The CLARITY Act's faltering progress highlights the ongoing struggle for comprehensive crypto regulation, risking prolonged market uncertainty.

The post Clarity Act odds slump to 18% as Democrats push back on ethics provisions appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

ARK's strategic sell-off may prompt short-term market volatility, influencing investor behavior and potentially impacting crypto stock valuations.

The post ARK Invest dumps $65 million in crypto stocks while the market rips higher appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Leeds United's tactical evolution under Farke signals a potential shift in Premier League dynamics, challenging traditional top-tier dominance.

The post Leeds United rises to third in Premier League under Daniel Farke’s tactical reinvention appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Meta's custom chips could reshape tech economics by significantly lowering operational costs and energy use, impacting industry standards.

The post Meta claims custom chips will reduce costs and energy use compared to Nvidia appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

The ongoing strikes highlight the challenges in achieving a ceasefire, undermining diplomatic efforts and affecting market confidence.

The post Russia and Ukraine exchange strikes despite Trump’s truce claim appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Bitcoin Magazine

Strike CEO Jack Mallers: Inflation Outlook, Bond Stress and BTC vs Gold

US debt-to-GDP has pushed past 120%, and Jack Mallers thinks the debate over whether the Fed hikes or cuts is beside the point, both roads lead to inflation. The Strike founder and CEO joins Bitcoin Magazine to explain why he told investors to study Japan, where outright yield curve control and central planning intervention are now required to hold the currency together. He argues the US is heading to the same place and that Bitcoin, as the asset most sensitive to fiat liquidity, is the fastest horse in that environment. Mallers also breaks down Strike’s shift into Bitcoin-backed lending and what it means to build a full Bitcoin financial stack under one roof.

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

This post Strike CEO Jack Mallers: Inflation Outlook, Bond Stress and BTC vs Gold first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Patrick Green.

Bitcoin Magazine

Will the Clarity Act Pass the Senate? | Connor Brown, Bitcoin Policy Institute

The Clarity Act reaches a make-or-break moment as the Senate holds a cloture vote that requires 60 votes from a chamber Republicans hold 53 seats in. Connor Brown, Executive Director of the Bitcoin Policy Institute and a former Senate staffer, breaks down why 7 to 9 Democrats have to cross the aisle and what happens to digital asset regulation if they don’t. He walks through Senator Cynthia Lummis’ updated draft, the roughly 120 concessions inside it, and the ethics provision compromise that got about 80% of the way there. Brown also explains why BPI has expanded its remit into open source AI and what that means for Bitcoin security.

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

This post Will the Clarity Act Pass the Senate? | Connor Brown, Bitcoin Policy Institute first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Patrick Green.

Bitcoin Magazine

Swiss Bitcoin Pay Shuts Down Servers After Data Breach

Another day, another data breach. 

Swiss Bitcoin Pay, a non-custodial bitcoin payment processor, said that it had to temporarily shut down its servers following a data breach on Monday. 

The Neuchâtel, Switzerland-based company said that user funds were safe but customer email addresses, bitcoin addresses and IBANs, transaction history, and hashed passwords were believed to be breached. 

The announcement comes amid a run of breaches hitting bitcoin and fintech firms. Revolut confirmed last week that it handed customer passports, driver’s licenses, verification selfies and transaction histories to an unauthorized party that sent fraudulent requests from a legitimate government agency’s email domain. 

And top hardware wallet manufacturer Trezor last week warned that a data breach at the third-party marketing platform it uses for sending newsletters was leading criminals to target customers with phishing attacks. 

“A malicious user has likely gained access to Swiss Bitcoin Pay’s internal systems …As a precaution, we are temporarily shutting down our servers while we investigate and secure our infrastructure.” Swiss Bitcoin Pay said on Monday. 

The company added that; “User funds are safe, and any amounts owed to users will be fully returned.”

Swiss Bitcoin Pay did not immediately respond to Bitcoin Magazine’s request for comment. 

The company lets businesses accept Bitcoin payments quickly and easily using both on-chain transactions and the Lightning Network. 

Criminals have increasingly been targeting data in 2026. Scammers in January were able to get hold of customer information via crypto wallet Ledger’s payment processor Global-e to send phishing emails. 

Crypto wallet provider SafePal last month also announced a data breach that involved ​unauthorized access to about 39,798 customers’ order information, ‌including personal details such as names, addresses and purchase data.

This post Swiss Bitcoin Pay Shuts Down Servers After Data Breach first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Bitcoin Magazine

Mallers: Bitcoin and AI Could Give Humans Back Their Time

Bitcoin — along with artificial intelligence — could help humans get their time back to create again, according to Strike CEO Jack Mallers. 

The reason: hard money doesn’t rob people of their time and energy and truly rewards people time and energy well spent, Mallers argued on Bitcoin Magazine’s debut TV show on Monday. 

“Money broadly is our time and energy in an abstracted form — it is the market good that represents the effort, the labor,” Mallers said. 

“If the money is bad, it’s very destructive to our time and energy: It robs us of our time and energy. You have to work longer and harder to get a house; you have to work longer and harder to get a vacation. You have to work longer and harder to have hours to pursue your artistic interests.”

“And if the money is good, it actually gives you and rewards back time and energy,” he continued, adding that Bitcoin and AI could free humans from the “drudgery” of bad money.

Mallers went on to cite the example of the creators of the airplane, the Wright brothers, who came up with their invention when the U.S. was on a gold standard. 

Mallers’ comments come following Bitcoin’s best run in years. Bitcoin gained about 25% in August, its strongest month of 2026 and its first positive August since 2021, closing the month near $78,000.

The run followed Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s move to expand long-dated bond buybacks, which pulled yields down and triggered billions in short liquidations.

Since the news, the so-called debasement trade has been back in the headlines again: when traders buy assets like gold or bitcoin to hedge against a currency losing its value. 

The dollar slid on the Treasury buyback news and an announcement the same week that U.S. debt had hit the $40 trillion mark. 

Speaking about the state of the U.S. economy, Mallers added: “This level of debt is unsustainable, so when people debate, oh well, what if they hike rates? What if they cut rates? It doesn’t matter: it’s all inflationary and it’s all untenable.”

Data on Friday revealed that the consumer price index, excluding food and energy, climbed 0.3% in August from a month earlier — higher than expected.  

The U.S. is currently in the grips of an affordability crisis, and it’s widely expected that the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates this week to tame inflation as oil prices have surged. 

This post Mallers: Bitcoin and AI Could Give Humans Back Their Time first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Bitcoin Magazine

Lummis Credits Trump for Ethics Deal as Clarity Act Faces Tuesday Vote

Republican senator Cynthia Lummis has praised U.S. President Donald Trump for agreeing “to the toughest ethics restrictions” in order to get the Clarity Act over the line. 

The pro-crypto senator wrote on X Monday that Trump had agreed to tighter laws which give state attorneys generals standing to sue to enforce the conflict-of-interest rules on federal officials.

Lawmakers will vote on the Clarity Act tomorrow. The bill aims to formally divide oversight between regulators, distinguishing which digital assets are securities, commodities or stablecoins — rules crypto industry executives have long called for. 

“Back in July, Trump voluntarily put himself, the VP, every federally elected official, judges, and their spouses under the strictest ethics rules this country has ever seen. Most people in Washington never would’ve offered that. Democrats still wanted independent, outside enforcement, not DOJ alone — so Trump went back to the table and gave more,” Lummis said. 

She added: “A no vote tomorrow kills the toughest ethics reform this country has ever put on the books, kills consumer protections for every American holding digital assets, and hands the future of this industry to our foreign competitors.” 

Alongside senators John Boozman and Tim Scott, Lummis released a new draft of the Clarity Act on Sunday night that gives attorneys enforcement new powers. 

An updated draft of the Clarity Act banning government officials from promoting or making money from crypto started circulating in July but Democrats wanted more work on it.  

President Donald Trump campaigned on a ticket to help the crypto space but some Washington lawmakers have criticized the way the Trump family has profited from digital asset ventures, such as the President’s memecoin, $TRUMP, and World Liberty Financial project. 

Trump and the White House have always denied any conflicts of interest. 

Speaking in an interview with Punchbowl News in August, about the Clarity Act and ethics, President Trump pointed out the Democrats have also made money from stock trading. 

Though passed by the House of Representatives last year, the Clarity Act has been stalled this year, mostly because the banking lobby clashed with crypto companies over paying customers stablecoin yield. 

Republicans like Lummis have accused Democrats of deliberately holding back the bill. 

This post Lummis Credits Trump for Ethics Deal as Clarity Act Faces Tuesday Vote first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

The CLARITY Act is heading toward a critical Senate vote with no clear coalition capable of delivering the 60 votes it needs.

Expectations for the landmark crypto market-structure bill deteriorated sharply Tuesday, with Polymarket odds of enactment falling below 20% after reaching about 34% during the previous 24 hours.

The reversal coincided with signs that Republican leaders are struggling to hold their own conference while Democrats demand additional concessions before supporting the legislation.

CLARITY Act faces hurdles

The Senate is expected to vote Tuesday afternoon on whether to proceed with the bill. Clearing that hurdle requires 60 votes, meaning Republicans cannot advance it alone even if all 53 GOP senators support the measure.

However, that assumption increasingly looks difficult as Sens. Susan Collins and John Cornyn are among Republicans who have yet to commit to the legislation.

According to reports, Collins has raised concerns about whether the bill could accelerate deposit flight from community banks, one of the financial industry's central objections to allowing crypto firms to compete more aggressively for customer balances.

Meanwhile, Sen. John Curtis plans to support opening debate but has drawn a distinction between allowing the process to continue and backing the legislation itself. He has said the current text would not win his vote on final passage.

The uncertainty has prompted the White House to intensify its outreach to Republican senators, according to Semafor, as administration officials try to prevent banking-industry opposition from peeling away votes the legislation can scarcely afford to lose.

The arithmetic leaves Republican negotiators trying to protect their right flank while finding enough Democrats to cross the 60-vote line.

That second challenge also became harder Monday night.

Senate Democrats agreed after a private meeting to send Republicans their own counterproposal. Democrats have since delivered the document to GOP negotiators, though they have not yet publicly disclosed its provisions.

Sen. Mark Warner said Democrats who had participated in the negotiations were making another offer after concluding that the latest Republican package still fell short. Ethics restrictions remain a central concern.

Republicans had spent the weekend trying to close that gap with what aides described as their final legislative offer, including tougher rules governing financial conflicts involving senior government officials. Those changes were meant in part to address Democratic concerns about President Donald Trump's crypto interests.

In response to this, Sen. Cynthia Lummis said:

“It's becoming clear that some Democrats simply won't get to yes, no matter what we put in the text. President Trump has now agreed to two historic ethics provisions — provisions these very members demanded. We've given you everything you’ve asked for, yet you keep holding the bill hostage, demanding more and more and more. It's beyond frustrating. There's nothing left to give.”

Crypto executives make closing argument as coalition frays

The crypto industry is now trying to convince wavering senators that Democrats have already secured substantial concessions.

Coinbase Chief Policy Officer Faryar Shirzad said the CLARITY Act addresses all seven principles Democratic senators outlined a year ago for acceptable crypto market-structure legislation, including regulatory jurisdiction, issuer oversight, illicit finance, conflicts of interest and consumer protection.

He said negotiators also incorporated 126 additional substantive changes requested by Democrats, portraying the current bill as the result of more than a year of bipartisan bargaining rather than a Republican proposal Democrats are being asked to accept unchanged.

“Democratic negotiators played a major role in getting it here,” Shirzad said. “They should vote for it.”

Ripple Chief Executive Brad Garlinghouse made a similar appeal, arguing that lawmakers had already made meaningful compromises on difficult provisions.

“Perfect can't be the enemy of good,” he said, urging senators to vote yes.

Those interventions reflect what's at stake in Tuesday's procedural vote. The crypto industry has spent years pushing Congress to replace the US regulatory patchwork with legislation that divides oversight responsibilities and establishes rules for digital-asset businesses.

But the coalition that brought the bill this far is showing strain from several directions at once.

Democrats remain dissatisfied with the ethics package. Banking groups are pressing Republicans over stablecoin competition and deposits. Some GOP senators are still studying a bill that has grown to more than 600 pages after successive rounds of negotiations.

At the same time, political pressure is spreading beyond the Senate.

Semafor reported that some House Democrats who backed crypto legislation earlier in Congress are becoming concerned that major industry-backed super PACs may not support them in upcoming elections despite their votes. That unease adds another layer to the standoff as crypto political groups decide where to deploy their substantial campaign resources.

A successful procedural vote would not settle those disputes. Instead, it would move them onto the Senate floor, where lawmakers could spend much of the remainder of September fighting over amendments, ethics provisions and banking issues before reaching final passage.

However, a defeat could be more damaging, with Lummis saying such a situation would “drive the digital asset industry overseas, leave consumers vulnerable, and sideline American [crypto] leadership.”

The post CLARITY Act chances sink below 20% as Senate’s path to 60 votes narrows appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Nearly 75% of XRP’s realized capitalization is concentrated in coins that last moved six months to two years ago. Their average realized prices start above $2, leaving the market’s largest cost-basis cohorts below their modeled entry levels while XRP trades in the mid-$1.40s.

A rally toward $2 would approach the average cost of the cohorts carrying most of XRP’s realized value, giving the market a chance to show whether those coins remain dormant or move more actively as modeled losses shrink.

A concentrated cost zone sits above XRP

Glassnode’s Sept. 6 realized-cap snapshot placed over $39.2 billion in the six-to-12-month XRP cohort and $27.5 billion in the one-to-two-year cohort. Together, the two groups represented 72.6% of the network’s realized capitalization.

Realized capitalization values each unit at the price when it last moved, mapping where the network’s embedded cost basis sits, while market capitalization values every unit at today’s price.

The related supply-by-age snapshot from Aug. 15 put 31.36 billion XRP (46.22% of modeled supply) in the same two bands. Both breakdowns use addresses, which can represent individuals, exchanges, custodians, or other entities. Transfers and custody changes can also reset when coins last moved without marking a purchase.

Almost half of modeled supply belongs to age bands whose average realized prices are above $2, but the data cannot show that every unit or beneficial holder in those bands is underwater.

Glassnode’s Sept. 11 realized-price data put the six-to-12-month cohort at $2.02 and the one-to-two-year cohort at $2.23. Realized price estimates a cohort’s average acquisition cost from the market price when its coins last moved.

Glassnode placed the three-to-six-month cohort near $1.40, the one-to-three-month cohort at $1.14, and the one-week-to-one-month cohort at $1.28. With XRP in the mid-$1.40s on Sept. 15, newer cohorts sat near or above their average costs, while the two groups dominating realized capital averaged below theirs.

Recent buyers have less distance to profitability, while a move toward $2 would bring a much larger stock of historical capital into the modeled breakeven zone.

Heavy rotation meets a policy catalyst

CryptoQuant contributor CryptoOnchain reported that Binance received 91.23 million XRP and sent out 113.91 million XRP on Sept. 11, with both gross flows being six-month highs.

At the same time, Binance’s seven-day average XRP reserve stood at 2.63 billion, 0.43% higher than a week earlier and 0.18% below its quarterly baseline. Average derivatives open interest was $476.7 million, up 0.23% week over week.

Large inflows can precede selling, while large outflows can reflect withdrawals or internal transfers. Both surging on the same day, alongside modest reserve and open-interest changes, supports CryptoOnchain’s characterization of gross rotation.

The contributor listed internal wallet movements and market-maker rebalancing as possible explanations, while leaving both unconfirmed. The analysis also excluded Sept. 12 from several weekly comparisons because that day’s fields were incomplete.

Tuesday’s Senate procedure provides the next outside catalyst. The official schedule says the cloture motion concerning H.R. 3633, the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, will ripen at 2:15 p.m. ET on Sept. 15.

The action concerns cloture on the motion to proceed, a step toward opening debate rather than final passage. Under the Senate’s ordinary cloture rule, legislation generally needs three-fifths of senators duly chosen and sworn, or 60 votes in a full Senate.

Republican sponsors said the final draft reflected 126 substantive changes requested by Democrats. A Sept. 10 release from Sen. Cynthia Lummis had described the earlier text as incorporating more than 114 provisions, indicating that negotiations continued before the procedural test.

For XRP, the vote’s relevance extends beyond the token’s regulatory label. A March SEC securities-law interpretation, accompanied by CFTC guidance, already named XRP as an example of a digital commodity. The interpretation created no new legal obligations and did not enact the statutory market structure CLARITY contemplated.

A positive response to progress in Congress could reflect expectations for the broader US framework around digital-commodity trading and intermediaries.

A move toward $2 would become more meaningful if older coins moved more actively, Binance net flows and reserves turned decisively higher, or open interest expanded alongside spot demand. Continued high gross flows with stable inventory would instead reinforce the rotation reading.

XRP currently sits beneath a concentrated cost zone while large volumes move through Binance without a firm directional signal. The next rally can reveal whether the six-month-to-two-year cohorts stay dormant or become more active as their average losses narrow.

The post XRP’s path back to $2 now hinges on whether the Senate passes the CLARITY Act appeared first on CryptoSlate.

DeFi platform Balancer is proposing an orderly shutdown after a cost-cutting overhaul failed to revive revenue following last year’s $128 million exploit.

The decentralized exchange’s Sept. 14 governance proposal would end new business development, begin winding down operations, and eventually distribute the remaining treasury to BAL holders. Token holders are scheduled to vote on the plan from Sept. 25 to Sept. 29.

The proposal comes about six months after Balancer Labs, the corporate entity behind the protocol, closed following a Nov. 3, 2025 exploit that drained roughly $128 million from Balancer v2 pools across several blockchains.

Data from DeFiLlama showed that Balancer once ranked among DeFi’s largest trading venues, with more than $3 billion in total value locked at its 2021 peak. That figure has fallen to about $58 million, reflecting both a broader contraction in activity and the protocol’s struggle to rebuild after the attack.

Marcus Hardt, former Balancer Labs chief executive, said the DAO had already tried a narrower survival plan. Holders approved proposals in April that ended token emissions, redirected protocol fees to the treasury and cut operating costs while a smaller team focused on generating revenue from Balancer v3.

The restructuring reduced the team from roughly 25 people to 12.5 full-time equivalents and cut the operating budget by about a third. But the commercial recovery never followed.

“The product worked. It did not sell enough,” Hardt said.

Balancer’s v3 bet failed to replace shrinking v2 revenue

The turnaround strategy centered on v3, including Boosted Pools and AutoRange Pools, formerly known as reCLAMM. Hardt said the latter was expected to help carry the protocol toward profitability after completing security work and reaching production.

Balancer also kept pursuing integrations with other crypto projects. Some discussions progressed, but commitments remained smaller and slower than management had expected.

Most protocol revenue still came from v2, while v3 failed to grow quickly enough to replace it.

Hardt said the November exploit weighed more heavily on adoption than he initially expected. Prospective partners repeatedly raised the hack during commercial discussions, forcing the team to explain what had happened, how the protocol had changed and why v3 should be viewed differently.

Many counterparties accepted those explanations, he said, but the damage still showed up in longer decision cycles and weaker commitments.

By August, Hardt said he no longer saw a funded route that could support the level of development v3 needed.

“I do not see a funded path that changes this picture,” he said, adding that continuing to spend treasury assets on a strategy already tested would be unfair to token holders.

Aave founder Stani Kulechov described the proposed closure as a loss for the sector.

“Sad to see this coming to an end,” Kulechov said. “Balancer has been pioneering DeFi. Huge respect for the team.”

LPs face an October exit deadline

If holders approve the proposal, liquidity providers would face the first major operational change on Oct. 30.

Pools that can be paused would move into withdrawals-only mode, with recovery mode enabled where necessary to keep exits available. Pools that cannot be paused would continue operating, though Balancer would reduce protocol fees to zero where contracts allow.

The DAO has yet to publish a pool-by-pool treatment, leaving liquidity providers with a proposed deadline but no final list of which pools will be paused, kept running, or handled differently because of contract limitations.

Funds recovered from the November exploit would remain outside the treasury distribution and be reserved for affected liquidity providers.

BAL holders would face a later process. A six-month redemption round is proposed for the end of May 2027, when holders could burn BAL in exchange for a pro-rata share of treasury assets measured at the opening snapshot.

The proposal estimates the managed treasury at at least $9 million, though the final amount will depend on asset prices, remaining expenses, third-party claims, and an audit of DAO-controlled holdings.

A second distribution would go only to addresses that participated in the first redemption round, with the later allocation based on how much BAL each address redeemed. Holders who skip the first window would lose access to that follow-on distribution.

The protocol’s code will remain open source, leaving room for developers to fork or continue parts of the technology independently. Hardt said some former team members are already considering that path.

BAL holders now make the immediate decision. If the vote passes, attention will quickly shift to the pool-level exit plan and whether remaining partners migrate liquidity elsewhere, fork Balancer’s technology, or abandon products built on top of the protocol.

The post A DeFi giant that once held $3 billion is now proposing to wind itself down appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Bitcoin’s August price recovery coincided with a sharp improvement in mining revenue, but the network is preparing to reclaim part of that gain.

A mempool.space difficulty reading preserved at 20:24:22 UTC on Sept. 14 projected a 4.6976% increase at the next adjustment, with 661 blocks remaining and the retarget expected around 05:42 UTC on Sept. 19. Against the current difficulty of 127.4508 trillion, that would imply a new level near 133.44 trillion if the estimate holds.

The immediate hurdle is simple. With Bitcoin at $79,158 in the same mempool.space reading, fees and other inputs held flat, BTC would need to reach approximately $82,877, or roughly $82,900, to offset a 4.6976% difficulty increase in dollar hashprice. That is a breakeven threshold, not a price forecast.

The projection is not settled. Hashrate Index’s Sept. 14 mining roundup showed a 5.26% increase for the same expected Sept. 19 retarget earlier in the day. Each new block changes the pace calculation, and estimators can use different windows. The eventual protocol adjustment, rather than either projection, will determine the squeeze.

A price-led recovery meets returning hashpower

August shows why price is so important to the calculation. Luxor’s August hashrate lookback recorded a 24.5% increase in BTC from the start to the end of the month and a 24.4% rise in dollar hashprice. The month’s two difficulty adjustments almost canceled each other, leaving a net decline of 0.34%.

Miners therefore received more dollars for substantially the same unit of computing work. In the mechanism Luxor described, that improvement can make more machines economical to run. If enough compute returns and blocks arrive faster than the 10-minute target, the next adjustment increases the work required and reduces revenue per unit of hashrate, all else equal.

The network estimates are consistent with hashrate above 900 exahashes per second, although the figures are not interchangeable. Mempool.space’s three-day endpoint estimated 951.25 EH/s. Hashrate Index reported a seven-day average of 943 EH/s and a 30-day average of 928 EH/s. These are windowed estimates, not direct readings of an instantaneous network total.

A Sept. 9 CryptoSlate analysis described an estimated pool of idle capacity that could return as economics improved. That figure remains background, not a fresh measurement for the current adjustment.

The current revenue mix offers little buffer. Hashrate Index placed spot hashprice at $39.25 per petahash per day, or 0.00049578 BTC per PH per day, when its BTC reading was $79,020. Its weekly data showed transaction fees averaging only 0.0183 BTC per block and contributing 0.59% of miners’ block rewards.

If BTC price, fees and uptime remain unchanged, the later 4.6976% difficulty estimate would cut hashprice by about 4.49%, from $39.25 to approximately $37.49 per PH per day. The percentage decline is slightly smaller than the difficulty increase because hashprice moves inversely: the current revenue rate is divided by 1.046976.

A higher BTC price, stronger fees or a lower final adjustment could soften that hit. A lower price or faster block production could deepen it. The CryptoSlate Bitcoin market page provides a live check on the variable that can move fastest: difficulty resets every 2,016 blocks, while dollar hashprice responds to BTC price continuously.

The efficiency line divides the fleet

The effect is not uniform across machines. The table below models the projected adjustment against a $48 per megawatt-hour power cost, the industry-average estimate Luxor used in its August analysis.

The model uses Hashrate Index’s $39.25 hashprice at $79,020, then scales revenue with each BTC price and inversely with the projected 4.6976% adjustment. It assumes unchanged fee income and uptime. The thresholds cover electricity only; pool fees, cooling, maintenance, downtime, debt service and corporate overhead all make the real cutoff stricter.

At a $48/MWh electricity price, machines below about 30.5 J/TH cover power in all three scenarios. Machines from roughly 30.5 to 34.6 J/TH move across the line as BTC moves through the modeled range. Machines above about 34.6 J/TH fail to cover electricity even in the $84,000 case. Curtailment revenue or cheaper power can alter those conclusions, while higher total operating costs can erase an apparent cushion.

That range also explains why one network-wide hashprice cannot produce one sector-wide verdict. Power contracts, fleet efficiency, curtailment options and business mix vary. Recent CryptoSlate coverage of HIVE shows one company combining a mining-led revenue base with an AI expansion strategy; it does not establish how other miners will allocate capacity.

Canaan offers a boundary on treasury claims. In a Sept. 14 operating update, the company said a combined sale of 54 BTC near $79,000 and 3,952 ETH generated $13.9 million. Part of the proceeds funded $5.4 million in share repurchases. Canaan retained 1,868 BTC and reported an average all-in power cost of $0.043 per kilowatt-hour, below the $0.048 scenario used above.

The disclosure shows that a miner sold BTC near the current price, but it does not establish distress or prove that the projected adjustment drove the transaction. Canaan characterized the move as capital allocation, and one company’s decision cannot support a sector-wide claim of forced selling.

The next macro event arrives before the expected retarget. The Federal Reserve is scheduled to conclude a two-day meeting on Sept. 16, with its decision at 2 p.m. ET and a press conference at 2:30 p.m., according to the official calendar.

That schedule matters here only because BTC price can change dollar hashprice immediately. It does not reveal what the Fed will decide, how Bitcoin will respond or whether miners will alter treasury policy. If BTC rises faster than difficulty, miners can preserve or extend the recovery. If price holds near $79,000 and the projected adjustment lands, hashprice falls toward the high $37 range. If BTC weakens, marginal machines face pressure sooner.

The race is measurable even if the outcome is not. The preserved reading puts the neutralizing BTC price near $82,900. Anything below that leaves at least part of the projected difficulty increase to reclaim August’s revenue relief, while the final margin impact will depend on the retarget that actually occurs and each operator’s efficiency, power contract and non-power costs.

The post Bitcoin needs to reach $82,900 to outrun a looming miner margin squeeze appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Glassnode reported that altcoin market capitalization climbed 21% over the past month, while altcoins' share of the combined Bitcoin-and-altcoin market fell 0.9 percentage points over 90 days, based on data as of Sept. 7.

Capital has moved up the entire crypto ladder together, with Bitcoin absorbing most of the gain while higher-beta tokens held their ground without gaining. That divergence sets up an unusually clean test this week, running through both the Federal Reserve and the US Senate.

The Fed decides how Bitcoin's recovery can hold

Bitcoin recovered roughly 27% from the August lows near $62,000, trading close to $79,000 as of Sept. 15. Yet, BTC remains well below the $83,000 to $86,000 band Glassnode identifies as a genuine cost-basis wall.

Roughly 1.07 million BTC was acquired inside that range, almost entirely by long-term holders, with the heaviest concentration near $85,000. Sellers positioned there are defending their cost basis, well beyond simply chasing a round number.

Below current price, Glassnode's True Market Mean sits near $76,600, functioning as the rough floor beneath this recovery.

Reports noted that 85% of economists expect the Fed to raise rates 25 basis points to 3.75%-4% at the Sept. 16 meeting. Futures markets have priced roughly 90% odds of a hike alongside several more increases through mid-2027.

Major banks, including Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, HSBC, and Deutsche Bank, have shifted toward expecting the move after last week's inflation surprise landed. The 10-year Treasury yield briefly touched 5% intraday on Sept. 14, its first such move since 2023, adding a materially higher global hurdle rate to a market already testing its own supply wall.

Spot Bitcoin ETFs posted four straight days of outflows totaling roughly $463 million from Sept. 8 to 11, snapping a three-week run of inflows. Farside data show flows turned positive on Sept. 14, with $159.9 million of net inflows.

The Sept. 16 surprise hinges on whether the Fed points to a single adjustment or the start of a longer tightening run, since futures already price something closer to a cycle than a one-off move.

Congress tests how far the rally can stretch

The Senate faces a cloture vote on the motion to proceed to the CLARITY Act on Sept. 15, requiring 60 votes to advance consideration. Republicans say their proposed substitute incorporates 126 substantive changes Democrats requested.

The bill's core function is establishing clearer SEC and CFTC boundaries across digital asset markets, expanding CFTC authority over digital commodities while leaving SEC jurisdiction over parts of primary-market activity intact.

Bitcoin already has most of the institutional infrastructure that clarity would extend to other assets: spot ETFs, regulated derivatives, established custody, and a comparatively settled regulatory identity.

CLARITY's marginal benefit falls more heavily on everything sitting behind Bitcoin in that build-out, such as exchanges, token markets, custody providers, and DeFi platforms still operating under an unresolved American regulatory discount.

Passing cloture would remove one reason capital has stayed concentrated at the top of the crypto ladder, though it offers no guarantee of an altcoin rally.

Two different levers for Q4

Easier monetary policy can lift Bitcoin's price without touching crypto's underlying regulatory bottleneck. Statutory clarity can resolve part of that bottleneck without making money any cheaper.

A genuinely broad rally in the fourth quarter, the kind that moves altcoin market share alongside altcoin prices, plausibly needs both conditions landing together to have a real chance.

Bitcoin trading above or below any single round number matters less than four relative measures once both events resolve. Whether the pair ETH/BTC strengthens and whether altcoin market share, which has slipped for months, finally starts climbing are indicators to watch.

Another key point to watch is whether ETF inflows continue while funding rates and leverage stay contained, and whether high-beta tokens outperform Bitcoin on good news well beyond simply tracking it.

Glassnode's historical comparison shows a 90-day altcoin-share gain of at least 2.8 percentage points near three of four past Bitcoin peaks. The Sept. 7 reading was negative 0.9 percentage points, so that late-cycle rotation signal was absent.

Where this Bitcoin recovery could go

The bull case has cloture clearing on Sept. 15 and the Fed delivering its hike alongside language pointing to a single adjustment, well short of an opening move in a longer campaign.

Under that path, Bitcoin gets its best shot at clearing $83,000 to $86,000 and testing the options market's next real cluster of interest near $100,000. ETH/BTC and altcoins both have room to turn higher for the first time in months.

That combination would be the clearest evidence that August's bounce marked the start of a genuine cycle.

The bear case has CLARITY stalling in the Senate while the Fed points toward the first move in a longer tightening run. In that scenario, the mid-$76,000s floor comes under real strain, and Glassnode's deeper accumulation zone near $62,000 to $65,000 turns from background context into an active downside target.

Higher-beta crypto absorbs the brunt of any selloff, as it has each time hike odds have hardened this cycle. Bitcoin's relative resilience would persist, but resilience within a falling market carries much less weight than resilience within a climbing one.

This week tests if anything can convince the rest of the market to follow Bitcoin's recovery.

The post Altcoins gained 21% and still lost ground to Bitcoin. What would finally turn the tables? appeared first on CryptoSlate.

The first release candidate for Bitcoin Core 32.0 has been available since September 14, 2026. For you as the operator of your own node that means two things: the feature set of the coming major version is settled, and when it ships the 29 series drops out of the project's maintenance window. Anyone still running 29.x today will get no more security fixes after the planned date of October 10. The check takes two minutes; the update costs half an hour depending on your setup.

Our own count of reachable nodes worldwide, which we carried out for this article on the morning of September 15, shows how large the affected group is: roughly six in ten reachable Bitcoin nodes run a version that will no longer be a maintained one once 32.0 appears. The figures and the method are further down.

Bitcoin Core 32.0: what happened on September 14

Bitcoin Core is the reference software of the Bitcoin network. It checks blocks and transactions against the consensus rules, keeps its own copy of the blockchain and is therefore the foundation for anyone who does not leave their payments to somebody else's infrastructure. By its own schedule, the project publishes a major version roughly every six months.

On September 14, 2026, the tag v32.0rc1 appeared in the project's source repository, the first release candidate of the coming major version. The industry outlet TFTC puts this at 12:58 UTC and gives October 10, 2026 as the planned date for the final tag. That leaves a test window of around four weeks between candidate and release. For comparison: the most recently released major version, 31.0, dates from April 19, 2026 according to the project's lifecycle schedule, and the corresponding maintenance build 31.1 carries the date July 7, 2026 in the download directory.

A release candidate is not a preview in the sense of a beta. The code is considered functionally complete. What still goes in now are fixes for bugs noticed during the test window, and nothing else. For you as an operator that means the content of the coming version is known, and you can check your configuration against it now rather than being surprised on release day.

Release candidate, feature freeze, maintenance window: three terms for this article

Release candidate

A release candidate is a build the project considers ready for publication and puts through broad testing before the final release. It carries the suffix rc1, rc2 and so on, and is withdrawn or replaced if a serious bug turns up.

Feature freeze

A feature freeze is the point from which no new functions are taken into a version. It comes before the first release candidate and is the reason the feature set of 32.0 can already be described.

Maintenance window

The maintenance window is the period in which a major version still receives bug and security fixes. Under its own lifecycle schedule, Bitcoin Core maintains the three most recent major versions at any time. As soon as a new major version appears, the oldest of those three slips out and is considered end of life. Versions in the end-of-life state generally receive no further security fixes either.

Our own analysis: 60 percent of reachable nodes lose maintenance with 32.0

This analysis was carried out by cryptoticker.io on September 15, 2026. The method in one sentence: at 06:35 UTC we retrieved the public snapshot from the node counter btcnodes.io (formerly bitnodes.io) and counted the version identifier each node reports about itself, grouped by major version.

We examined 26,516 nodes from that snapshot. Of those, 25,902 carry an identifier in the usual form with a version number; the remaining 614 report different software, 556 of them a library implementation with no version relation to Bitcoin Core. The count refers to those 25,902 nodes.

• 29.x: 8,629 nodes (33.31 percent) – precisely the series that drops out of maintenance when 32.0 appears.
• 28.x and older: 7,017 nodes (27.09 percent) – already unmaintained today. The 28 series has been end of life since April 19, 2026.
• 30.x: 1,732 nodes (6.69 percent) and 31.x: 8,512 nodes (32.86 percent) – the two series that will continue to be maintained alongside 32.x after the release.
• 32.x: 12 nodes (0.05 percent) – presumably test systems already running the candidate.

Adding the 29 series and everything older gives 15,646 nodes, or 60.40 percent. That majority will be left without maintained software the day after the release. A side finding from the same count: 4,459 nodes (17.2 percent) additionally report the identifier of the divergent implementation Bitcoin Knots, which has its own release rhythm and is untouched by this maintenance schedule.

What this survey cannot do belongs here too. The snapshot contains no country field, so a separate figure for any one country cannot be derived from it. The version identifier is self-reported and technically forgeable. And only nodes reachable from outside are counted. Anyone running their node behind a firewall or reachable exclusively over Tor does not appear in these statistics. The actual number of outdated installations is therefore likely to be higher than shown here.

The Bitcoin Core maintenance window: which version drops out when

The project's lifecycle schedule is a public table and can be read line by line. The entries that matter for you:

• 29.x, released April 14, 2025: end of life when 32.0 appears, so on current plans October 10, 2026.
• 30.x, released October 10, 2025: end of life only with 33.0.
• 31.x, released April 19, 2026: end of life only with 34.0.
• 28.x: end of life since April 19, 2026.

The project explicitly recommends running the most recent maintenance build of the highest major version you can move to. There is one particularity here that argues for a calm upgrade path: the project ships proposals for changes to the consensus rules in maintenance versions first, not in major versions. Anyone updating conservatively therefore still stays compatible, as long as their own major version is maintained. That compatibility is exactly what ends for the 29 series in October.

Reading your Core version: how to find out what your node runs

Before you download anything, establish where you stand. Three routes, depending on your setup.

Command line

On a server or single-board computer, bitcoind --version gives the version number directly in the first line. With the service running it also works via bitcoin-cli --version or, if you are talking to the node anyway, via the call bitcoin-cli getnetworkinfo; there the identifier sits in the subversion field, in the same form our count above used.

Graphical interface

In the desktop application you find the version number under the Help menu item, in the window with the information about the application. It also appears in the debug information window that the application offers under the Window menu item.

Prebuilt node package

Anyone running a turnkey solution, meaning a preconfigured operating system for a home node, usually reads the Core version in the detail view of the respective application. What matters here is the version of Bitcoin Core itself, not the version number of the interface around it. The two figures almost always differ, and only the first decides on maintenance.

Note the number down. If it says 29 or anything lower, you have a task for the coming weeks. If it says 30 or 31, you are on the safe side for now and can plan the update at your leisure.

What changes in Bitcoin Core 32.0: fee estimation, index, interface

The draft release notes for 32.0 sit in the project's development wiki. It is explicitly a draft and may still change before the final tag; the following points should therefore be read as a direction of travel, not as final wording.

What stands out is the emphasis on operation rather than on visible features. Fee estimation will in future combine the block-based estimator with the estimator from the mempool and comes out more cautious as a result. According to the draft, the transaction index takes up less than half the disk space it used to, though only after a rebuild of the index. Block validation gains a parallel prefetch of input data with its own setting for the number of worker threads, preset to eight and capped at sixteen.

At the network layer, the draft has a global rather than a per-connection limit on transaction relay, plus proof protection for Tor services where the counterparty supports it. The outdated encryption of the I2P network is being retired; anyone running their node over it should plan the switch before version 34. The interface gains new calls for handling keys and for exporting a watch-only wallet, and the built-in HTTP server has been rewritten, including a new cap on simultaneous connections.

None of this forces you to act on release day. Two points are still worth noting: the rebuild of the index, if disk space is getting tight, and the removed settings covered in the next section.

Removed options in bitcoin.conf: why your node warns after the update

The most common trouble after a major version jump comes not from the program but from your own configuration file. According to the draft, several settings that stood in guides for years are dropped in 32.0. Among them are a setting for full replaceability of transactions in the mempool and an older network option. Two keys also disappear from the responses of the mempool calls, unless you explicitly switch them back on through the setting for deprecated interfaces.

In practice that means: open your bitcoin.conf before you update and check every line against the release notes. A node that will not start because of an unknown setting, or that comes up with warnings, is an unnecessary night shift. Anyone who has hung their own scripts or accounting software off the interface should additionally check whether one of the disappearing keys is read there.

Testing the release candidate without risking your production node

Four weeks of test window is an invitation, and it applies to operators without a developer background too. The more different setups run the candidate, the sooner bugs surface before they land in the released build. Three rules make testing harmless.

First, a release candidate does not belong on the node your wallet hangs off. A separate device, a virtual machine or a test run on testnet is entirely sufficient. Second, before starting you verify the signature of the downloaded files against the published checksums; that is as mandatory for a pre-release build as for a regular release. Third, you report anything odd while the window is still open. After the final tag, the route for fixes is considerably longer.

Anyone wanting to be sure makes a backup of the wallet file and the configuration file before every version jump and keeps it separate from the node. That applies to the candidate as much as to the later release. How strictly the same discipline applies to hardware devices was demonstrated this year by the case of a manufacturer whose firmware bug affected an entire device generation.

No node of your own? What this update says about your custody

The larger part of the readership runs no node of their own, and that is a legitimate decision. This release still has something to say to you. Anyone leaving their holdings at an exchange or a broker is relying on somebody there keeping an eye on this maintenance window. Anyone self-custodying but reaching a third-party server through a wallet application is relying on the same unknown third party, just one layer down.

The practical middle route for most people is separating keys from software: the keys sit on a device that never touches the network, the software stays replaceable. Which devices are suitable and how they differ is in our hardware wallet comparison. Your own node comes as a second step after that, and the version question from this article becomes yours from then on.

Two cases from recent weeks show that maintenance is no marginal topic: a vulnerability in a Lightning implementation and a critical hole in a widely used wallet interface where only reachability from the internet decided the risk. In both cases the remedy was an update that was already available.

What this release is not: no consensus change and no price event

A word against the obvious wrong conclusions. On the draft as it stands, Bitcoin Core 32.0 changes no consensus rules. There is no vote, no signalling deadline and no point at which a node that has not updated falls out of the network. A node on version 29 will keep validating correctly after October 10. What it lacks are fixes for bugs found after that.

Nor is a release a price event. Anyone drawing a connection between version numbers and price moves is claiming something that cannot be demonstrated. The relevance of this date lies purely in operations: in the question of whether the software checking your payments is still maintained.

That leaves the question of timing. A jump to 32.0 on release day is no mistake for a private node, but no obligation either. Anyone on 30.x or 31.x has months. Anyone on 29.x or below should plan the switch for October, and specifically to the most recent maintenance build of the highest major version their setup allows. For setups where a full node demands too much disk space, pruned mode remains an option; the node does the validation work unchanged either way.

Checking Bitcoin Core 32: what to take away

1. Read your version and note it down. Via bitcoind --version, via the information window of the desktop application, or in the detail view of your turnkey solution. If it says 29 or less, put a date in October in your calendar. Anyone not yet self-custodying should settle the key question first and look at the hardware wallet comparison for that.
2. Prepare your configuration file and a backup. Check every line of your bitcoin.conf against the release notes, and back up the wallet file and the configuration separately. Anyone keeping their keys in an application on their computer should check its update situation in parallel through our software wallet comparison.
3. Test on a separate device, then move over calmly. Never run the candidate on the node your wallet hangs off. And if you conclude that you do not want to run a node of your own at all, then choosing the custodian is the decision that counts at this point, and the exchange comparison is worth a look for that.

The sources for this article: the Bitcoin Core lifecycle schedule with the maintenance table and the tag list of the source repository, where the candidate v32.0rc1 appears with its date.

(As of September 15, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)

When your Core Lightning node prints v26.06.7 at startup, that is no proof that the security fixes in this version are actually running. Anyone who pulled their update via Docker between August 28, 2026, 16:04 UTC, and September 1 may be running an image that reports itself correctly and still does not contain the fixes. The reliable evidence is the image digest, not the version output. This piece walks you through the check that requires, and through what to do afterwards.

The situation has changed in two places since our article of August 30: the faulty Docker window is now documented in the release note, and the embargo on the source code expired on September 11. Both change what you as an operator need to do.

What Core Lightning is and why this update concerns you

Core Lightning (formerly c-lightning) is one of three widely used implementations of the Lightning protocol, written in C and maintained in the ElementsProject/lightning repository. An implementation here is simply a standalone program that applies the same network rules as the competing programs but has its own code and therefore its own bugs.

The Lightning network itself is a second layer on top of the Bitcoin blockchain: two parties jointly lock funds in a payment channel and then settle any number of payments between them without writing every single one to the chain. Whoever runs such a node holds the keys to those locked funds themselves. That is what makes this serious: a bug in the node software directly affects Bitcoin that belongs to you and that nobody else is watching over.

Self-custody means taking responsibility, and that does not end with storing the key. It also covers the question of whether the software using that key matches the state you believe you have installed. If you would rather hold your assets without running a server service, you will find the devices for that in our hardware wallet comparison. For a Lightning node, though, there is no way around keeping running software current.

What went wrong with the Docker image of version 26.06.7

Version 26.06.7 was released on August 28, 2026 as a maintenance release. The project's announcement is terse: it is a point release fixing confirmed vulnerabilities that had been reported to the team over the preceding three weeks. A point release is an interim version containing fixes only and no new features.

For Docker users, something went wrong in the process. The release note was subsequently extended with a section that names the error outright: between August 28 at 16:04 UTC and September 1, four tags served images that reported v26.06.7 at startup but did not contain that version's fixes. The affected tags were v26.06.7, latest, v26.06.7-vls and latest-vls.

The project names the cause itself: an automated build process had published the images from a placeholder tag. They have since been replaced, and the wrong manifests are no longer referenced by any tag. A manifest is the descriptor file that defines which individual parts make up a container image. Anyone still holding the wrong version locally will notice nothing of this correction, however: what you downloaded back then stays on your machine.

One point clears a group of operators entirely. Anyone pinned to v26.06.6 or older was never affected at any point, according to the project. The problem only hits those who pulled 26.06.7 or latest during the window described.

Why the version number at startup is no proof of the patch level

The obvious check is also the useless one. A call that prints the running version merely reads out a string written into the program at build time. If that string comes from a placeholder tag, then an unpatched program truthfully reports the number it was handed and tells you nothing about the actual code.

That is the awkward part of our own article of August 30: there we had you check the version. For Docker operators inside the affected window, that check was worthless, without any way of telling at the time. Hence this follow-up, and hence a different check from here on.

The digest is the check value that uniquely identifies a container image. It is a cryptographic hash over the manifest, and therefore over the actual content of the image. A tag such as latest is a moving pointer that can point at one image today and another tomorrow. The digest cannot do that: change a single byte of the content and the value changes. It is therefore the only piece of information that tells you what you are really running.

Are you affected? The window, the tags and the three platforms

Three questions settle the case. First: did you obtain the software as a container at all? Anyone who installed the tarballs from the release page was never affected, because those archives were the right ones from the start. Second: did your download fall inside the window between August 28 at 16:04 UTC and September 1? The release note gives no exact time for the end of that window, so a degree of fuzziness remains, and in case of doubt it is better to check once too often. Third: did you use one of the four tags named?

Anyone unsure about all three questions is always right to run the digest check. That check costs you a single command and answers the question conclusively, no matter when and how you obtained the image.

There are three platforms for this version's images: linux/amd64, linux/arm64 and linux/arm/v7. The third has a peculiarity that concerns operators of small single-board computers: there is no release tarball for linux/arm/v7. The binaries for that platform are compiled separately and are covered by no signed manifest. Anyone working on that architecture therefore starts out with a weaker chain of evidence than on the other two. On top of that, according to the project the images carry neither provenance nor SBOM attestations, meaning no machine-readable proof of origin.

How to check the image digest of your Lightning node

The command named in the release note reads out the digest of the image held locally. It looks like this:

docker image inspect --format '{{index .RepoDigests 0}}' elementsproject/lightningd:v26.06.7

The output is the value you have to compare. The project names two target values for the corrected images. For the tags v26.06.7 and latest it reads sha256:0421a5f0d1b2e1ad639edfa17d777816040e3850d91bae7f2d32186d9c1e6da4. For the signer variant under v26.06.7-vls and latest-vls it reads sha256:6a5e05c13a65613f8c0fe3830c60248a6724e7206c1c23dd26ac2e98a3e72c1f.

Two notes on running it. The command queries your local store only, downloads nothing and changes nothing. And it refers to the tag you give it: if you work with latest, use latest; if you run the signer variant, use the respective -vls tag. If the value printed matches the target value character for character, you are done and running the corrected build.

What matters is comparing the full length. A quick glance at the first and last four characters is not enough, because that is precisely the part a human waves through as "close enough" when in doubt. Copy both values next to one another and compare them mechanically, for instance by writing the target value into a file and checking the output against it.

Digest does not match: how to pull the corrected image

If the value differs, the remedy is unspectacular. You pull the image again, for every tag you actually use:

docker pull elementsproject/lightningd:v26.06.7
docker pull elementsproject/lightningd:latest

Then check the digest again with the same command as above. Only once the new value matches the target value do you restart the container, so that the running process actually uses the fresh image. A pull on its own does not replace a running container; your node keeps running on the old state until it restarts.

Anyone running containers through a Compose file or an orchestrator should make sure the configuration does not fall back on a cached local state. The cleanest approach is to pin the verified digest itself afterwards instead of the moving tag. The same mix-up then cannot happen to you a second time, because the reference is bound to the content rather than to a name.

One change at the margin may show up on restart: in the current images, Core Lightning is installed to /usr/bin and /usr/libexec/c-lightning, whereas earlier images used /usr/local. Symlinks from the old locations are included, so hard-wired paths continue to work. Anyone running their own scripts with absolute paths should still give them a once-over.

VLS operators: why the signer has to match the node version

VLS stands for Validating Lightning Signer and denotes a separated signing service that holds the node's keys and checks every signature against its own rules before issuing it. The point of it: even if the node is compromised, an attacker cannot talk the signer into arbitrary payouts.

For these operators there is a hard edge when moving to 26.06.7. According to the project, the v26.06.7-vls variant contains the same signer as v26.06.6-vls, namely VLS v0.14.0, which this release leaves untouched. The signer does, however, require the VLS_CLN_VERSION variable to match the node it talks to. If it still reads v26.06.6 while the node runs v26.06.7, remote_hsmd_socket refuses to start.

That is inconvenient but benign in effect: the service does not start at all rather than carrying on in a half-matching state. Set the variable during the upgrade and the signer stays reachable. Anyone who misreads the message and rolls the node back to the old version to get the signer running undoes precisely the fix this is all about.

The embargo has ended: what that means for unpatched nodes

The project had deliberately withheld the source code for this version. The reasoning is in the release note: a patch shows which code it changes, and the delay was meant to lower the likelihood of attackers reverse-engineering the fixes and exploiting them before the network had updated.

That period is over. The release note now says so in as many words: "The embargo has ended. The source for this release was published on 2026-09-11T11:42Z." The v26.06.7 tag has since pointed at the commit the binaries were built from, and the source archive is attached to the release.

For you as an operator, that reverses the risk picture. Until September 11, an unpatched node was also protected by the fact that attackers did not know the details. That protection has fallen away with nothing to replace it, because the changes have been publicly readable ever since. Anyone who has not caught up by today is running software whose vulnerabilities are documented and open to inspection by anyone. The project also states that versions before 26.06.7 are no longer supported.

Notable on the side, and readable from the release metadata itself: the signature file for the amd64 checksums was not uploaded until September 12, 2026 at 06:02 UTC. Anyone wanting to verify the signature before that found none for this architecture. The checksum file itself, by contrast, had been available since August 28.

Why the --offline stopgap is no substitute for the update

The project announcement of August 28 included an interim step for everyone unable to update straight away. A restart with the --offline flag cuts the node off from incoming messages and thereby denies attackers any way of addressing it at all. The service keeps running and processes the blockchain, so it can still detect a cheating attempt by the channel partner. The project writes that the flag should be removed again after the upgrade and the node restarted.

This stopgap was intended for the period without public details. Since September 11 it is no longer a substitute for the update, only a bridge covering the hours you need to catch up. A sealed-off node forwards no payments, earns no fees and is unreachable for counterparties. As a permanent state, that is expensive downtime.

The same check routine is worth applying to other building blocks in your own setup. If you put a management interface in front of the node, you should know how reachable it is from the network as well; we described that route for Alby Hub on September 11. The starting point for this series of vulnerabilities is in our article of August 30, Core Lightning: what node operators have to do now.

Installed without Docker? How to verify checksums and signatures

Anyone obtaining the tarballs from the release page has the better chain of evidence but also has to walk it. Every binary is covered by a signed manifest. First you check the checksums:

sha256sum -c SHA256SUMS-v26.06.7 --ignore-missing

Then the signature over that checksum file:

gpg --verify SHA256SUMS-v26.06.7.asc SHA256SUMS-v26.06.7

The file SHA256SUMS-v26.06.7 covers the amd64 archives; for arm64 there is a separate file with its own signature. Four maintainers of the project signed, and the release note lists their fingerprints individually. One detail spares you a false alarm: a signature can report a fingerprint that differs from the one listed, because the signers use subkeys. Once the primary key is imported, gpg --verify resolves this itself, and the discrepancy is not a failed check.

There is a second, faster piece of evidence, and it is the genuinely elegant part of this release. The checksum file contained a line for the source archive clightning-v26.06.7.zip from the start, even though that archive was not yet public on August 28. Because the file was signed back then, it amounts to a commitment made in advance to exactly the bytes that are published now. That makes it possible to show in minutes and without a compiler that the source code visible today is the same one signed in August, and that nothing was altered during the embargo.

Reproducible builds: where the chain of evidence for this version ends

A reproducible build is a build process that produces the same binary byte for byte from the same source code. It allows third parties to demonstrate independently that a published file really does come from the published source. For this version that holds only in part, and the project names the limitations itself.

First, the archives were not built at the default optimisation level. The configuration uses -Og by default, while the published binaries were produced with -O3. Anyone checking out the tag and building normally gets files that do not match the checksums; COPTFLAGS=-O3 has to be passed explicitly. Second, the arm64 archives cannot be rebuilt from this state, because the tooling required for it is not in this version's source tree. Those files remain verifiable through the signature but not independently reproducible. Third, the project points out that the Fedora rebuild may differ, because the build image there is freshly updated on every run and two people on different days can end up with different tool versions.

This reads as an honest description of a chain of evidence with gaps, not as criticism of the people involved. For you as an operator it means, in practice: rely on the signature and the checksum, and treat a full rebuild as a job for specialists rather than a step in your maintenance routine.

What this incident shows about supply chains in crypto software

The real lesson lies in the delivery and not in the vulnerability itself. The error arose in an automated build process that published an image from a placeholder. Nobody had to be attacked for it, and yet a file that did the wrong thing while claiming the right one sat there ready for days.

The project itself names a reason in the release note why such maintenance releases are likely to become more frequent: ever more capable AI models are being deployed to hunt for possible vulnerabilities in open-source code, which markedly increases both the number and the pace of reports. Anyone running infrastructure will therefore have to update more often, which makes the question of how you verify an update more important than the question of whether you carried one out.

Three habits follow from this, and they cost little time. Pin containers to digests rather than to moving tags. After every update, check the content and not the label. And keep a record of which version with which check value you rolled out when, so that at the next advisory you know within minutes whether it affects you. Anyone unwilling to put that effort into a running server service should honestly consider whether a leaner custody arrangement fits their daily routine better.

Checking your Core Lightning update: what to take away

1. Check the digest today, not the version number. One command, one comparison against the target value from the release note, and the question is answered. If you find in the process that running your own node is becoming too much work, our hardware wallet comparison gives you an overview of the alternatives to pure self-custody via a server.
2. Pull again and restart if the value differs. Pull, check the digest again, swap the container, and only then remove the --offline flag. For everything else you run in software on the node afterwards, the software wallet comparison is worth a look, because the same question of update routes and proof of origin applies there.
3. Build your maintenance around check values. Pin the digest, verify checksums and signatures after every download, document the state. And if you want to top up channels, you will find the routes in our overview of how to buy Bitcoin.

(As of September 15, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)

Primary sources: the release note for Core Lightning v26.06.7 in the project's repository and the Blockstream project announcement for the release.

Crypto exchange CoinEx is closing down. Anyone still holding a balance there has to withdraw it by December 22, 2026; after that the withdrawal channel shuts. The wind-down starts today, September 15, and the key interim date is September 29, because spot trading ends that day. From then on you can only withdraw a balance in whatever currency it already sits in.

On the day of the first wind-down stage we measured what is still technically possible on the exchange. The headline finding: of 992 listed currencies, 37 could not be withdrawn at the time of measurement, deposits had already been switched off for 465, and there was no euro trading pair anywhere on the exchange. This analysis was carried out by cryptoticker.io on September 15, 2026.

CoinEx is shutting down: the deadlines that apply from September 15

CoinEx has announced the closure as an orderly wind-down and attributes it to the prolonged market downturn, to falling trading volume and to supervisory and compliance costs the company describes as no longer sustainable. The exchange had been on the market for nine years. The wind-down runs in four stages, and each stage takes an option away from you:

• September 15, 2026: no new registrations, no referral rewards, and futures trading moves into reduce only mode. That means you can shrink or close existing positions but can no longer open new ones.
• September 22, 2026: all services outside the spot market are switched off. Anyone still running a leveraged position or an interest-bearing product has to unwind it before then.
• September 29, 2026: spot trading ends. From that day you can no longer swap a balance into another currency. The exchange says its in-house token CET will be bought back at 0.005 USDT per unit.
• December 22, 2026, 02:00 UTC: the withdrawal channel closes and operations end.

Between September 29 and December 22 the platform is therefore a pure withdrawal counter for just under three months. That sounds like plenty of time, but it pulls the decisive work forward: whatever you have not swapped into a withdrawable currency during the last week of September will sit there in exactly that form until the end. The exchange publishes its notices in its public announcements section; CryptoBriefing and the Asian industry service PANews, among others, reported on the wind-down independently of one another.

Why an orderly wind-down is different from an insolvency

An orderly wind-down is a process in which a company ends its operations by its own decision and returns customer holdings according to plan. That sets it apart from an insolvency, where an administrator takes control and payouts stop immediately. CoinEx states that it holds a reserve ratio above 100 percent and can pay out all customer holdings in full. That is a company statement, not an externally audited fact. How to handle such a statement is covered further down.

CoinEx and European users: why the July exit from the EEA makes the situation worse

For investors in Germany this is not fresh news but the second half of an old story. CoinEx already left the European Economic Area on July 1, 2026, and has listed the EU as an excluded region ever since. The exchange holds no authorisation as a crypto-asset service provider under the EU regulation MiCA, and without that permission it has not been allowed to serve EU customers since the transition period ended. Germany's BaFin has granted most of these authorisations across the entire Union to date and has visibly moved against providers operating without a licence.

In practice that means this: if you are a German user still holding a residual balance at CoinEx, it dates from before July, and you have already been asked once to act. Residual holdings of exactly that kind tend to be left lying around, because they are small and the effort looks larger than the amount. This time that is an expensive misjudgement, for two reasons, both backed by figures below: the withdrawal fee eats a double-digit percentage of small holdings, and the exchange has announced a monthly custody fee for USDT that is not collected.

If you are reorganising your holdings anyway, it is worth looking at exchanges with a European licence, because with them this particular risk disappears: a provider with MiCA authorisation does not have to clear out of the European market overnight. We have described the general order of steps during a closure in a separate piece that explains what you need to do before a deadline expires.

Our own measurement: how many coins can actually be withdrawn from CoinEx right now

Whether a balance can be moved out is decided not by the date in the calendar but by a switch in the exchange software. CoinEx publishes that state through an open interface that can be queried without an account. We called it three times on September 15, 2026, at 03:50, 03:51 and 03:54 UTC, and evaluated the full response each time.

We checked 992 currencies with 1,011 currency-network combinations between them, plus 851 spot markets and 221 futures markets. The method is plain: for each currency and each network, the interface states whether deposits and withdrawals are enabled, what minimum amount applies and what fee is charged. We counted those fields and set them in relation to one another.

The three measurement windows returned identical values, which suggests a configured state rather than a brief outage:

• 37 of 992 currencies could not be withdrawn, which is 3.7 percent.
• 465 of 992 currencies no longer accepted deposits. Just under half of the inflow is therefore already closed.
• At network level, 38 of 1,011 combinations were blocked for withdrawals.
• 8 spot markets already carried a stored delisting date.

The number of blocked withdrawals is lower than you would expect during a wind-down. That is the good news in this measurement. The bad news is in the next section, because there it is about the selection rather than the quantity.

37 blocked coins: which balances cannot leave the exchange right now

Among the 37 currencies without withdrawals are several that do turn up in European portfolios. In full, and in the exchange's own spelling, they were: ARRR, AVAIL, BABY, CELO, CRO, DAG, DERO, DYDX, EGLD, ETC, ETHW, EURR, GLMR, HFUN, HYPE, ICX, KAT, LYX, MANTRA, MODE, MOVR, NEOX, OCTA, ONE, ONG, ONT, PI, PUMPBTC, PURR, REEF, SAL, USDR, VENOM, WING, XNO, XRD and ZIL.

Three entries stand out. ETC is Ethereum Classic, one of the older large currencies. CRO belongs to the ecosystem of a major competing exchange. EURR is a euro-denominated stablecoin, which is precisely the entry a European user might need as an exit into their own currency. The exchange does not communicate through the interface why these blocks are in place, and we claim no reason for them. Blocks of this kind can have technical causes, such as maintenance on the network concerned.

The finding still has a practical bearing, and an uncomfortably concrete one: if your currency is on this list, the December 22 deadline is no help to you while the switch stays shut. Your only route then runs through the spot market, and that ends as early as September 29. You would have to swap the affected holding into a withdrawable currency before then. So check the withdrawal switch for your currency now, not in December.

Withdrawal fees by chain: why USDT on TRC20 costs almost a thousand times more

The second finding of the measurement is the most expensive one, and it affects practically anyone holding a balance in stablecoins. A withdrawal at CoinEx costs a fixed fee, and that fee depends solely on which network you withdraw through. The same USDT, the same amount, the same moment, nine possible routes at nine very different prices. This is how they looked on the day of measurement:

• Plasma: 0.000043 USDT
• CSC: 0.0016 USDT
• Polkadot Asset Hub: 0.0036 USDT
• BNB Smart Chain: 0.0079 USDT
• Avalanche C-Chain: 0.021 USDT
• Ethereum (ERC20): 0.071 USDT
• TON: 0.22 USDT
• Solana: 0.48 USDT
• Tron (TRC20): 7.50 USDT

Between the cheapest and the most expensive chain, Plasma against Tron, sits a factor of 174,000, and even between the two most widely used routes, BNB Smart Chain and Tron, the factor is 949. Tron is the standard recommendation for USDT transfers in many guides, because the chain was long considered cheap. At this exchange, on this day, it is by some distance the most expensive way out.

The effect turns brutal as soon as the residual holding is small. On a balance of 20 USDT, a withdrawal via Tron costs 7.50 USDT, which is 37.5 percent. Via BNB Smart Chain it would be 0.04 percent. A fee exceeding the minimum amount is no isolated case at CoinEx: in 78 of the 1,011 currency-network combinations, the withdrawal fee came to at least half of the respective minimum withdrawal amount. For Tron USDT the minimum amount was 1 USDT and the fee 7.50 USDT.

What this means for Bitcoin and Ethereum

For Bitcoin there was only one withdrawal route, the Bitcoin network itself, with a fee of 0.0001 BTC and a minimum amount of 0.001 BTC. At the measured price of around 77,742 USDT per Bitcoin, the fee works out at roughly 7.80 USDT and therefore a tenth of the smallest possible withdrawal amount. Ether cost 0.000011 ETH on a minimum amount of 0.005 ETH, a ratio of around 0.2 percent. The difference between the two is no coincidence and follows the usual transaction costs of each chain.

The practical consequence for you: pool your holdings into a currency with a cheap withdrawal before September 29, and check every chain on offer individually when you withdraw. Make sure the destination address supports the same chain. A withdrawal to an address on the wrong network is the most common way to lose a balance for good; a hardware wallet with a clear network display largely takes that mistake off your hands.

No euro pair on CoinEx: how to get out of the exchange without a fiat exit

Among the exchange's 851 spot markets there was not a single euro pair on the day of measurement. Trading ran against USDT in 645 markets, against Bitcoin in 134 and against USDC in 72. A direct route from your CoinEx account to your bank account therefore does not exist, and none will appear before December 22 either.

The exit consequently runs through two steps. First you withdraw your balance as crypto assets, either to your own wallet or to an account with a provider authorised in the EU. Only there do you swap into euros and cash out. Anyone planning the second step anyway should set up the destination account before withdrawing, so that no waiting period opens up between payout and sale in which the price runs against you. We have worked through the trading costs elsewhere to show that a missing euro order book is more than an inconvenience.

The CET buyback at 0.005 USDT: what the price said on the day of measurement

According to CoinEx, the exchange's own token CET will be bought back out of user accounts at 0.005 USDT per unit on September 29. A buyback at a fixed price acts like a floor that the market orients itself around. That is exactly what the measurement showed: CET traded in all three windows at 0.005 and 0.005001 USDT respectively, so practically exactly at the announced buyback price.

The remaining daily figures show how the market found its way there. It opened at 0.004826 USDT, fell to a low of 0.0045 and rose to a high of 0.005043. Trading volume over the past 24 hours came to around 75.5 million CET, with the sell side at about 52.3 million clearly above the buy side at around 2.5 million.

From this follows a plain calculation for CET holders. Anyone selling on the market before September 29 currently gets roughly the same price as in the buyback, but carries the trading fee and the risk that the price slips before the sale goes through. Anyone who waits is relying on the exchange carrying out the buyback as announced. Both are defensible, and both hang on the same question: how reliable you consider the company's commitments to be. We are not making a recommendation here.

A custody fee of 5 percent a month: what happens to USDT you do not withdraw

For the case that a balance is still sitting in the account on December 22, CoinEx has announced an arrangement that is unusual and that you should know about. USDT not withdrawn by the cut-off date is to be transferred into separate custody. For this the company names a monthly custody fee amounting to 5 percent of the original holding.

Work that through, because the basis of assessment makes the difference. A fee of 5 percent on the original amount is not a proportional shrinkage that approaches zero asymptotically, but a constant deduction. On 500 USDT that would be 25 USDT a month. After twenty months the holding would be used up on paper. A balance you simply leave alone is therefore gone after just under two years, without anyone having taken it from you.

This construction is no isolated case in wind-downs; we have described it in earlier cases and shown what happens to residual balances after an exchange closes. What is new is the level. So set yourself a reminder for the start of December in case you have to postpone the withdrawal for any reason.

Reserves above 100 percent: what CoinEx commits to and what follows from it

CoinEx states that it holds a reserve ratio of more than 100 percent, so that all customer holdings can be paid out in full. That figure comes from the company itself. We can neither confirm nor refute it, and we expressly imply nothing else about the company.

As an investor you need the distinction all the same. A reserve ratio describes a state at a point in time, not a promise for the coming three months. Nor does it replace deposit insurance: there is no statutory protection for crypto assets on an exchange of the kind you know from bank deposits. The sober way to handle this is to take the order of events seriously. As long as the withdrawal channel is open, moving your money out is a decision you make. Once it is no longer open, you no longer make it.

Withdrawing your balance: which steps count before September 29

The order follows from the dates. Anything that needs a working spot market belongs before September 29. Everything else can wait, though it should not.

1. Review your holdings. Note every currency in your account and check for each one individually whether withdrawals are enabled. If it is on the blocked list above, you only have until September 29 to swap it.
2. Close futures positions. Futures trading has been running in reduce only mode since today and will be switched off entirely from September 22. Unwind open positions yourself by then rather than leaving it to the wind-down.
3. Pool into a cheap currency. Withdrawing small holdings one by one is expensive because of the fixed fees. Swap them together before trading ends and withdraw once.
4. Choose the chain deliberately. When withdrawing, compare the networks on offer and take the one with the lowest fee that your destination address also supports.
5. Test with a small amount. Send a small sum to the destination address first and check it arrives before you transfer the rest.
6. Secure your records. Download your transaction history before December 22. Once the exchange is switched off you cannot reach this data any more, and the tax office will ask for it later.

Tax on withdrawal: when moving to your own wallet counts

A pure transfer from the exchange to your own wallet is not a disposal in Germany and does not by itself trigger any tax. Nor does it interrupt the one-year holding period under section 23 of the German Income Tax Act, because the beneficial owner does not change in the process.

The swaps this wind-down forces on you are a different matter. Anyone swapping a blocked coin into USDT before September 29 disposes of it for tax purposes. If the purchase was less than a year ago, the gain counts as a private disposal transaction. The same applies to the CET buyback. That is no reason to postpone the withdrawal, but it is a reason to secure your acquisition data while the history can still be retrieved. A tax and portfolio tool reads such statements in and classifies the transactions before the data source disappears.

Limits of this measurement: what three queries do not show

The survey describes a state on the morning of September 15, 2026 and nothing beyond that. It does not say how the blocks will develop by December; the number of currencies that cannot be withdrawn may rise or fall. Nor does it say anything about why an individual currency is blocked, because the interface gives no reason for it.

We were also unable to check whether withdrawals run as promptly in practice as their enabled status suggests. That would require an account on the exchange, and we do not have one. The fees named are the fixed amounts published by the exchange; whether further costs arise in an individual case was beyond our measurement. The wind-down dates come from the company's announcement and from reporting on it, among others at CryptoBriefing, and therefore not from our measurement.

Withdrawing your CoinEx balance: what to take away

1. Check this week whether your currency can be withdrawn. 37 of 992 currencies could not be on the day of measurement, among them ETC, CRO and the euro stablecoin EURR. If yours is among them, you have to swap it before September 29. If you are changing exchange anyway, start with the trading venues authorised in the EU, so the same retreat does not happen to you a second time.
2. Choose the chain by the fee, not by habit. USDT via Tron cost 7.50 USDT, via BNB Smart Chain 0.0079 USDT. On small residual holdings that choice decides whether anything arrives at all. The withdrawal should target an address you control yourself; we have compared which hardware wallets are suited to it.
3. Secure the history before December 22. After the shutdown it is gone, and the forced swaps are relevant for tax. Download the statements and read them into a tax tool while you can still reach them.

(As of September 15, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)

The crypto market is doing the thing it always does before a binary event: almost nothing. Bitcoin sits at $77,095, down 0.82% on the day. Ethereum is at $2,477. Solana is clinging to the $100 handle. Nine of the top fourteen assets are red over 24 hours, and none of them are red by much. That flatness is not calm. It is two very large question marks stacked on top of each other, and both get answered within roughly 24 hours.

Why Is the Crypto Price Frozen Before the Fed Decision?

The first question mark is monetary. The FOMC meets on 15 and 16 September, and this is not a "will they cut" meeting. Futures and prediction markets are pricing an 85% to 91% chance of a 25 basis point hike, which would lift the federal funds range off the 3.50% to 3.75% level that has held all year. Hotter than expected August core CPI, a resilient labour market with unemployment around 4.1%, and energy prices pushed higher by the ongoing conflict since February have all pointed the same direction. Goldman Sachs and J.P. Morgan both moved to expect the hike.

Rate hikes are the opposite of what crypto rallied on for the last two years. Bitcoin's 24% run from mid August to early September was built on $3.34 billion of US spot ETF inflows between 19 August and 4 September. That bid has now cooled: the last four sessions before 14 September produced $462.7 million of combined Bitcoin ETF outflows, ending a three week inflow streak. Institutional appetite did not vanish. It just stopped chasing.

The mitigating detail is that long term holders are not the ones selling. Glassnode's Sell-Side Risk Ratio has dropped to 7 basis points per day from 16 at August's peak, and long term holders accounted for only 47% of realised profits versus 88% in August. The old coins are staying put. What is missing is new money.

What Does the CLARITY Act Vote Mean for Crypto Prices Today?

The second question mark is regulatory, and it is arguably the bigger one. At 2:15 pm ET today the US Senate holds a cloture vote on the motion to proceed to H.R. 3633, the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act. Sixty votes are needed. The bill splits oversight of digital assets between the SEC, which keeps securities, and the CFTC, which would gain exclusive jurisdiction over digital commodity spot markets.

It passed the House 294 to 134 back in July 2025 and cleared the Senate Banking Committee 15 to 9 in May 2026. Then it stalled, over ethics provisions, stablecoin rewards, and illicit finance language. Seven Democratic senators publicly called the current draft insufficient. Prediction market odds for the bill being signed into law in 2026 have collapsed from 82% in February to the high teens and low twenties. Galaxy Digital has it at 10%.

Here is the asymmetry that matters for traders. A successful cloture vote does not make anything law. It merely allows debate. A failed vote, on the other hand, effectively ends comprehensive market structure legislation before the November midterms and hands the industry another three years of regulation by enforcement. One analysis puts the near term Bitcoin downside from a failed vote at 10% to 25%. The upside of a procedural win is a sentiment bump. The downside of a loss is structural. That is why nobody is positioning aggressively in either direction right now.

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Bitcoin Price Today: Why Is BTC Down 12% Year to Date?

$Bitcoin trades at $77,095, down 0.82% over 24 hours, 1.79% over seven days, and 11.90% year to date. Market cap is $1.54 trillion. It remains roughly 38% below the October 2025 all time high near $126,000.

The structure is still technically constructive. $BTC holds above its major daily moving averages and dominance has climbed to around 58.9%, which tells you capital is rotating into Bitcoin from altcoins rather than out of crypto entirely. But the daily MACD histogram has turned negative and the ATR is elevated near $2,077, so a $2,000 candle in either direction on the Fed print would be ordinary, not dramatic.

The level that matters is $80,000. Bitcoin has not reclaimed it since the ETF bid softened, and every rally attempt since has been capped below it. Below, the August base around $73,000 is the first serious test.

Ethereum Price: Flat on the Week, Down 16% on the Year

$ETH at $2,477 is the strange one. It is down 1.71% on the day and 16.51% year to date, yet essentially flat over seven days at negative 0.12%, and its ETFs are on a four week inflow streak. Last week alone Ether products pulled in $197.11 million, including a single Friday session of $216.41 million that erased the whole week's earlier weakness. $Ether ETF turnover jumped about 54% week over week while Bitcoin ETF turnover fell 28%.

So institutions are buying ETH while the price refuses to move. Either the spot bid is being absorbed by sellers elsewhere, or the market is waiting for the same macro answer as everyone else. The $2,400 area has held repeatedly. That is the line to watch.

XRP Price: The Worst Major of 2026, and the Only ETF Still Attracting Money

$XRP at $1.40 is up 0.98% on the day and 0.74% on the week, but down 23.91% year to date. That is the worst year to date performance of any top ten asset in this table, and it sits next to a genuinely interesting flow story: on several recent sessions XRP was the only major crypto ETF category attracting inflows while Bitcoin, Ether and Solana funds bled.

Why? The most plausible explanation is the CLARITY Act itself. XRP is the asset whose regulatory status has been most explicitly contested, so a statutory commodity framework is worth more to XRP than to almost anything else on the board. XRP ETF net assets are only $1.45 billion, or about 1.7% of market cap, so there is a lot of room to fill if clarity arrives. This is the highest beta name to today's 2:15 pm vote in both directions.

Solana Price: Can SOL Defend $100?

$Solana at $100.62 is down 0.80% on the day, 2.30% on the week, and 19.16% year to date. The round number is doing a lot of psychological work here. SOL ETFs brought in over $170 million in August with total assets approaching $1.5 billion, but September flows have turned choppy, with four outflow sessions this month, all small.

Nothing in the Solana story has broken. The problem is that $SOL is a high beta asset heading into a rate hike, and high beta assets are exactly what gets sold when Bitcoin dominance is rising toward 59%. A clean loss of $100 opens air down to the low nineties.

Zcash Price: Up 119% This Year While Everything Else Bleeds

Now the actual story of 2026. $Zcash at $1,147.97 is up 0.66% on the day, 2.00% on the week, and 118.68% year to date, with a $19.36 billion market cap that has taken it from the 82nd largest crypto a year ago to the top ten.

The catalyst was Grayscale's ZCSH spot ETF, which began trading on NYSE Arca on 25 August as the first US spot ETF for a privacy coin. It gathered roughly $463 million in net assets within ten days. $ZEC crossed $1,000 on 5 September for the first time since 2016, briefly touched $1,249, and a $212 million liquidation cascade weighted 75% toward shorts did the rest.

The sector context is remarkable. Privacy coins hit a combined $33.6 billion market cap in early September, up from $7.1 billion a year earlier, and privacy is the only crypto sector trading above its October 2025 cycle high, up 213%, while the median top 200 asset sits 58% below it.

Two risks deserve naming. Futures open interest around $2.3 billion means this is a leveraged move that cuts both ways. And the EU's AMLR Article 79 takes effect on 10 July 2027, banning custodial support for anonymity enhancing coins including ZEC and XMR across the bloc. Over 40 privacy tokens have already been pulled from EU regulated venues.

Monero Price: The Catch-Up Trade That Has Not Broken Yet

$Monero at $514.35 is up 1.72% on the day and 22.59% year to date, and it is one of only two green 24 hour prints in the top twelve alongside Zcash. That is not a coincidence. XMR broke a descending trendline in late August that had capped every rally since January's $757 high, and it has held above it since.

The honest read is that Monero did not start this rally, it is riding one. Traders who missed Zcash rotated into the privacy asset that had not gone parabolic yet, which is why the move looks calmer and more spot driven than ZEC's. The 20 day EMA near $469 is the first real support. Reclaiming $600 puts January's $757 back in play. Losing $469 would say the rotation faded faster than it built.

Hyperliquid Price: Best Performer of the Year, Worst Week in the Top Ten

$HYPE at $79.19 is up 227.26% year to date, by far the strongest number on this screen, and down 5.73% over the last seven days, which is the worst weekly print of any top ten asset. Both facts are true and both matter.

The bull case is fundamental rather than narrative. Open interest on the platform recovered toward $3.5 billion, the fee driven buyback mechanism gives the token a real revenue link, and a reported arrangement with Payward, Kraken's parent, could open a US path. HYPE printed an all time high near $89.60 on 6 September.

The bear case is mechanical. A 9.92 million token unlock landed on 6 September, roughly a quarter of total supply is circulating against a fully diluted count near 952 million, and HYPE ETF products have started seeing outflows. At $79 the token is about 12% off its high with $86.55 as first resistance and the high seventies as the level bulls need to defend.

What to Watch Next

Three things, in order of importance:

1. 2:15 pm ET today. The CLARITY Act cloture vote. Sixty votes or the 2026 legislative path closes. XRP and the broader altcoin complex are the most exposed.
2. Wednesday, 16 September. The FOMC decision. A 25 basis point hike is largely priced, so the reaction will come from the statement and from Chair Warsh's tone on what comes after.
3. The privacy sector. Zcash and Monero are the only large caps going up while the market goes sideways. If that holds through both events, the rotation is real rather than a leveraged squeeze.

The flat tape today is not a forecast. It is a market that has priced in uncertainty and is waiting to be told which way to resolve it.

The short answer first: if you trade on Hyperliquid as a private individual in Germany, you are not committing an offence. The EU's authorisation requirement is addressed to firms that offer services, not to the users who take them up. The price is still yours to pay. Where there is no authorisation, none of the safeguards that European crypto law attaches to one apply to your funds either. This article shows you what you can look up for yourself, what the law actually says, and what the tax office expects from you.

Is Hyperliquid legal in Germany? The answer separates users from providers

The question is almost always framed the wrong way. What matters is not whether you are allowed to use a trading venue, but whether a firm is allowed to offer it to you in the EU. The law treats those two sides separately.

The text that governs this is Regulation (EU) 2023/1114, better known as MiCA. Article 59(1) reads: "A person shall not provide crypto-asset services within the Union unless that person has been authorised […] as a crypto-asset service provider", or belongs to one of the financial undertakings expressly named, such as credit institutions and investment firms. Paragraph 2 adds a registered office in a member state, a place of effective management in the Union and at least one director resident in the Union.

That is an obligation on the provider. For you as an investor, MiCA contains no prohibition that makes trading on an unauthorised venue a punishable act. What is missing is something else: the entire protective apparatus that authorisation triggers in the first place. That is what the sections below are about.

Crypto-asset service is a defined legal term here. MiCA counts among them the custody and administration of crypto-assets on behalf of clients, the operation of a trading platform for crypto-assets and the exchange of crypto-assets for funds. Anyone carrying out one of these activities commercially for clients in the Union needs the authorisation under Article 59.

What a MiCA licence covers, and why perpetual futures fall outside it

Here is the point that hardly any German-language text separates cleanly. Hyperliquid is not primarily a spot exchange but a marketplace for perpetual futures. These are derivatives with no expiry date: you are not buying the coin, you are entering into a contract whose value is derived from the price of an underlying asset and which is settled in cash. To stop such a contract drifting away from the spot price for good, long and short positions pay each other the funding rate at fixed intervals, a balancing payment between the two sides of the market.

And contracts of exactly that kind are carved out of MiCA by MiCA itself. Article 2(4)(a) states: "This Regulation does not apply to crypto-assets that qualify as one or more of the following: (a) financial instruments". Derivatives on an underlying are financial instruments within the meaning of MiFID II, the European markets in financial instruments directive. In its guidance note on financial instruments, the German supervisor BaFin describes derivatives as forward or option transactions to be settled with a time delay and whose value is derived directly or indirectly from the price of an underlying; the definition applies equally under the German Banking Act and the Securities Institutions Act.

The practical consequence is inconvenient: a MiCA authorisation would not be the right paperwork for perpetual futures trading at all. Anyone who commercially arranges or deals in derivatives for clients in Germany operates under the licensing regime for securities institutions, not under the crypto-asset regime. Searching for a MiCA entry therefore comes up empty even when you do it correctly. This classification is a legal assessment, not investment advice and not legal advice; which permission a specific offering needs is for the supervisor to decide case by case on the full contractual documentation.

What you can take from this: two different rulebooks, two different registers, two different answers. If all you have in mind is buying the HYPE token on the spot market, MiCA is the right rulebook. As soon as leverage is involved, it is the wrong one.

Looking up the ESMA register yourself: 346 authorised crypto-asset service providers, 89 of them German

You do not have to rely on anyone's summary, including this one. ESMA, the European Securities and Markets Authority, maintains a public register of all authorised crypto-asset service providers and publishes it as a freely downloadable CSV file. We pulled it for this article on September 15, 2026 and counted it ourselves.

The position on that day: 346 authorised providers across the EU. The authorisations run up to August 31, 2026, so the list is being kept current. By home member state they break down as follows:

• Germany: 89 providers — by some distance the largest home state, among them institutions such as Trade Republic Bank, flatexDEGIRO and Börse Stuttgart Digital Custody.
• France: 35, the Netherlands: 29, Cyprus: 25, Malta: 22, Spain: 15.

No entry in that list contains the string "Hyperliquid". Nor does the platform appear on the second list ESMA maintains alongside it, the register of non-compliant entities, which held 167 entries that day. Both findings are register positions, no more and no less, and in light of the previous section they are hardly surprising, because a derivatives market does not belong in a crypto-asset register. When we last went through the register in the summer, it held only 21 trading platforms with that permission, so the numbers are growing quickly.

Here is how to go about it yourself if you want to check any platform. The register files are published openly on ESMA's crypto regulation pages; for firms authorised in Germany, BaFin additionally runs its company database with a "crypto-asset service provider" category. Always check the name of the legal entity, not the brand name of the app, because the two come apart routinely.

Article 61 MiCA: why the own-initiative exemption gives you no protection

At this point a reassuring-sounding term turns up in forums with some regularity: reverse solicitation. What is meant is the exemption in Article 61 MiCA, which provides that the authorisation requirement under Article 59 does not bite where a client established or situated in the Union initiates "at its own exclusive initiative" the provision of a crypto-asset service by a third-country firm.

Anyone reading that as a general permission has not read the provision to the end. The second subparagraph immediately narrows the exemption again: a service is not deemed to be provided at the client's own initiative where the third-country firm solicits clients or prospective clients in the Union, and that applies "regardless of any communication means used for solicitation, promotion or advertising in the Union", and also where another entity acts on the firm's behalf. Advertising, affiliate programmes and outreach through social networks all count.

The third subparagraph is blunter still. It states expressly that contractual and disclaimer clauses change nothing about this, including clauses stipulating that the service is to be regarded as provided at the client's own initiative. A tick box in the terms of use, in other words, does not turn a solicited client relationship into one you sought out. And paragraph 2 makes clear that a single request does not entitle the firm to market new types of crypto-assets or services to you.

For you as an investor the decisive insight is that Article 61 is not a client protection provision at all. The rule relieves the firm of the authorisation requirement in an individual case and gives you not a single claim, no compensation and no supervision in return. You can read the full wording in the Official Journal: Regulation (EU) 2023/1114 on EUR-Lex.

Without a MiCA licence you have no route of complaint: what applies to your funds in practice

What you actually give up by trading on a venue that is not authorised in the EU can be set out concretely. None of these points is a supposition about any particular firm; they are the legal consequences that a missing authorisation carries in general.

• No deposit guarantee. The statutory deposit guarantee of 100,000 euros covers bank deposits, not crypto-assets and not margin balances on a trading venue. It does not apply at authorised providers either, and the difference lies in the obligations that apply instead.
• No supervised segregation of your assets. Authorised providers have to hold client funds and client crypto-assets separately from their own holdings and to account for them. Without authorisation there is no authority checking that.
• No complaints procedure and no supervision. With an authorised provider you can turn to the competent supervisor, in Germany BaFin. Against a firm with no authorisation in the EU, that route does not exist.
• Enforcement is difficult. With no registered office and no management in the Union, the question of which court has jurisdiction and how a judgment would be enforced is close to unanswerable in practice.
• No tax withheld at source. A foreign platform withholds no capital gains tax. The declaration is entirely down to you, and there is more on that below.

If that catalogue feels too abstract, a comparison helps: our overview of regulated crypto exchanges with EU authorisation shows which providers actually meet the obligations listed.

Who holds the keys: self-custody, the bridge and the on-chain order book

One objection comes up regularly at this point, and it is a fair one. If everything runs fully on chain, why would you need a custodian at all? The answer is more nuanced than either camp would like.

Hyperliquid runs its own layer 1 blockchain with an on-chain order book. That is a technical departure from most first-generation decentralised exchanges: there, an automated market maker derives the price arithmetically from liquidity pools, while here a matching engine runs a classic limit order book whose orders and fills sit in the network as transactions. What such a marketplace actually is and how it differs from a centralised exchange is explained in our primer What is a perp DEX?.

To use it you connect a crypto wallet and keep your private keys yourself; you do not go through a classic KYC procedure with identity checks. That is the honest advantage of this design. The catch is that to trade at all you have to deposit funds into the network across a bridge, and your margin then sits in the protocol. Self-custody protects you from the failure of a custodian, but not from a flaw in the protocol, not from a hole in the bridge, and not from a leveraged position being liquidated while you sleep.

Technical transparency and regulatory safety are two different things. Having every order publicly visible is no substitute for a capital requirement or a complaints body. Confusing those two levels draws the wrong conclusion from a genuine merit.

Leverage, funding rate and liquidation: what the trading venue actually offers today

Rather than passing on market reports, we queried the platform's public programming interface ourselves on September 15, 2026. These are the figures from that call, and they describe a snapshot, not a Hyperliquid price forecast.

• 234 perpetual markets were tradable.
• Total open interest, meaning the sum of all open positions, stood at around $10.4 billion.
• Trading volume over the preceding 24 hours added up to roughly $6.5 billion.
• The largest single market was the BTC contract at around $2.8 billion of open interest, followed by the ETH contract at $2.6 billion and the HYPE contract at $1.7 billion.

More revealing than the size is the leverage the protocol allows on each market. That sits in the same interface: the BTC contract permitted up to 40 times leverage, the ETH contract up to 25 times. Four further markets reached 20 times, 35 markets 10 times, 63 markets 5 times, and at 130 of the 234 markets, meaning the majority, the ceiling was 3 times.

That tiering is not accidental but risk management by the protocol: the thinner a market, the lower the leverage allowed. For you it means the reverse, that the spectacular leverage figures from the advertising are not available at all on niche markets. And at every level of leverage the same mechanics apply. A move of a few percent against a position geared 20 times wipes out the stake. Order types such as a stop-loss are meant to cap that in principle, but in a price gap they may only trigger below your mark. For comparing providers in this segment we keep a separate overview of perp DEX platforms with their fees and leverage tiers.

Crypto tax in Germany: perpetual futures are forward transactions under Section 20 EStG

This is the part that costs the most money in practice, and it has nothing to do with the authorisation question. The tax office is not interested in where a platform is based, but in what kind of contract you have entered into.

A forward transaction is a transaction under which you obtain a cash settlement or a sum of money determined by the value of a variable reference figure. That is precisely the wording of Section 20(2) sentence 1 no. 3(a) of the German Income Tax Act. On that definition, perpetual futures are routinely classified as forward transactions by the tax authorities and by tax advisers, because they are settled in cash and never lead to delivery of a coin.

The difference from a spot purchase is severe, and it usually works against you:

• On a spot purchase of a coin, Section 23 EStG applies. After a holding period of one year the gain is tax free.
• On a forward transaction, Section 20 EStG applies. There is no holding period and no tax exemption after a year, but the flat withholding rate of 25 percent plus solidarity surcharge and, where applicable, church tax, regardless of whether you held the position for a minute or for two years.

Because a foreign platform withholds no capital gains tax, you have to declare this income yourself in the Anlage KAP annex to your tax return. That is not a formality: anyone who fails to declare gains from forward transactions risks criminal tax proceedings. How funding payments are to be classified in detail has not been settled conclusively, and where meaningful sums are involved that is a case for a tax adviser. For gathering your records, the tools in our comparison of crypto tax software and portfolio trackers will help.

Loss offsetting: the 20,000 euro cap on forward transactions has been scrapped

One rule that still appears in many older guides no longer applies, and that is in your favour. Until the 2024 Annual Tax Act, losses from forward transactions formed their own offsetting pot: they could be set only against gains from transactions of the same kind, and then only up to 20,000 euros a year. Someone who made 100,000 euros and lost 90,000 euros in the same year could end up with a tax assessment on a gain they had never economically made.

The legislature struck those sentences after the Federal Fiscal Court expressed serious constitutional doubts. In the current wording of Section 20 EStG, paragraph 6 no longer contains a separate offsetting pot for forward transactions; the restriction that remains in sentence 4 concerns only losses on the disposal of shares. Losses from forward transactions can therefore once again be set against all investment income.

For you that means two things. First, old loss carry-forwards from forward transactions are worth more than you may think. Second, offsettable does not mean harmless. The losses stay trapped in the pot of investment income and still reduce no income from any other category.

What regulated alternatives deliver, and where their limit lies

If you are not willing to carry the drawbacks listed, the question is what an authorised provider in Germany offers instead. Answered honestly: protection, but less choice.

Authorised firms are subject to ongoing supervision, have to segregate client assets, handle complaints and meet disclosure obligations. On spot trading and savings plans you get the same product there as anywhere else, only with a supervisor behind it. Coins bought in spot trading also fall under the one-year rule in Section 23 EStG.

Where the limit lies: you will not find highly leveraged perpetual futures in this form at a German provider serving retail clients. That is not an oversight but the intention of European investor protection, which has capped retail leverage on contracts for difference sharply for years. Anyone looking for these products is leaving the protected space. That is a deliberate decision and should be taken as one, rather than out of ignorance. How quickly the terms in this segment can change was shown most recently by our analysis of the dilution from the HYPE unlocks.

Using Hyperliquid from Germany: what to take away

1. Check the legal entity before you deposit money. Look the name up in the ESMA register and in BaFin's company database, and accept no brand name as evidence. Which providers pass that check is set out in our overview of regulated crypto exchanges.
2. Decide deliberately between protection and product range. If spot buying and savings plans are what you are after, there is no reason to leave the protected space. If derivatives are what you are after, compare the terms soberly using our overview of perp DEX platforms, and commit only capital whose total loss you can absorb.
3. Collect your records from the first position onwards. Forward transactions belong in the Anlage KAP, and a foreign platform reports nothing to the tax office. Set up a complete record from your first trade, for instance with a tool from our comparison of crypto tax software.

(As of September 15, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)

The odds of the Clarity Act passing have fully reversed their recent move, and crypto majors have reversed alongside. Is there any hope left for the bill to pass?

Atlantic Council experts argue corporate pledges need enforceable safety standards, while U.S.–China distrust limits prospects for an international agreement.

DeFi Development Corp added another 55,491 SOL and opened a CHAD at-the-market program for its preferred stock, extending a fast-moving three-week run of capital markets activity.

The asset manager funded the entire purchase through preferred stock, pushing SATA's notional value past $1 billion for the first time.

Eight trade associations say exceptions for interest-like rewards could pull deposits from banks and reduce lending.

Major crypto exchange Binance announces September delisting of five margin trading pairs.

Key crypto market updates for Sep. 15: XRP fakeout traps buyers at $1.41 as the landmark XRPL upgrade stalls just one validator vote short of launch.

Shiba Inu was really close to a proper recovery, but things have changed way too rapidly.

BlackRock is buying heavily into Bitcoin despite the unstable market conditions. It has now scooped up over $1 billion worth of Bitcoin in the last 20 days.

Shiba Inu’s behind-the-Scenes upgrade further along than it looks.

TLDR

• Standard Chartered initiated coverage of Arbitrum’s ARB token with a $10 price target for the end of 2030.
• The bank expects ARB to reach $0.50 by the end of 2026, before rising to $1.50 in 2027 and $3.50 in 2028.
• Arbitrum could receive about $5 million in September fees from Robinhood Chain under the current revenue run rate.
• Standard Chartered expects tokenized assets to grow from about $340 billion to $4 trillion by 2028, supporting demand for blockchain infrastructure.
• The bank identified slower tokenization, blockchain competition, regulatory uncertainty, and ARB’s limited direct value accrual as key risks.

Arbitrum has received a price forecast from Standard Chartered, which started coverage of the ARB token with a $10 target for the end of 2030. The bank linked its outlook to the use of blockchain systems by traditional financial firms and rising demand for tokenized assets.

Standard Chartered Sets Arbitrum Price Targets

Standard Chartered expects ARB to reach $0.50 by the end of 2026, followed by $1.50 in 2027, $3.50 in 2028, and $6.50 in 2029. The final 2030 target stands at $10. ARB traded near $0.13 on Tuesday, placing the forecast far above its market price.

Geoff Kendrick, Standard Chartered’s Global Head of Digital Assets Research, also expects ARB to outperform Bitcoin and Ether during the forecast period. The bank sees Bitcoin reaching $100,000 by end-2026 and $500,000 by end-2030. It expects Ether to rise to $4,000 in 2026 and $40,000 in 2030.

The bank based part of its Arbitrum case on the network’s role in providing blockchain infrastructure to outside firms. Under the Arbitrum Expansion Program, external chains using its technology pay 10% of their net protocol revenue to the network. That fee model ties network income to activity generated by chains using Arbitrum.

Standard Chartered said Robinhood Chain has already changed Arbitrum’s revenue profile. Robinhood Chain generated daily fee revenue of $2.8 million during the first two weeks of September. The bank estimates Arbitrum could receive about $5 million in September fees under the current run rate.

Tokenized Assets Support Long-Term Forecast

Standard Chartered also linked its ARB target to expected growth in tokenized financial assets. The bank projects the tokenized asset market could reach $4 trillion by the end of 2028, compared with about $340 billion now. Tokenized equities could reach $750 billion over the same period.

The bank said more financial firms could launch chains using Arbitrum’s technology if Robinhood Chain continues to perform well. However, it also listed several risks. These include slower tokenization, stronger competition from other networks, and a limited direct link between ARB and network revenue.

Standard Chartered also pointed to pending U.S. rules and work by the DTCC on tokenized equities. The bank said regulatory progress could shape how quickly traditional firms move assets onto blockchains and how much revenue Arbitrum can generate from that activity.

The post Arbitrum Gets Bold $10 ARB Target From Standard Chartered appeared first on Blockonomi.

Key Highlights

• Northrop Grumman and U.S. Air Force successfully completed vertical integration of a full-scale inert Sentinel ICBM at Vandenberg Space Force Base.
• The Pathfinder program tested transportation, assembly, stacking, and integration procedures for all missile systems over four months.
• Initial Critical Flight Design Review validated that the design satisfies Air Force standards for operational performance, security, and timeline adherence.
• A test launch using live components is scheduled for 2027, with full operational status expected in the early 2030s.
• The program involves more than 500 supplier companies and over 10,000 personnel, with the system designed for service through 2075.

Northrop Grumman (NOC) has reached a significant development milestone for the Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile system in collaboration with the U.S. Air Force. The defense contractor successfully assembled a complete inert missile in vertical configuration at California’s Vandenberg Space Force Base, advancing the program toward its planned 2027 test launch.

Shares of NOC were changing hands at $526.78, registering a 0.12% decline when the milestone was announced.

Northrop Grumman Corporation, NOC

The four-month integration operation, designated as Pathfinder, required shipping missile sections from multiple locations nationwide to the California facility. Teams then assembled every stage of the weapon system—including propulsion modules, structural components, protective fairing, and associated equipment—into a unified vertical structure on a designated test platform.

Following successful assembly completion, the missile was disassembled. The primary objective was demonstrating that all components could be properly integrated and that personnel could safely manage and assemble the system at an operational launch facility.

The Pathfinder operation also validated specialized transportation equipment, mobile lifting crane procedures, and launch pad connection systems.

Critical Design Validation Achieved

Concurrent with the assembly operation, Northrop Grumman partnered with the Air Force’s 719th Test Squadron to complete the initial Critical Flight Design Review. This evaluation verified that the missile’s engineering maturity and component validation satisfy all Air Force criteria for operational capability, safety protocols, and program timeline.

“This vertical assembly demonstrates the momentum toward test launching Sentinel in 2027 and having missiles on alert by the early 2030s,” said Amanda Davis, vice president and general manager of strategic deterrent systems at Northrop Grumman.

According to company statements, the development program continues progressing according to plan for its inaugural live test launch in 2027. Achieving initial operational capability is projected for the early part of the 2030s.

Program Scale and Strategic Importance

The Sentinel system will replace the existing Minuteman III ICBM fleet and represents the ground-based component of America’s nuclear deterrent triad, which is completed by submarine-launched ballistic missiles and strategic bomber aircraft.

Northrop Grumman coordinates a supply chain encompassing more than 500 contractor companies and employs over 10,000 workers dedicated to this program. Engineers have designed the Sentinel platform for continuous operation extending to 2075, providing NOC with potential multi-decade revenue streams from development, manufacturing, and sustainment activities.

The successful Pathfinder exercise represents a transition from digital modeling and individual component validation toward physical integration of a complete weapon platform.

The upcoming live flight evaluation will present greater technical challenges. An operational test launch will assess propulsion performance, guidance accuracy, flight control systems, and integrated system functionality in ways that static assembly exercises cannot replicate.

Keeping the 2027 test launch on schedule represents a critical program milestone. Simultaneously, the company and Air Force are progressing on launch infrastructure modernization, supply chain preparedness, and specialized equipment required for deploying missiles in hardened underground silos.

Before any Sentinel missiles can enter active service, the program must successfully complete flight testing protocols and additional qualification procedures.

The post Northrop Grumman (NOC) Stock: Sentinel ICBM Program Achieves Critical Assembly Benchmark appeared first on Blockonomi.

Key Highlights

• Rocket Lab successfully closed a $1.944 billion equity offering through an at-the-market program, selling 29.3 million shares to support its Iridium purchase.
• Combined with Iridium’s current term loans and available funds, the aerospace firm now has sufficient capital to complete the transaction and cover associated expenses.
• Iridium secured an amendment to its $1.775 billion credit agreement, permitting the change of control that will result from the acquisition.
• The company eliminated its previously established $3.6 billion bridge loan facility, streamlining its financing approach before deal completion.
• The transaction is projected to finalize in mid-2027, contingent upon regulatory clearance and shareholder consent.

Rocket Lab (RKLB) shares climbed 4.46% following the aerospace manufacturer’s announcement that it has secured complete financing for its proposed acquisition of Iridium Communications (IRDM).

Rocket Lab USA, Inc., RKLB

The California-based aerospace firm generated $1.944 billion via an at-the-market stock offering, distributing 29.3 million shares to investors. This substantial capital infusion represents a critical milestone in advancing the mixed consideration transaction for Iridium.

When combined with Iridium’s outstanding debt obligations and Rocket Lab’s existing cash reserves, the company now possesses adequate resources to fulfill all mandatory cash obligations, settle specific Iridium liabilities, and cover deal-related expenses.

Regulatory authorities approved the equity offering’s registration statement on August 26, 2026. Simultaneously, Iridium submitted its final proxy materials on that date, initiating the official shareholder voting procedure.

Elimination of Bridge Financing

In a strategic financial move, Rocket Lab has cancelled the $3.6 billion senior secured bridge loan facility initially established in June 2026. Bridge financing typically carries higher costs and shorter terms, making its elimination a financially prudent decision that streamlines the transaction’s capital framework.

The bridge facility was originally arranged when both parties executed the definitive merger agreement on June 28, 2026. Following the successful equity raise, this interim financing mechanism has become redundant.

Meanwhile, Iridium negotiated modifications to its outstanding $1.775 billion credit facility to accommodate the ownership transition resulting from the acquisition. The term loan balance totaled $1.775 billion at the end of June 2026.

Security Arrangement Details

According to the revised credit facility terms, Rocket Lab USA, Inc., the primary operating entity, will furnish an unsecured guarantee backing Iridium’s term loan upon transaction completion.

This arrangement provides assurance to Iridium’s creditors while avoiding the need for Rocket Lab to pledge tangible assets as collateral—an important consideration for maintaining financial flexibility after the merger closes.

The acquisition remains on schedule for a mid-2027 closing date, subject to standard regulatory reviews and approval from Iridium’s shareholders.

Shares of Iridium (IRDM) advanced 1.09% on the announcement, a relatively muted response suggesting investors view this primarily as a financing development rather than a material change to deal terms.

Should the transaction fail to materialize for any reason, or if excess capital remains after closing, Rocket Lab indicated it would deploy those resources toward organic expansion initiatives, potential strategic acquisitions, and general operational requirements.

With the proxy statement now filed, the upcoming Iridium shareholder vote represents one of the critical remaining checkpoints before deal completion.

The post Rocket Lab (RKLB) Stock Surges 4% Following $1.9B Equity Raise for Iridium Deal appeared first on Blockonomi.

Key Takeaways

• Oppenheimer elevated Etsy from Perform to Outperform, establishing a $90 price objective that suggests 21% potential gains
• Shares advanced 2.9% during Tuesday’s premarket session, building on a 34% year-to-date rally
• Analyst Jason Helfstein highlighted artificial intelligence search enhancements, improved mobile application interaction, and elevated conversion metrics
• Consumer research involving 2,500 U.S. participants revealed 88% accessed Etsy directly through its website or mobile app instead of Google Search
• The firm increased its fiscal 2026 GMS projection to the highest on Wall Street and anticipates 5% GMS expansion in fiscal 2027 and 2028

Etsy stock rallied 2.9% during Tuesday’s premarket hours following Oppenheimer’s decision to elevate the stock from Perform to Outperform status, accompanied by a $90 price objective. This target indicates potential upside of 21% relative to Monday’s final trading price.

Etsy, Inc., ETSY

The ratings enhancement came from analyst Jason Helfstein, who identified artificial intelligence-enhanced search capabilities, enhanced product discovery mechanisms, and improved mobile application usage as primary catalysts for the optimistic outlook.

Shares of Etsy have climbed 34% since the beginning of the year, substantially outperforming the S&P 500’s 11% advance.

Artificial Intelligence Search Capabilities Decreasing Google Reliance

Among the most significant findings from Oppenheimer’s analysis is the manner in which Etsy customers are discovering the marketplace. Research encompassing 2,500 U.S. consumers revealed that 88% navigated directly to Etsy’s digital properties rather than utilizing Google Search.

This represents a significant transformation. Diminished dependency on Google provides Etsy with greater autonomy over its traffic sources and reduces vulnerability to algorithmic modifications that have previously negatively impacted the platform.

Helfstein observed that artificial intelligence-powered search enhancements are delivering results. The consumer survey indicated 65% of respondents said they were “very” or “somewhat” inclined to purchase merchandise on Etsy. This represents a positive conversion indicator.

The analyst additionally highlighted that regression modeling of SimilarWeb traffic data indicates third quarter non-mobile buyers remained unchanged year-over-year, contrasting with a 3% decrease during the second quarter. This enhancement suggests the upper boundary of Etsy’s gross merchandise sales forecast is achievable.

Financial Projections Adjusted Upward

Oppenheimer increased its fiscal 2026 GMS forecast by 1%, positioning it at the highest level among Wall Street predictions. The investment firm currently projects 5% GMS expansion in both fiscal 2027 and 2028.

These projections incorporate anticipated market share erosion within the digital handmade category as emerging competitors establish presence. Oppenheimer anticipates the worldwide online handmade marketplace will expand 9% annually from 2025 through 2028, with Etsy surrendering 117 to 135 basis points of market share during 2027 and 2028.

Important consideration: Oppenheimer’s handmade market evaluation encompasses approximately 73% of the survey’s product range. Etsy’s complete product offering extends well beyond handmade merchandise exclusively, suggesting the market share loss concern might be exaggerated.

The $90 price objective applies a 12 times multiple to 2027 EBITDA estimates. This represents a 10% valuation discount compared to eBay, despite Oppenheimer identifying comparable growth trajectories for both enterprises.

Helfstein prudently assumed zero improvement in mobile app GMS on a two-year comparison basis for his forecasts, notwithstanding what he characterizes as evident product enhancements. Should mobile app performance strengthen, projections could rise further.

Seeking Alpha’s Quant rating for Etsy currently stands at 3.95 out of 5. Both Seeking Alpha contributors and Wall Street analysts maintain a Buy recommendation on the shares.

Etsy was exchanging hands more than 3% higher during Tuesday’s premarket trading activity.

The post Etsy (ETSY) Stock Climbs on Oppenheimer Upgrade: AI Innovations Driving Growth appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR

• The House Ways and Means Committee released the Digital Asset Tax Certainty Act ahead of a Wednesday markup.
• The bill proposes a $10 de minimis exception for qualifying crypto transactions and network fees.
• Mining and staking income would generally be treated as ordinary income under the proposed crypto tax rules.
• The legislation would extend wash-sale rules to traded digital assets, limiting some loss deductions.
• The Treasury would need to create a Digital Asset Voluntary Disclosure Program within 12 months of enactment.

The House Ways and Means Committee released a cryptocurrency tax bill on Monday ahead of a Wednesday markup on digital asset rules. The Digital Asset Tax Certainty Act, introduced by Chair Jason Smith, R-Mo., combines proposals discussed during a June hearing and returns crypto tax policy to Congress.

Crypto Tax Bill Adds Small-Payment Relief

The bill creates a de minimis exception for crypto transactions and network fees. Taxpayers would not need to report a gain or loss when they use crypto to pay a qualifying fee of $10 or less. The proposal also covers U.S. dollar stablecoins that move slightly from their $1 target. In some cases, redemption value would serve as the tax basis when a taxpayer acquires the asset near that value.

Taxpayers could choose simplified annual accounting for traded digital assets. Eligible users could calculate gains and losses annually instead of tracking each qualifying transaction. The fee exemption and annual accounting rule would begin in 2028. The changes aim to simplify crypto tax reporting and set clearer federal treatment for digital asset activity.

Mining, Staking and Wash-Sale Rules

The proposal says mining and staking income would generally count as ordinary income. It would also allow investment trusts to stake digital assets without that activity alone changing their tax status. The bill does not include a proposal that allows some taxpayers to delay income recognition on newly created digital assets. Industry groups had supported keeping that option.

Wash-sale rules would also expand to traded digital assets. The rule could deny a loss when a taxpayer sells an asset and buys the same or a substantially identical asset within 30 days before or after the sale. The bill says certain digital asset transfers under qualifying lending agreements would not count as sales or exchanges. Lawmakers introduced the lending and anti-abuse provisions before the June hearing.

The measure would also direct the Treasury Department to create a Digital Asset Voluntary Disclosure Program within 12 months of enactment. Eligible taxpayers could amend earlier returns and pay outstanding tax, interest, and penalties. The House Ways and Means Committee plans its markup for Wednesday at 10 a.m. ET. Members can debate and amend the crypto tax bill during the session before a committee vote.

The post Congress Advances Crypto Tax Bill With Major Rule Changes appeared first on Blockonomi.

Bitcoin is entering a potentially decisive macro catalyst with its short-term structure already under pressure. The asset has drifted back toward the lower boundary of its recent consolidation, while the market awaits tomorrow’s FOMC interest-rate decision, an event that could trigger a sharp expansion in volatility as expectations remain heavily skewed toward a rate increase.

Bitcoin Price Analysis: The Daily Chart

On the daily timeframe, Bitcoin is trading around $77K after repeatedly failing to establish itself above the $80K-$82.3K resistance zone. The rejection from this area has gradually weakened momentum, with the latest sequence showing lower highs and renewed pressure toward the lower end of the post-breakout range.

Despite this weakness, the broader structure has not broken down yet. The explosive August rally remains intact as long as BTC holds above the major support areas underneath. The first significant downside region is the $72K-$74K zone, with the 0.5 Fibonacci retracement positioned near $72.5K. Below it, the 0.618 retracement around $70.2K and the moving average provide another important confluence.

Therefore, a deeper correction toward $72K-$74K would not necessarily invalidate the broader bullish structure. However, continued rejection from $80K-$82.3K combined with a loss of these lower supports would indicate that the post-breakout correction is becoming considerably more significant.

BTC/USDT 4-Hour Chart

The 4-hour timeframe puts the immediate risk into sharper focus. BTC has been moving inside a broad ascending channel since the August breakout, but recent price action has progressively shifted toward its lower boundary.

The latest rejection from around $79K has pushed BTC back to roughly $76.9K, placing the market directly around the ascending support near $76K-$77K. This makes the current area particularly important. A decisive breakdown could confirm that the multi-week consolidation is resolving lower rather than simply continuing within the channel.

In that scenario, the $72K-$74K support zone becomes the primary downside target. Conversely, another successful defense of $76K-$77K could preserve the range and allow BTC to rotate back toward $79K-$80K, followed by the major $80.5K-$82.3K resistance zone.

With the FOMC meeting approaching tomorrow, however, short-term technical signals may become less reliable as traders wait for the interest-rate decision. The proximity of price to channel support means that any volatility generated by the announcement could determine whether the current structure survives or finally breaks.

Sentiment Analysis

Bitcoin’s Futures Average Order Size provides additional context on participation in the derivatives market. The latest readings are predominantly gray and light green around the $77K-$80K region, indicating a mixture of normal orders and smaller whale activity rather than clear dominance from exceptionally large participants.

Notably, the recent price recovery toward $80K has not been accompanied by the kind of concentrated large-order activity that would clearly signal aggressive conviction from major futures traders. This fits with the hesitant price action visible on the technical charts, where BTC has struggled to generate sustained momentum despite remaining relatively close to its recent highs.

With the FOMC decision now approaching, this lack of decisive positioning may also reflect traders reducing conviction ahead of a major macro event. A meaningful increase in larger orders after the announcement, particularly alongside a confirmed move away from the current $76K-$77K support area, could provide a stronger indication of where institutional futures participants expect Bitcoin’s next directional leg to develop.

The post Bitcoin Price Analysis: BTC Tests Key Support Ahead of Crucial FOMC Decision appeared first on CryptoPotato.

Although the entire cryptocurrency market rallied on Monday, perhaps to the surprise of a lot of people given the upcoming expectations for a Fed rate hike, XRP was at the forefront, surging from under $1.35 to $1.50 to mark a three-week peak.

It was rejected there, but still remains close to $1.40 ahead of what could be a major day for all crypto assets, including XRP.

XRP Braces for CLARITY Vote

The US Senate is expected to vote shortly after 2 p.m. ET today on cloture for the motion to proceed with the landmark crypto market-structure legislation. It’s worth noting that this is not a final passage vote. Instead, it will show whether the bill has legs to run in the Senate, as it requires 60 votes simply to advance to formal debate. This means that Republicans need support from several Democrats or independents while also avoiding defections within their own party.

The latest developments on the matter were somewhat promising as Senate Republicans released another revised version over the weekend in an attempt to address disagreements surrounding stablecoins, banking competition, and public officials’ crypto interests. However, Senate Democrats sent a counterproposal late last night, even though their Republican counterparts had said their version was “best and final.”

For XRP, the implications are particularly interesting as it already enjoys substantially more regulatory certainty than before or during Ripple’s years-long battle with the SEC. However, the CLARITY Act would establish a durable statutory framework dividing oversight between the SEC and the CFTC and provide clearer rules for digital-asset intermediaries.

$2 Next?

In a previous article, we discussed (with the help of ChatGPT) what could go wrong for XRP in case of a negative vote. In this one, we will reverse course, as most analysts are quite bullish on the asset. One thing they all agree on is that volatility is likely to go wild.

CasiTrades sees the next important upside objective around $1.74-$1.78, followed by an even higher target at $2.00 if momentum continues. EGRAG CRYPTO, who has been among the most bullish XRP commentators, highlighted the importance of the asset maintaining its 100-day EMA around $1.38-$1.40, which is currently being tested again. Holding that level would preserve the broader bullish structure, but losing it could result in a major leg down.

Other analysts, including Mikybull Crypto and Bird, also pointed to improving XRP momentum immediately ahead of the Senate vote. The first test, though, is very close. A sustained breakout above the $1.50 area could open the door toward $1.60, with $1.74-$1.78 coming into focus shortly after. Naturally, $2.00 would return as the obvious next psychological objective.

The post Huge Day for XRP: CLARITY Act Vote Could Spark the Next Big Move appeared first on CryptoPotato.

Ethereum’s exchange supply has fallen sharply over time. There are now 6.06 million ETH on such platforms compared with 22.9 million at the network’s June 2020 peak.

According to Santiment’s estimates, that represents a 73% decline in easily sellable supply.

Ethereum’s Supply Drain

Fewer ETH sitting near order books means less supply available for market sells and panic exits. The decline is supported by ETH moving into staking, ETF wrappers, treasury strategies, and long-term custody.

Validators are also locking the crypto asset to help secure the network. The analytics firm explained that demand does not need to surge for price moves to become stronger. As liquid supply shrinks, even smaller waves of buying can have a larger impact.

ETH remains at a structural inflection point, according to Crypto Patel, who identified the $2,567-$2,666 zone. A rejection could send the crypto asset toward $2,150, $2,000, or $1,800. A confirmed higher-timeframe close above $2,666 could instead open the path toward $3,100 and $4,000.

Meanwhile, Daan Crypto Trades stated that the asset has been on another “rollercoaster” ahead of the CLARITY Act vote and FOMC. Traders have been pre-positioning around the uncertainty. That has created high volatility and caused both sides to get taken out. The analyst sees little hope around the vote right now. If the vote fails or gets pulled, more downside is expected, followed by chop into the FOMC. After that, price action could become somewhat more normal again.

A Growing Treasury

One company in particular has been steadily adding to its Ethereum position. BitMine now holds 5,956,378 units after adding 27,180 tokens over the past week.

That gives the company 4.9% of Ethereum’s 122 million total supply. Its stated goal is to reach 5% under its Alchemy of 5% strategy. It has reached 98% of the way toward the target after buying the token every week since June 30, 2025. Most of its treasury is already staked. The company has 5,067,309 units locked through its MAVAN validator network. That is about 85% of its ETH holdings.

Tom Lee expects annualized staking revenue to reach $334 million. The estimate rises to $392 million once the entire ETH treasury is staked. Bitmine’s total crypto, cash, and moonshot holdings stood at $15.8 billion.

Separately, Ethereum ETFs recorded nearly $197 million in net inflows last week. The final trading session saw $216.4 million flow into the funds, which more than offset earlier outflows. The bullish momentum has carried into the new week. Monday brought another $121 million in net inflows, which pushed the monthly total closer to $450 million.

The post Ethereum Holders Are Pulling ETH Off Exchanges at a Historic Pace appeared first on CryptoPotato.

[PRESS RELEASE – PANAMA CITY, Panama, September 15th, 2026]

BingX today announced its strategic evolution into a multi-asset trading platform and will further its strategy through “Connect Markets. Unlock Opportunities.”, bringing crypto and traditional markets together through an integrated trading experience. The move reflects BingX’s ambition to help traders identify emerging market opportunities, understand the forces shaping them and act across asset classes through a united platform.

Guided by its mission to empower traders to navigate and act on global markets, BingX envisions a world where every market is within reach. The company’s expanded offering reflects this vision, bringing together crypto and traditional markets in one place as the boundaries between asset classes continue to narrow.

As economic developments, market narratives and investment opportunities become increasingly interconnected, monetary policy, macroeconomic conditions and market sentiment can influence both digital and traditional assets. BingX is expanding beyond its crypto-native foundations, combining broader market access with deep liquidity, AI-powered trading tools and market expertise.

The BingX multi-asset platform is built around four strategic pillars:

Trading: Trade Confidently with Multi-Asset Market Access

BingX combines its crypto-native offering, including crypto futures, spot and copy trading, with an expanding range of TradFi products across stocks, forex, indices and commodities. The platform offers one of the industry’s broadest perpetual futures selections across traditional assets, alongside deep order-book liquidity across selected major TradFi futures assets.

Experience: Connecting Market Intelligence with Execution

AI-powered insights, signals and trading tools help traders navigate market developments and identify potential opportunities. TradingView integration provides advanced charting and analysis, while deep liquidity supports execution across key markets. Together, these capabilities give traders a more direct path from market analysis to execution.

Opportunities: Capture What’s Moving Across Markets

BingX brings together market research, industry expertise, educational resources and community engagement to give traders a broader view of developments across crypto and traditional finance. By covering the narratives and forces shaping different markets, BingX aims to make it easier for users to identify areas of interest and explore opportunities beyond a single asset class.

Reliability: Built on Trust

As BingX broadens its market coverage, reliability remains a core foundation of the platform. BingX supports its trading environment with 100% Proof of Reserves and its Shield Fund. These measures reflect the company’s continued focus on security, transparency and operational resilience as it evolves into a multi-asset trading platform.

“Our evolution into multi-asset is a natural progression for BingX as markets become increasingly interconnected,” said Kevin Lee, Chief Strategy Officer at BingX. “Traders today are not necessarily thinking in terms of one asset class. They are looking at the broader market and considering where conditions, narratives and opportunities are developing. Our role is to give them access, infrastructure and perspective to navigate that landscape from one platform.”

About BingX

Founded in 2018, BingX is the world’s leading multi-asset trading platform, serving more than 40 million users worldwide. From crypto to traditional markets, BingX connects users with a broad range of assets and opportunities across global markets through one unified platform.

With perpetual futures, TradFi offerings, spot trading and copy trading, alongside AI-powered innovations, BingX delivers a reliable, intelligent, and responsive trading experience designed to help traders navigate evolving markets and act on opportunities with greater confidence and efficiency.

BingX has been the Principal Partner of Chelsea FC since 2024 and became the Official Team Partner of Scuderia Ferrari HP in 2026.

For media inquiries, users can contact: media@bingx.com

For more information, users can visit: https://bingx.com/

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[PRESS RELEASE – Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, September 15th, 2026]

The National Bank of the Kyrgyz Republic (NBKR) and CertiK have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), establishing a long-term strategic partnership to advance cooperation on Digital Som security and digital asset oversight. The partnership brings CertiK into a central-bank environment shaped by stringent security, compliance, and operational requirements, serving as a model for similar engagements with other highly regulated institutions.

Sanzhar Abdygaziev, Member of the NBKR Management Board (left), and Jason Jiang, Chief Business Officer of CertiK, at the MoU signing

“The Memorandum of Understanding that we are signing today establishes a framework for further dialogue and cooperation,” said Mr. Sanzhar Abdygaziev, Member of the Board (Management Board) of the NBKR. “We see particular value in exchanging experience and expertise in blockchain and digital asset security, cybersecurity, AML/CFT, and the analysis and monitoring of digital asset transactions.”

“Digital asset infrastructure requires security and risk management to be considered from the earliest stages of design through ongoing operation,” said Ronghui Gu, Co-Founder and CEO of CertiK. “We look forward to bringing CertiK’s expertise and experience to our long-term cooperation with the NBKR, supporting the secure development of the country’s digital asset ecosystem.”

Under the MoU, the parties intend to exchange expertise and explore cooperation in areas including blockchain and digital asset security, security assessments, formal verification, cybersecurity, and operational resilience. Drawing on its experience in digital asset security and risk management, CertiK will provide technical and strategic support across these areas.

The partnership will also extend to digital asset oversight and regulatory advisory support, covering areas such as AML/CFT, digital asset custody, security standards, and licensing requirements. The parties will also explore the deployment of CertiK’s Supervision and Compliance solutions to strengthen ongoing risk monitoring and regulatory oversight, alongside training and knowledge transfer in relevant technical and regulatory areas.

Beyond its work with the NBKR, CertiK has contributed to digital asset regulatory and policy discussions across multiple markets. This includes providing technical advisory support to regulators in the United States and responding to regulatory consultations issued by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS). Together, these engagements reflect the growing role of technical security expertise in supporting regulated digital asset markets and infrastructure.

About National Bank of the Kyrgyz Republic (NBKR)

The National Bank of the Kyrgyz Republic (NBKR) is the country’s central bank and the primary authority responsible for maintaining price stability, safeguarding the stability of the banking and payment systems, and supporting the sustainable development of Kyrgyzstan’s financial sector. The NBKR regulates and supervises financial institutions, manages monetary policy and international reserves, and oversees the national payment infrastructure. It is also advancing financial innovation through its Digital Som central bank digital currency (CBDC) initiative, aimed at modernizing payments, expanding financial inclusion, and strengthening the resilience and efficiency of the country’s financial ecosystem.

About CertiK

CertiK is the largest Web3 security services provider and a trusted risk management partner for regulators, institutions, and Web3 innovators worldwide. Since 2017, CertiK has protected over $600 billion in digital assets across 150+ countries and regions, while providing full-lifecycle security and risk management solutions for institutional clients. Operating under SOC 2 Type II and ISO 27001 standards, CertiK works closely with regulators worldwide on digital asset policy development and regulatory consultation.

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