Quick Take

• Bitcoin entered its longest period of onchain profitability of 2026 as its Spent Output Profit Ratio (SOPR) stayed above breakeven for a third straight week.
• U.S. spot BTC ETFs recorded $463 million in net outflows last week, reversing $986 million in net inflows the week prior. U.S. spot ETH ETFs attracted $197 million in net outflows, down from $215 million in net inflows the week prior.
• On August 11, the 10-year U.S. Treasury yield rose to 4.97% — its highest close since October 2023, when it briefly broke above 5.00% for the first time since 2007. Meanwhile, the 2-year yield hit a multi-year peak of 4.63%, and the 30-year yield reached 5.35%, a nearly two-decade high.
• The Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose 0.4% in August, putting the 12-month increase at 3.4%, remaining well above the Federal Reserve's 2.0% target. The Producer Price Index (PPI) increased 0.4%, indicating that inflation accelerated in August from July’s 0.1% growth.
• The U.S. stock market logged a weekly loss after four straight days of selling, despite mounting a late rebound on Friday. Geopolitical tensions, surging oil prices, and hotter-than-expected inflation data fueled a broad repricing of rate expectations, pressuring equities and pushing Treasury yields to multi-year highs.
• • The Nasdaq Composite dropped -0.70%, S&P 500 fell -0.8%, and Dow Jones Industrial Average declined -1.6%.
  • Key Market Drivers:
  • • Geopolitical Tensions and Surging Oil: Intensifying conflict in the Middle East, including U.S.-Iran military clashes, tanker strikes, and disruptions to Saudi energy facilities, push WTI crude over $100 per barrel and Brent crude above $107, stoking inflation fears.
    • Hotter Core Inflation: The August Consumer Price Index (CPI) report showed core inflation accelerated 0.3% month-over-month, beating the 0.2% estimate.
    • Surging Yields and Rate-Hike Outlook: Driven by sticky CPI data, rising oil, and a lighter-than-expected $6 billion Treasury buyback, the 10-year Treasury yield jumped nearly 20 basis points toward 5%. Markets rapidly adjusted their outlook, pricing in an 88% probability of a Fed rate hike at the upcoming September meeting.
  • Sector and Style Dynamics: Energy names outperformed the broader market, driven by a geopolitical spike in crude oil. Despite soaring bond yields, mega-cap tech, communication services, and hardware stocks led a Friday relief rally. Dell surged 12% on AI infrastructure demand and S&P 500 inclusion, while Hewlett Packard Enterprise jumped over 12%. Cyclical and industrial stocks also stabilized late in the week, moving alongside tech to steady the broader market ahead of the weekend.

Research Dashboard

According to our research dashboard, the price, volume, and volatility indices decreased -2.94%, -6.31%, and -57.67%, respectively, last week.

Index tokens showed mixed performance. BTC and ETH prices fell -4.35% and -1.47%, respectively. Polkadot (DOT) led the price, volume, and volatility rise, while UNI led price and volume decline.

The Polkadot community is voting on OpenGov Referendum 1944 to fund and launch a native decentralized stablecoin named dotUSD. The proposal requests a $5 million treasury allocation to seed initial liquidity (split between USDT and DOT) in a dedicated pool on the Asset Hub.

Chart of the Week

Bitcoin entered its longest period of onchain profitability of 2026 as its Spent Output Profit Ratio (SOPR) stayed above the 1.0 breakeven level starting August 19. SOPR measures the aggregated profit or loss realized when holders move coins onchain. Values consistently above 1 indicate that participants are selling at a profit, often signaling bullish momentum. This marks a three-week streak where most coins moving onchain are being transacted at a profit, with the metric currently valued at 1.001.

Weekly Performance

Top-cap tokens all saw bearish price action last week, except for Filecoin (FIL) and Polkadot (DOT).

DeFi categories all declined last week, with RWA and Oracles leading the drop.

News Highlights

Company News

• Robinhood Markets (NASDAQ: HOOD) designated OG.com as an infrastructure and clearing provider for its prediction market offering. Robinhood will route retail event contract volume through OG.com’s CFTC-regulated derivatives exchange and clearinghouse architecture.

Regulation

• The revised CLARITY Act proposes directing the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to establish registration, disclosure, conduct, and supervision requirements for protocols controlled by an individual or coordinated group. Protocols operating as purely decentralized technology would not be required to register. While the bill aims to draw a clear distinction between decentralized systems and identifiable operators, its passage remains uncertain.
• The UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) reportedly discussed relaxing its retail ban on financial and climate prediction contracts, partly because consumers are using overseas platforms. No formal policy change or timeline has been announced.
• Germany’s Federal Ministry of Finance proposed taxing crypto like securities. A draft bill would end tax-free treatment for crypto gains held longer than 12 months, placing them under the capital gains framework.

Adoption

• Visa is linking VisaNet settlement data with onchain lending infrastructure to help lenders assess crypto-card issuers and provide working capital. Visa said it supports over 160 stablecoin-linked card programs and annualized stablecoin settlement volume above $20 billion.
• PayPal launched PYUSDx, a platform allowing companies to issue customized tokens backed by PayPal USD. The move indicates PayPal is positioning its stablecoin infrastructure as an enterprise issuance layer rather than just a payments product.
• U.S. Bank completed a live transfer between North American and European entities using its dollar-backed USBDC on the Stellar blockchain. The test evaluated minting, redemption, freezing, recovery, and compliance controls.

Others

• Bitwise is preparing to liquidate its Dogecoin ETF (BWOW) on October 14, with cash distributions expected around October 22. Launched in November 2025, the fund held roughly $688,000 in net assets as of September 9.
• Ethereum's upcoming upgrade will include EIP-8141 (Frame Transactions), which enables users, applications, and sponsors to cover transaction fees using stablecoins and alternative assets. While validators will still receive ETH, the update lowers usability and onboarding barriers for mainstream users.
• Harmony proposed sunsetting its Layer-1 blockchain and migrating its ONE token to Ethereum. Following an exploit involving forged tokens, the non-binding proposal sets a final snapshot to issue ERC-20 tokens on Ethereum, subject to validator approval and governance risks.
• The Liquid Network Bitcoin sidechain temporarily halted after white-hat hackers withdrew approximately 4,000 BTC ($320 million) from the protocol’s wallet. Following the return of roughly 3,400 BTC, Liquid resumed block production while keeping normal transactions and peg operations suspended during full recovery.

Catalyst Calendar

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