Quick Take

• The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) acknowledged OG.com’s Form 1-N filing, authorizing the platform to offer U.S. single-stock futures.
• Cronos Labs launched Ult, a unified trading app available in over 100 countries for crypto, perpetuals, commodities, and prediction markets.
• Robinhood Chain experienced a significant slowdown last week, with fees generated plunging by 81% from the peak.
• U.S. spot BTC ETFs recorded $6 million in net inflows last week, reversing net outflows of $463 million the week prior. U.S. spot ETH ETFs saw $140 million in net outflows, compared to $197 million in net inflows the week prior.
• The U.S. Federal Reserve (Fed) raised its benchmark interest rate for the first time since 2023, and a series of hikes came in response to the pandemic-era inflation spike. Japan’s central bank sought to counter recent inflationary trends by raising its benchmark interest rate to the highest level in more than three decades.
• U.S. equities ended mixed during a volatile week defined by the Fed's benchmark interest rate hike, rising Treasury yields, and erratic crude oil prices. Stock indices experienced broad pressure through mid-week following a unanimous Fed rate increase and hawkish forward guidance, signaling additional tightening. However, a late-week rally in mega-cap technology and healthcare equities helped the Nasdaq Composite end fractionally higher, while the S&P 500 closed nearly flat and the Dow Jones Industrial Average lagged.
• • The Nasdaq Composite rose +0.70%, S&P 500 fell -0.1%, and Dow Jones Industrial Average declined -1.7%.
  • Key Market Drivers:
  • • Fed Interest Rate Hike and Hawkish Guidance: In a unanimous decision, the Fed raised its benchmark interest rate by 25 basis points, with updated dot-plot projections indicating 16 of 18 policymakers expect at least one additional quarter-point rate hike before year-end.
    • Bond Yield Pressure: Yields in the U.S. Treasuries moved higher across the curve as markets digested hawkish Fed policy statements and strong economic data. The ten-year Treasury yield surpassed 5.00%, while the two-year yield rose to 4.76%.  
    • Crude Oil Volatility: WTI crude oil prices peaked above $106 per barrel early in the week amid ongoing Middle East tensions before pulling back below $100 per barrel toward Friday's close.
    • Robust Macroeconomic Indicators: August U.S. Retail Sales grew 1.2% month-on-month (exceeding consensus estimates of 0.7%), and weekly jobless claims dropped to 196,000, reflecting resilient underlying economic activity.
  • Sector and Style Dynamics: Healthcare (+1.83%) and Information Technology (+1.03%) led performance gains. Rate-sensitive and defensive sectors suffered the largest weekly pullbacks, including Utilities (-3.04%), Financials (-2.43%), Real Estate (-2.05%), and Materials (-1.88%).

Research Dashboard

According to our research dashboard, the price, volume, and volatility indices increased +5.38%, +12.18%, and +142.03%, respectively, last week.

Index tokens saw bullish price action. Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) prices rose by +5.66% and +6.79%, respectively, with Avalanche (AVAX) and Uniswap (UNI) leading total gains, and UNI driving the surge in volume. BTC served as the main catalyst for the volatility spike following the rejection of the CLARITY Act and the Fed's interest rate hike.

Robinhood Chain experienced a significant slowdown last week. Daily fee revenue dropped 81%, falling from a peak of approximately $25.1 million on September 4 to roughly $4.7 million by September 21. Over the same period, daily transaction volume decreased by 65%, declining from 14.0 million to 7.3 million. Fees generated across major decentralized exchanges and meme coin launchpads all fell sharply by over 80%. However, the total value locked still saw a 12.7% growth, from 1.42 billion to 1.6 billion.

Weekly Performance

Top-cap tokens mostly saw bullish price action last week, except for Filecoin (FIL). NEAR (81.1%) led the price surge, followed by AVAX (+55.2%).

DeFi categories all rose last week, with AI and DEX leading the surge.

News Highlights

Company News

• The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) acknowledged OG.com’s Form 1-N filing, authorizing the platform to offer U.S. single-stock futures. OG.com is coordinating with the SEC and Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) on single-stock perpetuals, marking further convergence between crypto platforms and regulated equity derivatives.
• Cronos Labs launched Ult, a unified trading app available in over 100 countries for crypto, perpetuals, commodities, and prediction markets. Existing Onchain Wallet settings and balances remain unchanged, with seamless in-app switching.

Regulation

• The U.S. Senate rejected advancing the CLARITY Act, falling 10 votes short of reaching the 60-vote threshold needed. Disputes involved ethics, staffing, and AML/CFT rules.
• Following the CLARITY Act stall, the CFTC submitted a prerule crypto regulatory proposal to the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) with details remaining unveiled. The agency also granted no-action relief to passive software providers, such as wallet interfaces, connecting users to regulated derivatives markets under set conditions.
• The U.S SEC granted a conditional five-year exchange-registration exemption for qualifying tokenized-securities venues, enabling automated market makers (AMMs) and liquidity pools to trade ownership-linked tokenized stocks with required disclosures and safeguards. Synthetic non-ownership tokens are excluded. While offering near-term regulatory pathways, its temporary nature leaves long-term clarity unresolved.
• The House Ways and Means Committee introduced the Digital Asset Tax Certainty Act, covering de minimis exemptions (for less than $10 network fees up to 5,000 transfers), wash sales, mining, staking, and broker rules.
• The UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) is exploring a tailored regulatory framework to exempt tokenized gold from traditional UK fund rules, aiming to preserve London’s dominance in the global gold market.

Adoption

• Circle launched Arc, an EVM-compatible Layer-1 stablecoin-native blockchain using USDC for gas. Supported by over 100 institutions with founding validators including BlackRock, DTCC, Mastercard, Standard Chartered, and Visa, Arc integrates over 20 fiat stablecoins and tokenized assets. Circle may transition to Proof-of-Stake in 2027 and noted its 10 billion ARC genesis mint does not guarantee a public token launch.
• Germany’s largest bank Deutsche Bank is planning a regulated European custody service by year-end 2026, subject to regulatory approval, initially supporting BTC, ETH, and selected stablecoins including USDC and EURC, with tokenized instruments potentially added later.

Others

• Bitcoin Core 32.0 entered final testing with an October 10 target release. It adds responsive fee estimates, multithreaded block processing, PSBT v2 defaults, and security fixes, boosting node performance without altering consensus rules.
• Ethereum developers set the Glamsterdam Sepolia test for October 6, warning that attackers could win block auctions and withhold payloads on testnet. Hoodi testing is slated for October 27, while mainnet activation remains unscheduled.
• Zcash targets November 5 for its NU7 upgrade to cut block spacing from 75 seconds to 25 seconds and add the Network Sustainability Mechanism, targeting October 6 for testnet and October 20 for the final mainnet decision.
• Grayscale’s Zcash ETF announced a three-for-one forward share split for holders as of September 28 to lower per-share price and improve accessibility, without altering overall fund exposure.

Catalyst Calendar

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