Dune's shift to view-only access for free users may hinder independent research and small projects, emphasizing the cost of data analytics.

The post Dune updates free plan to view-only access, cites high costs appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

RQD* Clearing's funding signals a pivotal shift towards mainstream adoption of tokenized markets, enhancing global digital asset infrastructure.

The post RQD* Clearing raises $74M to build the plumbing for tokenized markets appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Erosion of Fed independence could lead to higher inflation, impacting interest rates and financial markets, underscoring the 1951 accord's importance.

The post Cleveland Fed President Hammack emphasizes Fed’s independence from Treasury appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Cardano's integration of a Lightning payment system could enhance blockchain interoperability, potentially revolutionizing cross-chain transactions.

The post Cardano reveals Bitcoin Lightning payment channel system in developer session appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

A higher neutral rate could lead to tighter monetary policy, impacting borrowing costs, equity valuations, and global economic dynamics.

The post Federal Reserve’s Hammack projects higher neutral rate than peers, pushing for hawkish policy shift appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Bitcoin Magazine

Coinkite’s Coldcard Bug Exposed Single-Sig Risk. Multi-Vendor Multisig Is the New Bitcoin Custody Baseline

In the wake of Coldcard’s catastrophic entropy bug, self-custody advocates and experts have begun recommending a new standard, multi-vendor multisignature wallets, an approach that looks to minimize —among other threats— dependency on any single hardware wallet manufacturer.

The Coldcard entropy bug that went undiscovered since at least 2021 has taught a hard lesson to the Bitcoin self-custody advocates and users. No matter how legitimate or competent a wallet provider might seem, how well recommended and reputable, a major bug may be possible. As a result, Bitcoiners are questioning old recommendations and assumptions, including many declaring the ‘death of single sig’ the popular self-custody method of trusting the private key pair generation to one wallet alone. 

The Threat Model

Self-custody by any measure is an advanced practice in Bitcoin. Advocates recommend it as a way to protect user funds from exchange malfeasance like that seen in the cases of FTX and MtGox, among many others. But recent events have driven a revaluation of custody practices, with many bitcoin owners moving coins to exchanges — at least temporarily — while others upgrading or changing their self-custody setups altogether. Nick Neuman, CEO of Casa, claimed that 233k bitcoins moved to safety in reaction to the Coldcard hack.

To understand when self-custody makes sense and for whom, it is essential to understand your personal threat model. A threat model is the careful analysis of threats to an individual, for the purpose of designing security practices and structures ahead of time. 

A simple threat model practice can be to take a step back and think about all the possible things that worry you about self-custody, and add them to a list. Then think about all the things that advocates caution users about, and append them to that same list. Next, sort or rate items on that list based on which are most likely to happen to you, and which are most likely to happen in general. Finally, you can rank each item in the list by how catastrophic it would be if it occurred; can your current setup and plans survive the realization of that threat? 

Two of the most likely causes of loss of funds in Bitcoin self-custody are user error related to backups or forgotten passwords, and of course theft. Many of the wallets believed to be lost bitcoins that have not moved come from bad backups of private keys in the early days, resulting in data loss after a computer failed. Others simply used passwords too difficult to brute force, and then forgot them, encrypting their private keys forever.

On the theft dimension, bad entropy attacks likely rank among the most successful attacks on self-custody to date, with Coldcard joining a significant list of other wallets that have suffered bugs of the sort, intentional or otherwise, such as Trust Wallet, and many lesser-known and possibly malicious mobile wallets. In some cases, fake wallets like the iOS Sparrow Wallets simply stole user funds by keeping a copy of the user-generated private keys and sweeping the funds once deposited. In all of these examples, more thoughtful user behavior before trusting random software with your life savings is the solution. 

Once users have a clear threat model in place and a good enough understanding of the technology, designing security practices becomes more a science than an art. And while every individual has specific circumstances they need to take into account, some structures have emerged as the most resilient to most threats. One such practice becoming widely recommended and adopted among long-term self-custody Bitcoin holders is a carefully formed multisig setup. 

Multi-vendor Multisig

The term “Multi-vendor Multisig” is relatively new in the self-custody niche. The term “multisig” has nevertheless gone viral in 2026, clearly triggered by the Coldcard hack that saw the loss of over 100 million dollars worth of bitcoin, mostly from single seed wallets. Most single-seed Coldcard users appear to have generated their private keys on the device without adding an extra passphrase, extra words that add custom entropy to the private keys, nor without extra dice rolls, which do the same in a different format. 

The weak entropy from the Coldcard firmware — which users had no reason to distrust, given the company’s strong brand — in turn made guessing the related private keys easy, with a bit of custom work, which hackers eventually figured out. 

The resulting viral interest in multisig is warranted. Multisig Bitcoin wallets protect users from such hardware manufacturer errors by letting users construct a Bitcoin address that requires signing from multiple private keys and thus multiple devices, in what is known as a Bitcoin script.

Bitcoin scripts are contracts of sorts that set spending conditions for a bitcoin wallet. All Bitcoin wallets can be thought of as having some kind of script involved, with the simplest and most popular being that anyone who can sign a valid transaction can spend all or any funds therein. Multisig scripts instead require a threshold of valid signatures from different keypairs to result in a valid withdrawal. These scripts are enforced by the Bitcoin consensus rules.

Multi-vendor multisig theory posits that users should make sure every keypair used to construct a Bitcoin multisig is generated from a different wallet vendor. 

One example that is likely popular today might be the use of a Trezor Safe 7 hardware wallet with one key, a second key generated by a Ledger Nano, and a third key generated by a multisig wallet provider, considered a recovery key. A script of this sort would require any 2 valid signatures out of the three possible signatures in the setup.

By using two different hardware wallet providers, the user minimizes trust in any single wallet vendor, protecting them from an entropy failure like the one seen in Coldcard. 

Other Multisig setups can add more keys, with a 3-of-5 threshold also being common and a standard offering of a multisig-specialized wallet like Casa. It is at this point that the terminology commonly used and understood to describe Bitcoin spending software starts to break down, and as a result merits clarification.

Wallets like Casa are software interfaces that let users combine partially signed transactions from different private key pairs. In this scenario, it becomes more useful to describe ‘hardware wallets’ like Trezor or Ledger as ‘key signers’ since no single keypair in the set holds enough of the key material to spend all the Bitcoin held in the Multisig script address. 

So Casa is a Multisig wallet that lets you use a threshold of hardware signers to secure and send bitcoin funds. Fundamentally, they help users interact with Bitcoin script and create consensus-valid transactions easily. Other examples of such multisig wallet providers include Nunchuck, Sparrow desktop wallet and Unchained Capital. 

In cases like Casa and Unchained, the wallet provider offers users a recovery key controlled by the company, which some users find useful. Nunchuck and Sparrow, on the other hand, are designed for full user autonomy in this regard, though Nunchuck does offer a premium recovery key-related plan as well. 

The Upsides of Multivendor Multisig

Another benefit of a multisig wallet is its potential resistance to the infamous wrench attacks. Countries like France, which make Bitcoin and crypto ownership a matter of public record as a consequence of tax filings, have become focal points for crypto theft-related kidnapping. Self-custody or not, targets of this kind of crime are vulnerable to theft, particularly when the funds can be moved in full quickly, be it from a custodial exchange the user can access from their phone, or some self-custody setup.

Advanced forms of multisig, like multi-jurisdictional or time-locked multisig, make it so that users have to travel, ideally through an airport, in order to reach other key signers needed to construct a valid bitcoin transaction. Or perhaps the recovery key involved in the multisig has the condition that it will not sign for two weeks after the user submits the request and corresponding transaction data. The result is the removal of the final central point of failure in Bitcoin custody: the user’s own willingness to send the bitcoin, particularly when under duress.

While best practices in the case of wrench attacks broadly try to avoid ending up in that situation in the first place, making it difficult to spend your coins actually protects users from a wide range of attacks as well, including phishing schemes and other forms of social engineering that use pressure tactics to fool users into sending funds quickly. 

Multisig has also begun to enable novel forms of Bitcoin insurance, as demonstrated by AnchorWatch, a multisig wallet and insurance company that offers bitcoin theft protection denominated in BTC. The company’s services today are primarily offered to Americans through the Lloyd’s of London insurer. 

The Downsides of Multisig

One critical downside of Multisig is that the user does not only need to have access to the threshold key material needed to sign, be it two hardware wallets as in our example, or one of the hardware wallets and a recovery key from the wallet company. The user also needs to store a copy of the Multisig script or template, so that they can recreate the smart contract and thus the valid withdrawal conditions for spending. Most Multisig wallets store this information for clients, but they will also send a copy to users so they can recover independently of the Multisig wallet, should it one day go offline. 

This post Coinkite’s Coldcard Bug Exposed Single-Sig Risk. Multi-Vendor Multisig Is the New Bitcoin Custody Baseline first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Juan Galt.

Bitcoin Magazine

Billions Pour Into Bitcoin ETFs as Rally Rolls On

Bitcoin exchange-traded funds have continued their winning streak, attracting billions of dollars in new investment over the past week. 

U.S. investors have thrown $2.56 billion since last Monday, according to Farside Investors data, helping push the leading cryptocurrency’s price higher. 

And this week alone, nearly $652 million in fresh cash has hit the products managed by the likes of BlackRock, Morgan Stanley, and Fidelity. 

Bitcoin was recently trading for $78,302 after jumping nearly 25% over a seven-day period. The coin touched as high as $81,160 on Monday. 

Bitcoin’s rise comes after a sluggish June and July when it mostly traded below $65,000. 

The cryptocurrency has benefited from news that the Treasury would at least double the size of its liquidity-support buyback operations. The announcement last week hurt the dollar but non-yielding assets like Bitcoin and gold have benefited.  

Bloomberg Intelligence ETF Analyst Eric Balchunas wrote on X Wednesday that the debasement trade was back.

“Gold and Bitcoin ETFs have combined for +$7b in flows in past week, by far a record for a 5-day period as debasement trade steals spotlight from AI,” he said. 

The debasement trade is when investors buy an asset to hedge against a currency losing value. Investments like Bitcoin and precious metals have done well as part of the trade as they cannot be endlessly printed.  

Last year, the investment strategy was much talked about but then went quiet as investors focused more on buying artificial intelligence-related equities.

Investors now are fretting over U.S. borrowing, a weak dollar and efforts to contain long-term yields.

Bitcoin ETFs had their best week since October last week, with nearly $2 billion in inflows. 

Positive regulatory coming out of the White House has also spurred the flurry of trading activity. President Donald Trump held a meeting with crypto executives earlier last week before urging lawmakers to get the long-awaited crypto Clarity Act over the line.

This post Billions Pour Into Bitcoin ETFs as Rally Rolls On first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Bitcoin Magazine

Forget the Trump Bump — Bitcoin Would Be Fine Under Democrats, Says VanEck 

President Donald Trump may be the most crypto-friendly leader the U.S. has had so far — but what would happen to Bitcoin if the Democrats were to get back in power? 

Well, it wouldn’t necessarily be bad, according to asset manager VanEck’s Head of Digital Assets Research, Matthew Sigel. 

Speaking on CNBC Wednesday, the analyst also said that contrary to what many believe, ex-President Joe Biden wasn’t anti-Bitcoin. 

Republicans have repeatedly blasted Democrats as anti-crypto. Regulators under ex-president Joe Biden cracked down on digital asset companies, filing various lawsuits.  

“Biden was actually okay for Bitcoin,” Sigel said. “It’s the rest of cryptos that might have a problem [if Democrats get back in power].” 

He added: “With the ascendant socialist wing of the Democrat Party, I can tell you here in New York City that there are plenty who are reminded of why there is value in a decentralized, scarce asset that can’t be printed and spent on nonsense.”

President Trump campaigned on a ticket to help the digital asset industry and has passed a number of pro-crypto executive orders, including setting up a Bitcoin Strategic Reserve. 

The price of Bitcoin surged off the back of Trump’s 2024 victory and notched a new record last year. Despite some sluggish months in 2026, the leading digital asset began to rise again last week after the president urged lawmakers to get the long-awaited crypto Clarity Act over the line.

Bitcoin has jumped nearly 24% over the past seven days, touching as high as $81,160 this week before dropping again to its current price of $78,438. 

Pro-crypto lawmakers had hoped to pass the Clarity Act before Congress broke for August recess, but the vote slipped to September after Democrats balked at the latest draft. 

Some Republican senators have accused Democrats of deliberately holding the legislation back. 

The Clarity Act aims to create a legal framework classifying digital assets as securities, commodities or payment stablecoins, and determining which regulator oversees each.

Sigel’s comments echo those of Coinbase’s Chief Policy Officer, Faryar Shirzad, who said in July that crypto was “maybe the most bipartisan issue in Washington.”

Speaking about the delay in a vote on the Clarity Act, Shirzad said that while some lawmakers were holding back the long-awaited legislation, younger Democrats were for the framework. 

“A lot of the opposition is generational — so it is Democrats who oppose it — but I think younger members who understand the technology, understand that money is transforming how we should engage financially, how we need to adapt, and so it’s really a generational shift,” he said on The Hill’s Rising show. 

This post Forget the Trump Bump — Bitcoin Would Be Fine Under Democrats, Says VanEck  first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Bitcoin Magazine

Coinbase and Better Mortgage Announce General Availability of Bitcoin-Backed Mortgages 

Coinbase and Nasdaq-listed Better Mortgage have announced the availability of Bitcoin-backed mortgages for Americans. 

The crypto exchange and lender said Wednesday that the service was designed in accordance with the Federal National Mortgage Association, or Fannie Mae. 

Coinbase and Better announced the funding of the first Bitcoin-backed mortgage in June. The service now hopes to cater to younger wannabe homeowners who have Bitcoin holdings. 

“In 2025, high interest rates, record home prices, and limited inventory pushed the median age of a first-time homebuyer to 40,” Chief Technology Officer at Better Mortgage, Ziggy Jonsson, said. 

“Coinbase counts millions of monthly users worldwide, and by allowing Coinbase One members to pledge crypto as collateral without selling their holdings, we’re opening a new path toward homeownership for a generation of borrowers whose wealth increasingly lives onchain.”

Ben Shen, head of financial services and loyalty products at Coinbase, added: “By enabling borrowers to pledge their digital assets in the mortgage underwriting process, we are allowing crypto to be more useful and powerful in the real-world — expanding the pathways to homeownership while preserving long-term investment positions.”

The announcement added that Coinbase One members will be eligible for a rebate equal to 1% of the mortgage value, up to a maximum of $10,000.

The debut loan by Coinbase and Better was closed by a married Michigan couple, Joe and Amy, in June. The couple used their Bitcoin holdings as collateral to fund their down payment rather than liquidating their position, the companies said at the time. 

Crypto-backed lender Milo said earlier this year that it had surpassed $100 million in digital asset mortgages, including a record $12 million loan, as more high-net-worth and institutional clients were using Bitcoin as collateral for home financing.

Bitcoin-backed loans are still a niche product but one of the biggest lenders in the space, Ledn, has released research claiming that the space could grow from its current size of $3 billion to $1 trillion in the next 10 years. 

This post Coinbase and Better Mortgage Announce General Availability of Bitcoin-Backed Mortgages  first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Bitcoin Magazine

SEC Sends Proposal to White House To Modernize Crypto Custody

The Securities and Exchange Commission has sent a proposal to the White House aiming to “clarify the framework for the custody of crypto assets” for investment advisers and companies. 

In a rule change sent Tuesday, the regulator said it wanted to “improve and modernize the regulations” surrounding custody for the crypto space.

The proposal comes after a vote was delayed on the long-awaited Clarity Act. Despite the delay, regulators like the SEC and Commodity Futures Trading Commission have said they will still proceed with trying to shape crypto policy. 

“This rulemaking would clarify the framework for the custody of crypto assets for investment adviser and investment companies, as well as make other modernizations needed to remove burdens from certain outdated provisions that are no longer needed to provide investor protection given the evolution in the markets and security trading and holding practices,” the proposal read. 

Pro-crypto lawmakers had hoped to pass the Clarity Act before Congress broke for August recess, but the vote slipped to September after Democrats balked at the latest draft. 

Some Republican senators — like Senator Cynthia Lummis — accused some of deliberately holding it back. 

Still, pro-crypto regulators want to press ahead. CFTC Chairman Michael Selig has said he will proceed with rulemaking whether or not the Clarity Act is enacted, aiming to finalise rules before the administration’s term is out.

And earlier this month, the SEC proposed its own framework to allow token issuers to raise money in the U.S. without falling foul of securities laws.

President Donald Trump campaigned on a ticket to help the crypto industry and received major backing from Silicon Valley entrepreneurs. Since taking office, regulators have taken a remarkably different approach to watchdogging the digital asset space. 

The president last week urged lawmakers to get the Clarity Act over the line. SEC Chair Paul Atkins has said he is “committed to supporting Congress in advancing” the bill. 

This post SEC Sends Proposal to White House To Modernize Crypto Custody first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Core Lightning developers have asked node operators to make a security decision before they can fully assess the threat. An Aug. 23 message posted on Stacker News urged operators to install new binaries that fix multiple reported vulnerabilities.

CLN told operators who decline the upgrade to run their nodes offline, and the team plans to keep the technical details under embargo for two weeks.

CLN plans to attach team signatures to the binaries so users can check provenance and reproducibility. Core Lightning’s documented release process uses signed tags, signed checksums, and reproducible builds.

Those controls let operators confirm that the package came through the intended release process.

Operators cannot yet inspect the evidence behind CLN’s threat assessment or determine the exploit mechanism from the public material. They also lack enough information to assess whether a particular node configuration faces the same risk.

Bitcoin gives users tools to verify monetary rules without asking a bank or payment processor for permission.

A live software security incident operates under a different constraint, as giving every user enough evidence to verify an exploit can give an attacker the same information.

The embargo creates a temporary information hierarchy

The sequence started around Aug. 13, when CLN said it had received multiple AI-generated CVE reports from several sources over roughly 10 days. The CLN team began validating the reports, outside open-source contributors joined the work, and developers also began preparing fixes.

By Aug. 23, the CLN team planned binaries containing fixes for many of the reported vulnerabilities.

They also said it would stop supporting previous releases, including 26.04, “given the known risks.”
Blockstream shipped two CLN versions during the second quarter: 26.04 in April and 26.06 in June. Its second-quarter update placed version 26.09 on the third-quarter roadmap.

The available material provides no evidence of exploitation in the wild and no basis for treating every report as equally severe.

An operator therefore faces two verification layers, and the first covers the artifact itself. CLN’s release process gives users tools to authenticate release tags, checksums, and reproducible builds.

The second covers the threat, as operators still lack the technical detail needed to judge what the bugs can do or whether going offline fits their own exposure.

Coordinated security disclosure can delay that evidence because publication also alters the attacker’s information set.

Core Lightning delays full transparency to protect patch deployment

CERT’s coordinated vulnerability disclosure guidance says the process aims to minimize adversary advantage during remediation. Its deployment guidance also draws a line between patch availability and patch deployment.

A detailed disclosure could help skilled attackers identify the vulnerable path in older software, and unpatched operators would then face a threat armed with the same technical evidence they wanted for independent verification.

Signed binaries narrow the trust requirement: operators can authenticate who produced the release, and reproducible builds can confirm the relationship between source and binary.

Bitcoin software already depends on human judgment at this layer, since maintainers decide whether a reported bug warrants emergency treatment. Release engineers decide when a fix can ship safely, and security teams decide how much information users can receive before disclosure creates additional risk.

Simultaneous disclosure would erase the temporary information advantage defenders are trying to preserve.

The bull case comes from that process working cleanly, with operators authenticating the release and moving on to patched software. Core Lightning then publishes technical details that support the urgency of its warning.

That sequence would strengthen confidence in the maintainers and the release process because the temporary trust would expire into independently inspectable evidence.

The bear case begins with hesitation. Some node operators may resist an upgrade whose threat model they cannot inspect, and others may choose –offline.

Core Lightning documents that mode as preventing the node from binding to ports or reconnecting to peers. Enough delayed upgrades or offline nodes could reduce routing availability in parts of the network.

A prolonged gap between the warning and the evidence could also turn a technical disclosure process into a credibility problem for maintainers.

AI compresses the window for “verify later”

AI adds another constraint to the disclosure model. Google revised its Open Source Software Vulnerability Reward Program in March because it saw a “massive surge” in AI-generated reports.

Google said many submissions contained incorrect information or hallucinated exploit paths. The company began demanding stronger proof for some report tiers so triage teams could focus on credible threats.

CLN’s messages describe a related burden: multiple AI-generated reports arrived from several sources within roughly 10 days. Humans still had to validate the findings before developers could treat them as vulnerabilities.

Google has already demonstrated that AI-generated fuzzing can uncover vulnerabilities in mature open-source projects, including OpenSSL. Tools that reduce the cost of vulnerability discovery can also make rediscovery easier once researchers have a patched binary, a code difference, or another technical clue.

Maintainers need a window to validate a flaw, and another window to distribute a fix before exploit knowledge spreads. AI can consume the first window with report volume and compress the second through cheaper automated searching.

Cryptography can minimize the trust required to verify transactions, balances, and software artifacts. Operational security can require temporary trust in maintainer judgment when immediate disclosure would also improve an attacker’s position.

Core Lightning’s eventual disclosure can close that gap. Until then, operators who upgrade accept a limited form of trust inside software built around independent verification. The model succeeds when that trust has an expiration date, and the evidence arrives.

The post Onslaught of AI-found bugs forces Bitcoin’s Core Lightning into a secret 14-day emergency lockdown appeared first on CryptoSlate.

The SEC crypto custody rewrite for investment advisers and funds, including their crypto assets, entered White House review on Aug. 25. The move starts an active pre-publication review of an economically significant proposal with direct consequences for advisers, investment companies and the institutions that hold their assets.

The Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs record lists the SEC's “Amendments to the Custody Rules” as pending at the proposed-rule stage, with no legal deadline. OIRA coordinates Executive Branch review of significant draft regulations before an agency publishes them. The receipt advances the rulemaking process; publication and Commission consideration still lie ahead.

The Unified Agenda entry says the SEC is considering changes for investment adviser client assets and fund assets, including crypto. It lists October 2026 as the target for a notice of proposed rulemaking. That date is an agency planning target, while the OIRA record lists no legal deadline.

Registered investment advisers and investment companies sit closest to the rulemaking. Their custody arrangements rely on institutions that meet federal requirements, bringing banks and state trust companies into the commercial stakes. The published records provide no operative proposal language, leaving the direction of any changes to eligibility, controls, or safeguards unresolved.

The proceeding follows a regulatory reset. In June 2025, the SEC withdrew its 2023 safeguarding proposal, ended the path to a final rule from that measure, and said future action would require a new proposal. The draft now at OIRA therefore starts a new rulemaking rather than reviving the earlier proposal's requirements.

A more limited staff position has shaped the market in the meantime. On Sept. 30, 2025, SEC investment-management staff said they would not recommend enforcement against registered advisers or regulated funds that treated certain state trust companies as banks for crypto custody when specified conditions were met.

Those conditions cover authorization, safeguarding policies, audited financial statements, independent control reports, custody contracts, risk disclosures and best-interest determinations. The custody agreement must segregate client or fund assets and bar lending, pledging or rehypothecation without prior written consent. Advisers or funds must also disclose material risks and determine that using the custodian serves the best interests of clients, funds and their shareholders.

The no-action letter is a staff enforcement position with no legal force, but it provides the practical baseline that advisers, funds, banks, and state trust companies use today. The SEC crypto custody rewrite puts that baseline into an active rulemaking frame. Release of the SEC's proposal will turn the current process signal into a substantive debate over which institutions may custody crypto assets and the safeguards they must provide.

The post SEC crypto custody rewrite enters White House review with key rules still undisclosed appeared first on CryptoSlate.

July's PCE inflation reading held at 3.7% headline and 3.3% core on Aug. 26, both still above the Fed's target.

Futures markets responded by pushing the odds of a September rate hike to roughly 44%, up from 36% before the report. Bitcoin hit an intraday high of $79,251.60 the same day, trading near $78,000 as of press time.

Bitget Research chief analyst Ryan Lee said in a note:

“In-line is not the same as harmless. A core print at consensus leaves the existing policy debate largely intact and settles little.”

With rate expectations offering nothing new, Lee expects Bitcoin's price to keep taking its direction from elsewhere, in ETF flows, spot liquidity and derivatives positioning.

The Bitcoin demand underneath the rally

Glassnode said US-traded spot Bitcoin ETFs absorbed $2.23 billion around Bitcoin's initial squeeze, with no single outflow day and the strongest seven-day intake of 2026.

Farside Investors' daily tracker shows another $314.3 million of inflows on Aug. 25 alone, led by $284.4 million into BlackRock's IBIT, extending the run of positive days from Aug. 17 through Aug. 25 to roughly $2.6 billion.

Every wallet-size cohort was accumulating at the same time, from small holders to the largest addresses.

Aug. 19 produced the largest dollar-denominated single-day short liquidation event in Glassnode's dataset since 2019, and roughly 85% of the liquidations across that window came from short positions.

A rally built entirely on forced buying would normally leave a visible trace in the futures market, fresh leverage rebuilding as fast as it gets liquidated.

Futures open interest fell 11% in BTC terms through the move. Funding stayed close to neutral, and Glassnode said new speculative longs did not replace liquidated shorts.

The liquidity backdrop for Bitcoin that survives a quiet print

Sygnum Bank CIO Fabian Dory shared in a note:

“A core PCE print in line with consensus, after strong service-led PMI data and a weak payroll month, describes gradual disinflation rather than a demand shock.”

He called that combination the most useful for digital assets even though it is also the least dramatic.
That distinction forces the Fed's hand in neither direction, keeping expectations for the September meeting intact.

Treasury cash balances, the eSLR, private credit creation and continued stablecoin expansion are channels Dori says do not require a policy pivot to remain constructive, adding that the mistake is reading a quiet print as a quiet backdrop.

Total stablecoin market capitalization sits near $303.7 billion, up $2.8 billion over the past week even though its 30-day growth remains modest. Separate data from NYDIG shows stablecoin supply rose $1.25 billion during the rally, mostly from USDC, suggesting liquidity on trading venues improved faster than broader offshore participation.

The next test is a real confluence zone

Between roughly $81,000 and $86,000, a self-custody cost-basis shelf, a dealer gamma flip near $82,300, surviving short-liquidation levels, and concentrated long-term-holder supply all sit close together.

Glassnode's confirmation level for a genuine breakout is a settled close above $83,300, with ETF intake still holding.

On the downside, the short-term-holder cost basis sits near $70,000, with a firmer floor around $62,000 to $65,000. A retreat back to Bitcoin's original squeeze level near $62,900 would, in Glassnode's own words, unwind the entire episode.

Theo CIO Iggy Ioppe said:

“Nothing in this number forces a hike, and nothing in it delivers a cut.”

He argued that the policy stance stays easier than current inflation and labor data would justify, and has for months. Every FOMC meeting that passes without action functions as easing by default, a structural support under risk assets that does not depend on the Fed turning outright dovish.

Ioppe said Bitcoin “remains more contained than the return of institutional flows would suggest,” a gap he treats as a timing issue while the underlying thesis stays intact.

Whether Friday confirms the bid or exposes it

Roughly 81,700 Bitcoin options worth $6.44 billion expire on Deribit Friday at 08:00 UTC, with calls outnumbering puts 44,639 contracts to 37,061 and notable call concentrations at the $75,000 and $80,000 strikes.

Calls now cost more than puts through the October expiry, and Bitcoin's implied volatility has climbed from the fourth percentile of its trailing twelve months on Aug. 17 to the 56th percentile today.

DWF Labs market insights lead Martin Lee noted:

“Traders are now paying for upside in the short term. An expected reading would allow optimism from last week to continue, and risk-on assets will maintain their momentum.”

The bull case has Bitcoin closing settled sessions above $83,300 while ETF inflows keep arriving and funding stays contained.

In the scenario, the $81,000 to $86,000 band stops acting as resistance and becomes supply the market has absorbed, opening the door to $95,000 to $100,000 as the next stretch targets.

The bear case has wallet-cohort accumulation losing breadth and ETF flows flipping toward outflows, pulling Bitcoin below its $70,000 short-term-holder cost basis.

Under that path, this stops looking like a cash-funded recovery and starts looking like delayed profit-taking, with the $62,000 to $65,000 floor as the next real test if the retreat continues.

If the buyers absorbing supply near $81,000 are real, they now have to prove it Friday against options expiry, Jackson Hole, and a $6.4 billion deadline all landing at once.

The post Behind Bitcoin’s sudden resilience is a $2 billion cash surge that wiped out speculative leverage appeared first on CryptoSlate.

A wallet tagged to the US government moved a small amount of Bitcoin linked to assets seized from Alameda Research's Binance.US accounts.

The movement revives a familiar fear that Washington could be preparing to liquidate more of its forfeited Bitcoin stash.

Bitcoin deposited into the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve “shall not be sold” under President Donald Trump's March 2025 executive order, turning qualifying forfeited BTC into a long-term Treasury asset.

Trump himself said on Aug. 19 that he had made Bitcoin “a permanent asset of the United States Treasury.”

The order protects a limted category

The reserve's sale ban applies only to Bitcoin forfeited, held by the Treasury, and not needed for statutory obligations.

The same order separately permits agency heads to dispose of government-controlled digital assets under specific exceptions, including court orders, legal requirements, return to identifiable and verifiable crime victims, law-enforcement operations, and statutory forfeiture-fund requirements.

Court records in US v. Bankman-Fried list roughly 682 BTC seized from two Alameda Research accounts at Binance.US, split between 657.92 BTC in one account and 24.4135385 BTC in another.

One smaller 1.3773854 BTC transaction brings the full Alameda native-BTC total to about 683.71 BTC, worth roughly $53.6 million at a BTC price near $78,463.

Those coins sit inside an $11 billion forfeiture order tied to Alameda's collapse, and the Department of Justice has already drawn on that order to pay victims directly.

The Department of Justice's fiscal 2025 financial statements show the US Marshals Service received a $627.9 million interbank settlement in October 2025 as partial payment toward the Alameda forfeiture.

WBTC is a different legal animal entirely

The same Alameda schedule also lists about 750.72 WBTC, a separate legal category entirely.

Trump's order creates the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve specifically for BTC, alongside a separate US Digital Asset Stockpile for other digital assets, where the Treasury Secretary retains discretion over stewardship strategies, including potential sales.

WBTC's economic link to Bitcoin does not make it legally equivalent to BTC deposited in the reserve.

CryptoSlate found public trackers estimating US-controlled Bitcoin anywhere between roughly 198,000 and 328,000 BTC, a gap of about 130,000 BTC worth close to $10.2 billion at current prices.

That discrepancy exists because terms like seized, forfeited, government-controlled, and reserve-owned describe genuinely different legal categories that trackers routinely treat as interchangeable.

Some of Alameda's seized Bitcoin could plausibly qualify as protected reserve assets, while other portions remain tied to an active restitution process that Trump's own order explicitly permits to continue.

What today's confirmed Bitcoin movement could still mean

Reports from May noted that a US-government-labeled wallet sent about $1.9 million of seized Alameda altcoins to Coinbase Prime, tracing back to 2023 DOJ seizures from Alameda's Binance and Binance.US accounts.

A larger movement happened in July, with about $297 million of seized BTC and ETH sent to Coinbase Prime, which supports custody, institutional asset management, and sales.

Bitcoin bull's best-case scenario has Alameda's native BTC moving down a transparent path, either finally forfeited and folded into the reserve under Trump's order or disbursed to victims under the restitution process the order already permits.

Under that path, the “never sell” promise stays credible for the Bitcoin it covers, and the Alameda case becomes a clean precedent for how future forfeitures get classified.

Bears would have the transfer resolving into a liquidation for restitution purposes without clear public accounting, adding another entry to the same classification gap that already separates trackers by roughly 130,000 BTC.

In that scenario, each new government wallet movement reopens the same unanswered question. Whether the coins involved were ever inside the reserve Trump has called permanent is a question the public still lacks the means to verify.

Washington's Bitcoin has never been one undifferentiated pile the government can simply keep or spend. Alameda's seized coins sit on the line between a reserve that cannot be touched and a forfeiture process always designed to pay someone back.

The post How one small BTC transfer exposed the fine print behind Trump’s ‘never sell’ strategic Bitcoin reserve appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Bitcoin price is trading near $78,900, close enough to $80,000 to revive the old treasury-company pitch on paper: higher Bitcoin should lift the value of corporate holdings, pull the shares back above net asset value, and reopen common-stock issuance as a source of fresh coins.

That sequence did not return. At Strategy, Twenty One Capital, and Metaplanet, three listed companies built around corporate Bitcoin treasuries, common market capitalization remained well below the gross value of reported Bitcoin holdings. Yet the apparent discount was not uniform, and it did not amount to directly redeemable, cut-price Bitcoin. Debt, preferred stock, pledged coins, cash balances, warrants and different share-count conventions all changed what was left for common shareholders.

The result is a funding problem, not just a valuation puzzle. If common stock no longer trades at a reliable premium, issuing it can dilute Bitcoin per share. Debt and preferred stock avoid immediate common-share dilution but move value and risk toward senior claims. Retained operating cash is the only recurring route that adds neither, but Metaplanet's disclosed cash generation was nowhere near the scale of its recent Bitcoin purchases.

Bitcoin treasury premiums: three mNAVs, three different answers

BitcoinTreasuries' Aug. 27 snapshot put Bitcoin at roughly $78,900 and produced the following rounded comparison. The figures are a same-day analytical snapshot, not a perfectly synchronized market close: U.S. overnight quotes and a delayed Tokyo quote were observed at different times, and the dataset displayed different holding dates for the companies.

Those ratios are not interchangeable. Basic mNAV compares basic common market capitalization with gross Bitcoin value. Diluted mNAV expands the share denominator. Enterprise mNAV adds debt and preferred stock and subtracts cash before comparing enterprise value with the Bitcoin stack.

That is why “market cap below Bitcoin value” is an incomplete claim. A share is a residual interest in a company, not a withdrawal ticket for its coins. Common holders sit behind creditors and preferred investors, absorb future dilution, and remain exposed to operating costs, taxes, governance decisions and restrictions on assets. The table's own disagreement is the warning: Twenty One screened at 0.64x on basic mNAV but 1.20x on the dataset's diluted measure.

Strategy's $2 billion sale bought liquidity, not Bitcoin

Strategy offers the clearest test of the old equity flywheel because its enterprise value had recovered to roughly parity with gross Bitcoin value, while both common-equity measures remained near 0.74x.

The company nevertheless sold 18.26 million MSTR shares from Aug. 17 through Aug. 23 for $2.0065 billion of net proceeds. Its Aug. 24 filing reported no Bitcoin purchase for the week. Instead, Strategy allocated $136.4 million to repurchase STRC preferred stock, $300 million to its USD Reserve and the remainder to USD Cash.

By Aug. 23, Strategy reported 840,447 BTC, a $5.10 billion USD Reserve and $1.59 billion of USD Cash. The cash figures included expected proceeds from shares sold but not yet settled.

That choice matters. Common issuance did not mechanically increase Bitcoin per MSTR share; it reinforced liquidity and managed a senior security. Strategy's June-quarter filing showed about $6.75 billion of debt principal, with a carrying value near $6.71 billion. Its June digital-credit framework estimated about $1.76 billion of annual preferred dividends and debt interest combined.

The reserve reduces near-term pressure to fund those obligations from Bitcoin sales, but it also explains why common investors do not own the gross coin stack free of claims. Strategy can still sell shares for corporate purposes when the stock screens below gross Bitcoin value. What it cannot do at that price is assume that every dollar raised and converted into Bitcoin will increase Bitcoin value per old common share.

Common issuance only lifts Bitcoin per share when the coins bought per new share exceed the pre-issue ratio. Fees, cash retained for obligations and differences between basic and diluted share counts all raise that hurdle.

Twenty One's collateral shows why gross holdings overstate flexibility

Twenty One Capital presents a different capital structure. It reported 43,514 BTC at June 30 and 346.8 million Class A shares, alongside 215.7 million Class B shares. Its basic mNAV was deeply below 1x in the Aug. 27 snapshot, while diluted mNAV was above 1x.

The company's second-quarter filing supplies the missing bridge. Twenty One had $486.5 million of convertible-note principal, with a carrying value of about $484.5 million. Approximately 16,116 BTC, or 37% of the reported stack, were pledged to secure the notes and were unavailable for general liquidity while pledged.

The pledge creates no automatic sale signal. It does make gross holdings and unencumbered financial flexibility different quantities. A common investor valuing all 43,514 BTC as freely deployable while ignoring the convertible claim is not buying the same exposure measured by enterprise mNAV.

Twenty One also reported a $1.273 billion net loss for the first half. About $1.249 billion came from a fair-value decline in Bitcoin, so it was not an equivalent cash drain. Even so, the filing illustrates why accounting equity, cash liquidity and Bitcoin per share must be kept separate. A fair-value loss can dominate earnings without consuming cash, while collateral restrictions and note principal can limit choices without changing the reported coin count.

Debt can still fund more Bitcoin without issuing common shares today, but it creates a senior claim, interest or conversion exposure, and sometimes encumbers the asset being accumulated.

Metaplanet built the mNAV gate into its financing

Metaplanet reported 43,000 BTC and 1.281 billion issued common shares at June 30. The Aug. 27 dataset valued the coins at about $3.39 billion and the common equity at $2.2 billion, but the company's warrant structure makes a basic-share comparison especially fragile.

Its effective diluted-share KPI includes outstanding options and funded convertibles, while excluding several stock-acquisition-right series until exercise proceeds are received. An April disclosure listed 15.9 million potential shares in the 25th series, 107.4 million in the 26th and 100 million in the 27th, plus 210 million combined in two suspended series.

Metaplanet said mNAV remained below 1x for most of the first half. It did not conduct a company-initiated common-share third-party allotment in the second quarter, although rights exercises still issued shares. Crucially, the 27th-series rights may be exercised only when mNAV is at least 1.01x. The company has therefore written a version of the funding constraint into the instrument itself, although fees, market slippage and denominator differences mean the gate alone does not guarantee accretion.

Operating revenue does not yet replace the market-access engine. Metaplanet generated ¥349 million of operating cash in the first half against ¥99.782 billion of Bitcoin purchases. Retained cash can add Bitcoin without a new senior claim or new shares, but those figures show the scale gap.

Metaplanet's planned Super League investment had been signed but had not closed at the snapshot. Subject to approvals, it would contribute 2,100 BTC and $2.5 million for common stock, warrants and strategic preferred stock, and Super League was expected to become a consolidated subsidiary. The coins should therefore remain in the current 43,000-BTC snapshot rather than be treated as sold; under the group's current policy, they are expected to remain consolidated and fair-valued, with a minority portion attributable to non-controlling interests.

The surviving engine is smaller and less automatic

Each alternative to premium-priced common equity carries a tradeoff.

Retained operating cash is the cleanest route because it adds neither dilution nor a financing senior claim, but it is currently too small to sustain acquisition at the recent pace. Existing cash can be converted into Bitcoin, though that swaps one corporate asset for another rather than creating new net value.

Premium-priced common equity is the scalable route that avoids a new senior claim, but only when net issue proceeds clear a consistent per-share Bitcoin-value threshold and are used to buy coins. A basic mNAV below 1x is a warning, not a complete test; the relevant hurdle must include dilution, cash and senior obligations.

Debt and preferred stock can preserve the common share count initially, but coupons, dividends, conversion rights and collateral transfer part of the economics to senior investors. A cash-funded buyback mechanically raises gross Bitcoin per remaining share while reducing cash. A Bitcoin-funded buyback reduces total coins and raises Bitcoin per share only when the repurchase price is below pre-buyback gross Bitcoin value per share. Neither route accumulates new Bitcoin. Strategy's $1 billion MSTR repurchase authorization remained unused through Aug. 23.

Bitcoin's rally repaired the numerator. It did not repair the financing terms. Until these companies generate much more operating cash or regain a defensible common-equity premium, the next Bitcoin purchase will depend less on the size of the treasury than on who funds it, what claim they receive and whether the transaction actually leaves existing common holders with more Bitcoin per share.

The post Bitcoin hit $80,000 but failed to restore BTC treasury premiums at Strategy, Twenty One Capital, or Metaplanet appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Bitcoin has just closed out its strongest stretch of 2026. The price climbed from roughly $62,800 in early August to above $80,000 on 25 August, a gain of about 22% in a single week and close to 28% across the month. It was Bitcoin's best weekly performance since 2023.

Momentum came from several directions at once. The US Treasury doubled the size of its bond buyback operations, renewed movement behind the Clarity Act lifted risk appetite, and roughly $2.7 billion in short positions were force-closed on the way up. Spot Bitcoin ETF inflows, negative for the year at one point in 2026, turned positive again through July and August.

One thing worth keeping in perspective before anyone calls this a new bull market: Bitcoin peaked at $126,198 in October 2025 and fell to a 21-month low near $59,300 in June 2026. At $80,000 the asset is still roughly 37% below its record. This is a recovery, not a breakout to new highs.

Is the entire crypto market up, or just Bitcoin?

The whole market is up, but $Bitcoin is still taking the larger share, and that gap is where the opportunity sits.

The total crypto market capitalisation now sits near $2.75 trillion. The altcoin market excluding Bitcoin, tracked as TOTAL2, added roughly $215 billion between 19 and 22 August and pushed back above $1 trillion. CryptoQuant analyst Darkfost found that 56% of Binance-listed altcoins have reclaimed their 200-day moving averages, a sharp reversal from the months when 80 to 85% traded below that line.

So altcoins are participating. What they are not doing is leading.

Bitcoin dominance climbed to around 61% during the week before easing back to roughly 59%, near its highest level of the year. In a genuine rotation, dominance falls as capital moves down the risk curve. Here it rose. CoinMarketCap's Altcoin Season Index reads in the mid-40s, up sharply from 33 a week earlier but still well short of the 75 mark that defines an actual altcoin season.

The result is a market where a handful of names ran extremely hard and the rest went nowhere. Over the seven days to 25 August, $XRP gained 43.7%, $Ethereum 28.6% and Solana 25.6%, all beating Bitcoin's 22.6%. Chainlink added more than 30%. Zcash rose roughly 75% and Aave more than 60%. Below that top tier, plenty of established projects posted single-digit weeks.

How were these five altcoins selected?

Each coin underperformed Bitcoin over the past week, the past month, or both, and each has an identifiable catalyst rather than just an oversold chart.

Three filters were applied:

1. Clear underperformance versus Bitcoin's 22.6% weekly gain, its 28% monthly gain, or both.
2. A real reason to reprice, meaning a shipped upgrade, a regulatory shift, a structural supply change, or measurable business growth.
3. Sufficient liquidity to enter and exit without moving the market against yourself.

Meme tokens and projects with no independent development activity were excluded. The list is ordered by market capitalisation, not by conviction.

Why is BNB the largest altcoin still trailing Bitcoin?

BNB gained 15.4% over the week against Bitcoin's 22.6%, making it the only top-five asset to materially underperform during the rally.

$BNB trades near $700. Every other major, Ethereum, XRP and Solana included, beat Bitcoin over the same seven days. BNB did not, and it did so while carrying one of the cleanest fundamental profiles in the sector.

The case rests on structure. BNB's quarterly burn mechanism removes supply on a fixed schedule regardless of sentiment, which is a rare thing in an asset class where most tokens face unlock pressure rather than contraction. BNB Chain continues to carry high transaction throughput, and the token retains direct utility across the largest exchange ecosystem in crypto.

The case against is concentration risk, and it is not a small one. BNB's value is tied to the fortunes of a single exchange operator and to whatever regulatory posture the US and EU adopt toward it next. That link cuts in both directions. It has powered the token through past cycles and it is precisely why some institutional allocators will not touch it.

For a September position, BNB is the lowest-volatility name on this list. It is unlikely to triple. It is also the least likely to go to zero.

Can Hedera (HBAR) turn enterprise adoption into an actual price move?

$HBAR trades around $0.068 with a market cap near $3 billion, still roughly 22% below its 200-day EMA, despite regulatory clarity and a live US spot ETF.

The gap between Hedera's institutional footprint and its chart is the widest of any asset here.

On the adoption side, the Hedera Governing Council has grown to 31 members including FedEx, Google, IBM, Boeing, Standard Bank, NVIDIA and ServiceNow. Each member operates a node. Archax has facilitated tokenized UK gilts and money market funds on Hedera, and Lloyds Banking Group has used tokenized Hedera assets as FX collateral.

On the regulatory side, HBAR was included among 16 major crypto assets formally classified as digital commodities in a joint SEC and CFTC interpretive rule in March 2026, removing them from stricter securities oversight. The Canary HBAR ETF launched on Nasdaq in October 2025, making HBAR the third cryptocurrency to obtain US spot ETF status, and it has recorded steady inflows since. Hedera also added full EVM compatibility in July 2026, letting developers build with standard Ethereum tooling.

So why is the price flat? Two reasons. Scheduled treasury releases add continuous dilution pressure, which absorbs demand that would otherwise show up as price. And Hedera has a long track record of announcing enterprise partnerships that do not convert into sustained token demand. HBAR broke a daily descending trendline on 21 August with strong volume, but the structure only genuinely changes on a decisive close above $0.082.

Is Avalanche (AVAX) cheap enough for the discount to matter?

$AVAX trades around $7.50, down roughly 70% over the past year and more than 90% from its 2021 high, while its DeFi ecosystem has been expanding.

Avalanche is the deep-drawdown name on this list, and drawdown alone is never a thesis. What makes AVAX interesting in September is that the ecosystem activity has diverged from the price.

Aave deployed its V4 on Avalanche and launched Stable Vaults, a product that lets fintechs offer stablecoin yield without building DeFi infrastructure in-house. That matters because it routes institutional-adjacent flow through Avalanche rather than around it. The chain's subnet architecture also remains one of the more credible answers to the tokenized real-world asset question, a sector that crossed $36 billion on-chain in 2026.

The counter-argument is straightforward and it has been correct for two years running. Avalanche has repeatedly attracted high-quality integrations without translating them into token demand, because subnets can use the technology while accruing limited value to AVAX holders. This is the same value-capture problem that has hollowed out several Layer-1 tokens, and nothing has definitively resolved it.

Treat AVAX as a bet that the RWA narrative eventually rewards the chains doing the work. That is a thesis, not a certainty.

Does Uniswap (UNI) finally have a value capture story?

$UNI has been one of the weakest large-cap DeFi tokens of the summer, falling 18.5% in the week to 18 August while the sector rallied around it.

Uniswap remains the dominant decentralised exchange by volume, and UNI remains a token that historically captured very little of that. This is the single most-discussed value-accrual problem in DeFi.

The reason to look at it now is that the debate over routing protocol fees to token holders has moved from perennial forum discussion toward something closer to a live governance question, helped by a US regulatory environment that is materially friendlier than the one that froze the issue for years. If a fee mechanism is ever ratified, the repricing would be mechanical rather than narrative-driven.

The reason for caution is that this has been the bull case for UNI since 2021 and it has not happened yet. Governance tokens that might one day capture revenue trade at a persistent discount to ones that already do, and that discount is rational. Uniswap also faces genuine competitive pressure from newer venues and from perpetuals platforms that have taken share of on-chain volume.

UNI belongs on this list because the outcome is binary and the market is currently pricing only one side of it. That also makes it the name most likely to keep going nowhere.

Why is Polkadot (DOT) still lagging after shipping so much?

$DOT sits far below its cycle highs despite an ambitious architectural roadmap, making it the most contrarian entry on this list.

Polkadot's problem has never been engineering output. It has been that the engineering output does not reach the token.

The forward case centres on the JAM upgrade, a rearchitecture of the relay chain into a more general compute environment, plus continued work on making parachain deployment cheaper and less capital-intensive than the original auction model. If Polkadot succeeds in becoming infrastructure that other chains rent, DOT's role changes from a staking-and-governance asset into something with recurring demand.

The case against is the same one that has held for three years. Inflation continues, parachain demand has been well below early projections, and developers can build with Substrate without needing DOT at all. Polkadot has consistently ranked among the highest in development activity while ranking among the worst in price performance, which tells you the market does not currently pay for that.

Include DOT only if you accept it as a bet on tokenomics and go-to-market execution rather than on technology. The technology was never the bottleneck.

Which of these five altcoins carries the most risk?

All five carry meaningfully more risk than Bitcoin, and buying laggards is a strategy that fails at least as often as it works.

There is a specific trap in laggard investing worth naming plainly. A coin can lag because the market has not got to it yet, or because the market has already examined it and concluded it is not worth more. Being early and being wrong look identical right up until they do not. Uniswap and Polkadot in particular have been the cheap-looking option for several years running.

Three risks apply to the whole list in September. First, this rotation is unconfirmed: the Altcoin Season Index in the mid-40s is an improvement, not a signal. Second, Bitcoin needs to hold the $75,000 to $76,000 area. If it breaks, overbought altcoins carrying high funding rates unwind faster than Bitcoin does. Third, the macro calendar is dense. Fed Chair Kevin Warsh delivers his first Jackson Hole keynote on 28 August, and his guidance since taking office in May has been deliberately sparse, which leaves considerable room for a surprise in either direction.

A final note on mechanics rather than markets. Rapid price increases create exactly the conditions in which people make their worst security decisions. Fake wallet promotions and seed-phrase phishing become far more effective when attention returns to crypto. If you are moving size, move it carefully.

Pump.fun (PUMP) changes hands at $0.004564 at the time of writing. That is roughly 47 percent below the twelve-month high of $0.008619 set on 16 September 2025, and almost four times the twelve-month low of $0.001196 from 26 June 2026. After a gain of 42 percent in seven days and 126 percent in thirty, the question facing anyone looking at the token today differs from the one that applied in June: is Pump.fun a good buy at current prices, or does the price already reflect what the platform delivers?

cryptoticker.io collected the price data behind this analysis on 27 August 2026. The source is market data from CoinMarketCap, retrieved through the numerical asset ID rather than the ticker, because the symbol PUMP is carried by several unrelated tokens. The method is standard: daily closing prices across 365 days, from which we calculated the 200-day and the 50-day exponential moving average, the 14-day relative strength index and the twelve-month extremes.

Pump.fun price analysis: where the PUMP price stands and which levels matter

At $0.004564 the token holds a market capitalisation of about 1.81 billion dollars and ranks 42nd by that measure. Both averages that define the medium-term picture sit far below that quote: the 200-day average at $0.002349, the 50-day average at $0.002717. Price is therefore around 94 percent above its 200-day line and about 68 percent above its 50-day line, a configuration that says the advance has been rapid rather than gradual.

Three price zones organise the chart. The upper reference is the twelve-month high of $0.008619 from September 2025, still roughly 47 percent away. The current zone runs between the round $0.004 mark and the $0.005 area. Beneath that, the first structural floor is the 50-day average at $0.002717, and below it the 200-day average at $0.002349 marks the boundary of the trend that began at the June low of $0.001196.

The gap between the current quote and those two lines is the central fact of this analysis. A pullback that merely returns the token to its 50-day average would cost around 40 percent from today's level. That is arithmetic rather than forecast, and it defines the risk an entry at $0.004564 accepts.

Is the Pump.fun downtrend broken or only interrupted?

From the September 2025 high of $0.008619 to the June 2026 low of $0.001196, PUMP lost about 86 percent. Since that low the price has recovered roughly 282 percent, and over the full twelve months it stands about 57 percent higher than a year ago.

Technically, the downtrend is broken rather than merely interrupted. Price trades above both averages, and the 50-day average at $0.002717 sits above the 200-day average at $0.002349, the sequence trend followers read as a confirmed upward structure.

Two qualifications belong next to that reading. The token began trading in July 2025, so the entire data set covers a single market cycle. And a broken downtrend is a statement about direction rather than about valuation: the same chart that shows a recovery also shows a token that has moved 282 percent in nine weeks without a meaningful correction along the way.

What RSI and moving averages mean for a Pump.fun entry

The 14-day relative strength index stands at 70.2. Readings above 70 are conventionally called overbought, which does not mean a decline is due. It means recent daily gains have dominated recent daily losses to an unusual degree, and that new buyers are entering after the move rather than before it. In strong trends an RSI can remain elevated for weeks; what changes is the price paid for the same exposure.

The moving averages tell the same story in a different unit. An asset trading 94 percent above its 200-day line has stretched far from its own medium-term mean, and mean reversion in this segment tends to be abrupt rather than orderly. For a buyer, the practical consequence is the distance to the levels where support would first be tested: $0.002717 and, further down, $0.002349.

Broader sentiment points the same way. The CoinMarketCap Fear and Greed reading stood at 80 on 27 August 2026, in the extreme greed band, which says the market is positioned for continuation. Positioning of that kind has historically made pullbacks sharper when they arrive. The longer-dated view sits in our Pump.fun price prediction.

What trading volume reveals about Pump.fun demand

Turnover in PUMP amounts to about 288.5 million dollars over 24 hours, against a market capitalisation of roughly 1.81 billion dollars. Close to 16 percent of the float trading in a single day is high in absolute terms and typical for this segment.

The trend in volume matters more than the level. Average daily turnover over the past 30 days sits near 177.5 million dollars, while the 90-day average is about 105.2 million. Activity has expanded alongside the price, which is the pattern that gives a rally its confirmation. Advances on shrinking volume are the ones that tend to fail.

One detail argues for caution. Over the most recent 24 hours the token lost about 6 percent while turnover stayed above 288 million dollars. Falling prices on elevated volume are the signature of distribution, of holders selling into demand. A single day proves nothing, and it is worth watching whether the pattern repeats.

Which structural factors speak for Pump.fun: supply mechanics, usage and regulation

Supply is the first structural fact, and it cuts both ways. Of a maximum supply of 1,000,000,000,000 tokens, about 397,291,627,668 circulate today, close to 40 percent. Every market capitalisation figure quoted for PUMP therefore describes a minority of the eventual float, and the tokens still outside circulation are a supply overhang that a rising price does nothing to remove.

Usage is the second. Pump.fun operates as a token launch platform on Solana, and its revenue comes from fees charged on token creation and on trading activity across the platform. That gives the token an anchor that pure memecoins lack: platform activity is measurable, and it rises and falls with speculative appetite across the Solana ecosystem. It also makes PUMP a leveraged expression of that appetite rather than an independent one. The infrastructure it depends on is documented in the Solana developer documentation.

Regulation is the third. In the European Union, crypto asset service providers operate under the MiCA framework, and the classification of platform tokens carrying fee-linked value remains an area of active supervisory attention. The European Securities and Markets Authority publishes its guidance for the sector, and anyone building a position of size should follow that work rather than assume the status quo persists.

What speaks for buying PUMP at current prices

The first argument is trend structure. Price sits above both the 200-day average at $0.002349 and the 50-day average at $0.002717, with the shorter line above the longer one. Buyers who work with trend confirmation rather than with bottom fishing have their signal.

The second is the volume backing. A 42 percent weekly advance carried by turnover well above its own 90-day average of roughly 105.2 million dollars per day is better supported than a move on thin trading, and that depth lowers the cost of building or exiting a position.

The third is the distance to the record. At $0.004564 the token remains about 47 percent below its twelve-month high of $0.008619. For anyone who accepts the platform's revenue model as durable, that gap is the part of the case that has not yet been closed by the rally.

What speaks against buying Pump.fun at current prices

The first counterargument is the extension itself. Buying at $0.004564 means paying 94 percent above the 200-day average and 68 percent above the 50-day average, and accepting that a routine return to the shorter line would take roughly 40 percent off the position. An RSI of 70.2 says that entry happens after the crowd, not ahead of it.

The second is the supply overhang. With around 397,291,627,668 of 1,000,000,000,000 tokens in circulation, roughly 60 percent of the eventual supply has yet to reach the market. Tokens that enter circulation later meet whatever demand exists at that moment, and schedules of this kind have repeatedly capped recoveries in comparable assets.

The third is the thinness of the record. The price history covers a single cycle, from the July 2025 launch through the September 2025 high of $0.008619, the June 2026 low of $0.001196 and the current recovery. There is no second cycle against which to test how platform revenue behaves when speculative activity contracts for a prolonged period, and the concentration of that revenue in one ecosystem is a risk no chart displays.

How to buy Pump.fun (PUMP) at the current price: costs, custody and providers

PUMP is listed on a smaller set of venues than the large caps, so the first practical step is checking availability rather than fees. Where the token is offered, the cost consists of the trading fee, typically between 0.1 and 1.5 percent depending on venue and order type, and the spread, which in less liquid pairs frequently exceeds the visible fee. Limit orders are the standard defence against the second cost. Our exchange comparison sets the fee models side by side, and the reports on Kraken and Bitvavo cover deposit routes and account requirements.

Custody is the second decision. Positions held for months belong in wallets whose keys the holder controls, and the options are compared in our hardware wallet comparison. Leaving the token on the venue substitutes counterparty risk for key-management risk. For derivative exposure, our comparison of perpetual DEX platforms is the relevant reference.

Position sizing is the third. A token that has moved 282 percent in nine weeks and lost 86 percent in the nine months before belongs, if at all, in the part of a portfolio whose complete loss would not change the plan.

Is Pump.fun a good buy at current prices, short term and long term

Short term, the picture is a strong trend at a stretched price. Momentum, volume and sentiment point the same way, while an RSI of 70.2 together with a 94 percent premium over the 200-day average describes an entry with limited margin for error. The nearest reference for a failed continuation is the 50-day average at $0.002717.

Long term, the case rests on a question no chart answers: whether fee revenue from token launches on Solana proves durable across a full cycle rather than only in a phase of high speculative activity. If it does, the 47 percent discount to the twelve-month high of $0.008619 is the relevant framing. If it does not, the June low of $0.001196 shows what this token does when that activity dries up.

This is an assessment, not a recommendation, and it can be falsified. The constructive reading would be wrong if the price closed back below the 200-day average at $0.002349, if daily turnover fell durably beneath the 90-day average of about 105.2 million dollars while the price held, or if further supply entering circulation coincided with a persistent decline in platform activity. The cautious reading would be wrong if the token consolidated above the $0.004 area for several weeks while volume stayed elevated, letting the averages close the gap from below rather than the price closing it from above.

Buying Pump.fun (PUMP): What to Take Away

1. At $0.004564 the token trades far above both of its averages and about 47 percent below its twelve-month high, so the entry pays for a trend that is already established. The longer-dated view sits in our Pump.fun price prediction.
2. The supply schedule matters more than the chart: roughly 60 percent of the maximum supply has yet to circulate, which is the structural difference between this token and the large caps examined in our analysis of whether Bitcoin is a good buy at current prices.
3. PUMP is a leveraged expression of speculative activity on Solana, so the ecosystem view belongs with the token view, as set out in our assessment of whether Solana is a good buy at current prices.

Disclosure: Some of the providers mentioned in this article work with us through partner programmes. This has no influence on the price analysis or on the assessment of the chart situation; the price data comes from a public market data source and can be verified there.

(Last updated: 27 August 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices, fees and terms change; check them with the provider before every purchase. Crypto assets are subject to high price volatility and a total loss is possible.)

If you buy US stocks through a crypto exchange, nobody withholds German capital gains tax on your behalf. Dividends and sale proceeds are credited to you gross, and the settlement with the tax office runs entirely through your income tax return. This is no grey area and no negligence on the provider’s part; it follows directly from where the securities account is held.

Since August 18, 2026 the question has become practical for considerably more people. That was the day Kraken opened US stock trading to customers in the European Economic Area. Anyone who previously held only Bitcoin and a few altcoins on the platform can now buy Apple, Nvidia or Tesla shares there as well. For tax purposes they land in a body of rules that has nothing to do with crypto and that many investors encounter for the first time.

Kraken brings 7,000 US stocks to the EEA: what applies since August 18

According to the exchange’s own announcement, eligible customers in the EEA have been able to trade more than 7,000 US stocks since August 18, 2026, alongside more than 600 crypto assets and more than 700 so-called xStocks. Trading in the shares is commission-free; in the small print the exchange states expressly that further costs such as spreads and currency conversion charges can arise. Trading is offered through the app and through Kraken Pro.

According to consistent trade reporting, Germany was among the first markets in which the offering ran in a limited pilot phase, together with France and the Netherlands. The go-live on August 18 completed that roll-out across the entire economic area. The exchange itself names no list of countries in its announcement and refers throughout to eligible customers in the EEA.

Decisive for everything that follows is one sentence from the legal section of that same announcement: the investment services are provided by Payward Europe Digital Solutions (CY) Limited, an investment firm authorised under the European markets in financial instruments directive and supervised by the Cypriot securities regulator CySEC. Your securities account therefore sits in Cyprus.

Domestic or foreign securities account: how to tell the difference

A foreign securities account is one held by an institution domiciled outside Germany, even when the app speaks German, you deposit in euros and the provider is regulated in the EU. The domicile of the custodian institution decides, not your address and not the language of the interface.

The difference is invisible in daily use and highly visible in the tax return. A German institution deducts the tax directly on every dividend and every sale at a profit, pays it over to the tax office and sends you a tax certificate at year end in which everything has already been offset. A foreign institution does none of that. It credits you the full amount and leaves the rest to you.

How to spot it without turning lawyer: look in the contract documents or in the footer of the trading platform for the name of the company providing the investment service, and for the competent supervisory authority. If a foreign regulator is named there, you hold a foreign securities account. At Kraken that is the Cypriot CySEC and the Payward company named above. If you are losing track of several accounts, our overview of crypto tax tools and portfolio trackers lists programs that consolidate accounts and wallets and prepare the annual figures for the return.

Why a Cypriot investment firm withholds no capital gains tax

The Income Tax Act governs automatic withholding not through the question of how well a provider is regulated but through a very narrow definition. Under section 44 paragraph 1 of the Income Tax Act, the paying agent, meaning whoever has to carry out the deduction, is in the cases relevant here the domestic credit, financial services or securities institution that holds or administers the securities.

The paying agent is, in tax law, the body that pays out your investment income and is therefore obliged to withhold the tax for you. The word domestic in that provision is the whole difference. An investment firm domiciled in Cyprus is no domestic institution, so the obligation does not apply to it. The firm may not withhold the German tax and consequently does not.

The same holds for providers from Ireland, the Netherlands or Malta, and it holds regardless of whether the provider carries a MiCA licence for its crypto business. Regulation and tax withholding are two separate questions that are frequently confused. A European authorisation protects your securities account and gives you a supervisory route; it does not make the provider a German paying agent.

Anlage KAP becomes mandatory: what section 32d paragraph 3 EStG requires

Because nobody withholds the tax, the law shifts the duty onto you. The wording is short and leaves no room: taxable investment income that has not been subject to capital gains tax must be declared by the taxpayer in their income tax return. And the following sentence states that in this case an assessment is to be carried out, irrespective of the other rules on who has to file a return at all.

In plain terms that means two things. First, the income from the foreign account belongs in Anlage KAP, the schedule of the German income tax return for investment income. Second, anyone who would otherwise not have to file a return at all is obliged to file by this income. An employee with no other income who has never submitted a return slips into mandatory assessment.

The tax rate does not change as a result. Income tax on investment income is 25 percent under section 32d paragraph 1 of the Income Tax Act, plus the solidarity surcharge of 5.5 percent on that amount, which together gives 26.375 percent, plus church tax where applicable. Only the route is different: instead of a deduction at source, the tax office sets the amount in the assessment notice and you pay it afterwards.

The saver’s allowance without an exemption order: how to claim the 1,000 euros

The saver’s lump-sum allowance is 1,000 euros under section 20 paragraph 9 of the Income Tax Act, or 2,000 euros for spouses assessed jointly. You do not lose it in a foreign account. The usual route to it, however, is blocked.

An exemption order takes effect only towards whoever is obliged to withhold. Since the Cypriot investment firm is under no such obligation, it cannot accept an exemption order either. There is simply no form for it in this account, and anyone looking for one is looking in vain.

You claim the allowance through the tax return instead. That works reliably, but it has a side effect that costs money in practice: if you also run a German securities account and have an exemption order there for the full 1,000 euros, the allowance is already used up before the foreign income even enters the calculation. Anyone using both in parallel should reduce the exemption order at the German provider accordingly and keep the remainder for the assessment.

Loss offsetting in a foreign account: why the bank’s loss pots are missing

A loss pot is an account that a German institution runs for you and in which it collects your losses during the year in order to offset them against later gains. Under section 43a paragraph 3 of the Income Tax Act, the paying agent offsets negative investment income in the current calendar year up to the amount of the positive income; whatever remains it carries forward to the following year automatically. On request it issues a loss certificate instead, and the irrevocable application for it must reach the agent by December 15 of the current year.

This entire apparatus does not exist for your Cypriot account. There is no loss pot there, no automatic carry-forward and no loss certificate, because all of it is tied to the duties of a domestic paying agent. You offset losses from share sales only in the assessment, and subject to the relevant restrictions: losses from the disposal of shares may be offset only against gains from the disposal of shares, not against dividends or interest.

In practice that means you have to keep the books yourself. The platform supplies you with transaction lists but no annual statement prepared for tax purposes under German law. Anyone who also holds crypto assets already has a record-keeping duty and knows the drill; anyone who has only ever had a German securities account has to learn it. An overview of brokers and trading venues together with their tax treatment helps in deciding whether the effort is worth it for you or whether a German provider with automatic withholding is the quieter choice.

US withholding tax on dividends: what the W-8BEN form changes

Withholding tax is the tax retained by the state from which the income originates, before the money reaches your account. On dividends from US companies the US side deducts that amount. For investors who have filed no W-8BEN form it is high; with the form on file, the lower rate from the double taxation treaty between Germany and the United States applies.

The W-8BEN form is a self-declaration to the US tax authority in which you confirm that you are resident for tax purposes outside the United States. Brokers usually ask for it when the account is opened, and it is time-limited. After opening, check in the account area whether it is on file and still valid. The specific rates and the handling in an individual case could not be verified on the platform side; they are set out in the provider’s contract documents and in the statements for each individual dividend.

Tax paid abroad is not lost. Under section 32d paragraph 5 of the Income Tax Act, foreign tax assessed and paid is credited against the German tax, though at most 25 percent of foreign tax on each individual item of taxable investment income. This crediting too happens exclusively in the assessment with a foreign account, because in a domestic account the bank would already have taken it into account at the point of deduction.

Real share or xStock: why two tax regimes run in the same account

Kraken advertises the combination expressly: real shares and tokenised shares side by side in one account. An xStock is a token that tracks a US share and, according to the exchange, is backed one to one by the underlying share. The legal annex to the announcement states that the xStocks are issued by Backed Assets (JE) Limited, domiciled in Jersey, and offered through Payward Digital Solutions Ltd, licensed in Bermuda, and that they are not registered with any local securities regulator and will not be registered.

What looks convenient is a fork in the road for tax purposes within the same account. Whether a token that tracks a share is treated for tax like a share or like another asset is the decisive question, and it depends on the legal form of the token. We covered it in detail in our piece on tokenised shares and their taxation in Germany; anyone using both product types should record them separately and not mix them in a joint annual statement.

A second point concerns backing. In June 2026 we described a case in which the backing of an xStock on a paper with no available trading inventory began to slip; the details are in our analysis of the shortfall on an xStock. For the tax question that changes nothing; for the risk question it does.

Our own analysis: what the statutes actually say

cryptoticker.io compiled this analysis itself on August 27, 2026. Method: on the same day we retrieved the four relevant provisions of the Income Tax Act as well as the surcharge rate of the Solidarity Surcharge Act in the official full text on gesetze-im-internet.de and analysed the governing paragraphs in their wording. Five provisions were examined, each in full.

• Section 44 paragraph 1 EStG: the paying agent that has to carry out the deduction is, in the cases relevant here, the domestic credit, financial services or securities institution. The word domestic appears in the statutory text.
• Section 32d paragraph 3 EStG: investment income that has not been subject to capital gains tax is to be declared in the income tax return, and an assessment is to be carried out.
• Section 32d paragraph 5 EStG: foreign tax is credited, at most 25 percent on each individual item of taxable investment income.
• Section 43a paragraph 3 EStG: loss offsetting and loss carry-forward are duties of the paying agent; the application for a loss certificate must reach it by December 15 of the current year.
• Section 20 paragraph 9 EStG and section 4 SolzG 1995: saver’s lump-sum allowance of 1,000 euros, or 2,000 euros on joint assessment; solidarity surcharge of 5.5 percent of the assessment base.

What we could not check belongs here just as much. First, we hold no account with the provider and could therefore not look at which statements and annual summaries the platform actually issues. Second, the statement that Germany was among the pilot markets rests on trade reporting and not on a statement by the exchange. Third, the specific withholding rates in an individual case depend on how the account is set up, which we cannot verify without access to a real dividend statement.

Information exchange: why the tax office learns of your foreign account anyway

The notion that an account abroad stays undetected has been out of date for years. For securities accounts at foreign financial institutions, the automatic exchange of information on financial accounts applies, in which Cyprus participates like every EU state. For crypto assets, the European reporting obligation for crypto-asset service providers has applied since 2026, with the first data deliveries expected the following year.

The two channels are separate and concern different types of assets, but they arrive at the same place. Anyone holding shares and crypto assets at one provider is reported through two routes. That is no reason for nerves but a reason to make your own return complete: discrepancies between what the tax office receives and what you declare now show up automatically. How this interacts across the individual asset classes is something we worked through using the taxation of stablecoins as an example.

Records for the tax return: which documents to collect from now on

Because nobody issues you a German tax certificate, your own filing becomes the basis of the return. It makes sense to secure the documents continuously rather than once in April of the following year, because trading platforms shorten export periods and make accounts available only to a limited extent after closure. The BitMEX case showed in 2026 how quickly access to a platform can become tight.

These are the records you need:

1. All purchase and sale statements with date, quantity, price and currency, from which acquisition costs and disposal proceeds can be derived.
2. All dividend statements showing the foreign withholding tax retained, because without that disclosure no crediting is possible.
3. The conversion rates on the relevant date where settlement was in US dollars.
4. Proof of the W-8BEN form on file and its period of validity.
5. An annual overview of all positions, separated into real shares and tokenised paper.

A note on our own account: this text places the legal position in context and replaces no tax advice. With larger amounts, with losses across several years or with a mixture of shares, tokenised paper and crypto assets, a trip to a tax adviser is the cheaper option.

A securities account at the crypto exchange: what to take away

1. Check where your account is held. Look in the contract documents for the company providing the investment service and for the competent supervisor. If a foreign authority is named there, you hold a foreign account and have to declare the income yourself. Which providers work with a European authorisation is shown by our overview of regulated crypto exchanges.
2. Set up your document filing before the first purchase goes through. Download statements monthly and file them separately by real shares and tokenised paper. A tool from our comparison of crypto tax tools and portfolio trackers takes the consolidation off your hands.
3. Weigh the effort against the price advantage. Commission-free trading is cheaper only once spreads, currency conversion costs and your own declaration work are counted in. If you do not want that effort, the comparison of crypto brokers lists providers where the tax is paid over automatically.

You can look up the governing provisions yourself: section 32d of the German Income Tax Act covers the tax rate, the filing obligation and the crediting of foreign taxes in one place. The exchange’s product announcement with the legal annex is in the Kraken blog of August 18, 2026.

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

On September 6, 2026, Hyperliquid’s unlock calendar lists a tranche of roughly 9.92 million HYPE for the core contributors. At the August 27 price of $81.42 that is nominally about $808 million. The short answer to how much of it actually reaches the market: very probably a fraction. The same 9.92 million stood in the calendar in March, and 173,217 HYPE were claimed, or 1.75 percent of the announced amount.

That gap between schedule and claim is why coverage of the date has so far named the day without doing the arithmetic. Anyone who wants to treat September 6 as a price risk has to keep three things apart: what the schedule releases, how much of that is claimed, and how much of that can ultimately be sold. This piece works through all three against the numbers of August 27, 2026.

What the Hyperliquid unlock actually releases on September 6

A token unlock is the point at which previously locked units of a token become transferable under a fixed timetable. The timetable itself is called the vesting schedule. At Hyperliquid the allocation to the core contributors, meaning the team around Hyperliquid Labs, runs on linear vesting: a total allocation of roughly 238 million HYPE spread evenly across 24 monthly tranches. 238 million divided by 24 gives 9,916,667 HYPE per month, and that is the figure every calendar carries as 9.92 million.

The September 6 tranche is therefore no exception but the regular monthly step in that series. It goes to a single group of recipients. That sets it apart from the date a week earlier, which serves three groups at once and picks up the bigger headlines.

Release or claim: why the tranche is an entitlement and not a forced payout

This is where most unlock headlines lose their precision. The calendar value of a tranche describes an entitlement, not an automatic transfer. According to reporting by Forbes, the Hyper Foundation announces around the 6th of each month how much was actually claimed, and by that same source the figure has come in well below the 9.92 million in the schedule every time.

The difference is no detail. An entitlement that goes unclaimed raises neither the circulating amount nor the tradable supply. It stays locked and reappears the following month. Converting the calendar figure one to one into selling pressure assumes an action that has not taken place in recent months.

How wide the gap between unlock schedule and claim was in March

The most solid single number on that gap comes from March 2026. The calendar showed 9.92 million HYPE. 173,217 HYPE were claimed. That is 1.75 percent of the planned amount, a factor of around 57 between announcement and reality.

Converted to the August 27, 2026 price: a nominal $808 million became roughly $14.1 million at the March rate. That is still money, but it is a different order of magnitude from the number in the headlines. Estimating a token’s dilution from the calendar figure is off by more than fiftyfold in this case.

One caveat belongs with it: a single monthly reading is no law. Forbes describes the pattern as consistent but spells out only the March figure. Claims can rise at any time, for instance if recipients assert their allocation in a batch. The historical value serves as an order of magnitude; it is no forecast.

August 29: 14.17 million HYPE to insiders, the community and the Hyper Foundation

The larger date falls a week before the core contributor tranche. On August 29, according to Decrypt, 14,175,778 HYPE are released, around 1.4 percent of the total supply. At the August 27 price that is nominally about $1.15 billion. The split: 46.6 percent to insiders and early investors, 46.3 percent to the community through community grants, community rewards and airdrops, 7 percent to the Hyper Foundation.

The insider share works out at roughly 6.61 million HYPE, or $538 million at the August 27 price. That group is the only one of the three where a sale on the market is the immediate prospect. Community allocations land to a considerable extent with users who stay active in the protocol, and the foundation share moves into a treasury that itself appears as a buyer.

For placing September 6, that means the nearer date is the larger one. Rolling the two into a single number gives roughly $1.96 billion nominal across nine days and loses precisely the distinction that matters.

Cliff, float, vesting: the terms around a token unlock

Four terms decide whether you read an unlock report correctly. All four appear in the unlock calendars, and none of them is explained there.

• Cliff: a lock-up period at the end of which a large amount becomes free in one go. A cliff unlock is accordingly a single cut-off date with a step change in supply. With the HYPE token that applies to the allocations to investors, not to the monthly tranche for the core team.
• Linear vesting: the counterpart, an even distribution across many dates. The allocation for the core contributors runs exactly that way, in 24 equal steps.
• Float: the share of a token that is genuinely freely tradable. The float is usually smaller than the circulating supply, because part of the circulating amount stays permanently staked or tied up in contracts.
• Genesis distribution: the initial distribution when a token launches. For the Hyperliquid token it took place on November 29, 2024 and set out which groups would later be served through which unlock events.

The practical use of that distinction shows up on September 6: because this is linear vesting rather than a cliff, the tranche is predictable, recurring and long since known to the market. A cliff comes as a surprise; a monthly step does not.

How much HYPE is in circulation at all? Two sources, two answers

To work out dilution you need the circulating supply, the amount of tokens freely tradable in circulation. This is where it gets awkward, and most write-ups pass over it. Two measurements from August 27, 2026 give two different answers.

• Hyperliquid’s own info interface reports a circulating supply of 298,676,567 HYPE at 06:40 UTC, a total supply of 998,987,823 HYPE and a reserve for future emissions of 412,064,183 HYPE.
• CoinGecko puts circulation at 222,445,714 HYPE for the same hour, alongside a market cap of around $18.1 billion and an FDV of around $77.7 billion. FDV stands for fully diluted valuation, the market value a token would carry if the entire maximum supply were already in circulation.

Around 76 million HYPE lie between the two values, a good third of the smaller one. Both figures are collected transparently; they simply count different things. Data providers frequently strip out holdings in foundation and team addresses, while the protocol itself counts differently. A serious calculation therefore quotes a range.

Applied to the September 6 tranche: 9.92 million HYPE are 3.3 percent of circulation on the protocol measurement and 4.5 percent on CoinGecko. For August 29 the same values read 4.8 and 6.4 percent. The range is wide enough to tip an assessment and narrow enough to leave the direction unambiguous.

What the Hyper Foundation buyback takes back out of supply

On the other side of the calculation sits a source of demand that most tokens do not have. The data service Tokenomist recorded on August 14 that one in seven tokens on the HYPE unlock path is bought back, which corresponds to around 14.3 percent. It is funded out of the protocol’s fee income, earned as a perpetual DEX with running revenue.

That leaves two quantities facing each other: the part of a tranche that is claimed and sold, and the part of total supply taken back out of the market through buybacks. As long as the claim rate stays in the region of the March figure, the second item is the larger. If claims rise sharply, the ratio flips.

How to calculate the dilution from a token unlock yourself

The calculation is simple enough to run for any date yourself, and it protects you from headlines built on the nominal figure. You need five values.

1. Tranche size from the project’s unlock schedule.
2. Circulating supply on the reference date, ideally from two sources so that you see the range.
3. Claim rate at previous dates, where the project publishes it.
4. Offsetting items such as buybacks, staking lock-ups or holding periods for recipients.
5. Trading volume of the token, because an amount that disappears into daily volume moves the price differently from one that exceeds it.

Applied to September 6: 9.92 million divided by circulation gives the theoretical dilution of 3.3 to 4.5 percent. Multiplied by the March claim rate of 1.75 percent, what remains is an actual supply expansion of around 0.06 to 0.08 percent. We worked through the same approach step by step for the LayerZero unlock, there without a buyback mechanism and with a correspondingly different result.

What earlier HYPE unlocks did to the price

The past supplies no clean pattern, and that is a finding in itself. On the reactions collected by Decrypt, HYPE lost around 7 percent after the July tranche, gained around 1 percent after the June date and fell 14.1 percent after the May release. Three dates, three different directions.

The price stands at $81.34 on August 27, or 69.79 euros, after an all-time high of $83.53 on August 26. Over seven days HYPE is up around 14 percent. A token that marks an all-time high a week before a large unlock is not behaving like one whose market fears the release.

Bull and bear case for the September 6 tranche

Both sides can be argued from the same numbers, which is why they stand side by side here rather than as a recommendation.

Bear case: August 29 distributes 14.18 million HYPE, 46.6 percent of it to insiders and early investors who are in profit after almost two years. If the price falls after that date, the core contributor tranche a week later can meet an already weakened market. The reserve for future emissions of 412 million HYPE, a good 41 percent of the maximum supply, also remains a supply overhang that will last for years.

Bull case: the claim rate has lately been in the low single-digit percentage range, the buyback takes around one in seven tokens back out, and part of the released supply moves into staking. According to the official documentation, the staking yield at 400 million HYPE locked runs at about 2.37 percent a year, funded from the same emission reserve. Tokens that are tied up are no selling pressure.

What you cannot derive from this is a price direction. Analyst quotes on HYPE price targets circulate in abundance; they belong to those who utter them and not in a calculation. If you are assessing Hyperliquid as a position, the appraisal at the current price is the more suitable entry point than an unlock date.

Where to check the Hyperliquid unlock schedule yourself

On dates, do not rely on secondary sources that carry figures forward. Three routes lead to verifiable values.

First, Hyperliquid’s own info interface: a call against api.hyperliquid.xyz/info with the type tokenDetails returns total supply, circulating supply, the futureEmissions field and the largest non-circulating holdings. The Hyperliquid token is held on HyperCore, the order book layer of the chain, which is why the numbers come from the protocol itself and not from a model. Second, unlock aggregators such as Tokenomist or DefiLlama, which carry the date and amount per recipient group; they are convenient, but they partly model rather than measure. Third, the Hyper Foundation announcement around the 6th of each month, the only source that names the actual claim.

A practical note on the data: the genesis distribution of HYPE can be traced on chain, and the core team launched the token on November 29, 2024. Around 1.01 million HYPE have been burned since, which is why total supply at 998.99 million sits below the maximum supply of one billion. Anyone holding positions spread across several exchanges and a wallet of their own loses sight of these details quickly; a portfolio tracker with tax reporting takes the consolidation off your hands.

Hyperliquid unlock: what to take away

1. Do the arithmetic on the tranche instead of adopting the headline. 9.92 million HYPE are 3.3 to 4.5 percent of circulation, and the March claim rate of 1.75 percent turns that into a real supply expansion in the per-mille range. Which venues export the holdings data you need cleanly is shown by the crypto exchange comparison.
2. Keep August 29 apart from September 6. The earlier date is the larger one and the only one with a meaningful insider share. If you use Hyperliquid as a trading venue and do not merely hold the token, the alternatives are in the perpetual DEX comparison.
3. Document purchases and sales around unlock dates immediately. In Germany the holding period per purchase decides the tax liability, and it is precisely that allocation which gets lost in volatile weeks. The tools for it are in the comparison of tax and portfolio tools.

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

Bitcoin tax return in Austria: when an assessment is needed despite a crypto exchange

Ever since Austrian crypto service providers began applying capital gains tax to certain Bitcoin profits automatically, many investors assume the tax is settled. In plenty of standard cases it is: where an Austrian party obliged to withhold capital gains tax is involved and the tax has been withheld correctly, the private income concerned is in principle already covered by that deduction.

A crypto exchange does not, however, make the income tax return redundant as a matter of course.

Foreign exchanges: often no Austrian capital gains tax withheld

The most important case is foreign crypto platforms.

If no Austrian capital gains tax is withheld there, an investor liable to tax in Austria generally has to declare their taxable crypto income themselves. The special tax rate of 27.5 percent continues to apply to crypto income in principle.

The location of the exchange therefore does not automatically change the Austrian tax rate. What matters is whether an Austrian withholding agent has already paid the tax over.

Offsetting losses between exchange and bank requires an assessment

Even with entirely Austrian providers, a tax return can be advisable or necessary.

An automatic offset between crypto income and other investment income is not permitted. Anyone who books a Bitcoin loss at a crypto exchange and a share gain at their bank, for example, has to carry out that cross-provider loss offset through the income tax assessment.

That can result in a refund of capital gains tax already withheld.

Incorrect or flat-rate tax data

An assessment can also become relevant if the crypto service provider did not have the correct acquisition costs at the time of sale.

That applies, for example, to Bitcoin that:

• were transferred from a foreign exchange,
• sat on a hardware wallet for years,
• came from earlier crypto-to-crypto swaps,
• were not fully documented.

If the tax was withheld on an incorrect or flat-rate basis, the actual tax calculation can differ from the exchange statement.

The standard taxation option is another route

Crypto income is in principle subject to the special tax rate of 27.5 percent. Taxpayers can, however, exercise a standard taxation option where the statutory conditions are met.

That can be attractive above all where the personal average income tax rate is lower.

Such a decision should not be taken in isolation on the basis of a single Bitcoin gain, though, because it can pull in other investment income.

Tax reporting as the basis

For income accruing from the 2025 calendar year onwards, Austrian parties obliged to withhold capital gains tax must produce comprehensive tax reporting on request.

The document sets out income, losses and capital gains tax paid over, among other things, and can be used for the income tax assessment.

It is particularly useful for investors who use several banks and crypto service providers.

Typical cases for a Bitcoin tax assessment

An income tax return can become relevant in particular where:

• Bitcoin was sold through a foreign exchange,
• no Austrian capital gains tax was withheld,
• crypto losses are to be offset against share gains or dividends,
• several providers are involved,
• the acquisition costs held by the provider were incorrect or incomplete,
• there is foreign investment income,
• the standard taxation option is to be used.

Conclusion

An Austrian crypto exchange can simplify taxation considerably, but it does not make the tax return redundant in every case.

Where capital gains tax has been withheld correctly, income tax on private Bitcoin gains is often already settled in principle. As soon as foreign exchanges, cross-provider losses or incorrect tax data come into play, however, an income tax assessment can be necessary or financially worthwhile.

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

Garrett Langley says 99.9% of police are good actors, days after a report identified at least 69 officials accused of misusing plate readers.

The chain just put up its strongest day since mid-July, with $443 million in DEX volume and more than 3 million transactions.

Financial stability stays the Bank's primary objective, with the new duty written into a bill due before the Lords in September.

August is heading for its strongest month of inflows since October 2025 if the pace holds, one analyst noted.

Coordinators pressed agents with little budget left into experiments they called "permadeath," METR's investigation found.

Ripple is expanding its institutional trading business into U.S. equities with a new Delta One offering on its Ripple Prime platform.

The key test is whether Cardano (ADA) can sustain upward momentum despite the bearish chart signal.

On-chain analyst warns Zcash’s rapid 70% surge has triggered a historical risk indicator, signaling a looming correction for Bitcoin.

Shiba Inu (SHIB) hits a historic 15% August record after a major Japan breakthrough, but key technical metrics signal a potential September drop.

BlackRock continues to buy large amounts of Bitcoin while retaining dominance in the Bitcoin ETF ecosystem as momentum continues building.

Key Takeaways

• Nvidia’s CFO Colette Kress stated memory costs have surpassed previous projections and will continue rising through next year
• Supplier commitments from Nvidia reached $279 billion, representing a significant increase from last quarter’s $119 billion
• According to Susquehanna analysis, DRAM pricing may surge beyond 50% this quarter, while NAND flash could increase up to 60%
• Analyst consensus for Micron places the average price target around $1,525, with KeyBanc’s projection reaching $1,750
• Micron delivered unprecedented Q3 revenue of $41.46 billion and forecasts roughly $50 billion for the upcoming quarter

Shares of Micron Technology (MU) finished Wednesday’s session at $938.40 before climbing an additional 3.09% in after-hours trading Thursday to approximately $967.35, following Nvidia’s earnings discussion that highlighted escalating memory costs.

Micron Technology, Inc., MU

During Nvidia’s quarterly earnings presentation, CFO Colette Kress disclosed that memory cost increases had “surpassed earlier projections” and would continue climbing into the following year. The graphics chip maker revealed quarterly revenue reaching $96.2 billion, representing a year-over-year doubling, while gross margins faced compression from escalating memory expenses.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang offered no indication of curtailing memory expenditures. He emphasized the company’s collaboration with all three primary suppliers—Micron, Samsung, and SK Hynix—to expand production capacity.

The total supplier obligations from Nvidia have reached $279 billion, marking a substantial jump from the prior quarter’s $119 billion. Memory components represent more than half of these supply allocations, according to William Blair’s analyst Sebastien Naji.

“The memory shortage we’re experiencing today stems largely from the AI infrastructure expansion,” Kress explained during the earnings discussion.

Research from Susquehanna released Monday indicated DRAM pricing could climb over 50% during this quarter. NAND flash prices may surge by as much as 60%. Gartner forecasts global semiconductor revenue will reach approximately $1.6 trillion by 2026, with the memory sector alone nearing $837.3 billion.

Analyst Community Increases Projections

BMO Capital initiated coverage on August 21 with an Outperform designation and $1,300 price objective. KeyBanc maintains an Overweight stance with a $1,750 projection. The Wall Street consensus mean currently stands near $1,476, representing approximately 60% upside from present levels.

However, not all analysts share this optimism. TipRanks five-star investor Louis Gerard shifted MU to Hold, citing a GAAP price-to-earnings multiple of 21.99x, versus SK Hynix at 7.33x and Samsung at 12.14x. Gerard contended the earnings surge reflected pricing power more than volume growth.

Stifel’s analyst Ruben Roy observed that Nvidia refrained from fully transferring memory cost increases across its complete product range, instead absorbing some expenses internally. This approach alleviates concerns regarding potential resistance from Nvidia or its client base.

Leadership Restructuring at Micron

Micron revealed executive restructuring on Wednesday. Manish Bhatia assumes the position of president and chief operating officer, managing manufacturing operations, customer requirements, and pricing strategy. Scott DeBoer transitions to president and chief technology and products officer, directing memory and storage innovation. Sumit Sadana shifts to a senior adviser capacity.

CEO Sanjay Mehrotra characterized the present memory market conditions as foundational, supported by $22 billion in customer prepayments spanning 16 strategic supply contracts.

“This is no longer about commodities. We’re delivering high-value solutions,” Mehrotra stated.

Micron achieved historic Q3 revenue of $41.46 billion and projects approximately $50 billion for this quarter, with adjusted gross margin approaching 86%. The company’s HBM4 products are currently shipping at scale, while HBM4E development advances toward a 2027 launch. The upcoming earnings announcement is scheduled for September 30, with projected EPS of $31.26 compared to $3.03 in the prior year.

The post Micron (MU) Stock Surges as Nvidia Confirms Soaring Memory Costs appeared first on Blockonomi.

Key Takeaways

• Infleqtion (INFQ) shares climbed over 3.5% in early trading Thursday following announcement of a $20M NASA contract extension
• The additional funding supports ongoing work on the Quantum Gravity Gradiometer Pathfinder program managed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory
• Total NASA investment in the initiative has reached $40M with this latest award
• The project seeks to deploy the first quantum-based gravity measurement system in space
• Shares retreated from session highs as market participants expressed concerns regarding the absence of immediate revenue generation

Shares of Infleqtion (INFQ) rallied over 3.5% in Thursday’s premarket session following the quantum technology company’s announcement of a $20M contract extension from NASA. The stock peaked with a 5.69% gain during regular trading hours before retracing some of those advances.

Infleqtion Inc, INFQ

This additional funding will support further advancement of the Quantum Gravity Gradiometer Pathfinder initiative, which operates under the direction of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The new contract brings NASA’s aggregate investment in the program to $40M.

The Pathfinder initiative aims to deploy humanity’s inaugural orbital quantum gravity detection system, potentially revolutionizing methods for measuring Earth’s gravitational field from space.

Chief Executive Officer Matt Kinsella expressed appreciation for the continued support. “This additional funding validates the advancements our team has achieved and represents a significant milestone as we advance toward the mission’s subsequent phase,” Kinsella stated.

The CEO emphasized that transitioning quantum scientific principles into space-qualified systems demands extensive engineering efforts, rigorous testing protocols, and sustained partnership.

Share Price Retreats Following Initial Surge

Notwithstanding the initial positive reaction, INFQ shares declined during standard market hours. Market participants appear unconvinced that this agreement will generate significant short-term financial returns.

The funding supports preliminary hardware development activities, with no established schedule for commercial deployment of the underlying technology. Such ambiguity frequently dampens investor sentiment.

The company’s 2026 performance demonstrates this cautious outlook. INFQ has fallen 13.27% year-to-date, despite sustained attention on quantum computing equities throughout the broader sector.

Federal Support Expands Amid Ongoing Uncertainty

The $40M cumulative NASA investment provides Infleqtion with validation from a prestigious government entity, which holds significance for an organization still navigating early commercialization phases.

Partnership with a prominent organization like NASA enhances Infleqtion’s reputation in quantum sensing applications over the long term. However, enhanced credibility doesn’t necessarily satisfy investors focused on nearer-term returns.

The Pathfinder represents a proof-of-concept initiative rather than a commercial product deployment. Its purpose centers on validating quantum sensor functionality in orbital environments—a critical milestone, yet considerably distant from revenue realization.

Infleqtion maintains approximately 13.8 million shares in average daily trading volume, with a present market capitalization of $3.12 billion. Technical indicators suggest bullish sentiment, although Thursday’s trading activity presented a more complex picture.

The equity concluded the session with a 5.69% appreciation according to TipRanks metrics, despite surrendering a portion of the gains achieved during the premarket rally.

The post Infleqtion (INFQ) Stock Gains on $20M NASA Contract: Is It a Buy? appeared first on Blockonomi.

Key Takeaways

• William Blair maintained its Outperform rating on Palantir (PLTR), highlighting accelerating momentum in the Maven Smart System (MSS) Pentagon initiative.
• The defense-focused program is approaching a $1 billion annual revenue run-rate when combining multiple contract vehicles.
• Deputy Secretary Steve Feinberg issued a directive calling for a $244 million boost to Palantir’s Pentagon funding extending to March 2027.
• The fiscal 2027 budget proposal allocated $2.3 billion for MSS and the Joint Fires Network combined.
• U.S. government revenue growth at Palantir surged to 90% in Q2, a dramatic increase from just 5% in Q4 2023.

Shares of Palantir Technologies (PLTR) advanced to $183.12, gaining 3.17%, as investors respond to expanding government contract momentum centered around the company’s Pentagon initiatives.

Palantir Technologies Inc., PLTR

On Wednesday, William Blair analyst Louie DiPalma maintained his Outperform stance on Palantir, highlighting that the Maven Smart System is rapidly advancing toward the $1 billion annual recurring revenue threshold.

According to the firm’s government contract analysis, MSS represents Palantir’s most significant contract vehicle overall. DiPalma characterized the Pentagon’s commitment to the platform as comprehensive and accelerating.

“Every indicator suggests robust expansion will persist throughout the coming nine months,” DiPalma stated, projecting that MSS will achieve program-of-record designation before September concludes.

An August 4 directive from Deputy Secretary of War Steve Feinberg, labeled “Funding Palantir,” outlined plans to boost Pentagon appropriations for Palantir by $244 million extending through March 2027.

An earlier March 9 directive mandated that MSS transition to official program-of-record status no later than September’s end. Such classification would cement the platform’s position within Pentagon acquisition frameworks.

The fiscal 2027 budget proposal included $2.3 billion designated for MSS and the Joint Fires Network, representing a substantial increase from previous funding cycles.

Maven’s Military Applications

DiPalma highlighted that MSS has been characterized within defense circles as “equally critical on the battlefield as the most vital munitions.” The platform has been deployed with large language model integration for mission preparation, intelligence analysis, and target identification during Operation Epic Fury and Operation Absolute Resolve.

William Blair’s analysis indicates that MSS has been the fundamental catalyst driving Palantir’s U.S. government revenue growth from 5% in Q4 2023 to an impressive 90% in Q2 2026.

In aggregate, Palantir posted 79% revenue expansion over the trailing twelve months through Q2 2026, while maintaining gross profit margins of 84.8%.

Wall Street Analyst Perspectives

Palantir’s Q2 2026 performance exceeded FactSet consensus across key metrics. Revenue outperformed projections by 6.8%, operating income surpassed estimates by 10.5%, and free cash flow came in 9% above expectations.

In response to these results, UBS elevated its price target to $220, emphasizing revenue growth acceleration reaching 93% and improved full-year guidance projecting 82% expansion.

Truist Securities increased its target to $223, identifying sovereign AI demand as a critical growth catalyst. Truist maintained its Buy rating while emphasizing Palantir’s competitive advantage in attracting top AI engineering talent.

Phillip Securities adjusted its target upward to $215, incorporating a 6% upward revision to fiscal 2026 revenue and net income projections.

Benchmark maintained its Hold rating, acknowledging Palantir’s enhanced Rule of 155 performance metric.

William Blair identified competition from large language models as the primary headwind, suggesting that former Palantir engineers might develop comparable capabilities on LLM platforms at reduced expense.

The firm also noted that MSS deployment momentum could decelerate following potential shifts in political leadership.

Palantir’s market capitalization currently registers at $420.73 billion, although InvestingPro indicates the stock trades above its Fair Value assessment.

The post Palantir (PLTR) Stock Climbs 3% on Maven Smart System’s Path to $1 Billion Revenue Milestone appeared first on Blockonomi.

Key Highlights

• The discount retailer delivered Q2 adjusted earnings per share of $2.70, significantly exceeding the $1.11 Wall Street forecast
• Second quarter revenue reached $4.89 billion, marking a 7% yearly gain and surpassing the $4.86 billion projection
• Same-store sales climbed 3.7%, supported by a 3.3% boost in average transaction value
• Third quarter earnings per share forecast of $0.80-$0.95 fell significantly short of the $1.39 Wall Street expectation
• Annual adjusted earnings per share projection increased to $7.70-$8.05, exceeding the $7.04 analyst forecast

Shares of Dollar Tree (DLTR) declined approximately 3% during premarket hours Thursday, even as the budget retailer delivered robust second-quarter performance. The market’s reaction centered on forward-looking guidance rather than past results.

Dollar Tree, Inc., DLTR

The retailer announced second-quarter adjusted earnings of $2.70 per share, substantially outperforming Wall Street’s consensus projection of $1.11. Top-line revenue totaled $4.89 billion, representing a 7% year-over-year expansion and exceeding the anticipated $4.86 billion.

Same-store net sales advanced 3.7% during the period. This growth stemmed from a 3.3% rise in average transaction size combined with a modest 0.4% improvement in customer traffic.

Importantly, the second-quarter performance incorporated a $1.31 per share boost from tariff-related refunds. Excluding this one-time benefit reveals a more modest underlying performance.

Chief Executive Mike Creedon highlighted the traffic improvement as an encouraging indicator. “What continues to set Dollar Tree apart is our ability to deliver value, convenience, and the excitement of discovery all in one shopping trip,” he stated.

Weak Third Quarter Forecast Triggers Decline

The market reaction hinged entirely on forward projections: Dollar Tree issued third-quarter adjusted earnings guidance of $0.80 to $0.95 per share, representing a midpoint of $0.88. This figure sits substantially below Wall Street’s $1.39 consensus expectation.

Management identified roughly $0.50 per share in third-quarter costs associated with reinvesting tariff refund proceeds, which is pressuring near-term profitability metrics.

For third-quarter revenue, Dollar Tree projects net sales between $5.0 billion and $5.1 billion, accompanied by comparable store net sales expansion of 3.0% to 4.0%.

Full-Year Forecast Gets Upgrade

Notwithstanding the third-quarter shortfall, the company elevated its full-year adjusted earnings per share projection to $7.70-$8.05, with a midpoint of $7.88. This surpasses the analyst consensus target of $7.04.

The annual guidance incorporates approximately $0.60 in net benefits tied to tariff refund impacts.

Management maintained its yearly revenue forecast at $20.5 billion to $20.7 billion. This projection assumes comparable store net sales growth of 3% to 4% throughout the fiscal year.

Wall Street’s consensus estimate for annual net sales stands at $20.65 billion, positioning the company’s revenue outlook approximately in alignment with market expectations.

The retailer kept its annual sales guidance unchanged for the second straight quarter. Thursday’s primary positive development was the upward revision to full-year earnings expectations.

The post Dollar Tree (DLTR) Stock Drops Despite Impressive Q2 Earnings Beat appeared first on Blockonomi.

Key Takeaways

• Wolfe Research maintained its Outperform stance on Alphabet (GOOGL) with a $460 target price, suggesting 34.5% potential upside
• The investment firm boosted its 2027 revenue projection by 10% to $595 billion while lifting EPS expectations by 6% to $15.89
• Wolfe anticipates Google Cloud Platform revenue will surge 125% year-over-year in Q3, significantly exceeding the Street’s 87% consensus
• The cloud division delivered 82% year-over-year revenue expansion in Q2, hitting $24.8 billion with a 35.6% operating margin
• A total of 29 Wall Street analysts maintain a consensus Strong Buy rating on GOOGL, with a mean price target of $422.22

Wolfe Research’s Shweta Khajuria has positioned Alphabet (GOOGL) among the firm’s premier stock selections for 2027, maintaining an Outperform rating alongside a $460 price objective. This target suggests approximately 34.5% upside potential from present trading levels. The shares currently change hands near $342, sporting a P/E ratio of 17.14 and a PEG ratio of 0.15.

Alphabet Inc., GOOGL

Notwithstanding the optimistic outlook, GOOGL exhibited downward momentum in Thursday’s pre-market session, declining approximately 0.80%.

Khajuria elevated her 2027 revenue projection by 10% to reach $595 billion while simultaneously boosting her EPS estimate by 6% to $15.89. According to the analyst, the firm identifies “meaningful upside to consensus” and maintains that establishing a 2027 forecast is timely.

Cloud Platform Expansion Powers Investment Thesis

Google Cloud sits at the foundation of Wolfe’s optimistic perspective. Khajuria projects Google Cloud Platform revenue will climb 125% year-over-year during Q3. The current Wall Street consensus anticipates 87% growth for the identical timeframe. This represents a substantial divergence.

The cloud division demonstrated robust Q2 performance, with segment revenue surging 82% year-over-year to $24.8 billion, surpassing market projections of $22.5 billion. Operating income reached $8.81 billion, elevating the cloud segment’s operating margin to 35.6%. Strong demand for enterprise AI capabilities and TPUs fueled the expansion.

Khajuria holds the 866th position among 12,294 analysts monitored on TipRanks, maintaining a 4.6-star rating alongside an average return per rating of 20.70%.

Latest Product Innovations from Google

Regarding product development, Google has demonstrated significant activity. The technology giant unveiled flexible billing options for its Gemini Enterprise AI agents, enabling developers to pay according to compute and token consumption without upfront commitments.

Google additionally introduced Gemini 3.5 Transcribe, a speech-to-text solution delivering a 4.0% word error rate for streaming applications. The model demonstrates superior performance with background noise and technical terminology compared to earlier versions.

Gemini Live received enhancements as well, incorporating productivity capabilities that enable users to manage tasks and calendars through voice interactions, featuring integration throughout Google Docs, Sheets, and Drive.

In related coverage, Citizens upheld its Market Outperform rating on Alphabet with a $515 price objective, highlighting cloud infrastructure and AI model advancement.

Alphabet has generated a 65% return throughout the previous 12 months. InvestingPro indicates the stock may trade slightly above its Fair Value calculation.

Of the 29 Wall Street analysts tracking the stock, 24 assign it a Buy rating while five maintain a Hold recommendation. The consensus price target sits at $422.22, indicating approximately 23% upside from current trading levels.

The post Alphabet (GOOGL) Stock: Wolfe Research Sees 34.5% Upside Driven by Cloud Acceleration appeared first on Blockonomi.

[PRESS RELEASE – Singapore, Singapore, August 27th, 2026]

TermMax, a fixed-rate lending protocol built by Term Structure Labs, announced on August 26 that it has received a strategic investment from YZi Labs. Terms were not disclosed.

TermMax was selected for YZi Labs’ EASY Residency Season 3 and has raised more than $8 million to date. Its earlier backers include Cumberland DRW — which led the 2023 seed round — HashKey Capital, Decima Fund, Longling Capital and MZ Web3 Fund.

The protocol has been live on mainnet since April 2025 and now runs across 10 EVM-compatible chains, with 60 fixed-rate markets, 40 strategy vaults, tens of millions of dollars in total value locked and more than 1.5 million registered wallets. Keyrock, Hardcore Labs, Edge Capital and Origami serve as Curators, managing strategy vaults on the protocol. The $TMX token completed its TGE on August 25.

The investor’s own public position points to the gap this investment is meant to fill. In an August 14 post describing what it wants to see built, YZi Labs wrote that tokenized blue-chip equities have reached meaningful volume, but that the financial application layer around them — credit, collateral management, risk transfer and structured products — remains underdeveloped, and that options and other risk-transfer products in particular remain conspicuously absent.

YZi Labs placed this investment precisely where that gap sits.

“When I left banking, there were a few hundred billion dollars of assets sitting on-chain without a single directly observable interest rate curve between them. In traditional markets, that would be unheard of. That is what made me decide to build this infrastructure on-chain.” – Jerry Li, Co-founder and CEO, TermMax.

Tokenized equities are the fastest-growing asset class on-chain, now at $2.48 billion, with holder count up 165% in 30 days.

TermMax integrated Ondo Global Markets in January 2026 to launch the first fixed-rate borrowing market to accept tokenized U.S. equities as collateral, then added Binance’s bStock. In August it went live on Robinhood Chain, where QQQ, SPY and NVDA can be posted against USDG.

But financing is only half of what tokenized equities need. Nearly all of this year’s tokenized-equity infrastructure has gone into perpetual futures, and almost none into options.

TermMax Alpha is where that changes: physical delivery options, with no liquidation before expiry. The conversion price is fixed when the position is opened, and the position is settled by physical delivery at expiry. A directionally correct position therefore cannot be knocked out by a few minutes of volatile trading in thin liquidity — the failure mode that makes perpetuals unsuitable at the illiquid end of tokenized equities.

This no-liquidation design rests on a choice running through the whole protocol: when liquidation does happen, it settles by physical delivery, with collateral delivered directly to the lender rather than sold into the market. The usual assumption — that collateral can be sold at fair value on demand — holds for ETH and fails for a tokenized equity with a few million dollars of depth.

On the institutional side, TermPrime completed its first live trade on Canton Network at the end of June and has since grown its counterparty network to nine institutions.

TermMax runs an early validator node on Canton, and TermPrime is ready to support lending business for institutions there through open markets.

TermMax holds a DeFiSafety Process Quality Review score of 93%, matching Aave V3.

“What we set out to do is not to teach traditional institutions DeFi. It is to let DeFi grow into something professional enough to genuinely serve finance.” – Jerry Li, Co-founder and CEO, TermMax.

What TermMax wants to be is not another lending protocol, but the on-chain interest rate curve itself.

About TermMax

TermMax is a fixed-rate, fixed-term borrowing and lending marketplace built by Term Structure Labs, live on mainnet since April 2025 and deployed across 10 EVM-compatible chains, where it runs 60 fixed-rate markets and 40 strategy vaults. The protocol splits debt into three tradable tokens: FT (principal), XT (interest and option value) and GT (an ERC-721 receipt for leveraged positions). Professional Curators set target APR ranges across isolated markets and manage strategy vaults, and liquidations settle by physical delivery of collateral. Co-founder and CEO Jerry Li has 25 years in global financial markets and served as Managing Director at Deutsche Bank, running fixed income and FX for Greater China.

Website: https://ts.finance/

About YZi Labs

YZi Labs manages over $10 billion in assets globally. Our investment philosophy emphasizes impact first — we believe that meaningful returns will naturally follow. We invest in ventures at every stage, prioritizing those with solid fundamentals in Web3, AI, and biotech. YZi Labs’ portfolio covers over 300 projects from over 25 countries across six continents. Some notable portfolios include Trust Wallet, CoinMarketCap, Polygon, Injective, Ethena, SafePal Wallet, Better Payment Network, Aster, XAI, and more. More than 65 of YZi Labs’ portfolio companies have gone through our incubation program, EASY Residency. For more information, follow YZi Labs on X (@yzilabs).

The post YZi Labs Backs TermMax to Advance On-Chain Bond Market Infrastructure appeared first on CryptoPotato.

The company behind XRP has made another move geared toward Wall Street and beyond its cryptocurrency roots by launching a new institutional trading business with Ripple Prime.

The new initiative, announced earlier on Thursday, will allow hedge funds, asset managers, and other institutional clients to execute Total Return Swaps (TRS) across US-listed equities, indices, and digital assets.

Deeper Into Wall Street

The announcement shared by the company informed that the service is already live, and it aims to expand the firm’s presence in traditional financial markets less than a year after completing its $1.25 billion acquisition of prime broker Hidden Road.

Products within Delta One are derivatives designed to closely track the performance of an underlying asset or index. A TRS, for instance, allows an investor to receive the gains and income generated by an asset without necessarily owning it directly, in exchange for paying financing costs and absorbing losses.

Ripple Prime has expanded the scope of assets available on its platform as clients can now access equities alongside foreign exchange, fixed income, derivatives, and cryptocurrencies through a single counterparty relationship. The company said customers can also cross-margin exposures across those different assets around the clock, potentially reducing the amount of collateral institutions need to maintain separately.

Ripple Prime’s President, Noel Kimmel, said that these sorts of services are what institutional market participants are “asking for today, and we are proud to be the ones delivering it.”

Beyond Crypto

Ripple’s acquisition of Hidden Road (later renamed Ripple Prime) was initially announced in April 2025 and completed by the end of the year. It became the first crypto company to own and operate a global multi-asset prime broker, clearing over $3 trillion annually and serving more than 300 institutional customers.

As reported a few months back, Ripple Prime also received an investment-grade BBB rating from KBRA, with the agency pointing to its growth in clearing and intermediation across exchange-traded derivatives and fixed-income repo markets.

Earlier in August, Ripple Prime announced an upsized $275 million private placement of senior unsecured notes, following a $200 million debt facility secured from Neuberger Specialty Finance in May. The entity said it would use the fresh capital to support its continued expansion.

The post Ripple (XRP) Makes Major Wall Street Push With New Institutional Trading Business appeared first on CryptoPotato.

The second-largest cryptocurrency rose by 2% over the past 24 hours, thus once again jumping beyond the $2,500 milestone and adding fresh fuel to analysts’ prevailing bullish outlook.

However, not everyone shares that optimism, with one market observer warning of a potential 40% collapse ahead.

Modest and Ridiculous Targets

ETH’s increase to approximately $2.5K seems to be a major turning point for the asset. X user Gerla claimed a clean break above that mark could mark the beginning of a new bull run, while losing the rising support may hamper the overall uptrend.

Ted spoke on the matter when ETH briefly climbed to the resistance zone of $2,550. In his view, a weekly close above that level could result in a further surge to $3,000. Shortly after, he suggested that a daily close beyond might be followed by a 10%-15%.

KriptoXI also believes Ethereum is at “a make-or-break” level, predicting a spike to $2,800 if the asset clears $2,550. At the same time, a plunge below $2,400 could weaken bullish momentum and trigger a deeper pullback.

Of course, there are some who envisioned an “up only” scenario from here on. Crypto Patel pointed to striking parallels between ETH’s current path and past market cycles, opining that if history repeats, the next target could be beyond $20,000. Not long ago, Credible Crypto also floated the idea that the asset’s valuation might be headed toward such a parabolic increase.

Prepare for a Crash?

X user Nonzee, who recently claimed that BTC’s rally could be abruptly ended by a violent decline toward $45,000, expects a similar scenario with ETH. The analyst described the asset’s breakout to $2,500 as a trap, adding that the price must first retest $1,500 before starting a bull run to $4,500.

“That drop will look like the entire structure has failed. It will actually be the final shakeout that completes it,” they said.

Ethereum’s Relative Strength Index (RSI) serves as a warning for such a potential correction. The ratio has jumped to 77, meaning the asset has entered overbought territory and could be gearing up for a move south. The technical analysis tool ranges from 0 to 100, where anything below 30 is interpreted as a bullish zone.

The post Top Ethereum Price Predictions as ETH Rises Above $2,500 appeared first on CryptoPotato.

[PRESS RELEASE – Singapore, Singapore, August 27th, 2026]

Two days at Marina Bay Sands in Singapore, on October 7-8, alongside TOKEN2049, with product reveals, leading voices in AI, and a live attempt at a sustained TPS record.

The Sui community worldwide is invited to Sui Basecamp 2026, held October 7-8 at Marina Bay Sands in Singapore alongside TOKEN2049. This year’s program centers on the agentic economy: instant settlement, autonomous payments, private transactions, stable digital dollars, and post-quantum security.

Sui Basecamp is the Sui ecosystem’s flagship annual gathering, bringing together the people building, investing in, and shaping what comes next on Sui. Over two days, founders, builders, developers, investors, traders, and industry leaders come together for product reveals, technical deep dives, hands-on demos, and direct conversations with the people pushing the technology forward. Top-tier speakers from inside and outside the Sui ecosystem will provide a peek into what’s coming next and offer a direct look at the infrastructure carrying finance onchain.

This year, one conversation will loom especially large: the rise of the agentic economy. The next $5 trillion in transactions won’t be human. Agentic finance needs rails that settle instantly, prove ownership and authorization, and keep transaction details private by default.

Hear From the Builders of the Agentic Future

What happens when you put a macro legend, the architects of Sui, an AI pioneer, a gaming visionary, and builders of the autonomous economy on the same stage? That’s just the beginning of the Sui Basecamp lineup:

• Raoul Pal, Co-Founder and CEO of Real Vision, has spent his career mapping where capital moves next, and was early to the shift from traditional macro into digital assets.
• Adeniyi Abiodun, Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer of Mysten Labs, is part of the team that came out of Meta’s Diem project that went on to build Sui and the infrastructure for the autonomous economy.
• Kostas Chalkias, Co-Founder and Chief Cryptographer at Mysten Labs, works on the cryptographic foundations autonomous systems depend on, including Sui’s push toward post-quantum security. He also will lead the Main Stage speed test.
• Hilmar Veigar Petursson, CEO of Fenris Creations and formerly CEO of CCP Games, spent more than two decades running one of software’s longest-lived player-driven economies. He is bringing that experience onchain through EVE Frontier.
• Alex Mourfarek, Director of Inception at Google DeepMind, works at the intersection of frontier AI research and entrepreneurship, helping turn breakthrough ideas into ambitious new AI ventures.
• Jen Zhu Scott, Co-Founder and CEO of Power Dynamics, is building the cooling and energy storage infrastructure that AI relies on to scale.
• Brian Quintenez, Director of Sui Holdings Group and a former commissioner of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, is an expert on public policy and regulatory frameworks in crypto.
• Richard Socher, Co-Founder and CEO of Recursive and You.com, builds at the front edge of AI research and the evolution of intelligent software.

Explore the full Sui Basecamp 2026 speaker roster here, with more names to be added over the coming weeks.

A Live Record Attempt on the Main Stage

On October 7, live on the Main Stage, Mysten Labs Co-Founder and Chief Cryptographer Kostas Chalkias will push Sui to its absolute limit in a public, real-time speed test. The target is to break Sui’s standing record of 6,086,766 transactions per second (TPS), recorded earlier this year on July 4th.

Participate live from Marina Bay Sands or anywhere in the world: submit your TPS prediction to compete for first (10,000 SUI), second (5,000 SUI), and third-place (1,000 SUI) rewards. Details will be announced by @SuiNetwork on X.

High throughput shows how much room the network has under real load, which is exactly what an economy of agents will demand. The test is built to mirror those conditions. AI agents and users will transact across games, payments, and chat using programmable tunnels, producing the velocity expected when software transacts continuously and at machine speed.

To ensure total transparency, web3 security leader CertiK will serve as the independent auditor for the attempt. Every transaction will be logged in a cryptographic transcript for post-test verification and formal reconfirmation, providing proof that can be mathematically audited rather than simply observed.

Following the attempt, attendees are invited to join a celebration on-site.

Get Hands-On at Sui Basecamp

Sui Basecamp isn’t just about what happens on stage. In the AI Builder Lab, get hands-on with the latest AI tools, join sessions led by teams building at the intersection of AI and Sui, and learn how to build AI-powered applications and agents yourself. Then head to the Trading Arena to watch your favorite traders go head-to-head live on Hudi where you can watch their moves in real time. Whether you’re here to build,or try something new, Sui Basecamp is designed for active participation.

Sui Basecamp Brings Builders and Capital Together

Sui Basecamp is designed around what happens when the people building on Sui occupy the same space. This year, the people building the agentic financial stack across protocols, wallets, payments, data infrastructure, AI systems, institutions, and applications are converging on the same set of problems. Sui Basecamp puts them in one room for two days.

If you’re building at the intersection of technology and finance, investing in the machine to machine future, or trying to understand where the next generation of economic activity is headed, this is the room to be in.

“Economic activity is shifting from people clicking checkout buttons to agents transacting on their behalf, continuously and at machine speed,” said Adeniyi Abiodun, Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer of Mysten Labs, the original contributor to Sui. “That only works when intent, authorization, and settlement can each be proven onchain. Sui Basecamp is the one place where every layer of that stack is in the same room, so you leave understanding the whole picture instead of one piece of it.”

Sui Basecamp 2026 is sponsored by AlphaFi, EVE Frontier, and Walrus at the Diamond level, ONE Championship at Platinum, Slush at Gold, RedotPay at Silver, and Scallop, Anyflo, Merkle Science, and Sentio at Bronze.

How to Register

A standard pass covers both days, including all presentations, programming, workshops, expo areas, and official opening and evening events.

Lock in the discounted rate at luma.com/SuiBasecamp2026 and join us in Singapore on October 7-8. Build with us.

About Sui

Sui, where money moves as freely as messages, is a next-generation Layer 1 blockchain built for scalable finance and global payments. Founded by the core team behind Meta’s stablecoin initiative and powered by an object-centric model, Sui makes assets, permissions, and user data programmable and ownable. Sui’s primitives offer builders everything they need to create high-performance payments and financial applications, including instant agentic payments. Learn more at sui.io. Learn more about Sui Basecamp at sui.io/basecamp.

The post The Agentic Economy Takes Center Stage at Sui Basecamp 2026 in Singapore appeared first on CryptoPotato.

Bitcoin (BTC) has pushed its daily relative strength index (RSI) above 85, a level crypto analyst Sykodelic says has never appeared during a bear market, after the asset reached above $81,000 this week.

The reading is being used to argue that the latest rally looks more like the opening of a new uptrend than a temporary bear-market bounce.

Bitcoin’s RSI Breaks a Historical Pattern

In a post on August 27, Sykodelic pointed to Bitcoin’s 10-year price history and argued that every time the daily RSI moved above 85, it either came near the top of a major uptrend or appeared at the beginning of one.

“Never in Bitcoin’s history has it ever tagged 85+ in a bear market,” the analyst wrote. “Even when Bitcoin was worth $10 in 2011 there was not a 1D RSI reading of 85+ in a bear market.”

However, he did acknowledge that the current move could become the first exception, but added, “But I doubt it.”

The analyst later described the price action as “vertical accumulation,” saying the current structure resembles November 2024, the last time Bitcoin’s daily RSI reached 85. The pattern starts with a move into overbought territory, followed by a rally that gives traders few entries. Price then works through resistance without large pullbacks, with a higher continuation while “everyone expects it to drop again.”

Derivatives activity has also picked up. Arab Chain reported earlier today that Bitcoin open interest on Binance reached about $9.54 billion, its highest level in three months, showing a clear return of activity and liquidity to the futures market.

According to the market watchers, an uptick in open interest coming at the same time that price is increasing could be a reflection of “growing confidence in the bullish trend.” However, it also raises liquidation risk if BTC reverses.

The Bull-Cycle Case Still Needs Confirmation

CryptoQuant recently offered a more cautious reading in an update published August 25, which showed its Bull Score had risen from 30 to 80, with eight out of 10 indicators in bullish territory, while apparent spot demand posted its fastest monthly increase since late December 2025. Spot and futures demand also rose together for the first time since early October of the same year.

CryptoQuant nevertheless set a condition for confirmation: Bitcoin needs a daily close above its 365-day moving average, currently near $83,000.

BTC’s rejection after crossing $81,000 also added another wrinkle, with the price falling by roughly $3,000 from that local high but remaining more than 22% higher on the week at the time.

The OG crypto was trading near $79,000 at the time of writing, having barely changed in 24 hours but still up nearly 14% in seven days, with a range stretching from about $69,000 to $81,000 in that time. Its 30-day gain stood at roughly 24%, but Bitcoin is still almost 38% below its October 2025 record of just over $126,000.

The post Bitcoin’s RSI Has Done This Only Near Major Bull Runs: Analyst appeared first on CryptoPotato.