Market insights
Despite its US$40 trillion debt and ongoing bond troubles, the underlying US economy appears to be motoring along fine. The Services PMI, which tracks the goods and services sector, came in at 55.4, above expectations of 54.3. The economy also added 162,000 new jobs in a month, more than triple expectations. There could be volatility ahead, however, with new inflation data out this week, and the CLARITY vote and US Federal Reserve interest rate decision next week. The strong jobs figures increased expectations of a rate rise, and markets dipped in response.
Bitcoin finished the week where it began at US$79,123, Ethereum was also flat at US$2,488, and XRP, SOL and HYPE are all within 1.5% of their prices from seven days ago. That’s despite HYPE hitting a new all-time high this week and Solana announcing it will triple its maximum transaction size mid-week. The spot Bitcoin ETFs have just seen their best three-week haul of 2026, taking in US$986.8 million in inflows last week. The Ethereum ETFs pulled in US$218.4M, XRP ETFs took US$19M, and Solana ETFs saw US$6.2M.
On-chain analyst Willy Woo noted that it has been a decade since Bitcoin has so thoroughly decoupled from the S&P 500 SPX, with the last time coming just before the 2017 bull market.
The Crypto Fear and Greed Index is at 71, or Greed.
Key economic calendar events
In headlines
Are we in the bull market yet?
Bitcoin briefly topped the 50-week moving average this week but failed to hold above it, suggesting the bull market is not yet confirmed in the eyes of many pundits. Cycle theorist Ben Cowen says there’s still a 65% chance that Bitcoin will hit a new cycle low in Q4. But the weekly supertrend has flipped green, and commentator Joe Carlasare says Bitcoin has closed above the 200-day moving average for more than 15-plus days, which has never happened before the price went on to hit a new cycle low. One sign that bullish conditions are returning is the increase in memecoin activity, and Hunter Biden has just announced a LAPTOP memecoin. It will allocate 20% to investors who lost money on the TRUMP coin, and will burn 30% of the supply if the Democrats win the presidency.
Liquid hacked by grey hats
Hackers calling themselves “white hats’ took 4,000 Bitcoin from Blockstream’s Liquid Network sidechain. They insisted that before they returned the funds, all nodes needed to be patched to fix security holes. Earlier today, they sent back 3,400 Bitcoin to Liquid’s Federation Wallet and appear to have taken a 598.5 Bitcoin bounty for themselves. “It looks more like extortion than white-hat hacking!” commented Ledger CTO Charles Guillemet.
CLARITY vote next week
The CLARITY Act heads to a crucial Senate procedural vote on September 15, requiring 60 out of 100 votes to advance. Polymarket says there’s just a 17% chance the bill will pass this year, and the path narrowed even further after the last two weeks of House sessions were cancelled. That means that even if the Senate passes the bill, there won’t be time to reconcile the new text with the House version until the post-midterm elections lame duck session. The one bright spot this week was that the National Sheriffs’ Association upgraded its position from “opposed” to “neutral”. In other regulatory news, the SEC has proposed updating ancient transfer agent rules for the tokenised stock era.
Banking consortium to issue stablecoin
A consortium of 21 banks, including Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Citi and Deutsche Bank, will create a new company to issue a USD stablecoin in the first half of 2027. It will subsequently issue other stablecoins linked to G7 currencies, including the euro. In the UK, the London Stock Exchange is partnering with Payward to add the 100 largest LSE-listed companies to the xStocks platform. It also hopes to list them on its forthcoming LSE 24 trading venue in 2027, as soon as it receives regulatory approval. Meanwhile, the G20 nations have issued a statement agreeing on the importance of digital asset innovation and the need for appropriate regulation.
Robinhood Chain goes crazy
Robinhood Chain flipped Solana for daily DEX volume this week, and generated US$30 million in weekly revenue. PONS coin, which is the native token of its Pump.fun style launchpad, surged 140%, joined the top 100 coins, and the project reportedly hit a US$100M annual run rate faster than any company in history. The success of the L2 has also pushed Ethereum data blob usage to new all-time highs. Part of the excitement has been in pairing memecoins with tokenised stocks like AMC, although AMC boss Adam Aron has now threatened to call in the lawyers.
Singapore is the top crypto hub
Singapore’s claim to be the region’s top crypto hub has been bolstered by new figures from market data platform Tracxn. The city-state is home to 2,285 of the 3,957 blockchain companies in Southeast Asia and accounts for 82.5% of all-time blockchain equity funding tracked in the region. In 2026, regional firms closed 25 funding rounds worth US$680 million, more than double 2025’s figure. Singapore has also had considerable success cracking down on crypto scams, with four operations conducted this year by the police with the help of crypto service providers such as Independent Reserve. The latest operation saved 355 people from losing US$7.06 million to scammers.
MAS-regulated stablecoins proposal
The Monetary Authority of Singapore has proposed a new license for issuers of MAS-regulated stablecoins. It would require reserves of at least 100% of the tokens in circulation, redemptions to be honoured in a timely fashion, and would ban issuers from paying interest or rewards. Reserves would also need to be segregated from the issuer’s other funds and held with licensed custodians.
AUSTRAC gets tough
AUSTRAC has cancelled, suspended, or refused to renew 45 remittance and virtual asset provider registrations over the past year. The financial intelligence agency linked the cancellation of GetCoins’ license in June to the disruption of alleged cryptocurrency scams following customer complaints.
Until next week, happy trading.
