $228.68 after falling near $225.70 earlier in the session. It then held above $228 through midday as trading remained positive.

Apple’s demonstration arrived while NVIDIA shares continued their intraday rebound. The announcement did not coincide with a sustained drop in NVDA during the displayed session. Instead, the stock remained higher while approaching the $229 resistance area shown on the intraday graph.

NVIDIA remains centered on data-center infrastructure, while Apple is expanding local computing through its Mac hardware. The two companies therefore address different portions of growing computing demand. Apple’s demonstration adds another local option, while NVIDIA continues supplying large-scale systems for data centers.

The post NVIDIA (NVDA) Stock: Gains as Apple Challenges Cloud AI With New Macs appeared first on Blockonomi.

Key Highlights

• Bitcoin climbed past $85,000, forcing over $1 billion in short position liquidations
• Technology-heavy Nasdaq Composite reached unprecedented intraday peaks, propelled by artificial intelligence momentum
• Meta stock skyrocketed more than 20% following its Muse AI assistant debut on September 8
• AMD achieved trillion-dollar market cap status, with approximately 185% year-to-date gains in 2026
• Leading crypto exchange Binance committed $100 million toward Circle, creator of USDC stablecoin

The cryptocurrency flagship maintained its position above $85,000 throughout Tuesday’s trading session as the Nasdaq Composite achieved new all-time highs, propelled by widespread enthusiasm surrounding artificial intelligence developments. Technology giants Meta and AMD commanded attention on Wall Street, crude oil retreated beneath the $100 threshold, and a significant strategic investment reshaped the stablecoin landscape.

BTC Breaks Through $85,000 Barrier

Bitcoin’s price hovered near $85,600 on Tuesday following approximately 5% appreciation over the previous 24-hour period, with the digital asset momentarily reaching $87,000 earlier in the trading week.

This upward momentum resulted in over $1 billion worth of liquidated leveraged cryptocurrency positions. Bearish traders betting against price increases accounted for roughly $844 million of these forced closures.

Bitcoin specifically represented approximately $608 million within these liquidation figures. Market participants are currently monitoring whether additional buying momentum can propel valuations toward subsequent resistance thresholds.

The short squeeze phenomenon seems to have largely concluded, suggesting future price action will require genuine fresh capital inflows.

Technology Index Achieves Unprecedented Peak

The Nasdaq Composite registered a fresh intraday all-time high on Tuesday, continuing a technology-focused advance that commenced earlier in the week.

Alphabet experienced approximately 2% gains, providing upward momentum across the broader technology sector. The benchmark index had previously established a record close during Monday’s session.

Declining crude oil valuations combined with retreating Treasury yields are providing additional support. These dual factors diminish inflationary concerns and reduce capital costs, typically benefiting growth-oriented equities.

Meta’s AI Assistant Drives Massive Stock Rally

Meta has emerged as among the most compelling narratives on Wall Street following the September 8 introduction of its Muse artificial intelligence assistant.

The company’s shares surged beyond 11% during Monday’s session and have appreciated over 20% since the product launch, adding upwards of $200 billion to Meta’s total market capitalization.

Muse accumulated approximately 2.8 million downloads across U.S. and Canadian markets during its initial 12-day period. The artificial intelligence platform handles email correspondence, travel arrangements, and completes commercial transactions.

Market analysts perceive Muse as a potentially transformative revenue channel for Meta extending beyond its established advertising operations.

AMD Enters Elite Trillion-Dollar Valuation Territory

AMD surpassed the $1 trillion market capitalization milestone following a remarkable 9.6% share price surge reaching record levels on Monday.

The semiconductor manufacturer now occupies the same elite valuation category as other leading chip industry giants. AMD equity has appreciated roughly 185% throughout 2026.

Investment community sentiment increasingly positions AMD as a formidable force within AI computing infrastructure, transcending its traditional chip manufacturer identity.

Major Exchange Makes Strategic Stablecoin Investment

Binance committed $100 million toward Circle, the organization responsible for issuing the USDC stablecoin, representing one of the week’s most substantial corporate cryptocurrency transactions.

Circle’s share valuation increased following the announcement. This agreement strengthens the relationship between the planet’s largest cryptocurrency exchange and a prominent stablecoin issuer.

The investment additionally underscores intensifying competition among exchanges, financial institutions, and payment processors seeking expanded influence within the digital dollar ecosystem.

Crude oil’s descent below the $100 per barrel mark contributed to optimistic sentiment across international markets. Brent crude slipped beneath $100 while U.S. benchmark crude traded around $95, supported by indications of potential Middle Eastern supply improvements.

With Bitcoin ascending, the Nasdaq establishing record peaks, and artificial intelligence stocks experiencing explosive growth, risk appetite has decisively returned. The critical question facing traders involves whether markets can sustain these elevated levels approaching week’s end.

The post Bitcoin (BTC) Surges Past $85K While Tech Stocks Drive Nasdaq to All-Time Highs appeared first on Blockonomi.

Key Highlights

• Shares of PayPal climbed up to 4.8% on Tuesday following the reveal of a Meta partnership that brings Muse AI shopping to the platform
• Users of PayPal can now leverage Meta’s Muse AI agent for shopping and completing transactions at merchants across the globe
• Meta shares increased approximately 1%, reaching around $748.97 during trading
• Shopify revealed a comparable Muse collaboration on Monday, with shares climbing more than 7% over two trading sessions
• Amazon restricted Muse access to its marketplace as part of a broader strategy to block competing AI shopping bots

PayPal shares surged as much as 4.8% during Tuesday’s opening session, reaching $55.12, following the announcement of a strategic collaboration with Meta to bring the Muse AI shopping assistant to its ecosystem.

PayPal Holdings, Inc., PYPL

Users of PayPal now have access to Muse personal AI assistants for product discovery and transaction completion at participating retailers around the world. The payment giant shared the partnership details via social platform X.

By late trading hours, PayPal shares had stabilized in the $53.69 to $53.95 range, representing gains of approximately 2% to 2.6% for the session.

Meta shares registered approximately 1% growth on Tuesday, hovering around $748.97 in the wake of the PayPal announcement.

This PayPal agreement followed just 24 hours after Shopify unveiled its own Muse integration. Shopify revealed that users could leverage Muse to discover items from its merchant network and finalize transactions using Shop Pay.

Shopify shares jumped 7.2% on Tuesday to $147.83, building upon a 7.3% increase from Monday when news of the partnership first emerged.

Rapid Momentum for Muse

Meta’s Muse AI assistant has demonstrated remarkable velocity since its debut. In under two weeks from launch, it secured the number one position on Apple’s U.S. App Store this past Friday.

This rapid user uptake has compelled payment and e-commerce companies to accelerate their integration efforts. PayPal and Shopify have both successfully launched Muse checkout functionality.

However, not all major players are embracing the technology. Amazon has implemented restrictions preventing Muse from conducting shopping activities on its site, part of a larger initiative to block competing AI-powered shopping assistants from accessing the platform.

PayPal in the Larger Context

Digital payment providers have been competing intensely to connect with AI-driven shopping platforms as consumer appetite for agent-assisted purchasing continues to expand.

PayPal’s collaboration positions the company alongside Shopify as among the earliest major services to activate Muse checkout functionality.

Meta shares have climbed more than 11% since Monday’s Shopify partnership announcement.

Prior to the announcement, PayPal shares were hovering around $52.62. The jump to $55.12 represented a significant intraday movement on substantial trading volume before experiencing a modest retreat.

The integrations with PayPal and Shopify establish Muse as among the limited number of AI assistants capable of executing complete purchases at meaningful scale.

Muse’s achievement of the top App Store position in the United States as of Friday highlights the extraordinary pace of consumer adoption since the platform’s introduction.

The post PayPal (PYPL) Stock Surges 5% Following Meta’s Muse AI Integration Announcement appeared first on Blockonomi.

The OG meme coin has been on a tear lately, with its price tapping $0.10 for the first time since the beginning of June.

Analysts have spotted highly bullish signals, and some think the token could be gearing up for a rally to a new all-time high.

Realistic and Wild Predictions

DOGE has risen by almost 20% over the past week, with its market capitalization surging to roughly $15.2 billion and making it the 12th-largest cryptocurrency.

Currently, it trades just below the $0.10 psychological mark, but according to X user Cyriptoman4, it seems well positioned to attack higher levels. The analyst claimed that if DOGE decisively breaks above that zone, the upward move could continue toward the $0.1175-$0.15 region.

For their part, BSC Gems Alert claimed that the price has started forming a higher-low structure and is pushing against the upper boundary of the latest descending pattern.

“If DOGE can break and hold above $0.22, momentum could accelerate toward the higher resistance zones. The setup is simple: Breakout → Retest → Continuation,” they said.

At the same time, the analyst warned that a loss of support would invalidate the bullish setup and could trigger a pullback.

Others, like X user Bark, are much more optimistic. The analyst argued that the breakout to $1 has begun, expecting the potential explosion to happen faster than most people think.

MikybullCrypto issued a similar forecast, maintaining that the bullish move is about to kick off and setting the $1-$3 range as the bullish target.

Key Factors to Consider

Earlier this month, whales purchased more than 240 million DOGE in about a week. Many interpret such accumulations as bullish for several reasons.

First, the development reduces the tokens available on the open market, which, combined with steady or rising demand, is supposed to trigger a price pump.

Second, whales are experienced investors who make calculated moves and usually aren’t driven by pure instinct. Smaller players closely monitor their moves and might get encouraged to jump on the bandwagon, too, thus distributing fresh capital into the ecosystem.

However, some elements suggest that DOGE may be gearing up for a short-term correction. CoinGlass data shows exchange inflows have surpassed outflows over the past few days, suggesting some investors have moved from self-custody to centralized platforms. This, in turn, increases immediate selling pressure.

The post Dogecoin (DOGE) Rises to a 3-Month High: The Breakout to $1 Has Begun? appeared first on CryptoPotato.

Binance is facing a new investigation in the United States over possible violations of sanctions on Iran, Bloomberg News reported on Monday.

Investigators are examining whether Binance allowed certain trading activity linked to Iran on its platform. Authorities are also looking into whether the crypto exchange knowingly allowed the activity to take place, Bloomberg reported.

Another Probe

Binance maintained that it has a zero-tolerance policy toward sanctions violations. The company also asserted that it works closely with law enforcement agencies and remains focused on identifying and removing bad actors from its platform.

This isn’t the first time Binance has faced major scrutiny from US authorities. Its former CEO, Changpeng Zhao, stepped down in November 2023 after the Justice Department accused him of violating US financial laws, including the Bank Secrecy Act and the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. Zhao pleaded guilty and was sentenced to four months in prison in April 2024. He also paid a $50 million fine.

Binance agreed to plead guilty and pay $4.3 billion in penalties as part of the case. Zhao completed his sentence in September 2024. The following year, US President Donald Trump granted him a presidential pardon.

Iran Crypto Crackdown

The latest investigation comes as Washington continues to increase pressure on Iran. The US sanctioned firms and individuals it accused of supporting Hezbollah and other Iranian-backed groups in the Middle East.

Just last week, the Treasury Department added BitBank to its sanctions list. The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) said that the crypto exchange is controlled by Iranian financier Babak Zanjani, who is already under US sanctions. It was accused of helping move money connected to sanctioned Iranian entities. OFAC said BitBank transferred payments received by the Hormuz Safe Marine Services Authority, which was previously designated by the US.

The platform also allegedly moved hundreds of millions of dollars in Bitcoin to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps between June and July. The sanctions cover BitBank’s developer, Pishtaz Simorgh Electronic Trade Company, and three executives linked to Zanjani.

The post Binance Under US Investigation as Prosecutors Examine Iran-Linked Trading appeared first on CryptoPotato.

Arthur Hayes has argued that the “Safety First” pause on AI development being pushed by Anthropic, OpenAI, and SpaceX has less to do with concern for humanity and more to do with weak demand for AI products at current prices.

According to him, the resulting compute glut could make AI cheaper to run, a dynamic he called favorable for his own AI-crypto venture, the Flop Network, and for Bitcoin.

Hayes Ties the AI Showdown to a Trillion-Dollar Debt Problem

In a September 22 essay, Hayes pointed out that the three labs’ compute demand backs more than $1 trillion of investment-grade debt and hundreds of billions in lower-quality loans. This financing flows through partners like Nvidia, Broadcom, Google, and Microsoft.

He reasoned that if training spending falls under the safety banner, compute purchases will drop while the debt will stay on the books.

“Safety First is by definition compute demand destruction,” he wrote, citing Nick Nemeth of Mispriced Assets while describing how private equity firms have used captive insurers and affiliated reinsurers, often domiciled in Vermont, to hold policyholder premiums against AI-linked private credit with little real capital backing them.

He put the scale of what he called a fabricated reinsurance asset at $1.54 trillion, pointing to one Brookfield-linked case booked at a $1.48 billion valuation where the reinsurer told regulators it owed nothing.

A downgrade of AI data center debt, he argued, would force parent insurers to find capital the reinsurers cannot supply, pushing Washington toward another 2008-style rescue.

“Will the US government do one of the following: become the compute buyer of last resort in the name of national security, or print money to bail out underwater insurance companies?” the BitMEX co-founder asked.

But in his opinion, whatever the government does, Bitcoin and crypto investors will win.

Bitcoin’s Rally and Hayes Broader Liquidity Calls

Hayes wrote his essay with Bitcoin climbing to an eight-month high of $87,400 on Monday. SoSoValue data also showed about $999 million flowing into spot BTC ETFs that day, while CryptoQuant pointed to a short squeeze that liquidated more than $340 million in bearish positions.

He has made similar liquidity arguments before, including on September 3, when he pointed to funding stress at French banks such as BNP Paribas and Societe Generale as a trigger for renewed Fed money printing through its repo facilities.

“Safety First doesn’t herald a massive up swell in printed money immediately,” he wrote in today’s piece. “It gives Trump a choice, we as Bitcoin and crypto investors, don’t care what he decides because both roads lead to more money printing.”

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Ethereum has extended its recovery from the September lows and is now trading around $2.73K after slightly breaking above the $2.7K resistance area. The latest move has strengthened the short-term structure, although ETH is approaching another major resistance zone and momentum might be beginning to cool from its recent highs.

Ethereum Price Analysis: The Daily Chart

The daily chart shows a clear structural improvement following the sharp recovery from the $1.5K area. ETH subsequently reclaimed the $1.9K region and then broke above the $2.1K resistance zone with substantial force.

The breakout accelerated in August, pushing ETH above both the 100-day and 200-day moving averages. These key moving averages are now converging rapidly, which could lead to a potential bullish crossover around $2K. All of these signs point to the fact that the broader bearish structure has weakened considerably. Still, a complete long-term trend reversal would require ETH to trade above the higher resistance levels.

The market is currently trading around $2.73K, just above the marked $2.7K resistance zone. Holding above this area could open the way toward the next major resistance around $3.0K. That region is particularly important because it is also an important psychological level that the market would need to overcome.

On the downside, the former $2.7K resistance area could now act as initial support if the breakout holds. Below it, the $2.5K consolidation region is the next notable zone, followed by the key $2.1K support area, which also coincides with the key moving averages.

ETH/USDT 4-Hour Chart

The 4-hour chart provides a clearer view of the latest breakout. ETH spent much of September consolidating between roughly $2.4K and $2.7K before breaking higher over the recent sessions. The move finally carried price through the $2.7K resistance area.

The latest candles show some hesitation after ETH briefly pushed toward $2.8K. This is consistent with profit-taking around a previously marked resistance area rather than an immediate structural reversal.

The key short-term level is now the same $2.7K zone. Holding above this area and completing a pullback would preserve the recent breakout structure and could allow an attempt toward the $3K region. Conversely, a sustained move back below the $2.7K area would weaken the breakout and increase the possibility of a deeper retracement toward the $2.45K bullish order block in the short-term.

The 4-hour RSI has risen into the upper portion of its range following the breakout but has already pulled back from an overbought state. This indicates that momentum remains constructive, while also showing that the market has become less stretched after the initial surge, which is a positive sign showing momentum cooling off before another rally materializes.

Sentiment Analysis

The Ethereum Taker Buy Sell Ratio chart shows the metric’s 30-day average currently around 0.99. A reading below 1 indicates that aggressive taker selling has exceeded aggressive taker buying over the measured period.

This is notable because ETH has continued to appreciate despite the ratio remaining below 1. The latest price rebound therefore has not been accompanied by a clear dominance of aggressive market buying on this metric.

The chart also shows that the 30-day average has been declining from significantly higher levels seen around April and July. At the same time, ETH has recently moved sharply higher from the $1.8K area toward $2.7K. This divergence suggests that the rally has not yet been confirmed by a sustained improvement in taker-buying dominance.

A move in the ratio back above 1, particularly if sustained, would provide stronger confirmation that aggressive futures buyers are gaining control. Conversely, continued readings below 1 while ETH trades near resistance could leave the latest breakout vulnerable to a period of consolidation or correction, especially if spot demand fails to keep up with the selling pressure coming from the futures market.

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Binance bought $100 million of Circle Internet Group (NYSE: CRCL) stock in a private placement and signed a five-year agreement to promote USDC.

Both companies announced it on Tuesday with an 8-K filing, putting the purchase at 1,237,011 Class A shares at $80.84 each. The agreements were signed on September 17, and the share sale closed the same day, according to the filing, at a five percent discount to CRCL’s market price before closing. The stock closed at $85.09 that day and $94.49 on Monday.

Circle @binance

Circle and Binance are continuing to build together through a new five-year commercial agreement to expand USDC access across emerging markets.

Binance has also made a $100M strategic investment in Circle.https://t.co/I0CIUBUoCZ pic.twitter.com/zQ9f9EiYTk

— Circle (@circle) September 22, 2026

Not Selling For Up To Two Years

Binance agreed not to sell, transfer or hedge the shares for up to two years and keep its voting rights. Also the new agreement “supersedes and replaces” contracts signed in November 2024 and August 2025, the filing states. Circle and Binance first partnered in December 2024, when Binance agreed to hold USDC in its corporate treasury and offer it to 240 million users.

Circle’s IPO prospectus later disclosed a one-time $60.25 million fee paid to Binance under that deal, plus monthly incentives on USDC held on its platform and in treasury. The treasury fees applied only while Binance held at least 1.5 billion USDC, and Binance agreed to keep 3 billion there (subject to exceptions). Both arrangements had two-year terms.

An August 2025 agreement superseded the non-treasury side of that deal and tied fees to USDC held through Circle’s Modular Smart Contract Wallet infrastructure service, on a four-year term. The new deal keeps that structure, with Circle paying a monthly fee set as a percentage of USDC held through the service.

Likewise, Circle’s annual report put the 2025 rise in Binance-related distribution costs at $152.1 million. Distribution and transaction costs ran $410.4 million in the second quarter, $324.6 million of it to Coinbase.

Teng Cites Arc and Emerging Markets

Richard Teng, co-CEO of Binance, said Circle “has earned its place as one of the most credible issuers in the world, spanning USDC, Arc, and the infrastructure reshaping how value moves across borders,” and that the investment and five-year term “represent long-duration conviction.”

Circle launched Arc’s public mainnet on September 16 with Binance among more than 100 participants.

Jeremy Allaire, Co-founder, Chairman and CEO of Circle, called Binance “the most widely used wallet in the world for dollar stablecoins” and said the partners would use USDC “to expand dollar access” and “reach people and businesses throughout global emerging markets.”

Binance has also had its fair run. The exchange reported 323 million registered users at its ninth anniversary in July.

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