Live Feed

Standard Chartered plans to launch Bitcoin and Ethereum spot trading for institutional investors in the UAE, the global bank said. The bank said it intends to introduce in the UAE its institutional-grade crypto spot trading service now operating in the UK. It did not disclose a launch timeline or details on eligible institutional clients.

South Korean crypto exchange Korbit is shutting down Silicon, a layer-2 blockchain platform it developed with blockchain technology company Ozys, about a year and a half after launch. According to News1, Silicon ended operation of its blockchain testnet on Sept. 2 and also halted asset deposits. The blockchain network is set to stop operating بالكامل on Dec. 31, meaning users must withdraw all assets on the Silicon blockchain by year-end.

Virtual assets should be taxed based on the economic substance of each transaction rather than treated as a single category of miscellaneous income, Park Jong-soo, head of the Korean Association of Tax Law, said at a forum on reviewing the 2027 virtual-asset taxation system, according to Money Today Broadcasting. Park said gains from trading and swaps should be classified as capital gains, returns from lending and deposits as interest income, profit distributions as dividend income, and business-like activities such as mining as business income. Park added that airdrops and hard forks also require a determination on whether income tax or gift tax should apply.

Bitcoin could fall toward $71,000 as it forms a head-and-shoulders pattern, BeInCrypto reported. BeInCrypto said BTC has broken below the neckline of the pattern on the four-hour chart and is attempting a retest. The outlet said Bitcoin is under pressure from geopolitical tensions and interest-rate expectations, and a failed neckline retest could send BTC down to around $71,000. Citing Glassnode, the outlet added that there have been four past cases in which BTC rose in August and then closed lower in September. In those cases, the average decline was 7.24%, which would imply a drop to about $72,831.

Australian crypto firms operating under a temporary regulatory reprieve could face penalties including fines of up to 10% of annual revenue if they do not apply for a financial services license by Sept. 30, Cointelegraph reported. Australia’s Securities and Investments Commission, or ASIC, required businesses that need a license to submit a new application or amend an existing license by the deadline. From Oct. 1, firms that continue operating without meeting the relevant requirements could face civil and criminal penalties for violating financial services law. ASIC said it has received more than 45 digital asset-related license applications since revising the guidance in October last year. Separately from the end of the reprieve, digital asset rules will take effect on April 9 next year.

According to CoinGlass data, a move above $79,011 in BTC could trigger the forced liquidation of $705 million in short positions across major centralized exchanges. If BTC falls below $76,059, $991.41 million in long positions would be liquidated.

Crypto analyst Crypto Dan said Bitcoin may be transitioning from a downcycle to an upcycle as the short-term holder spent output profit ratio, or SOPR, ended an 11-month bearish trend and rebounded sharply. Crypto Dan said BTC began falling from $120,000 in October 2025, after which investors spent roughly 11 months selling mainly at a loss or near break-even. BTC then fell to $58,000 in July, about half its peak level, and that area may have marked a potential bottom, Crypto Dan said. Despite profit-taking during the recent sharp rally, Bitcoin has absorbed the selling and remained resilient, a pattern Crypto Dan said differs clearly from the previous 11 months.

Garrett Jin, who has faced allegations of profiting from insider trading ahead of last October’s record forced-liquidation event, appears to have trimmed part of a BTC long position on Hyperliquid that had been held for more than three months. According to on-chain analytics firm Hupzy, formerly Spot On Chain, Jin reduced the position by 276 BTC, or about $21.5 million, from a previous $147 million position and now holds a 1,592 BTC long worth about $123.9 million. The position shows about $1.18 million in unrealized profit, but estimated losses after accounting for cumulative funding fees of $1.94 million. The market is watching whether Jin will reduce the position further.

On-chain analyst Willy Woo said Bitcoin’s market cycle may shift from the traditional four-year pattern to a six- to eight-year cycle. Woo said the Bitcoin market has long been heavily influenced by supply shocks tied to halvings, but the impact is gradually weakening as annual new supply has fallen to about 0.8% of total supply. As a result, Bitcoin’s future price cycles may be driven more by the traditional financial market’s six- to eight-year short-term debt cycle than by the four-year halving cycle, he said.

On-chain analyst Axel Adler Jr. said on X that a 113-day stretch of net stablecoin outflows from exchanges has ended, suggesting market liquidity is stabilizing. Adler added that the size of net stablecoin inflows fell 51% just two days after inflows began, while all three Stablecoin Supply Ratio oscillators remained above zero, indicating liquidity has stabilized but a full recovery in demand may still be premature.

South Korean users can again access trades on the cryptocurrency-based prediction market Polymarket through the mobile trading terminal Polymtrade on Android, Digital Asset reported. Tests of the Android Polymtrade app showed trading lists and prices were displaying normally. South Korea’s Korea Communications Standards Commission had previously determined on Aug. 18 that Polymarket constituted gambling and approved a block on access. Starting Aug. 20, access to Polymarket and Polymtrade through webpages and apps had been blocked in South Korea.

Bitcoin’s 50-day moving average is nearing a move above its 200-day moving average, a so-called golden cross, CoinDesk said in an analysis. Since 2012, Bitcoin has recorded 12 golden crosses, and the average gain over the nine instances with measurable three-month returns was 24.9%, according to CoinDesk. Still, only three cases lasted for more than a year. CoinDesk added that the 50-day moving average of USDT’s market cap dominance is also nearing a move below the 200-day moving average, forming a dead cross. A decline in USDT dominance usually means risk assets such as Bitcoin are gaining value relative to stablecoins, which can be read as a sign of stronger risk appetite in the crypto market.

According to CoinNess market monitoring, BTC has risen above $78,000. BTC is trading at $78,068.03 on the Binance USDT market.

Hardware wallet maker Ledger is facing a class-action lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York over a security breach in December 2023, The Block reported. Plaintiffs argue Ledger did not notify customers quickly enough about the breach at the time, failing to prevent further losses. Plaintiff Douglas Kim said a hacker used leaked personal information to impersonate a Ledger representative and trick him into entering his seed phrase, leading to the loss of about $1.95 million in assets.

Bitwise Research analyst Ryan Rasmussen said XRP drew the most questions during presentations to about 400 wealth managers, according to U.Today. Rasmussen said the presentations covered a range of topics including Bitcoin, Solana, Hyperliquid, stablecoins and tokenization, but interest in XRP stood out. He added that 67% of surveyed wealth managers have not yet invested in crypto, while 60% expect crypto prices to rise by year-end and 60% plan to invest in crypto within the next year.

Kyle Samani, a co-founder of Multicoin Capital, cited news of the firm’s HYPE sale and wrote in English, "The way to be a successful venture investor is to buy a large position, go on podcasts and promote it, and then sell it. I always struggle with step 3." The remark was widely seen as an indirect criticism of Multicoin Capital for selling holdings after previously speaking aggressively about HYPE. The firm recently sold about $33.64 million worth of HYPE from a position worth $90.5 million that it had held for more than six months.

An anonymous trader has locked in a 54-fold return versus the initial investment after selling part of an AI token position, according to Lookonchain. The trader had earlier spent $84,500 to buy 20 million AI, and has so far sold 13.23 million AI for about $2.53 million. The wallet still holds 6.77 million AI worth about $2.1 million.

The following are the 24-hour long/short ratios for BTC perpetual futures on the world’s three largest crypto futures exchanges by open interest: Overall: 49.11% long, 50.89% short - Binance: 49.9% long, 50.1% short - OKX: 49.67% long, 50.33% short - Bybit: 50.01% long, 49.99% short

Lorenzo Valente, director of digital asset research at ARK Invest, compared Ethereum, Solana and Hyperliquid to McDonald’s, Chipotle and In-N-Out, respectively, and said the three networks reflect fundamentally different Layer 1 value-capture models, according to LaurenBlockchain. Valente said Ethereum has built the crypto market’s most successful franchise system through Layer 2 networks, but argued it captures too little rent, or fees, at the settlement layer. By contrast, Solana preserves more fees and MEV, or maximal extractable value, within its own vertically integrated system, he said. Valente added that Hyperliquid has shortened the value-capture chain the most through its vertically integrated structure, lack of VC backing and fee-based HYPE token buybacks, but faces elevated concentration risk due to its dependence on a single product, team and revenue structure.

More than $1 billion in stablecoins posted net inflows to Binance in August, a sign of a modest recovery in market liquidity, CryptoQuant contributor Darkfost said. Darkfost added that Binance has still seen about $5.1 billion in net stablecoin outflows since the start of the year, while major exchanges as a whole have recorded more than $16 billion in net outflows. BTC recovered $75,000 after rising about 25% in August, but Darkfost said the market could enter another correction phase if demand does not continue to recover.

Jamie Kurtz, founder of Helio Analytics, said the top five chains have continued to account for more than 90% of the overall market in terms of revenue and activity over the past decade since Ethereum emerged, arguing the winner-take-all dynamic is unlikely to reverse and will strengthen further through compounding. Kurtz also cited Real Vision founder Raoul Pal as saying on-chain activity is concentrated on a small number of chains, and those networks are becoming the settlement layer for the next phase, in which billions of AI agents transact at machine speed.

Solana said it generated $143 million in application fee revenue in August, equivalent to about 191.0 billion won, ranking first among all blockchain networks. The figure accounted for 38% of total global on-chain app revenue.

Michael Hubbard, CEO of SOL Strategies, which is pursuing a Solana reserve strategy, said the SGP-0002 proposal to double the pace of Solana inflation cuts was premature. The proposal raises the annual inflation reduction rate to 30% from 15%, shortening the time needed to reach the long-term 1.5% target to about 2.8 years from roughly 5.7 years. It passed on Aug. 28 with 67% support. Hubbard said Solana’s current inflation rate of around 4% to 4.5% is not excessive, and a drop in token issuance would not necessarily ease selling pressure or lift prices immediately, as a significant share of SOL issued as staking rewards is restaked. Hubbard added lower rewards could also hurt the profitability of validator operations.

Daily DEX volume on Robinhood Chain climbed to nearly $18.9 billion over the past 24 hours, setting a record high, according to blockchain data analytics platform Dune Analytics. On the token issuance side, Pons maintained a dominant lead. Pons minted 24,010 new tokens yesterday, while long.xyz ranked second with 2,740. Over the same 24-hour period, Pons generated $5.95 million in fee revenue, ranking fourth among all crypto networks and protocols globally. Uniswap also benefited from the surge in Robinhood Chain trading volume, with daily protocol revenue jumping to $10.33 million to rank second.

Ahead of the second phase of the Bank of Korea’s central bank digital currency pilot, Project Hangang, eight public petitions opposing the introduction of a CBDC have drawn a combined 420,000 signatures, Electronic Times Internet reported. After the central bank signaled it would proceed with the second-phase test, 150,000 people across three rounds in July and August this year called for public opinion to be gathered again. A petitioner in a National Assembly consent petition posted in late August argued the Bank of Korea should transparently disclose how it would protect personal data and citizens’ rights if a CBDC is introduced, while raising concerns that all fund flows could be recorded in the central bank’s system and expose personal information.