In markets
Despite a brief sugar rush from the US Federal Reserve cutting interest rates, crypto markets were wiped clean yesterday with the biggest flush of cascading liquidations in a year. A$2.6 billion (US$1.7 billion) of leveraged positions, mostly longs, were wiped out in 24 hours as Bitcoin and Ether corrected. Analysts suggest the Fed’s cautious approach to further cuts, US inflation fears and a weak jobs market contributed to a lack of confidence. Others believe history shows the four-year Bitcoin price cycle is due to end in October — but with a wave of new ETFs on the horizon and treasury companies still in acquisition mode, commentator Kaleo asked: “Does anyone truly believe this is a typical four-year cycle?” Economist Timothy Peterson pointed out last week that September 21 is historically Bitcoin’s single worst day of the year, after which it tends to finish higher 70% of the time, with a median gain of 50%. History is also promising for Ether, according to CoinGlass, which reports that ETH has historically delivered an average return of 23.85% in the fourth quarter. Bitcoin finishes the week down 2.1% to trade around A$170,684 (US$112,540) while Ethereum is down 6.9% to A$6,360 (US$4,195). Most of the other majors were down in a range between Cardano’s and Dogecoin’s 4.3% to 9.6% decline. The Crypto Fear and Greed Index is at 43, or Fear.
From the OTC desk
Crypto Markets Reel from $1.7 Billion USD Liquidations
The markets have not sustained the exuberance following the recent rate cut, and we have witnessed a relatively one-way move over the past week, with bears in firm control. Approximately $1.7 billion USD in liquidations swept the crypto markets as BTC/USD dropped sharply from 116,700 to lows of 111,900. Altcoins took a sharp hit as well, with Ether prices dropping to lows of 4,075 and other coins, such as Solana and Dogecoin, dropping by more than 10%. Investors are closely monitoring economic data this week, as well as Chairman Powell’s speech in Rhode Island on Wednesday morning.
Decentralised exchanges drive token trends amidst shifting allegiances
The top trending tokens over the past week were linked to three decentralised exchanges and their perpetual contracts. While Hyperliquid has previously dominated the space in trading volume, Binance founder Changpeng Zhao, commonly known as CZ, has been vocal in supporting the competing exchange Aster. Avantis is backed by billionaire and venture capital savant Peter Thiel. Some whales, including the prominent crypto personality Arthur Hayes, have notably sold HYPE amidst this narrative.
OTC desk activity
- Sharply increased volumes over the week, but the desk saw decent interest in buying the dip
- Seeing a shift towards on-ramping for stablecoins
Key economic calendar events (AEST)
- Wednesday, 24 Sep 2025, 2:35 AM: Fed Chair Powell Speech
- Thursday, 25 Sep 2025, 10:30 PM: GDP Growth Rate QoQ Final (Consensus 3.3%)
- Friday, 26 Sep 2025, 10:30 PM: US Personal Income MoM (Consensus 0.3%)
- Tuesday, 30 Sep 2025, 11:30 AM: NBS Manufacturing PMI
For any further information, please feel free to reach out.
In Headlines
Everybody gets an ETF
The SEC has thrown the doors wide open to allow any number of new crypto ETFs. It voted to approve a rule change for three national security exchanges, enabling them to adopt generic listing standards for new crypto and other spot commodity exchange-traded products. Previously, the SEC would consider each crypto ETF application on a case-by-case basis; but now issuers must meet a set of criteria, cutting the maximum time from filing to launch to just 75 days. Reuters says the first ETFs could launch under the new rules next month and will likely track Solana and XRP. Bloomberg ETF analyst James Seyffart expects a wave of new ETFs, saying: “This is the crypto ETP framework we’ve been waiting for.” The Rex Osprey XRP and Dogecoin ETFs (approved under different rules) debuted last week with healthy volumes of US$37.7M (A$57.1M) and US$17M (A$25.8M) respectively.
Rumour of the week
One potential wildcard this week is Satoshi Action Fund’s Dennis Porter’s claim that “massive political news coming for Bitcoin Tuesday will reshape the trajectory of Bitcoin politics.” According to the White House, Donald Trump is scheduled to make an announcement that day. Could it be a Bitcoin reserve announcement? Or is it just a rumour? We’ll see.
Ethereum fork set for December
Ethereum’s Fusaka upgrade is set to go live on December 3. Two weeks later, the much-heralded data blob capacity increase will occur, followed by a further increase on January 7 to quadruple current capacity. Every time data capacity increases, L2 demand for blob space also increases, though it does very little for Ethereum revenue. Fusaka will be trialled on three separate test nets in the lead-up to the fork.
Validator queue
Ethereum’s validator exit queue hit a record 45 days after Kiln Finance was forced to unstake 1.6 million ETH as a precautionary security measure. Ironically, this was due to a security breach affecting SwissBorg’s Solana staking, which Kiln helped manage. Although the ETH is expected to be quickly restaked, Galaxy’s Head of DeFi Michael Marcantonio called the exit queue “troubling” and said it showed Ethereum was not “a suitable candidate to power the next era of global capital markets.” After a big controversy, he later deleted his posts. ETH creator Vitalik Buterin defended the queue, likening it to: “A soldier deciding to quit the army…An army cannot hold together if any percentage can suddenly leave at any time.” But he also conceded the current queue design was not optimal.
Vitalik embraces DeFi, finally
Buterin has finally changed his mind about DeFi, which he was suspicious of due to the early days of degen yield farming and vampire attacks. He now sees low risk DeFi as a way to bring revenue to the chain while fulfilling Ethereum’s mission of doing good in the world: “Something that can be for Ethereum what search was for Google: low-risk DeFi, with a goal of achieving global democratised access to payments and savings in valuable asset categories (eg. major currencies with competitive interest rates, stocks, bonds).”
New Yuan and Won stablecoins in Hong Kong and Korea
At the Belt and Road Summit in Hong Kong, AnchorX launched AxCNH, the first stablecoin tied to the international Chinese Yuan. Meanwhile, crypto custody firm BDACS has launched a proof of concept for a fully collateralised stablecoin tied to the South Korean Won called KRW1. It will run on Avalanche and was designed with government use in mind.
Free marketing for Bitcoin
Vietnam and Thailand have been doing some free marketing for uncensorable money like Bitcoin. Vietnam is reportedly in the process of closing up to 86 million bank accounts, out of 200 million, for failing to meet biometric verification standards. Account holders who failed to update records with fingerprint or face scans are seeing their accounts permanently closed. Meanwhile, Thailand closed 3 million bank accounts suspected to be “mules” for scammers, and authorities imposed daily transfer limits on all bank customers in the country. Innocent merchants and vendors have been caught up in the closures. In other Thai crypto news, XRP has been the top-performing digital asset in the country for nine months straight.
Ether fundamentals look strong despite the price
Analyst Marcel Pechman says once Ethereum’s validator queue stabilises, “Ether’s advance toward US$5,000 (A$7,576) appears increasingly realistic given both the reserves being built by treasury-focused companies and sustained demand for Ether ETFs.” He said on-chain metrics look strong with fees jumping 35% in a week and active addresses gaining 10%, while Strategic ETH Reserve data showed treasury companies amassed another 877,800 ETH in the past 30 days. According to Token Terminal, the network is valued at 1.44 times the ecosystem’s total value locked, and the Ethereum Layer 2 networks processed a new all-time high of 25 million transactions in a single day. Pechman remained optimistic in the wake of yesterday’s sell-off, stating that the “evidence suggests futures liquidations were the result of panic selling” and there was a good case for ETH to regain US$4600 (A$6969) in short order.
The Moonshot Dispatch
Join us every Tuesday at 3 pm (AEST) for a live market update. Hosted by Lee Eaton and Nick Fletcher, we cover the latest crypto news and price movements. Tune in weekly on Twitter/X, LinkedIn, YouTube, Facebook & TikTok.
Until next week, happy trading!
