• Nearly 25% of public companies holding BTC are now trading below their net asset value

• Ethereum’s monthly revenues have fallen sharply from 2024 highs even as DeFi TVL climbed to a record ~$95B in September, reflecting the impact of lower gas fees from scaling (L2 adoption, proto-danksharding) and more efficient contract execution, which have reduced fee revenue even as onchain activity grows

• Token buybacks have topped $859M YTD, with Solana apps driving roughly one-third on the back of $4B in fees, highlighting their growing dominance in onchain revenue. Hyperliquid alone accounts for 60% of total buybacks, illustrating how recurring app revenues are increasingly being returned to token holders

   

• Bitcoin’s price continues to track the U.S. ISM Manufacturing Index - a key measure of business activity and economic cycles. Since ISM reflects growth momentum, its alignment with Bitcoin reinforces the idea that Bitcoin trades as a macro asset: when the business cycle extends, the crypto cycle extends

Finary (Portfolio Management)

Raised €25MM (~US$27–28MM) Series B led by PayPal Ventures

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GRVT (Privacy DEX)

Raised $19MM

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Kredete (Credit/Payments)

Raised $22MM Series A led by AfricInvest CAIF & FIVE

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Mavryk Network (Real Estate Tokenization)

Raised $10MM

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Stablecore (Banking/Stablecoin Infra)

Raised $20MM

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FTX creditors to receive US$1.6Bn in repayments

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U.S. & UK deepen stablecoin oversight cooperation

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Australia eases rules for stablecoin intermediaries

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Bank of Canada urges joint regulation to stay competitive

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U.S. Treasury releases draft GENIUS Act rules

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NY regulator urges banks to adopt blockchain analytics

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Tether launched STBL, splitting stablecoin principal (USST) & yield (YLD)

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PayPal expands P2P crypto payments with new wallet integrations

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LMAX to offer cash-settled BTC/ETH perpetuals (100× leverage)

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Galaxy Digital planning tokenized money market fund with Anchorage as custodian

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Kalshi surged past Polymarket in prediction market volume (~62%, ~$1.3Bn in Sept.)

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• Sept. 20: Velo to unlock 13.63% of its circulating supply worth ~$43MM
• Sept. 22-28: Korea Blockchain Week
• Oct. 1-2: Token 2049

📄 Research Piece of the Week: Vitalik Buterin

Low-risk defi can be for Ethereum what search was for Google

📌 Tweet of the Week: Tad Smith

What Success Looks Like for Digital Art

🎤Podcast of the Week: zrTalk

zrTalk Episode 6: Walker Guffy