Headline News: Optimistically Cautious
-
Bitcoin outperformed Ethereum last week, weighed down by a record $787.74M net outflow from ETH ETFs that overshadowed a shrinking staking queue. The crypto market remains cautiously optimistic, balancing hopes for a September rate cut which is fueled by weak jobs data, against caution ahead of this week’s pivotal inflation report, where the market expects cooler PPI but a higher CPI. Potential ETF approvals and legislative progress remain key catalysts to watch for the second half of September.
Macro-Outlook: Jobs Deteriorating
-
The US ISM manufacturing PMI increased to 48.7 in August, below market expectation of 49. The manufacturing employment, inventories and order backlogs shrank, signalling weaker demand conditions.
-
The JOLTs job openings fell to 7.18 million in July, well below market expectation of 7.4 million. Meanwhile, job quits also fell to 3.208 million in July, from 3.209 million in June, indicating companies reluctant to have significant change in human resources during this high economic uncertainty environment.
-
The US ISM services PMI increased to 52 in August, higher than market expectation of 51.
-
The US non-farm payrolls increased by 22K in August, well below market expectations of 75K, with job losses in government and manufacturing payrolls. Additionally, June payrolls were revised downward to a job loss of 13K, the first job loss month since December 2020. The US unemployment rate increased to 4.3% in August, matched with market forecasts. The labor force participation rate in the US increased from 62.2% to 62.3% in August.
-
The probability of a 75bps rate cut by the end of 2025 has increased from approximately 40% to 73%.
Upcoming Economic Calendar including,
-
Tuesday, September 9, 10:00pm: The US Non-Farm Payroll Annual Revision
-
Wednesday, September 10, 8:30pm: The US PPI in August
-
Thursday, September 11, 8:30pm: The US Inflation Rate in August
-
Friday, September 12, 10:00pm: The Preliminary Reading of Michigan Consumer Sentiment in September
Weekly-Cryptos-Overview: Unstoppable Regulatory Embracement
-
The US SEC and CFTC jointly proposed a 24/7 Markets policy to accelerate securities trading onchain, creating “innovation exemptions” for DeFi related protocols, making prediction markets available in US, allowing spot crypto assets and perpetual contracts to trade across SEC-and CFTC-regulated platforms and more.
-
The Senate Banking Committee introduced the latest draft of “Responsible Financial Innovation Act of 2025” (RFIA), clarifying staking and airdrops are not securities, DePIN is exempted from securities laws, self-custody and DeFi protection etc.
-
Austrialian self-managed superannuation funds (SMSFs) that invest in crypto products have increased by sevenfold since 2021, reaching A$1.7 billion as of March 2025.
-
Coinbase announced the launching of Mag7 + Crypto Equity Index Futures on September 22, which consists of AAPL, MSFT, GOOGL, AMZN, NVDA, META, TSLA, COIN, IBIT and ETHA.
-
Kraken acquired Breakout, a proprietary trading platform for crypto-traders.
Layer 1 and Layer 2s
-
Ondo Finance launched Global Markets, introducing over 100 tokenised stocks to users with high liquidity embedded on the platform and APIs support directly into third party apps. 1inch has integrated the Global Markets into its Swap API, enabling users to swap tokenised directly via 1inch.
-
Tempo, stablecoin layer-1 by Stripe and Paradigm has officially launched its private testnet, with early partners such as Visa, Deutsche Bank, Shopify and Standard Chartered.
-
Fireblocks launched Fireblocks Network, a new blockchain for stablecoin payment, on/off-ramps, onchain banking relationships and more, with more than 40 providers supporting the network.
-
Bitcoin BRC20 has completed the BRC2.0 upgrade, introducing EVM compatibility directly onto the Bitcoin network. The smart contract computation will be handled by indexer operators off-chain, and then inscribed back onto Bitcoin network.
-
Particle Network announced launching Particle Chain as Avalanche Layer 1.
-
Starknet network was halted for approximately 4 hours due to sequencer failure to process transactions and had to reorganise about an hour of network activities prior to the halt.
-
Toyota partnered with Avalanche to launch Mobile Orchestration Network (MON), a layer-1 blockchain that secures data sharing for vehicle financing, ride sharing, insurance and carbon credit tracking, while streamlining ownership transfers for secondary markets.
-
The US Individual Retirement Accounts (IRA) provider SmartGold partnered with Chintai to launch tokenised gold on Chintai Nexus. Investors can now use funds from retirement accounts to participate in DeFi strategies with tokenised gold.
-
Bitget partnered with Morph blockchain, a consumer-focus Layer-2, to use BGB as its gas and governance token. The new foundation will burn 220 million or 11% of BGB supply.
-
Omni Network announced rebranding to Nomina, migrating token from OMNI to NOM in 1:75 and broader goal of creating a user friendly crypto experience.
Dapps
-
Lido launched Lido Earn, stETH vaults that were designed to enable stakers to earn additional rewards from DeFi (GG Vault) and DVT incentivised reward (Decentralised Validator Vault).
-
ETHZilla, a Ethereum DAT company, announced to deploy $100 million ETH into EtherFi.
-
XStocks announced launching tokenised equities on Ethereum network.
-
Pump.fun announced Project Ascend, introducing a Dynamic Fees model where Creator Fee will be adjusted lower with higher market capitalisation and streamline the process for replacement of creators.
-
BONK.fun announced bringing USD1 launchpad to Solana, where tokens are raised and paired with USD1.
-
Redstone acquired Credora Network, the leading DeFi risk rating provider.
-
Twyne, a credit delegation protocol built atop Euler, is now live on Ethereum, enabling borrowers to borrow at a higher liqLTV to avoid being liquidated with idle capital from lenders.
-
Virtual introduced Agent Liquidity Engine (ALE), a dedicated dashboard where agents displayed their fundamental metrics such as revenue generation.
-
Resolv introduced Clusters, integrating stablecoin collaterals into other DeFi protocols to generate an addition and diversity yield to the RLP and USR, starting with Fluid Protocol.
Upcoming Alpha and Governance
-
Hyperliquid aims to launch its native stablecoin USDH. Multiple parties such as Paxos and Frax Finance have proposed to be the issuer of USDH. Paxos proposed its compliance advantage and suggested using 95% of the interest from reserve to buyback HYPE and redistributed to stakeholders, while Frax Frinance suggested 100% of the yield can be decided by Hyperliquid governance for appropriate purposes. Agora later proposed a 100% revenue share as well. More proposals are expected by September 10. Validators will choose their preferred proposal by September 11 and users will delegate to their preferred validators by September 14.
-
World Liberty Finance proposed using fees earned by WLFI’s protocol-owned liquidity to buyback and burn WLFI. Justin Sun’s team was accused of dumping WLFI after sending 60 million WLFI to Binance. The team then clarified the transactions were deposit tests. Despite that, World Liberty Finance froze Justin Sun’s address, locking 2.94 billion tokens.
-
The US Federal Reserve will host a conference on payments innovations on October 21.
-
Arbitrum launched its DeFi incentive program, Drip, allocating 80 million ARB to reward DeFi users within a period of 12 months. Aave, Dolomite, Euler, Fluid, Morpho and Silo are selected as the participating protocols in Season 1: Leverage Looping Strategy.
-
Linea is expected to launch TGE on September 10. The pre-market is trading LINEA at approximately $7 billion in FDV. Aave is the highest TVL protocol on Linea, and SharpLink Gaming announced planning to stake part of its $3.6 billion Ethereum treasury on Linea.
-
Pyth proposed Phase 2, introducing a subscription model that integrates market data directly into various systems, creating a new revenue stream for DAO and token holders.
-
Wildcat Labs raised $3.5 million from Robit Ventures and others, with the goal of bringing uncollateralised private credit onchain, rivaling 3Jane, which offers a similar solution.
Token Unlock
-
IO token unlocked on September 11, amount representing 1.82% of the token supply.
-
PUMP token unlocked on September 14, amount representing 2.83% of the token supply.
-
STRK token unlocked on September 15, amount representing 3.33% of the token supply.
-
SEI token unlocked on September 15, amount representing 1.75% of the token supply.
-
ARB token unlocked on September 16, amount representing 3.33% of the token supply.
-
LZO token unlocked on September 20, amount representing 10.3% of the token supply.
-
KAITO token unlocked on September 20, amount representing 3.46% of the token supply.
-
NIL token unlocked on September 24, amount representing 29.1% of the token supply.
-
PARTI token unlocked on September 25, amount representing 39.7% of the token supply.
-
RESOLV token unlocked on September 27, amount representing 9.14% of the token supply.
-
KMNO token unlocked on September 30, amount representing 22% of the token supply.
Please click HERE to subscribe for weekly market insight and exclusive research.
