Whale accumulation in Dogecoin suggests potential market volatility, as concentrated holdings can lead to significant price swings upon large trades.

The post Whales scoop up $112M in Dogecoin as price stalls at key resistance appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

The significant Bitcoin outflows from exchanges suggest a trend towards self-custody, potentially reducing market liquidity and impacting price stability.

The post Centralized exchanges see $3B in Bitcoin outflows in past week appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

The debate over THORChain's decentralization highlights the tension between protocol control and true permissionless blockchain ideals.

The post GoPlus Security challenges THORChain’s decentralization claims over DPRK-linked funds appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Saylor's digital rights proposal could democratize capital access, fostering innovation and competition by reducing reliance on traditional IPOs.

The post Strategy’s Michael Saylor proposes bill of digital rights for future economy appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

The imminent launch of Bitwise's NEAR ETF could boost investor interest in staking-focused crypto funds, potentially influencing market dynamics.

The post Bitwise’s NEAR ETF clears NYSE Arca and SEC hurdles, launch imminent appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Bitcoin Magazine

Samourai Letter #7: Notes From The Inside

Dear Reader,

It has been many months since I last wrote you. Part of the reason for that is because I spent most of June and part of July in transit from FPC Morgantown to FCI McKean – a four hour drive away. For most of that time I had no access to pen, paper, stamps, or the rudimentary email system that I use to send these letters out. 

The other part of the reason why I haven’t written in so long is that once I did finally arrive I was so shell shocked from the entire ordeal that I needed time to decompress and process that month long trauma that is BOP transit. 

Six days after arriving at FCI McKean I finally put pen to paper to document the journey but the result was less of a letter and more of a trauma dump to help me process the absolute worst 30 days of my life. I decided to take a step back and give it some time before I sent out this letter. I have been slowly adapting to life here at McKean, and in good time I will tell you all about this place, but for this letter I want to go back to early June. 

I want to tackle the entire transit process and explain how what should have been a quick four hour drive turned into 30 days, two trans-continental flights, three multi-hour bus rides, a cell mate doing time for murder, and a cell mate who couldn’t stop shitting (I preferred the murderer). This letter will likely be published in two parts due to the length. Thank you for your continued reading and support. 

“I finally put pen to paper to document […] the absolute worst 30 days of my life.”

On June 5th I was told I would be transferred from FPC Morgantown for a drug and alcohol treatment program. Successfully completing the program (which takes about 9-10 months) rewards you with a year off your sentence, so it is seemingly well worth the hassle of moving to take it. 

For security reasons they do not tell you when you will be leaving or where you will be going. While being transferred in BOP custody you almost always are put on an airplane being piloted and operated by the US Marshalls to be taken to BOP transit hub in Oklahoma City. After a few days in Oklahoma you are put back on a plane and taken to your destination. From speaking with others I was told to expect 1-2 weeks of transit. 

I also heard that it costs around $10,000 per prisoner to be transited through Oklahoma. I figured that since I am classified as minimum security, spent close to two years on pre-trial release, self surrendered, and had no incident reports since being incarcerated I would be a good candidate for what is called a transfer furlough – where I would be responsible for transporting myself to my new institution at my own expense. 

I put in my official request for a transfer furlough on June 5th. On June 8th my request was denied without explanation, I would be going through transit, no way around it. 

On June 10th I was called to Receiving and Discharge (R&D) at 6:00 AM. Though I did not know it at the time I was about to embark on a month long fever dream through two different holding facilities, share cells with murderers, be locked down behind iron barred cells for 23 hours a day, and much more. 

Leaving through R&D is much the same as when I arrived. I was stripped, searched, issued a pair for ill fitting clothes (khaki elastic band trousers, a brown cotton shirt, threadbare boxers, socks that didn’t match, and a pair of slip on blue canvas shoes). 

I was put into a holding cell while the other inmates being transferred went through the same process. There were six of us transiting from Morgantown on that day. We were each lined up and called forward so that the officer could fasten shackles to our ankles and cuffs to our wrists. 

Once cuffed and shackled the officer wrapped a chain around our waist and attacked the handcuffs to them. The end result being that you could not lift your arms or hands much higher than your waist, and you could walk only in painful short shuffling steps. We were handed a brown paper bag with ‘breakfast’ in it (bread, peanut butter, bologna) and escorted to the waiting bus. 

“We were each lined up and called forward so that the officer could fasten shackles to our ankles and cuffs to our wrists.”

The bus was a cross between yellow school bus and a coach (think Greyhound or National Express) and already filled with inmates from other prisons in the area. There were guys from all security levels on the bus. Some guys serving 20 years coming from the “pen” (The US Penitentiary), some guys like me serving short sentences and going to a camp. 

The atmosphere was generally friendly on the bus, most of the USP guys were interested in what the camp was like and how much contraband like vapes and phones cost. At the front of the bus behind a metal grate were the driver and three heavily armed officers. They all wore stab vests and carried handguns and long guns. 

As we departed Morgantown I was excited to watch the scenery go by. This was the first taste of the outside world I had in 6 months. I took in all the sights. The trailer park, the run down gas station, the XXX store, it all was captivating. After about an hour of driving the bus suddenly exited the highway and stopped on the side of a small road. After 20 minutes idling I noticed one of the officers walking back to the bus with a bag of biscuits from Tudor’s Biscuit World – a West Virginia institution. 

We remained on the side of the road as each officer one by one went and bought breakfast, an endeavor that took over an hour. I decided Breakfast sounded good but my bread fell out of bag onto the floor. Breakfast would have to wait. As quickly as we got back on the road we suddenly pulled off again. This time each officer went one by one into a gas station to buy cigarettes and energy drinks. 

The metal of the shackles were starting to dig into my ankles, my wrists were cramping, my eardrums were shot beyond comprehension. Many others have said it before, but the one thing you really remember about the prison bus is how unbelievably loud it is. Every bump in the road is followed by a symphony of crashing metal. Inmates at the front of the bus maintain full conversations at full volume with their friends all the way in the back. The volume is at maximum for the entire journey. 

After about 5 hours we arrived at the Greenbriar Valley Regional Airport. There were several other prison busses parked off to the side of the runway. For the next hour or so a parade of officers from other busses would climb up and yell out a series of names. We were playing a grand game of musical chairs and for a brief moment I prayed that I would be called to another bus and spirited off to my camp bypassing the free plane ride to Oklahoma. 

Eventually musical chairs was over and we were instructed to get off the bus and directed to line of waiting US Marshalls standing in front of a plain white airplane adorned only with a small American flag on the tail fin. 

The Marshall patted me down, checked my mouth and feet and directed me to line up and wait by the front of the plane under the cockpit. They packed us in tight on the runway 10 rows of inmates at least 10 men deep. We watched inmates disembark the plane and enter the busses we just left. 

The whole thing must be a logistical nightmare for the folks at BOP and I was surprised how smoothly it all was moving. It was by no means quick, but it could have been far worse. Finally I was ordered to wobble up the stairs to board the plane. I felt like Joe Biden before falling up the stairs. 

How embarrassing it would be to eat it in front of all the convicts. I made it up without embarrassing myself. On board Air Operations Marshalls replaced flight attendants, though one really couldn’t tell any difference in demeanor between a Delta air steward herding a bunch of fat slobs in sweat suits and a US Marshall herding a bunch of prisoners. We filled each row from back to front at the direction of the Marshalls. 

I was sat in the window seat. The guy next to me sported a nifty full face tattoo and informed me he had been down 15 years and was kicked out of the USP for fighting. I informed him I was on my way to a camp and had been down for 6 months. He had nothing else to say to me after that. 

“This was the first taste of the outside world I had in 6 months.“

The plane itself had certainly seen better days, it looked to have been dated from The Cold War. The stickers commonly found plastered across the surfaces of airplanes telling you not to smoke or where to find the life vest in case of emergency – how exactly to apply said life vest while shackled and bound was not explained – were all in German and Russian. Where the hell did they get this thing from. 

The plane was filled 2/3 of the way with inmates. The final third at the front of the plane were all US Marshalls, at least 30 of them. With that, the plane took off and we were on our way to Oklahoma City. After about an hour an Air Marshall doing their best surly Delta stewardess impression threw a bag of lunch at us. It was the second – but not last – sack lunch containing 4 slices of bread, a pouch of peanut butter, two slices of turkey, and a small pack of cookies (“Cream 4 Fun” a BOP staple that even in my dire circumstances solicited a juvenile chuckle out of me). 

Sick to death at this point of the oily BOP peanut butter I happily pawned it off on the face tattoo next to me. I got started trying to fix myself a turkey sandwich – a task made difficult due to the cuffs and limited mobility. The bread was ice cold and the turkey was frozen solid. After brushing off the top layer of ice from the sliced meat and placing it between the now soggy and still freezing bread I took a bite and decided I wasn’t a great fan of turkey popsicle sandwich. The Cream 4 Fun would have to suffice for lunch. 

I was thankful for the small bottle of water that was handed out, but was not thrilled when I spilled most of it down my front contorting myself to try and twist the cap off. Shortly after lunch the Marshall went row by row to ask if we needed to use the toilet. Most people did, so the rest of the flight consisted of much jostling and shuffling to the bathroom and back. I refused, preferring to hold it, but the gentleman across the aisle let the entire plane know that he needed to take a shit, a declaration that caused much consternation and debate. 

As we approached Oklahoma City the pilot got on the intercom to let us all know it was a beautiful sunny day in Oklahoma City, a balmy 88 degrees. He failed to mention that none of us would see that sun for our entire stay in FTC Oklahoma City. 

We landed at OKC airport, went past the main terminal building towards a squat brown concrete building about 6 stories high. After what felt like an eternity we were disembarked row by row through the jet bridge directly into the airport prison. 

We shuffled single file through an assembly line of Marshalls who thankfully removed the cuffs and shackles, searched our mouths and feet again, and directed us into a dark concrete holding cell where we were packed in tight like a tin of sardines. In the corner of the room was a single stainless steel combination toilet, sink, water fountain. 

Almost immediately several inmates somehow fashioned a lighter and proceeded to get extremely high on K2 – known also as Deuce. In prisons Deuce is commonly just roach spray or rat poison drenched on a small piece of paper. 

When you light the paper and inhale the fumes you often freeze where you are standing lean over and are lost to the world around you for several minutes. I was most curious as to where the hell they were hiding these things to make it past no fewer than 3 probing searches. 

All I could think of was getting out of this claustrophobic concrete box into a housing unit with other minimum security “campers”. Everyone had warned me that security classifications would be mixed until you were assigned a housing unit. I just had to tough out the intake process. 

“You quietly wonder if Dante got it all wrong and all the circles of hell happen to be within the BOP’s Oklahoma City airport transfer facility.“

For being the official transit hub of the BOP, handling thousands of inmates every week, the staff at FTC Oklahoma City were breathtaking in their incompetence. Every last officer was less than useless, all of them wearing an expression of bewilderment as to how they happened to stumble into this predicament of dealing with a plane load of convicts, as if normally they were payroll accountants or copy clerks. 

It was as if it was everyone’s first day on the job. After jam packing us ass to elbow in the small concrete room for 4 hours – presumably they were having some sort of crisis meeting trying to determine what exactly they were supposed to do with us – a morbidly overweight officer whose stab-vest appeared to be groaning in protest at the enormity of the task of protecting such an enormous man unlocked the door and shouted that he needed five of us at a time. 

Instantly well over 100 men all desperate to be out of this hellish room push and shove their way towards the door. The only ones in no hurry are the deuce heads who have no idea where they are – and if they are indeed aware their limbs are in no mood to take any direction regarding movement – and myself who has no interest in playing grab ass with murderers and rapists. 

I wait patiently towards the back of the room and entertain myself by taking covert glances at the inmates around me to try and guess which ones are the ‘chomos’ (child molesters). You may at this point wish to chide me and extoll the virtues of not judging a book by its cover, but these books had covers that all but said “Hey Look! I’m a chomo!”. They have a look about them. 

After 45 minutes of 5 men trickling out at a time the room emptied and the deuce heads stumbled back into reality – what a horrible reality to return to from what must be a thrilling escape – and we shuffle out into the convict assembly line. 

We are commanded to undress, lift, squeeze, cough under the careful supervision of an officer no doubt cursing the recruiter at the Buttplug County job fair who never said anything about staring at genitals all day. 

Once the second strip search of the day concludes you are thrown a bundle of damp clothing with odd stains on them and hurry you further along the conveyor belt towards a long queue to go through a body scanner machine, the kind of thing you would find at an airport designed to find bombs and weapons. 

The officer manning the machine sits behind a lead curtain to shield themselves from radiation that leaks out of this whirring machine. The warning sticker helpfully informs you to keep back behind the blue line for your safety, but it turns out this warning is not for you, you are instructed to jam yourself as close as possible to the machine so they make sure to dose you with the radiation of the 6 guys ahead of you. 

Once you have been sufficiently irradiated you get pushed along where the medical officer menacingly asks if you have anything medically wrong with you, almost daring you to say anything but “no”. 

There is a whirlwind of papers being stamped, collated, duplicated, and filed and before you know it the assembly line ends. You breath a sigh of relief, surely some friendly officer is going to check your papers and notice you are a minimum security ‘camper’ and whisk you away. Instead yet another morbidly obese officer points at a room and makes some sort of grunting noise. You do not speak primate but gather he wants you to wait in the room. 

You quickly realize this room is a carbon copy of the first holding room and you quietly wonder if Dante got it all wrong and all the circles of hell happen to be within the BOP’s Oklahoma City airport transfer facility. 

“All I could think of was getting out of this claustrophobic concrete box.”

Another couple of hours pass – or years, who can tell at this point – in the second holding room and the Deuce heads are the only ones having a great time. The Deuce dealers have defeated yet another strip search and now a body scanner. Eventually an officer of indeterminate gender unlocks the door and yells out 5 to 10 names and you are escorted to your “range” (prison speak for the floor you live on). 

The officer leads us towards the elevator, 10 of us cram in and I get a good look at the men with me. Seven of them have full face tattoos that extend across their shaved heads. Rams horns, Celtic knots, Thor’s hammer, that sort of thing. 

At this point I am fully aware that a “camper” only range is a fantasy. I am going into the general population with murderers, rapists, kidnappers, gang members, and career criminals – many of whom have spent more time behind bars than they have in society. I take a deep breath, this is no time to be anxious or afraid. If the sharks smell fear they will strike. 

The guard walks us to the heavy metal door that seperates our range from the hallway. He turns the key but the door won’t open. He tries another key with the same result. One of the face tattoos mocks him “what is it your first day or something?” he heckles. The officer now very aware that this is taking way too long fumbles the keys and drops them on the floor. The scene is objectively funny and now several more of the inmates are heckling the clumsy officer. 

Finally the door opens from the inside. The range officer must have taken pity and opened it for him. The guys watching on the security cameras must have been pissing themselves. He will probably never hear the end of it in the breakroom. 

I am on Range 4D. The room is vaguely triangular in shape as if the architect started drawing a triangle but gave up halfway through. The room is large and painted in a palette of institutional grey and the same sort of pink they paint high schools. 

Cells with big metal doors line three of the walls. Two large staircases flank both sides of the room and take you up to an internal balcony where cells line the walls as well. If I remember correctly there are 30 two-man cells on each floor, so each range holds a total of 120 men. As soon as you cross the threshold between hallway and range you are immediately struck by the sheer number of strung out junkies hunched over seemingly frozen in place. 

Before you even have a chance to breathe several face tattoos are in your face asking if you want to buy drugs from them. These enterprising fellows apparently are running a fully stocked pharmacy. They offer me deuce, ice, meth, snizzlefizz, and junglerush. 

Okay, I made the last two up, but they offered me stuff I have never heard of before. I decline the offer and they move on quickly to a more lucrative mark. The range officer leaves his office and steps over a frozen drug addict and informs us that he is new here and to just give him a minute to get us situated. 

I politely wait while the officer – looking more and more flustered by the minute – assigns the guys ahead of me their cells, hands them a roll of toilet paper, and a thin mattress before sending them on their way into the jungle. When it is my turn the officer lets me know that he has run out of toilet paper and but if I give him a minute he will find me some. He gives me my cell number and scurries away back into his office. I follow him and remind him I need a mattress to which he explains he has run out of those as well, but if I just give him a minute he will try and locate one. 

From that point forward he was “Officer Just-A-Minute”. I climb over three junkies strung out on the staircase and make my way to the cell I have been assigned. 

“This isn’t fucking Guantanamo!” 

The cell is small, only a bunk bed, a toilet, a sink, a desk, and a fluorescent light. Inside is a large American Indian. If you asked someone to draw the most racist caricature of an American Indian he would have drawn this guy. 

He looks at me and says in a deep voice with a flat affect “I am Shadow”. The strange face tattoos gave him the air of some sort of tribal witch doctor. I said “You sure are” and quickly introduced myself lest he take offense to my glib remark and place a hex on me. 

I liked Shadow immediately. I learned that he was on his way to a USP doing 20 years for murder. Before I had a chance to explain that I was on my way to a camp for the fake crime of not having a license I didn’t even need in the first place Officer Just-A-Minute was in the doorway of the cell holding half of a foam mattress. 

Decidedly at the end of my tether I looked to him, to the mattress in his hands, back to him and asked incredulously “what the fuck am I supposed to do with that?”. “It is all we have” he responded slightly annoyed. “It is half gone. How the hell am I supposed to sleep on that? My ass and legs will be on bare metal!” I protested. “Welcome to prison” he responded curtly. 

I was seriously fed up at this point, plus I had Shadow the murdering witchdoctor to back me up so I pressed further “I understand this is prison. I am well aware of that fact! You still have an obligation to provide us basic amenities like bedding. This isn’t fucking Guantanamo!” 

I pushed. He simply shrugged and dropped the mat onto the floor and walked off. “Fuck that guy” said Shadow. I agreed. 

A few minutes later Officer Just-A-Minute walked by and locked the cell door. We were locked in for the night. It would be the first time I had been truly locked in a cell. I was mildly surprised there wasn’t some sort of central locking mechanism. The officer needed to walk by 60 cells and manually lock them all. A while after locking us in another officer showed up to perform the 10:00 PM count. 

Count concluded I climbed onto my half mattress and waited for the bright fluorescent light to be turned off. By 11:00 PM I asked Shadow what time they usually turned the lights off. “They don’t” he responded. 

I sighed and covered my head with the sheet they gave me – it smelled vaguely like motor oil and sawdust – and silently sobbed. Everyone told me that transit was bad, that Oklahoma was terrible. They were not overstating it. 

I laid there, ass on bare metal, harsh light shining through the threadbare sheet and asked myself if all this was worth the year off. I regretted ever leaving Morgantown, and I desperately wanted to call my wife Lauren.

The transit story will continue in Part 2. Thank you for reading.

This is a guest post by Keonne Rodriguez. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.

This post Samourai Letter #7: Notes From The Inside first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Keonne Rodriguez.

Bitcoin Magazine

An Austrian Economist Explains Why AI Will Make Everyone an Entrepreneur w/ Per Bylund

AI is changing how we work, but can it replace the human entrepreneur? Austrian economist Per Bylund, Senior Fellow at the Mises Institute, joins Spencer Nichols to explain why AI is a statistical engine that improves efficiency but can’t imagine the future. He argues we’re moving from an employment economy to an entrepreneurship economy, and explains what that means for jobs, innovation, and value creation.

Chapters:
00:00 Austrian Economics on AI, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship
02:34 Can AI Replace the Entrepreneur?
05:48 Invention vs Innovation: What Bitcoin Teaches About AI
06:29 From an Employment Economy to an Entrepreneurship Economy
09:52 Can Regulators Keep Up With the Speed of AI?
13:06 Remote Work, Capital Controls, and the Future of Money
18:23 Why Every Voluntary Trade Has Two Winners
26:28 The Individual vs the State in US-China Competition
31:17 Steel Stockpiles, Sugar Subsidies, and the Lobbying Behind Protectionism
33:36 OpenAI, Anthropic, and Regulatory Capture in AI

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 An Austrian Economist Explains Why AI Will Make Everyone an Entrepreneur w/ Per Bylund first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Patrick Green.

Bitcoin Magazine

TECHNICAL ANALYSIS: BTC to Cross Key Price Level Against Gold

The 90-day correlation between Bitcoin and gold just hit a six-year high, and Bitcoin is now just 3% away from flipping positive against gold for 2026. In today’s Chart of the Day, Sean breaks down the Bitcoin-to-gold chart, the string of higher lows since February, and the new high above 17.9 ounces.

Chapters:
0:00 Bitcoin-Gold 90-Day Correlation Hits a Six-Year High
0:35 Why Measure Bitcoin in Gold? Stripping Out Dollar Debasement
1:20 Higher Lows and Higher Highs on the BTC/Gold Chart
2:27 From 12.1 oz to 17.9 oz: The Bullish Bitcoin Setup
2:53 The 20.3 oz 2026 Yearly Open and the Levels That Matter
3:21 Next Bitcoin Resistance: 21.5 oz of Gold (~$92K)

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 TECHNICAL ANALYSIS: BTC to Cross Key Price Level Against Gold first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Patrick Green.

Bitcoin Magazine

Katie Stockton: $93K BTC is the Key Price Level for the Bull Market

Is the Bitcoin bear market officially over? Katie Stockton, founder of Fairlead Strategies, breaks down the technical signals behind Bitcoin’s rally of more than 50% off its recent lows, including the break above the 200-day moving average and the 83K–84K resistance zone. She explains why the cloud model points to $93,000 as the level where a new Bitcoin bull cycle becomes official. She also covers the flag pattern breakout, the monthly stochastic oscillator, and what could turn her defensive heading into Q4.

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 Katie Stockton: $93K BTC is the Key Price Level for the Bull Market first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Patrick Green.

Bitcoin Magazine

Grant Cardone: Real Estate “Armageddon” Is Here – Why BITCOIN is the Hedge

Commercial real estate is facing a historic reset, and Grant Cardone is using it to stack Bitcoin. The Cardone Capital founder explains how high interest rates are pushing properties below replacement cost and how he fills that gap with Bitcoin on the balance sheet. He breaks down his goal of 25,000 apartments and 25,000 BTC, and why he calls real estate his “Trojan horse” for Bitcoin.

Chapters:
00:00 Grant Cardone on the Commercial Real Estate Reset and 6.4% Rates
00:51 How Cardone Capital’s Bitcoin Real Estate Deals Work
02:23 Why REITs Can Never Own Bitcoin: Cardone’s Competitive Moat
04:26 From 3,000 to 25,000 BTC: Real Estate as the Trojan Horse
06:50 Michael Saylor’s “P Word” and the $335M Boca Raton Deal
09:01 Will Cardone Capital Go Public?
10:12 Why Commercial Real Estate Faces a Historic Crash
11:02 Why Single-Family Home Prices Won’t Correct
12:31 Why Bitcoin and Real Estate Are the Perfect Hybrid Asset
14:32 Why Other Real Estate Investors Can’t Copy This Strategy

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 Grant Cardone: Real Estate “Armageddon” Is Here – Why BITCOIN is the Hedge first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Patrick Green.

Buying a tokenized stock sounds as though it should be simple. You pick a company you know, buy a token representing its shares, and hold it in a digital wallet. The appeal is familiar stock investing with some of the convenience of crypto, potentially including trading beyond the hours of a traditional exchange.

Then you encounter a rule saying trading might have to stop for three months, and the idea of always-available stocks needs a little more explanation.

The pause is part of the SEC's Sept. 17 framework for experimental Tokenized Securities Venues, or TSVs. Repeat breaches of a stock's trading volume limit trigger it. It applies to that stock on the exchange and its affiliates, rather than to every version of that tokenized stock everywhere.

That distinction is a good place to start understanding the whole product. Owning a token, owning the rights attached to a share, and having somewhere to sell it are three related things that an app can make look like one.

Same company, different ways to own it

Stocks are already largely digital. Buying a share through a broker usually gives you an electronic record of ownership through a chain of financial institutions. Tokenization introduces a blockchain into how that ownership (or a claim related to it) is recorded and transferred.

The word “tokenized” describes the format, so you still need to know what the token represents. The SEC's January explanation of tokenized securities separates several models. In one, a company or its agent uses blockchain records as part of its ownership system. In another, a third party holds shares and issues tokens representing an interest in them.

There's also synthetic exposure, where the token gives you a financial return linked to a stock without giving you ownership of that company's shares. Buying something that follows a company's price doesn't automatically give you shareholder rights.

CryptoSlate has covered stock tokens that don't make their buyers shareholders. The lesson there is to look past the familiar ticker and find out who owes you what. If a separate company issues the token, its finances and obligations can become part of your investment risk alongside the business whose name attracted you.

The new SEC experiment takes a more specific approach. As CryptoSlate's account of the framework explains, qualifying tokenized stocks must preserve the economic and governance rights of their traditional equivalents, including dividends and voting, and synthetic exposure just doesn't qualify. Access to the exchange is permissioned, meaning participants or their wallets must meet verification standards.

Within those boundaries, the regulator is allowing a five-year test of trading through automated market makers. That sounds technical, but the basic idea is pretty simple: instead of matching your order with another person's order, software lets you trade against a pool of assets supplied by other participants.

In a simple pool containing stock tokens and a payment asset, buying stock takes tokens out and adds payment assets. The pool's formula adjusts the price as its inventory moves. Uniswap's explanation of liquidity pools describes this general design, although different exchanges can use different formulas and arrangements.

The attraction is a trading system that can operate automatically and connect with other compatible financial software. But software still needs assets available to trade, legal rights behind the tokens, and, most importantly, people willing to supply capital.

How the three-month clock starts

The experiment has limits on both the number of stocks an exchange can offer and how much it can trade in each. The volume allowance is measured against activity in the traditional stock market, using average daily share volume.

The two categories have different limits, summarized in CryptoSlate's coverage of the exemption. Tier 1 includes S&P 500 and Russell 1000 stocks and certain exchange-traded products; Tier 2 covers the other eligible securities.

The SEC order's volume-limit section compares average daily tokenized trading with average daily traditional trading, and combines affiliated exchanges' activity. This is an average-volume test, so a single busy session isn't automatically a breach.

Suppose the traditional stock averaged 10 million shares a day in the previous month. The Tier 1 allowance would correspond to 25,000 shares in average daily tokenized volume. That's the comparison to keep in mind, rather than a fixed dollar amount or a limit on how much one customer can own.

The consequences escalate:

1. The first volume breach for a particular stock gets a grace allowance, with the exchange required to ensure future compliance.
2. Each later breach in that stock requires an immediate three-month trading pause, including at affiliated TSVs. The clock runs from the breach date. Other stocks can keep trading.
3. Exchanges can pause earlier to avoid breaching the threshold. They must notify participants immediately of either kind of volume-related pause and update their public notice within five business days.

The SEC's stated reason for keeping activity small is to limit risks to the wider stock market while it observes the experiment, including the possibility that pool prices diverge from traditional share prices.

You can see how that could happen in a simplified example. Suppose a pool has limited inventory and several customers want to buy at once. Its formula can push the token's price upward even when the wider market's view of the company hasn't moved by the same amount. Traders may be able to profit by bringing the prices back together, but doing so depends on available capital and workable routes between markets.

The regulator is putting a boundary around how large that experiment can become. Crossing it repeatedly carries a substantial operational cost, which gives exchanges a reason to control activity before they reach the limit.

Owning tokenized stocks and selling them are different jobs

The buyer's biggest practical concern is how to get out. Consider someone who buys a tokenized share intending to sell if they need the money for a repair: the trading pause could disrupt that plan even while they continue to own the asset.

Moving a token to another wallet wouldn't, by itself, solve the problem. They'd need an eligible place to trade that exact instrument or a workable redemption process under its terms. Whether either exists depends on the product, the institutions supporting it, and the permissions involved.

The three-month provision shouldn't be seen as a promise that another broker will accept the token, or as a universal prohibition on every possible transfer. Those are separate product-level issues, and buyers need actual answers rather than assumptions based on how easily ordinary tokenized stocks can sometimes move between apps.

This is also why the promise of longer trading hours deserves a second look. Being able to open an app at midnight says nothing about the price at which you can sell a meaningful position. SEC Commissioner Mark Uyeda addressed that trade-off at the agency's 24-hour trading roundtable, noting that additional hours have an almost equal chance of distributing liquidity more evenly and spreading it too thin.

Before buying, the most revealing information would be a worked example from the provider: what happens to this token if this exchange stops trading it? That answer should explain custody, ongoing shareholder rights, permitted transfers, any redemption route, and the costs involved. It should also distinguish what the provider offers now from what it hopes to support later.

There's plenty to like about making shares easier to transfer and connecting ownership records with trading software. Those improvements could remove delays and make financial services more convenient. The SEC's initial five-year opening gives firms room to test that proposition.

The three-month pause brings the buyer back to an ordinary investing consideration: an asset needs a dependable route to sale. Until you understand that route, seeing a stock in your wallet tells you only part of what you need to know.

The post Why your tokenized stock could stop trading for three months appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Crypto projects spent about $638 million with token buybacks through late August 2026, according to Allium Labs data.

That is already a record, up from $545 million over the same stretch of 2025. Hyperliquid accounted for roughly $370 million and Pump.fun for about $200 million, together close to 90% of the total.

On Sept. 25, staff at the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) addressed the legal tension that has shadowed those programs since they began. The more openly a project ties its token to business returns, the easier it becomes to argue that holders are investing in a security.

What SEC staff said

The SEC's Division of Corporation Finance addressed buybacks in a new set of crypto FAQs covering networks that are already functional.

Staff said an issuer's buyback announcement for a non-security crypto asset on such a network falls outside the promises of “essential managerial efforts” at the center of the Howey test for investment contracts.

The same answer warns younger projects that on a network yet to reach functionality, pitching a buyback as a source of yield or returns can feed into an investment-contract analysis.

The answer rests on two built-in assumptions, a functional system and a token that already sits outside securities law, and it carries the weight of staff views, which the SEC describes as lacking legal force.

Under the agency's March interpretation, a network counts as functional when its native token can be used according to its programmed utility.

A regulatory life cycle takes shape

The SEC's March interpretation says a token can be sold as part of an investment contract while a team raises money against promises of managerial work. That contract can end once buyers stop expecting profits from those promised efforts.

The pending Regulation Crypto Assets proposal would let projects raise up to $5 million over four years under a startup exemption. A larger fundraising exemption would allow up to $75 million every 12 months, with disclosure requirements attached to both.

Proposed Rule 400 adds a transition filing, the Form TR, in which an issuer certifies on EDGAR that it has completed or permanently ceased its promised managerial efforts and stopped making new ones.

The issuer files it directly, and the agency could later contest whether the conditions were met. In its paperwork estimates, the SEC assumes about 475 issuers a year could rely on that safe harbor, based on 15% of the roughly 3,165 projects launched in 2024. Comments on the proposal close Oct. 20.

Put together, the pieces sketch a path from securities-regulated fundraising to a mature network that can spend real revenue on its own token. The Form TR covers projects that abandoned their roadmaps as well as those that finished them, while the buyback FAQ applies only once a network is functional.

That structure rewards teams that define their build as a finite list of milestones they can eventually complete, and it discourages marketing that frames buybacks as returns before the product works.

The money already flowing to token buybacks

Pump.fun says half its revenue goes to buying and permanently burning PUMP. Its dashboard shows roughly $500 million in annualized revenue, about $462.5 million in cumulative purchases, and 167.7 billion tokens destroyed, equal to 16.8% of the original supply.

At the current run rate and allocation, that implies around $250 million in annual purchases,
about 6.4% of Pump.fun's displayed $3.91 billion fully diluted valuation. The figure measures purchasing power against valuation, with the cash going into open-market token purchases.

Hyperliquid has bought and burned roughly $1.3 billion of HYPE since launch, and its documentation says more than $1 billion in annualized fees now flows into programmatic HYPE purchases.

Uniswap switched on protocol fees on Ethereum mainnet in December 2025 and has since extended them to other chains, with outside searchers collecting accumulated fees only by burning UNI in exchange.

Hyperliquid funds staking rewards from a reserve of future emissions even as trading fees burn HYPE. A protocol that burns 5% of supply while issuing 8% through emissions and unlocks ends up diluting holders despite a large headline buyback.

A more useful measure for these tokens is net burns against new issuance before comparing the result to valuation.

Aave's program shows how quickly treasury needs can override a buyback. It acquired more than 205,000 AAVE, about 1.28% of supply, for roughly $42 million in its first ten months.

Governance then debated cutting the annual budget from $50 million to $30 million as revenue softened. The DAO paused purchases on April 19, after the rsETH bridge incident, to preserve balance-sheet flexibility.

Crypto's record remains small next to Wall Street, where S&P 500 companies spent $1.02 trillion on repurchases in the 12 months through September 2025. The growth pace sets crypto apart, rising from about $366,000 in 2024 to $638 million in under eight months of 2026, with mechanisms that automatically convert revenue into market purchases.

What token holders own

The rights attached to these tokens remain thin. Uniswap's documentation says value reaches UNI holders through the burn mechanism and whatever future mechanisms governance approves, with protocol revenue staying under the protocol's control.

The SEC's March interpretation describes digital commodities as assets whose holders lack any inherent right to passive yield, future income, or profits. A buyback can reduce supply and create steady demand, and governance can redirect or pause it at any point.

The same distance from securities law that makes a mature token easier to trade also keeps it apart from the cash flows investors use to value it.

Bitcoin, which the SEC lists as a digital commodity, runs without an issuer or protocol revenue to recycle, so revenue multiples and buyback ratios apply to tokens like HYPE, PUMP and UNI.

Where the token buyback model goes from here

If the SEC finalizes Regulation Crypto Assets close to its current form, teams can raise money under the exemptions, write finite roadmaps, file transition reports, and steer revenue into token purchases once their networks work.

Hyperliquid's fee flows and Pump.fun's allocation alone point to industry buybacks above $1 billion a year at current run rates. Revenue and dilution-adjusted buyback yield would become standard tools for valuing protocol tokens.

If the proposal stalls or emerges in weaker form, the nonbinding staff FAQ becomes the main source of comfort, and projects would keep return language out of their marketing while treating buybacks as discretionary.

Revenue-linked programs shrink mechanically when revenue falls, and a major exploit or bad-debt event could push other treasuries to conserve funds the way Aave did. Holders would then find that a buyback resembles a shareholder return in its market effect while remaining revocable, governance-dependent, and free of any contractual claim.

The SEC is building a route for crypto networks to spend their revenue on their tokens. Holders at the end of that route own an asset tied to a business's success through scarcity and demand, while the business's revenue stays with the protocol.

The post SEC clears regulatory hurdle as crypto token buybacks hit record $638 million appeared first on CryptoSlate.

In 2021, Christie's sold a Beeple NFT for $69.35 million, and Sotheby's took another $24.40 million for 101 Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs, giving cartoon primates the kind of auction-house treatment usually reserved for Fabergé eggs.

But now, not five years later, one of the marketplaces that helped sell the digital art revolution is explaining how customers could take their belongings with them when it closed.

Nifty Gateway, the NFT marketplace owned by crypto exchange Gemini, announced its closure in January as its parent decided to concentrate on its primary financial app. The exit arrangements included plans for a bulk withdrawal tool and somewhere to host the artwork.

That's a pretty sad and uneventful end for an industry that made ownership sound like a technological breakthrough on the order of discovering fire.

To be fair, there was real art underneath the sales pitch, along with artists who'd found paying audiences and collectors who liked what they bought. But the boom encouraged the assumption that once you'd paid for the token, the business of owning the thing was taken care of, preferably forever.

Marketplace closures have quickly made that assumption incorrect, because the token, the artwork, and the website displaying it can survive for very different lengths of time. As crypto companies close businesses and retire products, somebody has to work out where the files go and who'll keep them available when selling the next collection no longer covers the bills. The person who can answer that has become considerably more relevant to your collection than the person who once assured you that you were early.

Your ape needs a forwarding address

When you buy an NFT, it's easy to think you're putting a picture in your wallet because that's what the app shows you. Underneath that display, though, several separate things are happening, and knowing what lives where explains how you can still own a token while struggling to load the art.

Many Ethereum NFTs use the ERC-721 standard that records who owns each token and allows it to be transferred. The blockchain keeps that ownership record, while the token often points to a separate descriptive file, known as metadata, containing information such as the work's name and a link to its image or video. Your wallet retrieves those files and assembles what you see, so the collection looks like one self-contained possession even when its parts depend on several different services.

Keeping big media files outside the blockchain is a reasonable design choice, but it means those files need their own home. Sending the token to a wallet you control puts you in charge of transferring it; it doesn't automatically download the artwork, take over the server hosting it, or pay the person running that server. If you're picturing your expensive ape safely tucked inside your phone, the app may have given you a rather generous impression of what the transfer accomplished.

Nifty Gateway's closure update addressed this problem, with plans to move descriptive records and media hosting to Arweave, a network designed for long-term storage, but some NFTs created in 2021 or earlier had records permanently linked to its own servers. The company promised to keep hosting that metadata indefinitely and extended its withdrawal window to April 23.

Those promises describe the arrangements the company said it would make, without establishing that every migration succeeded or that any particular artwork was lost. They show us the consequence of making a link permanent: when the address belongs to a company, fixing it in place can preserve your dependence on that company for as long as you want the link to work.

Buyers were supposed to enjoy the freedom of owning something outside a platform's control, and some instead inherited a lasting relationship with its hosting department. The technology can faithfully preserve an ownership record while leaving the owner dependent on a business that has other things it would rather do.

Forever isn't a payment plan

Distributed storage offers a way to reduce that dependence, provided someone actually keeps the files. IPFS, which is used for NFT media, identifies content from the data itself, allowing different computers to provide a verifiable copy without tying its identity to one company's website. That makes it possible for another provider (or the collector) to keep serving the same artwork if the original host stops.

The catch is that joining a network doesn't oblige every computer on it to preserve your collection. The IPFS documentation explains that cached files can be deleted to free space, while a process known as pinning tells a computer to retain specified content. Someone can run that computer themselves or pay a service, but the continuing cost belongs to whoever agrees to keep the copy available.

This also explains why a missing picture doesn't necessarily mean the artwork has vanished. Your browser may retrieve an IPFS file through a gateway, a website that fetches the content for you, and the IPFS guide to NFT storage warns that this route can fail even when the data exists elsewhere. In that case, another gateway can help, but if nobody has retained the data at all, a different web address won't bring it back.

Collectors therefore have to understand whether the problem is reaching their file or finding a surviving copy, which is quite an introduction to network administration for someone who thought they'd just bought a picture. The rare hat on the ape contributes very little to the diagnosis, however much it contributed to the price.

There are ways to reduce these risks, including putting artwork data directly on the blockchain or using storage networks designed to finance retention over many years. Each arrangement has its own dependencies, from the continued operation of the chain to the incentives keeping storage providers involved, so judging a collection means looking at how it's built. The fact that one NFT depends on a company's server tells you very little about another that stores its image data on-chain.

Across those designs, though, the economic problem is the same: selling something brings money in at the moment somebody wants to buy, while caring for it creates work for as long as somebody wants it to survive. Those two periods can be wildly different, especially when the business was built around selling new collections to an excited audience.

Even inexpensive storage needs someone to accept responsibility for it, check that it works, and arrange a successor when the original provider loses interest. Collectors can take on that job, and systems that let them preserve files independently give them real control, but the freedom comes with some administration. Selling people on the future of ownership was always going to be easier than persuading them to become competent custodians of a folder.

The boring people had a point

Museums were thinking about this while the auction records were being set, because caring for art has always involved work that its purchase price doesn't perform. In a December 2021 discussion published by LACMA, digital preservation manager Joey Heinen and computer scientist Elian Carsenat examined the software, storage, and continuing responsibility involved in keeping NFT artworks accessible. While the market was celebrating scarcity, they were considering what would still function in 10 or 30 years.

The profession already had plenty of experience with art that could stop working. In MoMA's 2016 account of restoring Teiji Furuhashi's Lovers, conservator Ben Fino-Radin described a project involving obsolete technology, including MS-DOS and LaserDiscs. Preserving the installation required making its projected images and interactive behavior work again, because keeping old components in storage wouldn't preserve the experience people came to see.

NFT art inherits that responsibility whenever the work depends on software or a live service. Saving a still image is comparatively straightforward, while preserving something interactive can mean documenting how it behaves and maintaining the environment that lets it run. You could retain every original file and still lose the ability to experience the work if nobody knows how its pieces fit together.

That gives the boom's endless arguments about screenshots a pretty funny ending. The token never made the visible image impossible to copy, and preserving faithful copies is precisely what can help the artwork survive. Someone duplicating the media hasn't thereby taken ownership of your token, but by keeping the only surviving copy, they might eventually be doing your collection a favor.

The artists and collectors doing this work deserve better than being treated as props in another joke about expensive JPEGs, even if the market spent several years behaving like a casino with an art department. Some of the work is worth preserving because people care about it, regardless of whether anyone will ever pay its former price again, and digital systems can let those people cooperate without waiting for a marketplace's permission.

That kind of ownership asks more from a collector than clicking buy and watching the valuation. It means knowing where the work lives, keeping what can be copied, and making sure someone else can take over its care when you can't.

If your ape is still visible decades from now, it'll be because people kept doing those jobs long past the point when anyone found them exciting enough to sell.

The post The NFT party is over and everybody now owes storage rent appeared first on CryptoSlate.

The Federal Reserve's proposed rules for the payment stablecoin issuers it supervises include a crisis clock measured in hours. An issuer whose reserves fall below the value of its outstanding tokens would have 24 hours to notify the Fed and submit a plan to restore full backing.

Unless it closes the gap or the Fed directs it to proceed with that plan, the issuer must begin liquidating reserves and redeeming tokens by 5 p.m. on the next business day. The Fed says that window comes to less than 48 hours in many cases.

The 392-page proposal also lets the issuer keep minting new tokens during that rescue window, and the Fed ties that choice to the public nature of blockchains. An abrupt halt in issuance would be visible on-chain and could tip holders off to the problem, speeding up the very run the rules exist to contain.

Comments are open for 60 days once the proposal appears in the Federal Register.

The clock starts at 5 p.m.

The proposal requires reserve assets to equal or exceed outstanding tokens at all times. Issuers must formally record the fair value of those reserves at least once a day at 5 p.m. in the time zone of their supervising Federal Reserve Bank.

The Fed says issuers operating close to the line may need to run that calculation several times a day. The breach clock starts at the beginning of liquidation, and finishing the process can take longer. Once liquidation begins, minting stops and redemption fees are prohibited.

A separate rule for ordinary conditions requires honoring redemption requests within two business days, a timeline that runs independently of the breach clock.

The Fed illustrates the logic with a $100 million stablecoin backed by $95 million in reserves. Split evenly, every holder could recover $0.95 per token. Once $35 million redeems at full par value, $60 million in assets remains against $65 million in tokens, leaving about $0.92 of backing for everyone who holds on.

Extending the same arithmetic, $50 million in par redemptions would leave $0.90 per token, and $80 million would leave $0.75. A fixed reserve hole grows larger per remaining token with every holder who exits at $1, which rewards the fastest redeemers at the expense of everyone behind them.

Forced liquidation is designed to push all holders toward the same pro-rata loss before that happens.

Minting stablecoins keeps the rhythm visible, at a cost

Circle's figures show how much routine issuance activity a large stablecoin generates. As of Sept. 21, USDC had $74.6 billion in circulation against $74.8 billion in reserves.

Over the prior 30 days, Circle issued $40.2 billion and redeemed $39 billion, a gross flow of $79.2 billion that exceeds the token's entire supply even though net circulation grew by only $1.2 billion.

For a token with that kind of daily rhythm, a sudden stop in minting would stand out to anyone watching the chain.

Each fully funded new token spreads the existing hole across a larger supply, leaving its dollar size at $5 million. In the Fed's example, $20 million of fresh issuance alongside the $35 million in redemptions would lift coverage to roughly $0.94, with the new buyers absorbing part of a loss that existed before they arrived.

Closing the hole itself requires new capital, recovery of an impaired asset or a rebound in reserve values, and genuine distress can leave few buyers willing to mint.

The proposal asks commenters directly whether issuance should be capped or prohibited the moment the 1:1 threshold is breached.

The OCC chose the opposite trade-off

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) proposed in March that an issuer under its supervision that falls below minimum reserves would have to stop net new issuance immediately, with a narrow exception for moving existing tokens across ledgers.

Mandatory liquidation would kick in only if the shortfall persisted for 15 consecutive business days, a period the OCC could extend. The Fed's rules govern the issuers it supervises, while the OCC and state regulators oversee other issuers under the GENIUS Act, so the two approaches could run side by side.

The Fed's December 2025 research on the March 2023 collapse of Silicon Valley Bank documents how these runs behave. Circle disclosed that $3.3 billion of USDC reserves, about 8% at the time, were trapped at the failed bank.

Redemptions surged, the primary redemption channel largely shut over the weekend with banking rails offline, and USDC fell as low as $0.86 on secondary markets. Trading volume on those markets hit nearly $2 billion in a single hour on March 11.

The researchers concluded that shutting an issuer's redemption window leaves holders free to keep selling on exchanges, so the run moves venues and keeps going.

In the Fed's view, visible redemptions can prompt more redemptions, while secondary-market trading can absorb selling that would otherwise hit the issuer as par redemptions and forced reserve sales.

Where a stablecoin run would travel next

CoinGecko's survey of the 12 largest centralized exchanges found that 97.7% of stablecoin-denominated trading pairs use USDT or USDC, and most spot volume on those venues trades against stablecoins.

The total stablecoin market stands near $307.3 billion, with USDT at about $183.7 billion and USDC at $76.4 billion as of Sept. 25. Holders fleeing a distressed token could buy Bitcoin, lifting its price quoted in that stablecoin above its dollar price.

They could also exit into fiat or another stablecoin, thinning order books and widening spreads across pairs. Price gaps between Bitcoin's different stablecoin pairs, order book depth, and funding rates would show which path a run was taking.

The GENIUS Act steers reserves toward Treasuries maturing within 93 days and qualifying repo arrangements, and the Fed acknowledges that a large enough Treasury position could be hard to sell in full without moving prices.

An IMF model from January lays out the timing mismatch between stablecoin holders, who can redeem around the clock, and bond and repo markets, which close overnight and on weekends.

A large redemption wave can drain cash buffers and force bond sales as soon as those markets reopen.

If an issuer closes its hole inside the first 24 hours, the episode could pass as a brief dislocation, with minting and redemption resuming their normal rhythm and the Fed's compressed clock working as designed.

A breach that lands late on a Friday, with redemptions and a secondary-market discount feeding each other before the 5 p.m. cutoff, would play out very differently. Each exit at par would thin the backing for the holders who remain, and the scramble would spread into exchange order books.

The issuer's Treasury holdings would wait for Monday's open while its tokens trade all weekend.

The Fed has drafted a run rule for a market where everyone can watch the run in real time. Over the 60-day comment period, regulators will weigh that visibility against the speed they want from a rescue.

The post Fed proposed stablecoin rule could trigger a 48-hour liquidation run appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Not that long ago, Washington fined Tether for misleading people about the dollars behind its tokens. Today, the company's insatiable appetite for American debt is the main argument for sending those tokens further around the world.

The distance between those two positions tells us a great deal about where crypto ended up. Tether built a business giving people access to dollars through markets and wallets outside conventional banking. It became the largest stablecoin issuer, then put much of the money backing that business into US government debt. The company, which operated beyond much of America's financial establishment, has now become one of the best and biggest customers of the American state, with a distribution network the state has good reasons to want.

On Sept. 23, Bloomberg reported that the Trump administration was considering an overseas stablecoin initiative, including possible joint ventures with private companies. Treasury and the State Department could participate, as could the US International Development Finance Corporation. The goal is to extend dollar use and support demand for Treasuries.

The report doesn't establish a deal with Tether, and the initiative hasn't been announced as an operating program. But Tether is central to understanding why a proposal like this would appeal to Washington. By the company's account, USDT represented more than 60% of the stablecoin market at the end of June. Its latest reserve report listed $114.96 billion in directly held US Treasury bills.

That makes Tether a leading private distributor of digital dollars and a large customer for short-term American debt. The dollar's global position still rests on a much larger financial system. Tether's particular contribution is extending that system to people who can buy a token more easily than they can open an American bank account.

Its reach gives the company political value. The assets that make its token credible also give Washington influence over the business. Both sides have something the other wants, while the people using USDT have much less say in the terms.

The reserve portfolio became a political asset

In October 2021, the CFTC ordered Tether to pay $41 million over misleading representations about its backing. The order covered claims made between 2016 and 2019 that USDT was fully backed by corresponding fiat currency held in bank accounts. The regulator found that Tether had held other assets and relied on arrangements that didn't match those representations.

Tether's reserves subsequently took a different form. In October 2022, it announced that it had eliminated commercial paper, the short-term debt companies issue, and replaced those investments with US Treasury bills. Moving toward highly liquid government debt addressed a basic financial problem: people expect to exchange their dollar tokens for dollars, including when confidence in crypto collapses.

That portfolio decision also made Tether easier for American policymakers to appreciate. Every business wants dependable customers. The US government issues debt, and Tether had become a very large customer with at least a hundred billion reasons to keep returning.

The company's reserve report put total reserve assets at $187.75 billion and liabilities at $183.64 billion on June 30, leaving $4.11 billion above liabilities. Its directly held Treasury bills had a weighted average maturity below 90 days. It also listed $18.63 billion in overnight reverse repo agreements, transactions in which Tether lends cash against collateral.

Those positions shouldn't be combined and presented as identical Treasury ownership. They do, however, show how deeply Tether's reserve management depends on short-term dollar finance. USDT can move between wallets at any hour; much of the value supporting it comes from very conventional financial contracts.

Its reserves also include other assets. The report lists $18.84 billion in precious metals, $5.80 billion in Bitcoin, and $13.45 billion in secured loans. Saying Tether is a major Treasury holder is true, but treating its entire reserve as a 1:1 portfolio of Treasury bills would be wrong.

Tether's reporting of its reserve has evolved, too. On Aug. 13, the company announced that KPMG US had completed an audit of its 2025 financial statements, issuing an unqualified opinion. It means that the auditor accepted that its financial statements fairly presented its finances under the accounting standards used. That's a considerable departure from the years when the absence of a financial-statement audit dominated almost every argument about Tether.

While neither of these documents gives Washington a reason to treat USDT as a government obligation, they help explain how a company once defined by arguments over its reserves can present itself as an established financial counterparty.

The economics here are pretty straightforward. When customers supply dollars for newly issued USDT, Tether takes on a redemption obligation and holds assets against it. Treasury bills pay a return, but USDT itself doesn't give its holder a contractual share of that return. Tether reported about $1.50 billion in second-quarter net operating profit, led by Treasury and repo income.

CryptoSlate has already examined who owns Tether's Treasury portfolio. The company owns the reserves, while users hold tokens whose value depends on its ability to honor its obligations. The political consequence goes further: Tether can turn demand for accessible dollars into both private earnings and financing for the country issuing those dollars.

Washington gets a debt buyer without having to operate the retail service, Tether gets income from assets that also support confidence in its product, and the user gets a dollar-denominated balance that can travel through markets the user can actually reach.

There are, of course, limits to the debt argument. Treasury purchases don't retire the national debt, and buying short-dated bills doesn't commit Tether to financing the government for decades. Its portfolio must serve people who may want their money back. It's a large, recurring buyer whose decisions depend on the condition of its own business.

But its real value to Washington extends beyond the size of today's portfolio. Lots of institutions can buy Treasury bills. Tether has built a way to gather dollar demand from people who might never become customers of those institutions.

The customer Washington can't easily reach

Imagine a shop owner who wants to keep part of the week's earnings in dollars. Depending on where he lives, opening an overseas bank account could be impossible, and holding cash in dollars can be a burden when the time comes to exchange it. Using USDT, on the other hand, is the fastest and easiest option, especially for people who already own crypto or use digital services like exchanges. The fact that USDT is so widespread means that the overwhelming majority of its users don't have an opinion on American foreign policy.

But the decision to use USDT still has consequences for American influence. Dollars become the unit in which savings are measured. Large and popular businesses that accept the stablecoin create even more reasons for other people to hold it. Familiarity, available trading partners, and places to exchange it for local money all make USDT look more attractive with repeated use.

This is why Tether's customer base deserves more attention than a league table comparing its portfolio with countries' Treasury holdings. A favorable government policy can certainly attract a new issuer, but it can't instantly reproduce a network of dealers, exchanges, and people willing to accept the same token.

But to fully understand the way USDT works, we need to take a closer look at its funding mechanism.

Buying existing USDT from another person doesn't automatically send new money to Tether or produce another Treasury purchase: it just transfers a token already in circulation. Additional reserve assets become relevant only when demand leads to net new issuance. Payments volume and new funding for the US government measure different things.

Nor does every dollar entering stablecoins represent fresh demand for American assets. Someone moving money from a dollar fund into USDT is just rearranging existing dollar savings. Someone seeking dollar exposure for the first time, however, presents a completely different and much more lucrative opportunity.

Federal Reserve Governor Stephen Miran made that point in a November 2025 speech on overseas stablecoin demand. He distinguished transfers from existing dollar holdings from demand among foreign savers whose access to dollars is restricted. His argument was that this second group offers the larger opening.

That helps explain the overseas focus of the reported initiative. Persuading an American with a bank account and a Treasury fund to buy a digital dollar will just reshuffle existing capital. But making dollar balances accessible to someone previously excluded from them can extend the dollar's reach.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has already stated the policy objective. In his July 2025 statement on the GENIUS Act, he connected stablecoins with wider access to the dollar economy and more demand for US Treasuries. Washington's interest in this outcome is explicit.

Government participation could make access easier through financing or partnerships, if a program eventually gets established. The DFC's existing financial products include loans, guarantees, and equity investments. Those are different forms of support, with different risks for the public. Nothing in the reported proposal establishes which would be employed for stablecoins or which companies would qualify.

The choice of institution fits the proposal. Overseas finance already combines commercial objectives with American foreign policy, and a dollar-token business can fit that logic without Washington issuing the token or managing its customers.

However, the people who most value an alternative to their local financial system may live in countries whose governments don't welcome another route into dollars. What looks like financial autonomy to a household can look like the loss of monetary control to its central bank.

The IMF has described how foreign-currency stablecoins can displace local money in savings and transactions where inflation, currency volatility, or weak institutional credibility makes alternatives attractive. That doesn't make the household's choice irrational, though. People shouldn't have to sacrifice their savings to help a government defend its currency. It does mean that Washington and the user can benefit from an arrangement that leaves the user's government with less influence over domestic finance.

There's something distinctly American about letting a private company earn the distribution income while the currency's issuer collects the geopolitical advantage. Tether has already built much of the business that an official overseas initiative would want to encourage. The next negotiation is over how much freedom that earns the company, and what Washington expects in return.

Washington wants the reach and the controls

Tether's dependence on dollar finance makes the relationship work in both directions. Its reserve assets derive their value from American institutions, and its business needs financial counterparties and reliable access to markets where those assets can be held and sold. Operating an international token won't remove those dependencies.

There's also an enforcement relationship here. In December 2023, Tether adopted a voluntary freezing policy tied to US sanctions designations. The company can restrict tokens at specified addresses even when the person holding them controls the wallet's private keys. Self-custody of a centrally issued token doesn't remove the issuer's powers.

That kind of cooperation continues to have a huge value for the US. In a Sept. 9 announcement concerning alleged scam proceeds, the Justice Department described restraining $52 million and thanked Tether for assistance. Recovering money linked to fraud is a legitimate public benefit. The same technical capacity also establishes that this supposedly borderless money has an identifiable company capable of acting on demands from authorities.

Washington can therefore want more people to use the product while also wanting stronger control over its issuer. Greater reach expands the relevance of the dollar; cooperation makes that reach more manageable for the state.

The GENIUS Act builds access conditions into the legal framework. Its foreign-issuer route includes a determination that an overseas regulatory regime is comparable, registration requirements, and compliance with lawful orders. Being foreign doesn't simply place an issuer beyond American conditions for entering American markets.

Implementation is still in progress. Treasury's Aug. 17 proposed rule describes Jan. 18, 2027, as the expected effective date of the act and July 18, 2028, for a further restriction on offers and sales to US persons. The proposal also addresses foreign issuers' ability and willingness to comply with lawful orders. Companies have time to prepare, but the direction is explicit: access to American customers will come with American conditions.

Tether has prepared for a more institutional business through a separate product. In January, it announced the launch of USA₮, issued by Anchorage Digital Bank, with Cantor Fitzgerald as the designated reserve custodian and preferred primary dealer. The issuer and token are distinct from offshore USDT. The announcement also says USA₮ is neither government-guaranteed nor covered by federal deposit insurance.

That arrangement gives the group another way into American finance while USDT serves its international market. It also shows how much institutional machinery a dollar token can contain, even when the transfer itself happens on a public blockchain.

This doesn't mean Tether gets to dictate the bargain. Washington's objective is a larger dollar network, and several companies can help supply one. Supporting competing issuers could reduce dependence on Tether while advancing the same monetary goal. The company has a distribution advantage, but an administration promoting stablecoins has no inherent obligation to preserve its market share.

The uncomfortable prospect is that commercial scale becomes a reason to tolerate weaknesses that would be unacceptable in a smaller firm. Officials could come to see an issuer's failures chiefly as threats to Treasury demand or overseas dollar access. That is a risk of the relationship, rather than evidence that an exemption or rescue has already been promised.

The protection against it would have to be specific. Public support should identify who receives funding, what losses the public could bear, and which obligations apply to the issuer. Reserve oversight and routes for contesting restrictions on funds should hold up even when enforcing them inconveniences a politically valuable company. Audits can provide financial assurance about a defined period; they can't settle those choices about power.

Stablecoins were well suited to institutional adoption because their main promise was institutional from the beginning. Keeping a private token worth a dollar requires assets, counterparties, and an organization capable of honoring that promise. Once a company performing that role became large enough, interest from the government issuing the underlying currency was inevitable.

Tether's success is that it made dollars accessible through channels people were willing to use. Washington now has reasons to help expand those channels and reasons to demand influence over them. Users can gain a meaningful escape from the limits of local finance while entering a different set of dependencies. The bargain can work for all three parties, but the state and the issuer will have far more power to write it.

The post Washington has $114 billion reasons to want Tether around appeared first on CryptoSlate.

An asset that hardly any German investor has ever traded sat in tenth place among the largest cryptocurrencies on Sunday morning. FIGR_HELOC, a tokenised home equity loan from the US finance provider Figure, hit an all-time high at 03:58 UTC on September 27, 2026. At the time of our query at 07:48 UTC, CoinGecko listed the token with a market capitalisation of $24.61 billion, placing it directly behind Tron and ahead of Hyperliquid. Tokens worth $1.96 million changed hands in the preceding 24 hours.

That second figure is the real finding. It amounts to 0.008 percent of the token's own valuation. For Bitcoin the same ratio stood at 1.05 percent that morning, around 132 times higher. Anyone reading a league table as a shopping list finds, in tenth place, a holding with exactly one trading venue, and that venue belongs to the issuer itself.

cryptoticker.io compiled this analysis itself on September 27, 2026. The article explains what the token is, why two large data providers value it $9.21 billion apart, and which figure you should read alongside the rank in future before you attach any meaning to a place in a list.

What FIGR_HELOC Is: a Loan Agreement in Token Form

HELOC stands for home equity line of credit. It is a revolving credit facility that a homeowner takes out against the equity in the property they live in and draws on flexibly, much like an overdraft secured by a charge on the property. Figure grants such loans in the United States and, by its own account on its own product page, documents them from origination through to securitisation on the Provenance blockchain.

The FIGR_HELOC token securitises shares in a pool of such loan receivables. Its price of $1.062 is therefore no supply-and-demand price in the sense of a coin; it essentially follows the value of the underlying receivables plus accrued interest. That explains why an all-time high says little about this particular instrument: a paper whose value rises with interest income keeps reaching new peaks without any news behind it.

For your assessment this means an all-time high is no event you can read anything from in this case. The occasion for this piece is the place in the list and the gap between two data providers, not the price level.

Rank 10 at CoinGecko, Rank 4020 at CoinMarketCap

On September 27, 2026 CoinGecko listed the token in tenth place at $24.61 billion. CoinMarketCap reported $15.4 billion for the same token on the same day and placed it at rank 4020. On daily turnover the two providers agree and both state $1.96 million. A third source, DappRadar, came in at $21.14 billion according to search results. The range from $15.4 billion to $24.61 billion is deliberately left standing here, with no average taken.

The cause of the gap can be worked out. CoinMarketCap states a circulating supply of 14.56 billion tokens; multiplied by $1.05 that gives $15.29 billion and matches the figure shown there. From CoinGecko's $24.61 billion and a price of $1.062, by contrast, an implied supply of around 23.17 billion tokens follows. Both therefore calculate in the same way; they simply count different numbers of tokens as circulating.

Which of the two supply figures is the correct one we could not establish. That could only be checked against the pool of tokenised loan agreements itself, and no publicly available schedule exists for that. The difference in rank still carries a clear meaning for you: a place in a list is no property of the asset, but the result of one provider's counting rule.

Method: How We Calculated Valuation Against Turnover

On September 27, 2026 at 07:48 UTC we queried CoinGecko's market data interface for the 25 largest crypto assets, response code HTTP 200, and divided each one's turnover over the last 24 hours by its market capitalisation. We call that figure the turnover ratio. Twenty-five objects were examined, plus, for FIGR_HELOC, the list of recorded trading venues via the same interface and CoinMarketCap's public price page.

What the Turnover Ratio Says, and What It Does Not

The turnover ratio measures what share of the total stock changes hands in a day. A high ratio means a sale disappears into the market. A very low ratio means even a medium-sized order moves the price. The ratio says nothing about the quality of an asset, and just as little about a borrower's creditworthiness. The only question it answers is whether you can actually trade at the price displayed.

What we could not examine is the composition of the loan pool, the default rates of the loans it contains, and whether markets exist beyond the one recorded venue that CoinGecko does not list.

$1.96 Million Daily Turnover Against a $24.6 Billion Valuation

Across the sample of the 25 largest instruments the turnover ratios lay far apart. Bitcoin came to 1.05 percent, Ethereum to 1.97 percent, Zcash to 4.34 percent and NEAR, after its strong week, to 17.39 percent. At the bottom end stood two instruments: FIGR_HELOC at 0.008 percent and the exchange token LEO at 0.006 percent. Only those two out of 25 stayed below 0.05 percent.

A second calculation makes the order of magnitude tangible. At turnover of $1.96 million a day, the market would need around 12,500 days, roughly 34 years, to turn over the stock reported by CoinGecko once in full. For Bitcoin it is 95 days. Both values are arithmetical quantities and no forecast, but they show the proportions involved.

For LEO the low ratio has been known and explicable for years, because a large part of the supply sits with the issuer and in long-term commitments. A related logic applies to FIGR_HELOC: anyone holding a loan receivable holds it for the interest and not in order to trade it daily. The comparison with a coin therefore fails at the root, and the shared league table still places the two side by side.

A Single Trading Venue: Why There Is No Buying Route

At the time of the query, CoinGecko's interface listed exactly one market for FIGR_HELOC: the FIGR_HELOC against US dollar pair on Figure Markets, with a converted volume of $1.96 million. All recorded trading therefore takes place on the marketplace belonging to the token's own issuer.

Figure Markets describes itself as a trading venue on the Provenance blockchain that combines crypto trading with the financing of real-world assets. For credit products the provider names restrictions itself: crypto loans are not available to residents of several US states, and for international clients a list of more than 30 excluded jurisdictions is on file. The provider states that its in-house yield-bearing stablecoin YLDS is registered as a security with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

For you as an investor in Germany this means the following, and it is deliberately cautious: this token is not listed on the MiCA-authorised trading venues customary in Germany. MiCA is the EU regulation on markets in crypto assets, in full application since December 30, 2024, which requires providers to hold an authorisation and meet disclosure obligations. Whether you would be accepted as a German retail client at a US marketplace at all, which tax and supervisory treatment would then apply and which documents you would receive are questions you have to settle with the provider itself. We have not tested this and make no claims about it.

If you are looking for investments paying ongoing interest, the workable route runs through offerings that are reachable and supervised in Germany. You will find an overview of interest-bearing crypto offerings in our comparison of lending providers, and the route in through regulated trading venues in our overview of crypto exchanges.

Market Capitalisation: What Circulating Supply Times Price Really Says

Market capitalisation is the product of circulating supply and the last price. What does not enter that calculation is how much money was ever invested, how many buyers stand ready, or at what price a larger sale would actually be executed. With an instrument turning over $1.96 million a day, the last price is a snapshot from a very thin order book, and the billions derived from it are a multiplication rather than a measurement of market value.

That is no reproach to Figure. The company does not compile the league table; the data providers do, and they do it for every instrument by the same formula. The error only arises in the reading, when a rank is taken as a measure of significance, tradability or safety.

The lesson reaches beyond this one token. Tokenised loans, bond funds and money market products are growing fast and increasingly appear in the same lists as Bitcoin and Ethereum. How far a tokenised security differs from the token itself is something our editorial team has written up using tokenised equities as the example: anyone holding such a token usually holds a claim against an issuer and not the security itself.

Credit Risk Instead of Price Risk: What Can Go Wrong Here

With a coin the main risk is the price. With a tokenised loan receivable it lies elsewhere, and that changes the examination fundamentally. What matters are the borrowers' ability to pay, the value of the properties pledged, the ranking of claims in the event of defaults and the legal construction between you and the receivable.

A price rising quietly around one dollar can therefore suggest a calm the product does not have. Home equity loans depend on interest rates, the labour market and property prices, and those quantities move slowly, but they move together. A period of stress shows up in such pools only with a delay.

We cannot make reliable statements about the quality of this specific pool, because we found no publicly available schedule of the loans it contains. That is no finding against the provider but the limit of our research. For you it is the decisive point: what you cannot inspect, you cannot assess.

Checking Liquidity: the Figures to Look at Before Any Purchase

The check this case teaches takes two minutes and works for any instrument you find in a league table. It needs four looks.

1. Turnover ratio. Divide the 24-hour turnover by the market capitalisation. Below 0.1 percent you should look more closely; below 0.05 percent you have a special case that needs an explanation.
2. Number of trading venues. A single market means price and execution depend on one provider. Two or three independent venues with a euro pair are the minimum for a calm entry.
3. Quotes in the order book. Look at the gap between the bid and the ask. If it runs to one percent or more, you pay the spread twice, on the way in and on the way out.
4. Agreement between the data providers. Where market capitalisation or rank diverge markedly between two providers, they are counting different supplies. The circulating supply is then the question you have to settle.

With FIGR_HELOC all four looks point the same way. That does not make the token bad; it makes it something other than what a tenth place suggests.

Holding Period, Tax and Custody With Tokenised Loan Receivables

With crypto assets you hold for more than a year, a gain on sale is tax-free in Germany under the law as it stands; that is the familiar holding period from the field of private disposal transactions. With an instrument whose return comes from ongoing interest, that classification is precisely not self-evident. Interest-like income is regularly treated differently from price gains, and with tokenised securities the legal structure in the individual case decides.

We deliberately offer no assessment on this, because it depends on documents we do not have. The consequence for you is practical: settle the tax treatment before you buy and not after the first interest payment arrives, and ask for the product documents that state the nature of the return. How widely tokenised paper can differ for tax purposes is shown in our overview of tokenised equities in Germany.

Custody brings a peculiarity you do not meet with a coin. A token held on a special blockchain such as Provenance and tradable on only one marketplace cannot simply be pulled into a wallet of your own and held there. The counterparty risk of the marketplace therefore remains, even though the word token suggests otherwise.

Levels Above and Below: What Is Measurable With This Instrument

This token yields no classic chart picture, and constructing one would be disreputable. The price stood at $1.062 on September 27, 2026, the gain over seven days at 6.00 percent and over 24 hours at 3.68 percent. On the upside the morning's all-time high is the level; on the downside it is the region around one dollar, because that is where the nominal value of the underlying receivables sits.

More telling than any price level here are two other values you can keep an eye on: the number of trading venues and the daily turnover. If turnover rises durably above the range of a few million dollars, or a second, independent trading venue appears, the position changes in substance. A new all-time high on its own does not change it.

Limits of This Analysis

Three things remain open, and they belong in this text. First, we could not establish which circulating supply is correct and why the two providers differ by 8.6 billion tokens; neither set of methodology notes was available in detail at the time of the query. Second, the statement about the single trading venue rests on the markets recorded at CoinGecko, and trading may exist that does not show up there. Third, we did not examine the quality of the loan pool, because no public schedule was available to us.

The figures in this article are snapshots from the morning of September 27, 2026 and age with every trading day. The method does not age: laying valuation and turnover side by side works with every new name that turns up in a league table.

Checking League Tables and Liquidity: What to Take Away

1. Calculate the turnover ratio before you believe a rank. The 24-hour turnover divided by the market capitalisation tells you in a second whether an instrument is tradable. Where to find that figure cleanly for the common trading venues and pairs is set out in our overview of crypto exchanges.
2. Check the buying route before you take an interest in a product. An asset with no listing on a trading venue authorised in Germany is in practice no investment object for you, whatever its place in a list. Which interest-bearing offerings are reachable here is shown by our comparison of lending providers.
3. Separate interest income from price gains. With interest-bearing products the nature of the return decides the taxation and the risk you actually carry. You will find the current yields of the supervised alternatives in our overview of staking and yield platforms.

(As of September 27, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)

If your crypto exchange's tax report is wrong, you have to correct it yourself. The German tax office treats that document as an aid and not as proof. You alone are responsible for the figures in your tax return, even when the exchange made the mistake.

That sounds harsh, and it has been clearly settled since the Federal Ministry of Finance's circular of March 6, 2025. Anyone buying or selling through a central trading platform run by a foreign operator has to download and retain the transaction overviews provided there, regularly and in full. Missing records and data losses expressly count against you. This piece shows how to spot a faulty report, how to correct it, and which deadline applies once the return is already with the tax office.

Why an Exchange Tax Report Is Almost Never Complete

A trading platform only knows what happened in its own accounts. The moment you move Bitcoin from an exchange to a wallet of your own, its field of view ends. The platform sees a withdrawal and does not know whether you sold, gave the coins away or merely relocated them. If the same coins arrive on another platform months later, that second platform sees an inflow with no acquisition cost.

This is exactly where the typical wrong amounts come from. One exchange assumes a sale where none took place. Another sets the acquisition cost to zero because it lacks the prior history. Together the two can report a gain that never existed, and in the other direction make a real gain disappear.

On top of that, many reports are built for a different legal system. Providers with an international client base often calculate under rules that do not apply in Germany. Our guide to exporting the tax records from your crypto exchange describes how to get hold of the raw data you need to check any of this.

The Five Most Common Errors in a Crypto Tax Report

In practice the same patterns repeat. Check these five points first.

1. Transfers between your own addresses are listed as sales. Moving coins to your own wallet is no disposal and triggers no tax. It still often turns up in the report as an outflow.
2. Acquisition costs are missing and set to zero. The full sale proceeds then become the gain. That is the most expensive single error of all.
3. The holding period restarts although it was still running. After a transfer some reports set the acquisition date to the day of arrival. Tax-free long-held stock then appears to be a taxable new purchase.
4. A swap into a stablecoin is missing as a transaction. Swapping one coin for another is a disposal even when no euro moves. Reports that only count euro movements overlook it.
5. Fees and charges are allocated incorrectly. Trading fees belong to acquisition or disposal costs. If they are missing, you pay tax on an inflated gain.

Then come the special cases that defeat almost every piece of automation: income from staking and lending, airdrops, hard forks, payments made in crypto assets and everything that ran through a decentralised protocol. These transactions happen outside the exchange, and that is why they do not appear in its report either.

Who Is Liable When the Report Is Wrong: the Tax Office Comes to You

Under German law the responsibility sits with you, and from two directions. Section 90 of the Fiscal Code obliges you to cooperate, and to a heightened degree where facts lie abroad. The Federal Ministry of Finance circular of March 6, 2025, which replaces the older version of May 10, 2022, turns that into a concrete duty: transaction overviews from the platform are to be downloaded and retained regularly and in full.

The practical core of that sentence is often skipped. An exchange can block your access, cease operations or trim its data holdings after a year-end. Anyone who has saved nothing by then stands without proof, and the loss falls on you rather than on the provider. Anyone using tax software additionally needs process documentation under the principles of proper bookkeeping, meaning a traceable description of which data fed into the result and how.

How to Find the Error: the Reconciliation in Four Steps

The reconciliation is manual work, but it is finite. Four steps are enough for a reliable result.

1. Check that the accounts are complete. List every platform, every wallet and every protocol that was active in the tax year. A single forgotten account makes every further calculation worthless.
2. Reconcile the balances at the year-end. The prior year's closing balance plus all inflows minus all outflows has to equal the closing balance of the tax year. If the sum does not work out, a movement is missing.
3. Pair up every transfer. Every withdrawal from platform A must have a matching inflow on wallet or platform B, with a matching amount and a matching timestamp. Unpaired transfers are the main source of invented gains.
4. Recalculate the ten largest transactions individually. The error almost never sits in the mass of small amounts. Check the price, amount, fee and date of the largest items by hand against the raw data.

For the first three steps a tool that merges several accounts and pairs transfers automatically is worth having. Our comparison of crypto tax software and portfolio trackers shows which programs manage this for the German legal framework and where their limits lie. The result still remains your statement and not the program's.

Which Figure Applies in Case of Doubt: Acquisition Cost, Holding Period and Exemption Limit

Before you correct anything you have to know what the right result would have been. For private investors the private disposal transaction under section 23 of the Income Tax Act applies. If you sell within one year of acquisition, the gain is taxable. After a year has passed it stays tax-free. The gain is the disposal proceeds less the acquisition cost and the directly related costs.

Two figures decide almost every correction. First, the exemption limit of 1,000 euros per calendar year for all private disposal transactions combined: if it is exceeded, the entire gain is taxable and not merely the excess. Second, the order in which holdings count as used up. The customary approach is to look at each wallet or account on the principle that the units acquired first are disposed of first. If you switch that method between two years, you create exactly the kind of break that shows up in the report later.

When Data Is Gone for Good: Estimation Under Section 162 of the Fiscal Code

Sometimes data is irretrievably lost, for instance because an exchange was wound up. The tax office may then estimate the tax base under section 162 of the Fiscal Code. An estimate is no blank cheque for the authorities, but it rarely turns out in your favour, and the burden of proving a lower figure then falls on you.

It is therefore better to estimate yourself and to disclose the estimate. Document which data is missing, why it is missing and how you derived the figure you applied, for example from the daily price at a verifiable source for the transaction time evidenced on the blockchain. A reasoned estimate of your own, named in your covering letter, is something entirely different from a figure quietly plugged in.

How Long You Have to Keep the Documents

There is no general retention period for private investors of the kind that applies to businesses. What matters in practice is the assessment period. For income tax it is usually four years, five in cases of reckless tax reduction and ten in cases of tax evasion. As long as it runs, the tax office can take up the case, and for that long you need the records.

Two groups face an explicit duty. Anyone trading or mining commercially falls under the retention duties for accounts and records. And anyone with surplus income of more than 500,000 euros in a calendar year has to keep the underlying records for six years under section 147a of the Fiscal Code. For everybody else the plain rule of thumb applies: download each platform's annual data at the start of the year and file it twice. The effort involved runs to minutes; the effort of reconstructing it three years later runs to days.

Report Corrected, Return Already Filed: Section 153 of the Fiscal Code

If you only notice the error after the tax return has gone out, a separate provision applies. Under section 153 of the Fiscal Code you have to notify and put right without delay once you subsequently realise that a filed return was incorrect or incomplete and that this could lead to an understatement of tax. That applies for as long as the assessment period is still running.

Without delay means without culpable hesitation, so not at the next year-end. In practice you send a short letter to your tax office naming the transaction, stating the corrected figures and enclosing the new documents. Filing the entire return again is not necessary for this. What matters is that the letter makes clear which item changes, how and why.

This correction is the cheap route. Anyone who lets a recognised error lie risks an oversight turning into an accusation after the fact.

The Assessment Has Arrived and It Is Wrong: Appeal Within One Month

Once a tax assessment based on wrong crypto figures exists, the clock counts. Under section 355 of the Fiscal Code the appeal has to be lodged within one month of notification of the assessment. With postal delivery, notification is usually the third day after posting, and not the day you opened the envelope.

An appeal initially needs only form and deadline; you can supply the reasoning later. You should know two points. First, an appeal does not suspend the obligation to pay: anyone who does not want to pay has to apply separately for a stay of enforcement. Second, in appeal proceedings the case is reviewed again in full, including to your detriment. Anyone wanting to correct only a small item should therefore have checked the remaining entries themselves beforehand.

When Income Was Missing Altogether

There is a legal difference between a miscalculated report and an entire category of income left undeclared. Where transactions were not stated at all and that was more than an oversight, the territory of tax evasion comes into play. Section 371 of the Fiscal Code provides for the voluntary disclosure with exemption from penalty, but only with a complete subsequent declaration of all unexpired periods for a type of tax, and only as long as no bar has arisen. An audit that has already been announced is such a bar.

This is the one point in this text where you should not carry on alone. An incomplete voluntary disclosure can fail in its effect and make the position worse. Anyone uncertain here should go to a tax adviser or a lawyer specialising in tax law before writing to the tax office at all.

What the New Reporting Duty Changes From the 2026 Reporting Year

Until recently a faulty report was mainly your own problem. That is changing right now. With the implementation of the European directive DAC8, crypto service providers report their clients' accounts and transactions to the tax authorities, for the first time for the 2026 reporting year. The authorities exchange that data within the EU.

For you this means your figures will in future be held against a second source. If your return diverges from the report, grounds for an audit arise, even where your figure is the correct one. That makes your own documentation all the more important, so you can explain a divergence, for instance a transfer that the reporting platform saw as an outflow and that in truth landed in your own wallet.

A second point concerns the choice of platform. Providers authorised within the European framework generally deliver structured annual data and are set up for the reporting anyway. Anyone trading with a provider outside the European framework has to secure the entire data basis themselves.

Correcting Your Tax Report: What to Take Away

1. Treat the report as a draft and not as a result. Run the four-step reconciliation before any figure moves into your return. Which platforms deliver usable annual data can be seen in our crypto exchange comparison.
2. Save the raw data yourself every year. A platform failure excuses nothing; under the Federal Ministry of Finance circular the data loss counts against you. A tool from our comparison of tax software and portfolio trackers takes the merging off your hands, but not the retention.
3. Act within the deadline. Error spotted before the assessment: correction under section 153 of the Fiscal Code, without delay. Error in the assessment: appeal within one month. And for the 2026 reporting year a platform with European authorisation simplifies the data position, as our comparison of regulated crypto exchanges shows.

(As of September 27, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)

This text is no substitute for tax advice in an individual case. Primary sources: the Federal Ministry of Finance circular of March 6, 2025 on crypto assets and section 153 of the Fiscal Code.

Tokenised US equities have sat behind the synthetic dollar USDe since September 25, 2026. Ethena Labs announced that day that it would represent part of the collateral through the equity tokens of the Binance trading platform and hedge the price risk of that position with equity perpetuals. None of this changes the quoted price of USDe. It changes who stands opposite you if things go wrong.

This piece answers four questions. What sits in the reserve now? What return does the construction realistically throw off? What happens to the governance token ENA on October 5? And how much of this is legally accessible to you in Germany at all? You will find no price targets here, because with a stablecoin the question is the backing rather than the price.

What Ethena Announced and What Changes in the USDe Collateral

USDe is a synthetic dollar. That means the token is meant to be worth roughly one US dollar without a real dollar sitting in a bank account behind it. The dollar peg is produced arithmetically instead. Ethena holds crypto collateral and simultaneously opens short positions in derivatives that lose exactly as much value as the collateral gains, and the other way round. This principle is called a delta-neutral strategy, and it has been the core of the protocol since launch.

What is new is the material being worked with. Ethena is taking Binance's equity tokens, known internally as bStocks, into the collateral as the spot leg and selling the matching equity perpetuals of the same trading platform short against them. Allocations began on the day of the announcement, according to the statement. Founder Guy Young calls the step the most significant extension of the USDe funding mechanism since the protocol began, and justifies it with the sheer size of the equity markets.

The scale of the protocol, measured in house: at 06:38 UTC on September 27, 2026, around 4.94 billion USDe were in circulation according to DefiLlama's stablecoin interface. The governance token ENA traded in the same window at $0.2712, or 0.2381 euros, with a market capitalisation of $2.74 billion at rank 40 (CoinGecko, 06:37 UTC). The yield-bearing offshoot sUSDe comes to $1.31 billion across roughly 1.05 billion tokens.

How the Basis Trade With Equity Perpetuals Works

A perpetual future is a futures contract with no expiry date. To stop its price drifting away from the spot price, the two sides pay each other a balancing fee at short intervals, the funding rate. When more traders are leveraged long, those long positions pay the short positions. That payment is precisely the income source of USDe.

The basis trade therefore works like this: Ethena holds the asset in the spot market and sells the same quantity short in the perpetual market. If the price moves, gain and loss largely cancel out. What remains is the difference between the two markets, the basis. Applied to crypto assets, that has been the mechanism behind USDe since 2024. Applied to equities, it is the same procedure with a different underlying.

One practical detail from the statement belongs here, because it counts under stress: Binance grants eligible delta-neutral accounts a lower priority in automatic position reduction. Automatic position reduction, known in the trade as auto-deleveraging, is an exchange's emergency measure when a liquidation tears a hole and profitable counter-positions are closed by force. Whoever sits further back in that queue is pulled out less often. If you are interested in the mechanics of perpetuals in detail, our comparison of perp DEX platforms sets out the differences between the trading venues.

What bStocks Really Are: A Claim Against a Binance Subsidiary

Here lies the point that matters more to the safety of USDe than any yield figure. bStocks are not shares. The issuer is BTech Holdings Limited, a company within the Binance group. Anyone holding a bStock holds a right to securities that this issuer holds in turn. No voting rights from the share come with it. Conversion into the real instrument is envisaged for eligible users, as far as the applicable law permits. Binance launched the first of these tokens in June 2026, among them Nvidia, Tesla, Circle, Micron and Sandisk, and according to Token Terminal data cited by crypto.news the volume had grown to around $610.6 million by August.

The risk analysts who worked the construction through for Ethena's risk committee put the consequence unambiguously. Kairos Research recommended releasing bStocks only once a side letter with the issuer has been signed setting out what the issuer may do with the deposited shares. As long as that letter is missing, the spot leg is unsecured credit risk to a Binance subsidiary and not a claim on the share. That describes what would happen if the issuer became insolvent.

With tokenised equities this distinction is the norm and not the exception. We took it apart at length in a separate analysis of issuer risk in tokenised equities on August 16, 2026. For USDe it means that part of the backing will in future be a claim against a company, and the quality of that claim hangs on a contract that had yet to be signed at the time of the announcement.

Why Ethena Is Looking for Income Outside the Crypto Market

The reason for the rebuild sits in the funding rates. Ethena disclosed its own figures in August: the open-interest-weighted funding rate on Bitcoin averaged 11.0 percent annualised in 2024, 4.9 percent in 2025 and, up to August 11, only 2.2 percent in 2026. The income source from which USDe draws its yield has therefore shrunk to a fifth within two years.

Binance's equity perpetuals came in at an average of 17.5 percent over the comparison period from May 20 to August 11. Open interest in those contracts stands above $2.9 billion and grew by around 105 percent a month on average over 2026. From the protocol's point of view this is a young market paying considerably better than the dried-out crypto perpetual trade.

How High the Equity Basis Really Is: 3.56 Against 7 to 18 Percent

This is where the published figures diverge widely, and anyone reading only one of them ends up with a skewed picture. Kairos Research puts the yield on the admitted Binance instruments at around 18 percent at the end of July and at about 7 percent as of August 26, with two of the instruments even yielding negative at that point. Crypto.news, by contrast, cites an average equity basis of 3.56 percent annualised over the past six months on September 25, likewise drawing on figures from Ethena.

The range therefore runs from 3.56 to 18 percent, depending on the measurement period and the selection of instruments. One thing above all can be relied on in that spread: the yield is falling. The end-of-July figure roughly halved by the end of August. An income source that gives way that sharply within four weeks is no basis for a return expectation you write into your planning for the coming year.

We showed how quickly such a calculation can tip on September 12, 2026 using a concrete case: the popular loop of sUSDe and borrowed stablecoins no longer paid for itself on the arithmetic at that point, because the borrowing rate exceeded the yield. The same logic applies to the new equity source.

What Hurdles an Equity Perpetual Has to Clear

Ethena's risk committee adopted a screening grid in August before the first equity token was allowed into the reserve. A contract only qualifies if it carries at least $25 million of one-sided open interest on a 14-day average, if at least 30 days of funding history exist, and if a matching tokenised spot instrument trades on the same venue. The underlying must be a listed security. Leveraged and inverse products are excluded.

The grid is strict enough to weed out almost everything. When it was applied in August, 17 markets on Binance and three on OKX passed. On Bybit and Kraken not a single one qualified. That is exactly why the extension is starting with one single trading venue, and at the same time why it turns into a concentration risk: the spot leg, the hedging leg and the issuer of the collateral all sit within the same corporate group.

What Else USDe Consists Of: Lending, Stablecoins and Real-World Assets

The equity basis trade is not arriving in a pure crypto reserve, because that ceased to exist long ago. Ethena rebuilt the composition in April 2026 and took in institutional lending and tokenised real-world assets. At the start of July, according to governance data cited by crypto.news, only around $39 million, or one percent, was left in classic crypto basis positions. DeFi lending accounted for about 46 percent, liquid stablecoins around 35 percent, tokenised real-world assets 11.2 percent and institutional lending, at around $310 million, a further 6.9 percent.

Part of that institutional block is a one billion dollar credit line set up with the trading house FalconX in August. Assets from the USDe backing finance over-collateralised loans to institutional borrowers there, settled through a special purpose vehicle, with qualified custodians expected to hold collateral in excess of the outstanding loan amount.

For you as a reader the conclusion is uncomfortable and important in equal measure: what stands behind USDe today has little left in common with the model the protocol set out with. The share of classic crypto basis positions was one percent at the start of July. The rest is a portfolio of loan claims, third-party stablecoins, products close to government bonds and, from now on, equity tokens. Anyone who takes the yield on sUSDe for a kind of interest rate should know that what they are really holding is an actively managed credit portfolio.

October 5: What Unlocks on ENA and Why the Buyback Does Not Cushion It

Alongside the collateral question runs a date that concerns the governance token. On October 5, 2026 the lock-up for the remaining original investor tranches ends. Our own analysis of the vesting plan, dated September 3, 2026, arrived at around 1.41 billion ENA in a single distribution. Measured against today's circulating stock of 10.1 billion tokens, that would be just under 14 percent, or around $382 million at the September 27 price. This figure comes from our calculation and not from Ethena: the protocol does not state the size of the tranche publicly.

The obvious counter-question is whether the agreed buyback mechanism absorbs it. According to our analysis of August 30, 2026, that mechanism only kicks in once USDe in circulation reaches $7.5 billion. Measured against today's 4.94 billion, roughly 2.56 billion are missing, so the protocol would have to grow by a good half. As matters stand today, that buffer is therefore not available for October 5.

To place the price picture, from our own measurement at 06:37 UTC on September 27, 2026: ENA is up 37.0 percent over seven days and 69.1 percent over 30 days, but down 54.0 percent over twelve months. It sits 82.1 percent below the all-time high of $1.52 set on April 11, 2024. We expressly draw no forecast from this. The date and the order of magnitude are what you need to know.

What Applies in Germany: BaFin, MiCAR and the Missing Investor Protection

For German investors the supervisory position is the real sticking point, and it has been unambiguous for a year and a half. On March 21, 2025, in the authorisation procedure of Ethena GmbH, based in Frankfurt am Main, BaFin found serious deficiencies and ordered immediately enforceable measures. Among other things the company was prohibited from continuing to offer the USDe token publicly, the asset reserve had to be frozen by the custodians, and a special representative appointed by the supervisor monitors compliance. BaFin additionally made public its reasoned suspicion that securities had been offered in Germany without the required prospectus.

The substance of the objection connects directly with the subject of this article. Under Article 3 of the European crypto regulation MiCAR, USDe is an asset-referenced token whose stability of value is meant to be maintained by reference to other values. By its own account, Ethena GmbH held only other crypto assets as the asset reserve, and stability was supposed to arise from an algorithm using hedging derivatives. That very construction of the reserve stood at the centre of the procedure. Whatever Ethena has changed in the composition since then makes no difference to the German prohibition. The prohibition attaches to the authorisation procedure as such and therefore to no particular collateral package. We have set out elsewhere which obligations an authorisation under this regulation triggers in the first place.

In practice this means: anyone holding USDe or sUSDe through a trading venue outside the European supervisory framework stands outside the level of protection that MiCAR provides for authorised issuers. There is no redemption claim against a supervised issuer there, no audited reserve under European rules and no deposit guarantee. The whole construction rests on the hedge at a central trading platform working at all times. How we assessed the income source and the consequences of the supervisory wind-down in detail is set out in our analysis of where the USDe yield comes from and the BaFin wind-down.

Tax: What Comes Your Way With USDe and sUSDe

For tax purposes a stablecoin is no euro. In the eyes of the tax office USDe and sUSDe are other economic assets, and swapping euros into USDe, or USDe into another token, is a separate transaction each time. Gains from a sale within one year fall under the private disposal transaction of section 23 of the German Income Tax Act, with an exemption limit of 1,000 euros a year for all private disposal transactions combined. If the limit is breached, the entire gain is taxable and not only the excess.

With sUSDe there is an additional feature that many overlook. No separate income token flows to you; the increase in value sits inside the token itself. A taxable gain therefore usually only arises on sale or exchange. Whether the tax authorities classify the transaction in an individual case as a private disposal transaction or as income from other services depends on the specific arrangement. Settle that with a tax adviser before your return, and keep complete records regardless: since the 2026 reporting year, providers within the EU report to the tax authorities under the DAC8 directive, and discrepancies between your own records and the report stand out.

How to Check the Collateral Yourself in a Few Minutes

You do not have to rely on any announcement. Three checks are enough for a picture of your own and take under ten minutes together.

1. Verify the circulating supply. DefiLlama's stablecoin interface shows the outstanding amount of USDe. If it falls over several weeks, capital is leaving, and the protocol has to close positions.
2. Read the composition of the reserve. Ethena publishes a transparency page. Compare the share of crypto basis positions there with the share in lending and tokenised assets. As the credit share grows, so does your counterparty risk.
3. Watch the funding rates. Every large derivatives exchange displays the current funding rate. If it stays in negative territory for a longer period, the protocol is paying out instead of earning.

A fourth check concerns the new development specifically: watch whether the side letter with the issuer of the equity tokens gets signed. Until then, in the assessment of the protocol's own risk analysts, this part of the backing is a claim against a company and gives no access to a security.

Checking the USDe Collateral: What to Take Away

1. Check where you trade before you check what you hold. An offer prohibited in Germany stays prohibited, however good the reserve looks. Our comparison of regulated crypto exchanges shows which trading venues can demonstrate authorisation under European law.
2. Do not confuse yield with interest. The income on sUSDe comes from derivatives business and lending, and the equity basis fell from around 18 percent at the end of July to about 7 percent at the end of August. Anyone looking for income should lay the sources side by side: our overview of staking and yield platforms sorts out which risk sits behind which number.
3. Document every swap from day one. With a token whose value grows inside the token itself, clean record-keeping decides your later tax bill. You will find tools for that in our comparison of crypto tax software and portfolio trackers.

(As of September 27, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)

Primary sources: Ethena Labs on extending the basis trade to equities and the BaFin consumer notice on Ethena GmbH.

The most important number in any Shiba Inu price prediction for German investors this autumn sits in the calendar and not in the chart. A draft bill from the Federal Ministry of Finance names December 31, 2026 as the dividing line between the old and the new tax regime for crypto assets. Anyone who buys Shiba Inu after that date could end up permanently under a different regime from someone who buys today. The price itself is giving little cause for excitement.

Shiba Inu Price Prediction: What the SHIB Price Actually Shows on September 27, 2026

SHIB traded at $0.00000592 at 06:40 UTC on September 27, 2026, which works out at roughly 0.0000052 euros. The figure comes from the CoinGecko market snapshot taken at that moment. Over the preceding 24 hours the price moved between $0.00000582 and $0.00000606, a daily gain of 0.16 percent. Market capitalisation stood at $3.486 billion, rank 34 in the overall market, on trading volume of $84.5 million in 24 hours.

The gap between the time frames is more telling than the single day. Over seven days the token is up 9.46 percent, over 30 days 10.71 percent, over 60 days 28.04 percent. Measured over a full year it is down 50.27 percent. SHIB has worked its way up out of a deep hole without recovering even half of what it lost over the year.

The all-time high of $0.00008616 dates from October 27, 2021. The current price sits around 93 percent below it. For SHIB to reach that high again, the price would have to multiply fourteenfold. With the circulating supply unchanged, market capitalisation would then stand at roughly $50.7 billion. Call that a multiplication exercise. It shows the order of magnitude hiding behind a seemingly small number with a lot of zeros.

Circulating supply means the number of tokens actually tradable in the market. For SHIB that is 589.24 trillion units, out of a total supply of 589.50 trillion. This quantity is why every price-target calculation for Shiba Inu looks different from one for Bitcoin or Ether.

Shiba Inu Burn Rate: What 476.96 Million Burned SHIB Change About Supply

On September 26, 2026 the daily burn rate jumped by 585.54 percent, sending roughly 15.16 million SHIB to so-called dead wallets. Industry outlet U.Today reported the jump the same day. A burn is the act of sending tokens to an address with no known key, from which nobody can retrieve them. The tokens are permanently out of circulation.

Percentages like that sound like scarcity. Set them against the supply. An in-house analysis by cryptoticker.io dated September 20, 2026 arrived at 476.96 million SHIB burned over 30 days, which is 0.00008 percent of the circulating supply. At that pace, around 15.9 million tokens a day, the network would need more than 1,000 years to cut the supply by a single percent. We published the full calculation on September 20, 2026.

Set against today's price: 476.96 million SHIB at $0.00000592 come to a value of about $2,823. That is the monthly total of every burn combined, spread across thousands of individual transactions. This order of magnitude belongs in your Shiba Inu price prediction before you read a headline about a four-digit percentage as a buy signal.

Shibarium and Where Real SHIB Demand Is Supposed to Come From

Shibarium is the Shiba Inu project's own layer-2 blockchain, a network that settles transactions more cheaply and reports back to the Ethereum blockchain at regular intervals. Every transaction there generates fees in the BONE token, part of which is swapped into SHIB and burned.

One feature of this mechanism matters most for your assessment. It ties burning to actual network usage. Waves of community sentiment do not move it. Over the medium term, that leaves the Shiba Inu price prediction hanging less on announcements and more on a sober question: how many people use the network for payments, applications and transfers they would have made anyway?

No price chart delivers a solid answer to that. Those answers sit in the chain's usage data, and they change slowly. Buying SHIB today is therefore a bet on network usage; the scarcity argument lies centuries away by arithmetic.

The December 31, 2026 Deadline: Why Your Purchase Date Decides Your Tax

Here is the part you can and should check independently of the price. The Federal Ministry of Finance has circulated a draft bill on the taxation of crypto assets held as private wealth for consultation between departments. According to the account given by the tax firm GTK on September 15, 2026, the draft provides a clear cut-off date for grandfathering.

The key points according to that account: 25 percent flat-rate capital gains tax plus the solidarity surcharge on so-called exchange crypto assets, taking substantive effect from January 1, 2027. Only holdings acquired after December 31, 2026 would be affected. Anyone buying up to and including that day stays in the old regime with the one-year holding period under section 23 of the Income Tax Act. Automatic tax deduction by trading venues is not due to start until January 1, 2028.

Two qualifications come with this, and they matter more than the headline. First, this is a draft bill in inter-departmental consultation, meaning a legal text drawn up inside the ministry. There is no cabinet decision, no Bundestag vote and no Bundesrat vote behind it. The Income Tax Reform Act 2027, which cleared the cabinet on September 2, 2026, did not cover crypto assets at all, as we reported on September 7, 2026. The state of the legislative position on the holding period is changing month by month at present.

Second, the draft defines the term exchange crypto asset narrowly: a crypto asset under the EU's MiCAR regulation that is accepted as a means of exchange and is not issued by a central bank or a public body. Bitcoin and Ether are the main examples named. Whether a memecoin such as SHIB falls under that definition cannot be read unambiguously from the text known so far. This is no quibble. It is precisely the question that decides your tax bill in 2027.

What follows is clear all the same: under the draft as known today, a purchase date before December 31, 2026 can take nothing away from you, and it may well secure grandfathered status. That asymmetry is the one solid argument this quarter for deciding by the calendar rather than by the chart.

Holding Period, Exemption Limit and FIFO: The Three Numbers in Your SHIB Tax Calculation

As long as section 23 of the Income Tax Act stands unchanged, gains from selling or swapping crypto assets are entirely tax-free after exactly one year of holding. Within that year they count as private disposal transactions and are taxed at your personal income tax rate, which can reach up to 45 percent.

The exemption limit has stood at 1,000 euros of annual gains per person from all private disposal transactions since the Growth Opportunities Act. An exemption limit works differently from a tax-free allowance: if your total gain comes to 999 euros, everything stays tax-free. At 1,000 euros the entire amount becomes taxable, not merely the euro above the line. At a SHIB price of 0.0000052 euros, a gain of 1,000 euros corresponds to roughly 192 million tokens, an order of magnitude reached faster with memecoins than many expect.

The order of your sales follows FIFO, first in, first out: the tokens bought first count as the tokens sold first. If you have been buying in over months, you are therefore selling your oldest holdings first for tax purposes, and those are the ones most likely to have cleared the holding period. Since January 1, 2026, trading venues have also reported your transactions automatically to the tax authorities under the DAC8 rules. The days when an incomplete record went unnoticed are over.

In practice this means you need the date, the quantity, the price and the trading venue for every purchase, without gaps. If the December 31, 2026 deadline does become law, that purchase date is the proof of your grandfathered status. Our comparison of crypto tax software and portfolio trackers shows which tools keep this history cleanly and generate a report for your tax return.

Buying Under MiCA: How to Spot a Licensed Provider in Germany

The EU's MiCA regulation has applied in full since December 30, 2024. Anyone trading, custodying or exchanging crypto assets commercially for clients in Germany needs authorisation as a crypto-asset service provider. BaFin is the competent supervisor, and licensed firms can be looked up in the regulator's public registers.

Check three points before a SHIB order. First, whether your provider holds MiCA authorisation in an EU member state and may operate in Germany. Second, whether it lists SHIB for spot trading at all and not only as a contract for difference, because a contract for difference hands you a bet on the price in place of tokens, and it falls under entirely different tax rules. Third, whether you can withdraw the tokens to an address of your own, because without that option your grandfathered status depends on the provider staying in business. Our comparison of the best crypto exchanges sets out which platforms meet these points for German customers.

Storing SHIB: When a Hardware Wallet Is Worth the Effort

SHIB is a token on the Ethereum blockchain and also runs on Shibarium. For custody that means any wallet that handles Ethereum tokens can hold SHIB. A hardware wallet is a device that generates and stores your private key without ever handing it to a computer connected to the internet.

At a price of $0.00000592 the trade-off is the same as for any other token, only the unit counts are larger. What matters is the value in euros, and not the number of tokens. If your holding sits in the low hundreds, the network fee for a withdrawal eats a noticeable share of it. Above a four-figure value that reverses, and the risk of a trading venue failing outweighs the fee. Add the tax point from above: your own key makes you independent of whether your provider still exists in three years and can still hand over your acquisition data. The hardware wallet comparison shows which devices support the common Ethereum tokens properly.

One warning is needed more often with memecoins than elsewhere: your wallet's recovery phrase belongs on paper or metal and never in a cloud, a photo or a chat. Anyone who asks a community for help after a price rise will very probably be messaged by someone whose whole purpose is to extract exactly that phrase.

Spread and Liquidity: What $84.5 Million in Daily Turnover Means for Your Order

SHIB turned over $84.5 million in 24 hours on a market capitalisation of $3.486 billion. That puts the ratio of turnover to market value at around 2.4 percent. For comparison from the same snapshot: Dogecoin came in at $627 million of turnover on $15.1 billion of market value, a good 4.1 percent.

For you as a buyer that is no academic figure. The thinner the market, the further apart the bid and ask prices sit. That distance is called the spread, and it is easy to miss on a token with eight decimal places: between 0.00000592 and 0.00000598 lies one percent, and one percent is more than many trading venues charge in order fees. Always convert the spread into a percentage before you send an order. Our price review of September 26, 2026 sets out which levels are worth watching in day-to-day trading.

A second rule for thin markets: use limit orders in place of market orders. A market order takes whatever price the order book currently offers. On $84.5 million of daily turnover spread across dozens of trading venues, that can work out noticeably more expensive than the quoted price, depending on the time of day.

Levels Above and Below to Measure the Shiba Inu Price Prediction Against

These levels are orientation, and no prediction. They are derived from the measured 24-hour range of September 27, 2026 and the nearest round numbers.

On the downside the daily low at $0.00000582 is the first line. If the price drops below it, the next round level is 0.00000550, a good 7 percent under the current reading. Only below that would the 10.71 percent gain of the past 30 days be fully surrendered.

On the upside the daily high sits at $0.00000606, with the round level of 0.00000600 immediately beneath it. A solid breakout would require a close above 0.00000650, because that is where the level of early September would be regained. The much-quoted level at which a zero disappears sits at 0.0000592, around 900 percent higher. Market capitalisation would then be about $34.9 billion, just under half of what Solana weighed in at on the same day. Anyone who reads that number in a forecast should hold it against this comparison.

What the levels do not deliver: they say nothing about whether Shibarium will be used more in twelve months than it is today. That is exactly what the Shiba Inu price prediction hangs on over a one-year horizon, and so far there is no figure that establishes a direction.

Shiba Inu Price Prediction: What to Take Away

1. Check the purchase date before the price. Under the draft bill of September 2026, December 31, 2026 decides whether your holding stays under the one-year holding period or moves into the flat-rate capital gains tax. Nothing has been enacted. A purchase before that date can take nothing away from you under the text as known. If you were going to buy in anyway, check your buying route now in the crypto exchange comparison.
2. Secure your acquisition data without gaps. Date, quantity, price and trading venue for every purchase are the only proof of grandfathered status from 2027, and since January 1, 2026 your provider has been reporting to the tax office under DAC8 in any case. A tool from our tax software comparison does this automatically and calculates on a FIFO basis.
3. Weigh burn headlines against the supply. 476.96 million SHIB burned in 30 days are 0.00008 percent of the circulating supply and worth around $2,823. Building a price thesis on that means counting in centuries. If your holding is in four figures, custody is the more pressing question, and the hardware wallet comparison answers it.

(As of September 27, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)

If a balance is still sitting at CoinEx that is not held in USDT, there are around 46 hours left for it. On September 29, 2026 at 02:00 UTC the exchange ends spot trading, and from that moment holdings that have not been withdrawn in their original currency are liquidated. Coins with liquidity on external markets are sold by the exchange in batches, according to its own statement, with the net proceeds credited as USDT in the spot account. Coins without external liquidity are delisted step by step, and for those the exchange explicitly assumes no further custody and no further redemption once processing has begun.

The difference from the previous understanding of this date is not a detail. Until September 29 you can decide yourself what happens to your holding. After that the exchange decides, in batches, at a price you do not know in advance. Anyone who leaves Bitcoin, Ether or a smaller altcoin at CoinEx and lets the date pass will in the end hold none of those coins but a dollar stablecoin.

Forced conversion at CoinEx: what happens to your coins on September 29 at 02:00 UTC

The rule is set out in the exchange's wind-down notice and can be summed up in one sentence: anyone who wants to keep non-USDT holdings in the original currency has to withdraw them before September 29, 2026, 02:00 UTC. After that, liquidation applies.

For the wind-down the exchange distinguishes two groups. For coins that still have liquidity on external markets, it sells the holding and converts the net proceeds into USDT; the result lands in the user's spot account. For coins without an external market there is no sale, they are delisted, and the associated wallets are, according to the exchange, no longer operated. Processing runs in batches spread across the withdrawal period, and the exchange announces no separate notices for individual batches.

One term, briefly explained: a liquidation is the sale of a holding by a third party without the owner determining the timing or the price. Economically it is a sale like any other, only without your decision on when it takes place.

That fees and deadlines can change on short notice applies with particular force during a wind-down. If you are reordering your holdings anyway, it is worth looking at exchanges with a European licence, because there a market exit does not run without wind-down rules and without supervision.

The wind-down schedule: which stages have already taken effect since September 15

September 29 is the third stage of a schedule that began on September 15. The exchange had announced its closure that day and started the wind-down immediately.

• September 15, 2026: no more new registrations, referral commissions and other forms of remuneration end. Futures move into the mode in which positions can only be reduced. New orders for fiat, margin, loans, savings products, staking and strategic trading are no longer accepted.
• September 22, 2026: all services outside the spot market end. Deposits via the blockchain stop, for the exchange token CET only on September 29. Open futures positions are force-settled at the index price, savings and staking products are repaid uniformly.
• September 29, 2026, 02:00 UTC: spot trading ends, unexecuted orders are cancelled. The in-house blockchain CoinEx Smart Chain and the decentralised exchange OneSwap cease operation. From that moment the liquidation of non-USDT holdings begins.
• December 22, 2026, 02:00 UTC: the withdrawal channel closes, operations end.

Between September 29 and December 22 the platform therefore remains a pure withdrawal counter for just under three months. That sounds like time, but it moves the decisive work forward: what you can still withdraw in that phase is what is left after the liquidation, and for most holdings that is USDT.

On the time of the December date the accounts diverge. Several reports name December 22, 2026 at 02:00 UTC, while another summary of the notice gives the time zone UTC+8 for the same day. The difference of eight hours does not matter as long as you do not wait for the last day, and that is precisely why you should not.

Batch selling without individual notice: why you will not know the execution price

The practical consequence of batch processing is a price risk that cannot be steered. The exchange names no date for the individual coin and no separate notice per batch. You therefore do not know on which day your holding will be sold, and you cannot choose the moment.

How large that risk is depends on the volatility of the coin in question. At the time of our call on September 27, 2026 at 03:48 UTC, Bitcoin stood at around $84,381 according to CoinGecko data and had gained about 4.2 percent in seven days; Ether was at around $2,697, up about 3.0 percent on the week. With smaller altcoins the range is considerably wider: in the field of the 25 largest crypto-assets, weekly changes in the same call ran between minus 2.1 and plus 41.9 percent. A sale whose day you do not know hits one side or the other of that range with such assets.

There is a second point that often gets lost: with a coin that has no external liquidity, no sale takes place at all. There you do not get a bad price, you get no price. The holding is delisted, and the exchange does not continue to operate the associated wallets.

Coins without external liquidity: when delisting puts the holding out of reach

For small and thinly traded positions, delisting is the harder part of the announcement. According to the exchange's statements, once processing has begun it assumes no further custody and no further redemption for these assets. Anyone who wants to keep such a coin has only the window until September 29 to do so, and in the original currency via a blockchain withdrawal.

Whether your coin can be withdrawn at all is not a rhetorical question here. Our own survey at CoinEx on September 15, 2026, published in our article on the closure of the exchange, found 37 currencies whose withdrawal counter was closed that day. That figure is our own measurement on one day and not a permanent state; it does show, however, that the way out is not open for every entry in the account. So check today whether your currency offers a withdrawal, rather than late on Monday evening shortly before the cut-off.

What to check specifically before the window closes

Three questions are enough to begin with. First: is there any network at all to choose from in the withdrawal section for your currency? Second: is your holding above the minimum withdrawal amount for that network? Third: does the destination address you are sending to support exactly that network? The third point is the one where money is lost in practice, because an address can look valid while belonging to a different chain.

Holding period and section 23 of the German Income Tax Act: why a forced sale is still a sale

Here lies the part that the reports on the wind-down do not cover, and which for an investor in Germany can be the most expensive. For tax purposes the liquidation is a sale. That the exchange triggers it rather than you changes nothing about that.

Crypto-assets held privately count as other assets. A sale within one year of purchase is therefore a private disposal under section 23 of the German Income Tax Act, and the gain from it is taxed at your personal rate. After a year has passed, the gain is tax-free. Swapping a coin into a stablecoin is a sale just as swapping into euros is, because you give up one asset and receive another.

If you have held your position for less than a year

Then the liquidation on September 29 creates a taxable event in 2026 that you did not plan. The gain is the proceeds in USDT less your acquisition costs. That stays tax-free only as long as the total gain from all private disposals of the year remains below the exemption threshold of 1,000 euros; once it is reached, the entire gain is taxable, not only the part above it. It is explicitly not an allowance that covers only the excess.

If you have held it for longer than a year

Then the liquidation is unproblematic in tax terms, because after a year the gain lies outside the tax charge. Economically it remains a disadvantage, because you do not determine the moment of sale. Anyone who wants to keep their holding rather than see it shifted into USDT withdraws it, regardless of the tax question.

The records you secure for yourself now

A wind-down has one unpleasant property: the platform that keeps your trading history disappears. So download your transaction and withdrawal statements before operations end, rather than when the tax office asks. Anyone unable to document their acquisition costs will later be negotiating over an estimate, and the burden of proof sits with the taxpayer. A portfolio tracker with tax reporting helps here above all because it makes the data independent of the provider.

A new holding period on the USDT: what the swap means for the twelve-month clock

The second tax effect is easily overlooked. The liquidation does not only end the old holding period, it also starts a new one. The USDT you hold in the account after the sale is a newly acquired crypto-asset with its own acquisition date, and for it the twelve-month period runs again from the day it is credited.

With a stablecoin that sounds harmless, because the price barely moves and a later sale generates hardly any gain. What matters is the holding you have replaced with it: if a coin you have held for eleven months is liquidated on September 29, you lose the month that would have taken you into tax exemption. Anyone close to the one-year mark should therefore look up when they bought before deciding whether to withdraw or to sell.

Withdrawal fee per chain: why the exit costs up to 174,000 times as much

If you withdraw, the chain you choose determines how much arrives at the other end. Our survey on September 15, 2026 read out the withdrawal fees at CoinEx that day and found, for the same USDT, the same amount and the same moment, nine routes with very different prices: from 0.000043 USDT via the Plasma chain to 7.50 USDT via Tron. Between the cheapest and the most expensive exit there was therefore a factor of 174,000, and even between the two most-used routes, BNB Smart Chain and Tron, the factor stood at 949.

The effect hits small residual balances hardest. On a balance of 20 USDT, withdrawing via Tron costs 7.50 USDT according to this measurement, which is 37.5 percent. In 78 of 1,011 combinations of currency and network examined, the fee amounted to at least half of the respective minimum withdrawal amount. Both figures are our own measurement of September 15 and not a statement by the exchange; check the current values yourself before withdrawing, because in a wind-down fee tables change.

For Bitcoin there was exactly one withdrawal route on the measurement day, the Bitcoin network, with a fee of 0.0001 BTC against a minimum amount of 0.001 BTC, that is around a tenth of the smallest possible withdrawal. With Ether the ratio was about 0.2 percent, at a fee of 0.000011 ETH against a minimum of 0.005 ETH. The difference follows the usual costs of the respective chain and is no coincidence.

A 5 percent monthly custody fee: what happens to USDT after December 22

For USDT still sitting in the account on December 22, the exchange has announced an arrangement you should know about. The holding is transferred into separate custody, and for that the company names a monthly custody fee of 5 percent of the original holding, measured on the cut-off date. Claims can, according to statements from the notice, still be registered by email until August 22, 2028.

The basis of assessment makes the difference here. Five percent of the original amount is not a percentage deduction that merely approaches zero, it is a constant deduction. On 500 USDT that would be 25 USDT a month, every month, which would exhaust the holding after 20 months. Anyone who misses the withdrawal date does not lose their balance immediately, then, but foreseeably.

CET buyback at 0.005 USDT: what holders of the exchange token decide by Tuesday

The in-house token CET is being bought back until September 29 at 0.005 USDT per unit, according to the exchange, with no volume cap and no further conditions; CET still sitting in accounts after that is bought back automatically at the same price. The company holds out no prospect of a later redemption. Deposits of CET via the blockchain were the only ones still possible until September 29, while for all other assets they already ended on September 22.

Our measurement of September 15 showed CET in all three calls at 0.005 or 0.005001 USDT, so practically exactly at the announced buyback price. A buyback at a fixed price acts like a floor that the market aligns itself with, and that is precisely how the price behaved that day. For holders that means the difference between selling on the market and waiting for the buyback was, on the measurement day, in the region of the trading fee. We give no recommendation on this, because both routes hang on the same question, namely how reliable you consider the company's commitments to be.

Where to move your holding: your own wallet or an exchange with an EU licence

For the withdrawal you have two sensible destinations, and the choice depends on what you intend to do with the holding. If you want to keep it, your own wallet is the direct route: you receive the coins in the original currency, the holding period continues unchanged because no sale takes place, and you no longer depend on any provider. If you want to keep trading, the route runs via another exchange.

As the reason for the closure the company itself cites a prolonged market downturn, declining trading volume and shrinking liquidity, together with increased regulatory requirements in important jurisdictions, the cost of which in its account had exceeded a reasonable level. For an investor in Germany that is an argument for looking more closely at licensing with the next provider. The duties a provider with a European authorisation has to meet are set out in our overview of the MiCA obligations.

Whatever the destination, the same order applies to the move: first send a small test amount, check that it arrives, then the rest. That minute costs one withdrawal fee and, if something goes wrong, saves the entire holding.

Checking the CoinEx forced conversion: what you take away

1. Look today at whether a withdrawal route is open at all. Open the withdrawal section for every currency in your account and check whether a network is offered and whether your holding is above the minimum amount. If there is nothing to be had there, the only option until September 29 is a swap on the spot market into a currency that can be withdrawn. Anyone who wants to keep trading the holding afterwards will find the destination accounts for it at the larger crypto exchanges.
2. Check the acquisition date before withdrawing. If the purchase is less than a year ago, a liquidation on September 29 creates a taxable gain in 2026; if it is longer ago, the gain is tax-free, but the moment of sale remains outside your control. Download the trading history while the platform is running, and secure the records in a tax and portfolio tool that works independently of the exchange.
3. Pay attention to licensing with your next provider. A market exit without European supervision runs by the provider's rules, not by yours. If you are moving the holdings anyway, this is the cheapest moment to park them at a regulated exchange with an EU authorisation or to take them onto a hardware wallet that you keep yourself.

The exchange's notice itself is in its statement on the orderly cessation of operations. That page loads its text via JavaScript and reads normally in a browser, even though an automated call returns it empty; the dates named here have additionally been cross-checked against two independent trade reports.

(As of September 27, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)

Bitcoin ETFs have drawn nearly $3 billion over seven straight sessions, erasing post-Clarity Act losses and pushing 2026 flows back into positive territory.

After the Clarity Act failed in the Senate, the SEC, CFTC, and the Fed moved within days to write crypto's rules themselves. Will it be enough?

An open competition run by StarkWare, Yukon Research, and Eigen Labs drove the estimated cost of building a quantum-safe Bitcoin transaction from about $320 to roughly $67, with AI models topping the leaderboards.

Google Vids now lets any Google account holder generate free HD AI video using Gemini Omni 1.1 Flash, with new scene, timing, and watermark controls.

Federal prosecutors are targeting a Montana payments firm and a Caribbean bank accused of moving money without a license.

XRP Ledger showing growth across the board as multiple on-chain metrics surge.

Prominent tech investor Jason Calacanis has taken aim at meme coins, branding them a “giant scam.”.

Veteran trader Peter Brandt has taken another swipe at XRP’s fiercely loyal community even as his latest chart points to a potentially bullish setup for the Ripple-linked cryptocurrency.

Dogecoin’s ten-cent push returns as Elon Musk steps back into crypto spotlight.

Despite a massive +48.1% surge last quarter, price history shows XRP always hits a painful speed bump in so-called "Uptober".

Key Highlights

• Bitcoin maintained its position around $84,626 on Sunday, registering a daily increase of 0.84% while staying firmly above $84,000.
• The leading cryptocurrency has surged approximately 43.5% during the current quarter, marking its strongest Q3 performance since 2017.
• Spot bitcoin ETFs in the United States attracted $2.4 billion in capital during the previous week, representing the largest weekly influx in almost twelve months.
• Exchange platform Bitget experienced a security breach resulting in $387.5 million in losses, with hackers already transferring $83 million worth of XRP.
• Technical analyst Aksel Kibar identified concerning weekly candle patterns, suggesting potential for a downward correction.

The world’s largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization maintained stability above the $84,000 threshold throughout Sunday trading. Bitcoin was changing hands at $84,626.50 at 01:39 ET, reflecting a daily gain of 0.84%.

The current price level positions Bitcoin near the conclusion of what ranks as its second-strongest third quarter performance historically. Since beginning July around the $58,500 mark, the digital asset has appreciated by approximately 43.5%.

This performance represents Bitcoin’s most impressive Q3 showing since 2017, when the cryptocurrency surged approximately 80%. Meanwhile, Ethereum has outperformed even more dramatically this quarter with gains of roughly 71%, positioning it for its best-ever third quarter.

The leading cryptocurrency also navigated Friday’s substantial quarterly options expiration event without experiencing significant volatility. Spot market trading volumes expanded throughout the week, while market participants demonstrated restraint from aggressive profit-taking behavior.

Bitcoin ETFs Post Strongest Weekly Performance in Nearly a Year

Spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds in the United States recorded net inflows totaling $2.4 billion during the week concluding September 25. This figure represents the most substantial weekly capital influx since October 2025.

These inflows propelled the 2026 cumulative net flows for bitcoin ETFs back into positive territory. Just mid-July, these investment vehicles were showing approximately $5.8 billion in net outflows.

Monday dominated the week’s inflow activity. The dozen tracked bitcoin ETF products collectively absorbed $999 million on that single day, marking the largest one-day inflow recorded since October 2025.

Subsequent trading days witnessed progressively declining inflow figures. Tuesday registered $714.7 million in new capital, while Wednesday saw $347 million. Thursday brought $190.6 million, and Friday concluded the week with $134.5 million.

BlackRock’s IBIT product dominated weekly performance with $1.2 billion in new investments. Fidelity’s FBTC attracted $701.7 million, representing its strongest weekly showing since early September.

Ethereum-focused ETFs similarly reversed their trajectory during the past week. These products attracted $689.9 million in fresh capital, contrasting sharply with the previous week’s $140 million in outflows.

Solana-based investment products established their own benchmark, recording an $86.7 million single-day inflow on Friday, the highest daily total ever recorded for that asset class.

Banking Integration Proposals and Technical Warning Signs

Michael Saylor, Chairman of Strategy, advocated for expanded Bitcoin participation among American banking institutions. He proposed that banks should provide Bitcoin custody services and offer lending products collateralized by the digital asset.

Saylor contended that existing capital requirement frameworks constrain banking sector involvement. He particularly referenced the 1,250% risk weighting assigned to the most speculative cryptocurrency holdings under global banking regulations.

Additionally, he suggested regulatory authorities should establish distinct frameworks for custody operations, lending activities, and direct institutional Bitcoin ownership.

Technical analyst Aksel Kibar highlighted potential warning signals in Bitcoin’s recent price behavior. “As we get close to end of week, the weekly candle does not look like a decisive breakout,” Kibar noted, explaining that genuine breakouts typically generate extended weekly candles, and the current hesitant movement might result in prices retreating to previous trading ranges.

Security concerns remained prominent following Bitget exchange’s $387.5 million security compromise. By Saturday, the perpetrator had relocated approximately $83 million in stolen XRP tokens from three separate wallets, according to CoinDesk reporting, with roughly $75 million remaining in the initial compromise addresses.

Ripple lacks the capability to freeze the compromised XRP holdings directly, as the XRP Ledger’s freezing mechanisms do not extend to its native cryptocurrency. Bitget has confirmed that its protection fund will cover all losses and emphasized that customer account balances remain unaffected.

The exchange has scheduled Bitcoin withdrawal functionality to restart on September 28, with ether withdrawals resuming September 29 and USDT withdrawals becoming available September 30.

The post Bitcoin (BTC) Price Surges 43.5% in Strongest Q3 Performance Since 2017 appeared first on Blockonomi.

Key Highlights

• SOL price maintains position above $120 mark for first time since January, gaining approximately 8% over the past week.
• Alpenglow network upgrade deployed to devnet on September 25, targeting 150ms finality times.
• U.S.-listed Solana ETFs recorded unprecedented $86.67M in single-day net inflows on September 25.
• Total stablecoin market capitalization on Solana reached record high of $17.394 billion.
• On-chain spot trading volume on Solana exceeded that of Coinbase, Bybit, and Kraken on September 24.

Solana has pushed beyond the $120 threshold this week, marking its first sustained presence at this level since the final days of January. The digital asset gained approximately 8% across a seven-day period, continuing a rebound trajectory that initiated near $75 during early August.

As of September 26, SOL was changing hands at $121.19. This represents approximately 58% below the token’s January 2025 high of $294.

Market participants are now focusing on $130 as the subsequent resistance target. Technical analysis of the four-hour timeframe reveals SOL trending within an ascending channel formation, while the relative strength index registers 63.09.

This measurement indicates sustained momentum while remaining below overbought territory. The Chaikin Money Flow indicator recorded 0.09, suggesting constructive capital flow throughout the recent appreciation.

Alpenglow Upgrade Aims to Accelerate Transaction Speed

The Alpenglow upgrade for Solana’s network advanced to devnet status on September 25. Anza, the development organization spearheading this initiative, announced the progression one day following a testnet transition.

In a statement posted to X, Anza declared: “Alpenglow is officially running on devnet. The handoff completed at slot 504148999: Alpenglow genesis block formed and TowerBFT is retired. App developers: test your programs and integrations now during our observation period leading up to mainnet-beta migration.”

This technical upgrade seeks to reduce transaction finality duration from 12.8 seconds down to approximately 150 milliseconds. Finality represents the moment when a blockchain transaction becomes irreversible.

Accelerated finality times would enable trading platforms to process deposit confirmations more rapidly. The mainnet implementation remains pending, meaning end users have yet to experience these performance improvements.

Market analyst Crypto Patel highlighted an alternative price threshold deserving attention. In an X platform update, Patel observed that SOL had successfully regained the $120 level following an eight-month absence, but identified $150 as the critical trend-reversal point, suggesting that a weekly close above this mark could unlock price targets of $250, $500, and $1,000.

Patel further observed that failure to break through $150 resistance might trigger a retracement toward $75, which he characterized as a potential accumulation opportunity.

Institutional Demand and On-Chain Metrics

United States-based spot Solana exchange-traded funds documented $86.67 million in net capital inflows on September 25. This figure represents the largest single-session accumulation since these investment vehicles commenced trading.

Bitwise’s BSOL product attracted $55.73 million. Grayscale’s GSOL vehicle captured $18.47 million, while Morgan Stanley’s MSOL secured $5.96 million.

Cumulative weekly inflows totaled $181 million, establishing the second-largest weekly figure in the funds’ operational history. Combined net assets across all Solana ETF products reached $1.96 billion.

The aggregate market capitalization of stablecoins operating on Solana also achieved a milestone, touching $17.394 billion on September 25. This measurement exceeds the April 2024 figure by more than sixfold.

Daily active addresses on the Solana network surpassed 8 million, outpacing the collective total of all other monitored blockchain networks. On September 24, Solana’s on-chain spot trading volume registered $2.69 billion, surpassing the volumes of Coinbase, Bybit, and Kraken.

The post Solana (SOL) Surges Past $120 as ETFs Record Historic Inflows and Alpenglow Upgrade Advances appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR:

• Whales added over 2.50 million LINK in 10 days, signaling sustained accumulation and confidence.
• Nearly 1,500 new LINK addresses are created daily, reflecting steady network growth and adoption.
• Chainlink faces resistance near $16, where 16.9 million LINK were previously acquired by holders.
• A larger barrier sits at $17.70, where 22.7 million LINK were accumulated in past trading activity.

Chainlink is trading at $14.06 as of September 26, 2026, up 1.10% over the past 24 hours. The token has gained 12.70% over the past week, with trading volume reaching $584,091,275.44.

As traders ask where Chainlink heads next, on-chain data points to steady whale accumulation and expanding network activity. Two resistance zones now stand as the levels most likely to shape the coming price action.

Whale Buying Builds the Case for Higher Prices

Large Chainlink holders have added more than 2.50 million LINK over the past ten days, according to data from Santiment Intelligence.

This buying has continued at a steady pace without signs of slowing down. Crypto analyst Ali Charts highlighted the trend in a recent thread on X, framing it as a key factor behind the question of where Chainlink goes next.

Sustained whale accumulation often reflects confidence among large holders, even when broader market conditions remain uncertain. The scale of recent buying suggests these wallets are positioning for further upside rather than reacting to short-term price swings.

Alongside whale activity, Chainlink’s network continues to expand. Nearly 1,500 new LINK addresses are being created each day, based on the same Santiment data. Growth in new addresses is often viewed as a sign of rising adoption across a network.

Taken together, whale accumulation and address growth form the foundation of the current bullish outlook. Ali Charts noted that historical patterns show similar combinations preceding notable rallies, though outcomes depend on whether demand holds steady in the weeks ahead.

Resistance at $16 and $17.70 Will Determine the Next Move

The first major hurdle for Chainlink sits near $16, according to data from Glassnode. Roughly 16.9 million LINK were previously acquired at this level, creating a cluster of holders who may act as sellers when price approaches.

If Chainlink clears that zone, a second and larger resistance level appears near $17.70. Data shows approximately 22.7 million LINK were accumulated at this price point, making it a more significant barrier to sustained upward movement.

Ali Charts’ thread outlined these levels as the primary markers to watch, combining whale positioning data with network growth trends to frame the broader question of Chainlink’s next direction. The analysis pointed to $16 as the immediate test, with $17.70 representing the larger challenge beyond it.

For now, the answer to where Chainlink heads next depends on whether current buying pressure can push price through these two zones.

Continued whale accumulation and steady network growth suggest underlying demand remains intact, even as resistance levels loom ahead.

The post Chainlink Price Prediction: Whale Accumulation and Network Growth Signal Next Move appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR:

• ENA rallied 277% from its July low, trading above key moving averages near $0.30 resistance.
• Roughly $90 million in ENA was newly staked, pushing total locked supply near $1.26 billion.
• Ethena partners with Binance to extend its basis trade strategy into equity perpetuals markets.
• A new governance proposal could direct up to 95% of protocol revenue toward ENA buybacks.

Ethena’s ENA token climbed to $0.269, marking a 277% increase from its July 1 low of $0.071. The token trades above both its 7-day and 30-day moving averages, a bullish technical signal.

ENA gained 31.6% over the past week alone. Stablecoin market capitalization tied to the protocol rose by $35.8 million in a single day. Traders now watch the $0.30 resistance level as a potential turning point for Ethena’s next price move.

Staking Growth Signals Rising Confidence in ENA

Roughly $90 million worth of ENA was newly staked over the recent period, according to data shared by 10x Research. This pushed the total locked supply of the token to nearly $1.26 billion.

The increase in staked supply suggests holders are choosing to lock tokens rather than sell into the rally. A growing staked base can reduce circulating supply available for trading. This dynamic often supports price stability during periods of heightened volatility.

Binance Wallet also introduced a new incentive tied to Ethena’s stablecoin, USDe. Through its Hold to Earn program, users can now access up to 4.75% annual percentage yield simply by holding USDe.

The offering gives everyday Binance users a direct incentive to hold the stablecoin. This expands USDe distribution beyond DeFi-native audiences into the broader retail base.

Separately, Ethena’s community is reviewing a major governance proposal. The proposal calls for a fee switch that would direct up to 95% of net protocol revenues toward ENA token buybacks.

If approved, the mechanism would tie protocol earnings more directly to token holders. Buyback programs of this kind have historically supported token valuations across the sector.

Binance Partnership Expands Collateral Reach for USDe

Ethena announced a partnership with Binance to extend its basis trade strategy into equity perpetuals. The move represents one of the biggest updates to USDe’s collateral backing since the stablecoin launched.

Ethena stated the partnership expands its addressable collateral market from roughly $2.5 trillion in crypto assets to more than $150 trillion in real-world assets. This shift opens the door to a substantially larger pool of backing assets.

Under the arrangement, bStocks will function as tokenized spot collateral. These positions will be hedged using Binance’s USDT-denominated equity perpetual contracts.

Ethena described this as the same delta-neutral structure it has used across crypto assets since inception. Binance is also providing lower auto-deleveraging priority for eligible delta-neutral accounts, including Ethena’s own positions, adding a layer of risk mitigation for USDe holders.

Binance’s equity basis has averaged more than 11% annualized over the past six months. Open interest in that market has grown by roughly 30% per month over the last three months.

Ethena expects the equity perpetuals opportunity to eventually surpass the $15 billion in crypto perpetuals it captured during the previous market cycle. Allocations under the new partnership began immediately following the announcement.

Analysts Eye $0.30 as the Next Key Price Level

Independent analyst Giannis Andreou described $0.30 as a decisive level for ENA’s next directional move. The token was trading just below that resistance following its recent rally.

Andreou noted that a confirmed break and hold above $0.30 would strengthen the bullish case for further gains. He pointed to $0.36 as the next potential target if that breakout materializes.

Andreou placed roughly 70% probability on the bullish breakout scenario continuing to play out. He said momentum could carry ENA well beyond the $0.36 mark if buying pressure persists. Sustained volume above resistance would likely be needed to confirm this path.

On the other hand, Andreou assigned about 30% probability to a deeper correction. He identified $0.263 as the key support level to watch on the downside.

A drop below that threshold would weaken the current setup and open room for a more pronounced pullback in ENA’s price.

The post ENA Eyes $0.30 Breakout Amid Binance Partnership and New Buyback Proposal appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR:

• Saylor proposes five core rights: create, issue, custody, transfer, and use digital assets freely.
• He sets a goal of financing 10 million new companies through faster digital token issuance.
• Saylor urges banks to custody Bitcoin and extend credit against it under clearer capital rules.
• He criticizes the CLARITY approach and projects a $100 trillion digital asset industry ahead.

Digital asset rights formed the center of Michael Saylor’s policy remarks at the Bitcoin Policy Institute’s Freedom Tech DC summit.

Saylor spoke with Conner Brown about a framework built on five freedoms. These include the right to create, issue, custody, transfer, and use digital assets.

He argued that a more productive economy, driven by artificial intelligence, needs better money and better capital markets. Growth in AI output should be matched by growth in financial access, he said.

Five Freedoms Anchor the Policy Framework

Saylor’s proposal rests on treating digital asset rights as belonging to both individuals and corporations. “Freedom starts with the ability to act,” Saylor said.

Each of the five freedoms serves a distinct purpose, from creating new financial instruments to spending and borrowing against holdings.

The framework also calls for financing structures that support new business formation. Saylor set a goal of enabling 10 million new companies to raise capital through digital tokens.

He described current issuance rules as too costly and complex for entrepreneurs without extensive legal resources. Lowering that cost, he said, would let more founders reach investors directly.

Competition among digital dollar providers formed another part of the discussion. Saylor said banks, fintech companies, and technology platforms should have a clear path to offer dollar-backed digital products.

He also argued that issuers should be permitted to compete on yield. Restrictions that favor institutions paying little interest work against customers, he said.

Bitcoin’s integration into banking and insurance drew separate attention. Saylor called for banks to custody Bitcoin and extend credit against it.

He pointed to the Basel framework’s capital treatment of cryptoasset exposures as an area needing review. Rules should reflect actual risk, he said.

Privacy, Compliance, and Regulatory Priorities

Financial privacy featured prominently in Saylor’s remarks on ordinary transactions. He proposed that lawful transactions below a meaningful threshold should not trigger routine reporting requirements.

Saylor referenced the outdated $10,000 currency-transaction threshold set in 1972 as an example needing inflation adjustment.

Portable compliance credentials also appeared as a policy recommendation. Saylor described repeated identity verification across financial counterparties as costly and inefficient for investors.

He suggested reusable, interoperable credentials could reduce onboarding costs while preserving provider responsibility for monitoring risk. Lower costs, he added, would help new firms compete for customers.

Tax treatment of everyday digital asset spending was another focus area. Saylor argued that a meaningful de minimis exemption would remove the burden of calculating gains on routine purchases. He said thresholds should scale with inflation and eliminate needless transaction-by-transaction recordkeeping.

On regulatory strategy, Saylor pointed to the SEC, CFTC, Treasury, and White House as the near-term path. He criticized the CLARITY approach for emphasizing restrictions over usefulness.

Saylor projected the digital asset industry could reach $100 trillion in value if policy expands rather than limits ownership rights.

The post Michael Saylor Outlines Five Digital Asset Rights to Power AI-Driven Economy appeared first on Blockonomi.

During a relatively calm weekend trading session in which most larger-cap cryptocurrencies have remained sideways, Quant’s QNT has gone on a tear, skyrocketing by 75% in the past 24 hours alone to over $180.

A major US banking partnership appears to be the most evident catalyst, although on-chain data shows activity began heating up well before the announcement was made public.

Why Is QNT Soaring?

Interestingly, the biggest fundamental development didn’t come in the past 24 hours. It was announced on September 24 when The Clearing House selected Quant to power its On-Chain Money Initiative. The crypto project will provide the interoperability, orchestration, and transaction-management layer for the planned network, allowing financial institutions to clear and settle tokenized deposits while connecting with existing payment infrastructure, including the RTP and CHIPS networks.

Both parties expect to launch the system to participating institutions in the first half of 2027. The scale involved helps explain why this announcement attracted so much attention. The Clearing House says its US payment networks clear and settle more than $2 trillion every day, across wire, ACH, check-image, and real-time payments.

However, the activity around Quant and its native token started to pick up over a week before the partnership made the news. Santiment Intelligence said that active addresses exceeded 870 every day between September 16 and 23, whereas they had not topped 792 during the first half of the month.

New addresses were also running at approximately 1.8 times their earlier September weekday average. After the announcement, though, active addresses exploded to 2,064 on September 24, which marked the highest level in nearly a year. QNT’s price skyrocketed by 27% that day.

$QNT’s on-chain activity stepped up on Sep 16, eight days before its Clearing House headline.

Active addresses topped 870 every day from Sep 16 to 23. From Sep 1 to 15 they never passed 792.
New addresses ran about 1.8x their Sep 1 to 15 weekday average over the same… pic.twitter.com/VIyGPyIhyf

— Santiment Intelligence (@SantimentData) September 25, 2026

How High, QNT?

There’s no way to sugarcoat what happened to QNT’s price in the past day and week. The asset is up by 75% since this time yesterday and by a whopping 185% weekly. It currently trades at $180 after briefly topping $190 earlier today.

Crypto Patel, who outlined the significance of the $115 support recently, noted that QNT has reached a couple of his big targets. However, he warned that investors should not FOMO in and start buying now, trying to catch the next wave up. Instead, he noted that consolidation and retracement become important after such a parabolic move, and predicted that the price could settle somewhere between $50 and $100 before the next big move.

EGRAG CRYPTO shared a similar warning, indicating that investors should buy the retracements on such occasions, as going blindly into a token that has posted such a green candle could prove counterproductive.

The post Quant (QNT) Rockets 75% Today as Major Banking Catalyst Fuels 180% Weekly Rally appeared first on CryptoPotato.

The recent recovery staged by Ripple’s cross-border token has brought several long-term technical setups back into focus, but one of the more unusual comparisons does not involve BTC, another cryptocurrency, or even the greenback.

Instead, EGRAG CRYPTO has focused on XRP’s performance against gold, arguing that the pair could be approaching a stage where the former begins gaining ground relative to the precious metal.

Can XRP Beat Gold?

Notably, the idea is not that XRP is backed by gold or directly linked to it, but that their relative performance may be reaching an important point on the analyst’s long-term chart. The analyst has previously used the XRP/gold comparison to identify periods in which the token dramatically accelerated against the bullion.

His latest chart points again to the possibility that the cryptocurrency could eventually begin appreciating faster than gold if the historical structure repeats. Such a development would represent a substantial shift in relative performance, as gold has enjoyed a strong period with investors seeking protection from fiscal concerns, geopolitical uncertainty, and currency debasement.

XRP, on the other hand, remains far below its 2025 all-time high despite recovering from the sharp declines to $1.00 seen in August.

This narrative is therefore essentially a relative-value argument: XRP does not necessarily need gold to fall, as it could appreciate at a faster rate for the pair to turn decisively higher. However, EGRAG remains a believer that XRP will indeed explode higher while the precious metal will fall.

#XRP/#XAU – SOMETHING HAS TO GIVE US:

One of them will deliver the move:
GOLD dumps → XRP/XAU explodes higher
XRP pumps → XRP/XAU explodes higher
But my thesis? BOTH happen.

Gold retraces while #XRP accelerates , a powerful combination for this ratio.

Fib… pic.twitter.com/byiAaVQocc

— EGRAG CRYPTO (@egragcrypto) September 26, 2026

What About USD?

In a separate analysis, EGRAG outlined a much more speculative long-term roadmap for the token, with $1.75 serving as an important threshold in that scenario. Holding above that area could keep open a broader expansion toward major targets of $5-$8 or even $13 in an extreme development.

He also mentioned $365 as a potential target for XRP, but that remains a hypothetical chart projection and, for that matter, in the far-fetched realm as of now.

Meanwhile, fellow analyst ChartNerd identified something similar on XRP’s chart. In another longer-time-framed analysis, he noted that the asset is forming a multi-year cup-and-handle pattern based on Fib targets and outlined some major targets that coincide with those set by EGRAG at $8 and $13.

Something that can support the bullish thesis from above is whales’ behavior. These large market participants have been scooping tokens en masse lately, including a major $720 million accumulation completed over the past several days.

The post Ripple vs. Gold: Is the Tide Finally Turning in XRP’s Favor? appeared first on CryptoPotato.

The major rally that started in August and intensified in September has finally flipped ETH’s higher-timeframe structure bullish, and several analysts agree that only one major resistance remains in the asset’s way.

A decisive break above it could open the door to a much larger move toward $3,000 and beyond.

$2.8K Still in Its Way

The largest altcoin has now reclaimed the 200-day moving average and pushed into the $2,800 region last week, where it was finally stopped. Daan Crypto Traders highlighted the change in its market structure, confirming that a weekly close above the 200 MA and EMA has solidified its bullish reversal.

However, he believes $2,800 is the major obstacle standing in front of ETH, and clearing it would leave relatively little high-timeframe resistance before the $3,000-$4,000 region comes back into play. Aside from last week’s rejection at $2,800, the level has stopped ETH’s progress on several occasions in the past few years.

$ETH The $2.8K level has acted as support & resistance many times over the past 2 years.

Often it caused a big move to follow from that point.

Therefore it is of course the main resistance to watch right now. Especially as price initially rejected it and seems to respect the… pic.twitter.com/SunZLEkSZ5

— Daan Crypto Trades (@DaanCrypto) September 26, 2026

Michaël van de Poppe is also bullish on ETH’s broader structure. In a recent tweet, he claimed that it is “literally a matter of time” before the asset sees another strong breakout to the upside.

Ethereum’s position is relatively straightforward at the moment. The higher-timeframe trend has improved substantially, but the market still needs to prove it can turn one of its most stubborn resistance zones into support.

Flushed Leverage

Fellow analyst CW argued that the size of Ethereum’s high-leverage positions has fallen sharply recently, as longs dropped to roughly $2.1 billion, while shorts stood near $4 billion. This occurred after most of the previously accumulated high-leverage positions were wrecked. The analyst added that the reduced positioning leaves ETH vulnerable to a significant increase in volatility.

This could be particularly important as Ethereum approaches $2,800. Merlijn The Trader, who has been bullish on the altcoin for months, remains constructive on its market structure. Most recently, he called attention to an emptied validator exit queue and argued that much of the forced selling pressure had already been absorbed during the earlier drawdown.

As such, he concluded that “maybe sleeping on Ethereum was the biggest mistake of this cycle,” as the asset sits 80% higher than its July bottom.

The post Ethereum Bulls Are Closing In on a Major Breakout: Is This Resistance the Final Barrier? appeared first on CryptoPotato.

Researchers behind Alloc Init have proposed “Shielded Bitcoin,” a metaprotocol designed to hide BTC transfer amounts and counterparties without changing Bitcoin’s consensus rules or relying on trusted bridge operators.

The design borrows the encrypted-note approach Zcash made known, but builds it directly on Bitcoin’s existing base layer, using cryptographic proofs instead of a trusted intermediary to move value privately.

How the Privacy Layer Works

Presented by Clara Shikhelman, Mikhail Komarov and Aleksei Moskvin, the proposal starts with a simple limitation: Bitcoin’s ledger is public, so amounts, transaction timing and links between transactions can often be examined and associated with known wallets.

Shielded Bitcoin would place value into encrypted “notes,” with each note containing an amount and its owner’s receiving information. So, for example, when Alice pays Bob, her wallet would publish encrypted notes to Bitcoin alongside a zero-knowledge proof.

The proof confirms that the notes being spent exist and that Alice is authorized to spend them. It also confirms that the amounts balance, without exposing those details publicly.

Software called indexers would then read these transfers, verify the proofs, and track nullifiers, which are unique serial numbers that prevent the same note from being spent twice. According to the researchers, anyone can run indexers, meaning no single party can control the ledger.

The design also distinguishes spending from viewing, letting a wallet split into separate keys: one that spends funds and another that is read-only and detects incoming transfers. There’s also a third key that will detect incoming transfers and another that recovers a user’s own history, letting people share limited details with others without handing over spending power.

Where This Fits Among Bitcoin’s Privacy Options

Shielded Bitcoin could join a handful of existing efforts to keep BTC transaction data private, each with different tradeoffs. Some, like CoinJoin, PayJoin, and Silent Payments, work inside Bitcoin’s current transaction format and can make ownership harder to trace, but amounts and much of the transaction graph stay visible.

Shikhelman and her colleagues described Zcash as the closest precedent for its encrypted-note model. However, the privacy coin, which has been on a run that recently took it to its best price in ten years, uses encrypted notes, nullifiers and zero-knowledge proofs, but operates on its own blockchain and consensus rules while Shielded Bitcoin derives its state from Bitcoin’s history.

That distinction means transaction patterns, distinctive wallet behavior, and repeated publication fees could still help observers narrow down relationships over time.

Recently, Grayscale pointed to AI making it easier to link wallet addresses to real identities, and its research head Zach Pandl said tools like Zcash’s shielded transactions could become close to a necessity for privacy-minded users.

The post Researchers Propose Zcash-Style Privacy for Bitcoin Without a Soft Fork appeared first on CryptoPotato.

Institutional investors are keeping their crypto exposure steady despite the intense turmoil between Q4 2025 and Q2 2026, according to a survey by Bitwise.

The firm interviewed 15 institutions and found that none cut their allocation during a period when the market fell by about 50%.

Bitcoin Is the Institutional Favorite

Crypto allocations remain relatively small across the portfolios surveyed and range from 0.5% to 13% of investable assets. Most institutions hold between 1% and 2%. Their exposure is spread across ETFs, direct crypto holdings, venture capital, and hedge funds. The survey found that institutions are not stepping away from crypto. Some are maintaining their current targets, while others are still working toward higher allocations.

Several investors are also moving away from illiquid private placements. Some are even adding market-neutral strategies to reduce volatility and make crypto investments easier to approve internally. Bitwise said the debate is increasingly focused on how much crypto to hold and which investment vehicles to use, rather than whether to invest at all.

Institutional investors are also taking different approaches when it comes to Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana.

It is no surprise that Bitcoin remains the strongest point of conviction among those interviewed. Every institution that owns crypto also owns BTC. Many see it as a store of value and a hedge against currency debasement, often comparing it with gold. Some institutions hold Bitcoin as a standalone position, while others use a market-cap-weighted basket that still leaves around 80% of their crypto exposure in BTC.

Ethereum and Solana, however, face a different test. Bitwise found that institutions that own them generally keep smaller positions and have shorter investment timelines. Their decisions are tied to specific adoption and value-accrual expectations. Some investors avoid the two assets entirely because they do not see a clear link between blockchain activity and token value.

Others treat them as venture-style technology bets. Institutions holding these assets are watching real-world usage, transaction activity, and fees.

ETFs Change the Game

Meanwhile, spot crypto exchange-traded funds have changed the way institutions enter the market. Almost every institution interviewed either already uses these funds or plans to use them. Several investors moved from direct crypto custody to ETFs as they cited lower costs, less operational work, and simpler reporting.

Institutions still holding private crypto vehicles are also looking at ETFs. Many see better liquidity and more flexibility for portfolio rebalancing.

However, not every player is making the switch. Some face rules that prevent them from holding spot commodities, including through ETFs. Others want direct control of crypto assets and are building their own custody systems. One institution also raised concerns about public disclosure of ETF holdings through 13F filings.

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