Market insights
Despite the Clarity Act vote failing and the US Federal Reserve and the Bank of Japan both hiking interest rates, Bitcoin suddenly gained US$10,000 in under a week.
Following the recent golden cross, analysts had been hoping for a weekly close above the 50-week moving average. It blew past that and kept going all the way up to US$87K. Almost one billion dollars’ worth of shorts were liquidated in the past 24 hours, and a higher high is another sign heralding a new bull market. Analyst James Check has called the end of the bear market, while bear Ben Cowen posted, “I was wrong.”
Bitcoin finishes the week up 9.9%, and it’s currently trading around US$86,299. That’s more than 50% up from the lows seen just two months ago. Ethereum gained 9.3% to trade at US$2,771, and the number of ETH wallets with a non-zero balance hit a record 207 million. XRP was up 8%, Solana gained 15.7%, and Hyperliquid was up 16.1%. The week’s best gainer in the Top 100 was NEAR, up 68%, after it enabled private deposits and withdrawals for Hyperliquid perp traders. Dogecoin gained 19.4%.
The spot Bitcoin ETFs turned positive, with a weekly inflow of US$6.21 million, and the average ETF hodler is back in profit. The Ether ETFs snapped a four-week run of inflows and saw US$140 million in net outflows. Strategy and BitMine have both just announced big purchases.
The Crypto Fear and Greed Index is at 70, or Greed.
In headlines
CLARITY Act vote fails
The CLARITY Act not only failed to muster the 60 votes needed to progress, but it also didn’t even attract a bare majority, with every Democrat and three Republicans voting against it. The blame game started immediately, with President Donald Trump’s US$1.4 billion in crypto profits last year the most oft-cited reason the Democrats couldn’t bring themselves to pass the bill. The ethics provisions were a key sticking point. While the Republican counter-offer was admittedly weak on enforcement, the Democrats were pushing for a super strict provision that would ban Trump’s family members from operating a crypto business. The Wall Street Journal blamed Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong for digging in on the yield issue earlier this year and stalling momentum. The Republicans blamed the Democrats for not wanting to give Trump any sort of legislative win, while the Democrats blamed the Republicans for not including them more directly in drafting the bill.
Is the CLARITY Act dead?
Republican Senator Thom Tillis switched his vote at the last minute to ‘No’, and later confirmed he’d done so to “preserve the Senate’s ability to reconsider the CLARITY Act at a later date.” The GENIUS stablecoin bill also failed its first Cloture vote and then passed 11 days later. Seven crypto-friendly Democratic senators released a statement saying they still want to pass the legislation. “We were ready to strike a deal today and in discussions right up until the vote. Republican leadership shut it down at the very last minute,” said Sen. Angela Alsobrooks. However, only 11 Senate days remain before the midterm elections, and Congress has 20 legislative days in total, including the lame-duck session, so time is running out. “The bill is dead,” said Sen. Cynthia Lummis.C
Crypto campaigning
According to Punchbowl News, the Republicans “vastly overestimated” the chances of Democrats folding due to the threat of crypto super PAC Fairshake spending big in election campaigns against them. The threat was no longer as potent given Democrats are expected to sweep the midterm elections. But those campaign funds are still going to be spent and Fairshake has just announced it will spend US$30 million campaigning against anti-crypto Democrat Sherrod Brown, who was previously chair of the Senate Banking Committee.
SEC unveils Innovation Exemption
Just two days after the unsuccessful Senate vote, the SEC announced its Innovation Exemption, allowing tokenised stocks to trade on-chain in the US. The five-year-long scheme gives decentralised crypto platforms and automated market makers like Uniswap an exemption from registering as securities exchanges. Trading will be permissioned and require KYC, and tokenised stocks will have to carry the same dividend and voting rights as regular stocks. This excludes most of the “synthetic stocks” already trading, such as xStocks and Robinhood’s Stock Tokens. Third parties can tokenise someone else’s stock, but the originating company has final approval as to whether it can trade. Goldman Sachs says Coinbase, Circle and Robinhood are likely to benefit, while Blockworks says that Uniswap’s V4s Permissioned Pools is the ideal infrastructure for the new tokens. TD Cowen cautions that agency rules “are the easiest to rescind.” A 2024 Supreme Court decision also means agency rules can be overturned by the courts.
The CFTC issues its own rules
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) also moved to exempt some crypto software providers from registration requirements. Solana Policy Institute General Counsel Patrick Wilson told The Block the move “gives builders more clarity about how they can connect users to regulated derivatives markets without being treated as introducing brokers.” The CFTC has also submitted a draft crypto markets rulemaking proposal to the White House for review.
Ethereum’s Glamsterdam upgrade coming
Ethereum’s core devs have locked in October 6 to test out the Glamsterdam upgrade on the Sepolia testnet. If all goes well, it will be followed by the Hoodi testnet on October 27. The new upgrade will see the gas limit increased by 3.3x to 200 million, enable parallel transaction processing, and lower fees again by an estimated 78%.
Bitcoin Reserve bill advances
The House Financial Services Committee has voted to advance the American Reserve Modernisation Act, which would formalise the US Bitcoin Reserve in law. The current iteration was created by executive order. The bill would see forfeited Bitcoin placed in a reserve, with government agencies required to provide an audit of any crypto they hold. It would also investigate budget-neutral ways for the government to acquire more Bitcoin. The Ways and Means Committee also voted to advance the Digital Asset Tax Certainty Act. It seeks to establish a clear tax framework for crypto, and will extend wash sale rules to crypto.
Maintenance update
Please note that services will be unavailable on Sunday, 27 September 2026, during the times below for scheduled maintenance:
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Access to the portal and mobile app will be down for approximately 5 hours. For any extended delays, please check announcements on Twitter/X.
Until next week, happy trading.
