Bitcoin just had its best week since 2024; sentiment flipped from fear to greed in a day
#BTC $BTC $BTC Bitcoin surges above $75,000 as Treasury buybacks trigger short liquidations and rapidly shift crypto market sentiment. Those who didn’t move before Wednesday have probably spent the past two days doing the math on what they missed. Bitcoin is up roughly 20% in seven days, its best week since March 2024, trading above $75,000 in Asian hours on Friday after spending most of the past two weeks below $65,000. Ethereum climbed right along with it, and total crypto market capitalization is back above $2.5 trillion. On Wednesday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent doubled the size of the department’s long-duration bond buybacks, from $2 billion to at least $4 billion per operation. One detail got lost in a lot of the crypto coverage: the change doesn’t take effect until September 9 and runs through November 4. No Treasury cash has moved yet. The announcement said it all. Long-bond yields, which had climbed to a near two-decade high after months of weak demand for 30-year debt, dropped sharply within minutes as traders saw the surprise timing as a sign that the Treasury would step in to support a shaky market. That relief faded fast: yields drifted back up again by Thursday morning, and economists were split on whether a modestly bigger buyback program changes much of anything structurally. Crypto’s reaction didn’t fade with it. Traders who had shorted bitcoin, positioned for tighter conditions rather than a friendlier-sounding Treasury, got caught wrong-footed by the shift in tone. About $3 billion in short positions were liquidated over the following day, and each forced liquidation led to more buying, which kept pushing the price up on its own, regardless of what bonds were doing by then. Bessent added fuel on Thursday, telling CNBC that the eventual buyback total could exceed $4 billion. Call it a signaling story rather than a plumbing one: a policy surprise most crypto traders had never heard of on Tuesday moved the market’s price and its mood before a single dollar of the actual buyback had been spent. The Fear & Greed Index jumped from 46 to 62 in a single day, one of the sharper sentiment swings of the year, then kept climbing to 72 by Friday.
XRP is going for 22% Rally, But Ripple Still is Undervalued
#XRP $XRP $XRP price is changing hands at $1.3, up 18% on the day, extending a violent 22% rally that carried the token to $1.26 in a single 24-hour window days earlier, shrugging off bearish prediction. But what’s driving it, and more importantly, where does the smart money rotate once the easy gains are booked? The rally wasn’t XRP-specific. It traces back to two August 19 announcements: the U.S. Treasury doubling its longer-term bond buyback program to inject market liquidity, and President Trump reiterating his push to make the U.S. a Bitcoin superpower while pressing Congress to pass the CLARITY Act. Following all the catalysts, the total crypto market cap responded with an 8% jump to $2.5 trillion in 24 hours. XRP simply rode the wave harder than most large-caps. That macro tailwind explains the spike, but it doesn’t answer whether XRP holds these levels or gives them back. The technical picture underneath the headline number tells a more complicated story. $XRP 22% pop validates anyone who bought the dip below $1. But XRP is a multi-billion-dollar asset now, and a repeat of that percentage gain from here requires enormous capital inflow, not just sentiment. That math is exactly why traders chasing outsized returns increasingly look toward earlier-stage infrastructure plays where the market cap ceiling hasn’t been tested yet. Some of that rotation lands on Ripple’s broader valuation story; some of it lands on presales building the next layer of crypto infrastructure entirely. Bitcoin Hyper ($HYPER) is positioning itself as the first Bitcoin Layer 2 with native SVM integration, smart contract execution at speeds it claims outpace Solana itself, while settling back to Bitcoin’s base layer for security. The presale is priced at $0.013685 and has raised $33 million so far, with staking rewards on offer for early participants. The pitch: solve Bitcoin’s slow, expensive, non-programmable core through a decentralized canonical bridge and low-latency execution layer.
Ethereum ETF Pulls $221M as ETH Eyes Another Breakout
#ETH $ETH $ETH Ethereum is back in the spotlight after U.S. spot Ethereum ETF pulled more than $220 million in fresh capital on August 20. The funds recorded more $219 million in net inflows, extending their winning streak to four consecutive trading days. BlackRock’s ETHA once again dominated the session with about $173 million in inflows. That puts the August 20 flow above the $189.15 million recorded one day earlier. The back to back inflows suggest institutional demand has not slowed after Ethereum’s sharp recovery. ETH is also surging above the $2,300 level. Ethereum trading around the $2,360 area in recent market data, with its market cap remaining above $270 billion. BlackRock’s ETHA accounted for roughly $173 million of the August 20 inflows. That was followed by BlackRock’s ETHB with about $35.9 million, while Fidelity’s FETH added $5.8 million. Bitwise’s ETHW brought in around $2.8 million. VanEck’s ETHV added another $1.7 million. The remaining products recorded either smaller flows or no meaningful change during the session. The result is important because it came immediately after the $189 million inflow recorded on August 19. That earlier session had already been described as Ethereum’s strongest single day since October 2025. As of now, August is shaping up as a major turnaround for Ethereum ETF. The funds had struggled through May and June, when combined net outflows exceeded $1 billion. The money is moving in the opposite direction. Ethereum ETFs have posted several consecutive positive sessions while ETH has reclaimed levels that looked out of reach during the recent weakness. Ethereum price action is giving the ETF numbers even more weight as it jumped sharply during the recent move, reaching above $2,300 and briefly trading near $2,400. The token’s recovery also came with a sharp improvement in sentiment. Ethereum is now testing whether the $2,300 area can turn into support rather than another temporary stop. That matters because ETF demand is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore. Four straight days of inflows means institutions are adding exposure while ETH is already trading significantly above its recent lows. There is another supply signal worth watching. Santiment data previously showed exchange held ETH falling from roughly 7.70 million coins on June 2 to 6.54 million on August 18. That represents a decline of around 15% over 11 weeks. $ETH sitting on exchanges can reduce immediately available selling supply. Combined with stronger ETF demand, that creates an interesting setup if buying pressure continues. The big question now is whether Ethereum can turn this ETF momentum into a sustained breakout as the $2,400 area is the next obvious test. If ETH clears it decisively while ETF inflows remain strong, the market could start looking toward the next major resistance levels. For now, the message from Wall Street is getting louder: institutions are buying the dip, and Ethereum is listening.
Grayscale updates Zcash ETF filing as DCG unit weighs $110M ZEC buy
#ZEC $ZEC Grayscale has filed its fourth amendment to convert the Zcash Trust into an exchange-traded fund while disclosing that a Digital Currency Group subsidiary is considering an investment representing about 200,000 ZEC, currently worth roughly $110 million According to an Aug. 18 registration statement filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Grayscale plans to list shares of the converted trust on NYSE Arca under the existing ZCSH ticker, subject to the registration becoming effective. The latest amendment also identifies DCG International Investments Ltd., a subsidiary of Grayscale parent Digital Currency Group, as a potential investor. The company is discussing a purchase of shares representing exposure to approximately 200,000 ZEC. With Zcash trading near $555, the proposed amount would be valued at roughly $111 million. Grayscale stressed that no binding purchase agreement has been reached and that the eventual transaction, if one takes place, could differ substantially from the amount under discussion. “However, because these discussions are not binding agreements or commitments to purchase, the Potential Investor could determine to purchase more, fewer or no Shares,” the filing said. The amendment moves forward a conversion process built around Grayscale’s existing Zcash investment vehicle, which has provided investors with ZEC exposure without requiring them to hold the cryptocurrency directly. Grayscale filed for the conversion in May, proposing to move ZCSH from its existing over-the-counter structure to NYSE Arca. The trust would continue holding ZEC while its publicly traded shares would provide investors with exposure to the value of the underlying cryptocurrency. A subsequent crypto.news review of the filing found that the trust held 391,103.89 ZEC worth about $99.4 million as of March 31. Coinbase Custody was listed as custodian, BNY Mellon as administrator and the CoinDesk Zcash Price Index as the pricing benchmark. The latest SEC filing shows that the trust’s principal market net asset value had increased to about $155.25 million as of June 30, with a principal market NAV per share of $32.15. Under the proposed ETF structure, authorized participants would be able to purchase and redeem shares in blocks of 10,000 shares, which Grayscale defines as baskets. The trust intends to issue shares continuously once the registration becomes effective and the NYSE Arca listing is completed. Grayscale’s filing states that the investment objective remains for the value of ZCSH shares, based on ZEC held per share, to track the value of the trust’s cryptocurrency holdings after expenses and liabilities. The possible DCG International Investments purchase could add a sizeable investor to the product, although Grayscale has not provided a timetable for the discussions or stated whether the subsidiary has committed capital to the transaction. Alongside the investment disclosure, Grayscale has expanded the registration statement to account for the security incident that affected Zcash earlier this year. The issue centred on a vulnerability in Orchard, Zcash’s shielded transaction pool, which could have allowed an attacker to create counterfeit ZEC without leaving an obvious public record of the additional supply. Developers deployed emergency network changes in June after the flaw was discovered. Although the Zcash team said it found no evidence that the vulnerability had been exploited, the privacy properties of Orchard meant developers could not conclusively prove that counterfeit ZEC had never been created. The uncertainty became particularly important for an investment product designed to hold ZEC because any hidden inflation could affect the cryptocurrency’s circulating supply and, in turn, the value of assets held by the trust. Zcash developers later prepared the Ironwood upgrade to deal with the remaining supply question. As reported ahead of activation, Ironwood was scheduled for July 28 at block 3,428,143 and introduced a separately tracked shielded pool alongside controls governing funds leaving the old Orchard pool. The upgrade included a supply turnstile designed to prevent more ZEC from leaving Orchard than had legitimately entered it. The mechanism did not identify individual counterfeit coins but provided a way to contain any excess hidden supply if the earlier vulnerability had been exploited. $ZEC Zcash founder Zooko Wilcox also explained before the fork that the old Orchard pool would effectively be sealed, while funds could leave through the turnstile under the network’s accounting rules. When Ironwood activated on July 28, Zcash replaced the vulnerable pool with a new shielded pool backed by a formally verified design. Orchard stopped accepting new shielded transfers and remained available for withdrawals as users began moving funds into Ironwood. More than 40,000 ZEC had moved into the new pool shortly after activation, while about 3.6 million ZEC remained in Orchard, according to data cited at the time.
SEC Unveils Two Crypto Funding Exemptions and Token Safe Harbor
#SECCryptoRegulation The SEC proposed Regulation Crypto Assets includes a conditional safe harbor that could allow a crypto asset to be delinked from an investment contract with which it was once associated. The proposal pairs that safe harbor with new exemptions designed for certain investment contracts involving crypto assets. Earlier today, the SEC proposed Regulation Crypto Assets, a proposed framework for certain investment contracts involving crypto assets. It includes two exemptions from registration under the Securities Act of 1933 and a conditional safe harbor related to the term investment contract. The startup exemption would permit offerings of up to $5 million during a four-year period. The fundraising exemption would permit offerings of up to $75 million during each 12-month period. Under both exemptions, issuers would provide principles-based narrative disclosures. The proposal states that issuers would remain subject to the federal securities laws’ antifraud and antimanipulation provisions. It also would preempt state securities-law registration and qualification requirements for offers and sales of securities issued under a Regulation Crypto Assets exemption, as well as certain secondary-market transactions. Alongside the exemptions, the proposed rules include a conditional safe harbor from the term investment contract in the definitions of security under the Securities Act of 1933 and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. If the safe harbor’s conditions are satisfied, a crypto asset would be deemed not to be subject to an investment contract for purposes of those definitions. Commissioner Hester M. Peirce described the safe harbor as a way for an issuer of an investment contract to delink a crypto asset from the investment contract with which it was once associated. The condition described by the SEC is that the issuer has completed or permanently ceased all essential managerial efforts it represented or promised it would take under an investment contract. The proposal follows the SEC and CFTC’s March 2026 interpretation addressing how federal securities laws apply to certain crypto assets and transactions involving crypto assets. The SEC has presented the proposed rules and earlier interpretation as part of a tailored securities offering regime for crypto assets. The safe harbor is conditional, and the proposal is not presented as a framework for every crypto-asset model. Peirce said the exemptions and safe harbor will not fit every model and invited public feedback on the proposal. Peirce also requested input on facilitating a role akin to equity for crypto assets, allowing token holders to share in the growth and value of the enterprise that builds a crypto network. That issue is an area for feedback, rather than a feature established by the proposal. The proposal’s two exemptions are limited by their respective offering caps and disclosure conditions. The safe harbor, meanwhile, is tied to completion or permanent cessation of the issuer’s essential managerial efforts under the investment contract. The SEC said Regulation Crypto Assets comes as Congress works to establish a lasting regulatory framework. SEC Chairman Paul S. Atkins said the proposal seeks to provide crypto-asset entrepreneurs and market participants with pathways to raise capital under federal securities laws while those broader efforts continue. The proposal is now subject to public comment. The SEC says the comment period will remain open for 60 days after publication of the proposing release in the Federal Register.
Ripple raises $275M for US prime brokerage to meet institutional demand
#XRP $XRP $XRP Ripple said the $275 million raised will support its expansion into traditional financial services such as prime brokerage and multi-asset clearing, citing strong demand from institutions. Ripple raised $275 million in a senior note offering that closed on Tuesday to support blockchain enterprise solutions provider’s ongoing US business expansion into financial services. The senior unsecured notes were issued in a private placement by the company’s non-bank prime brokerage, Ripple Prime, the company announced on Tuesday. Ripple said the note offering attracted a diverse base of institutional investors from financial markets. Ripple Prime President Noel Kimmel said that the support received during the note offering is a signal of “confidence in our long-term vision for the growing intersection of traditional and digital asset financial infrastructure.” $XRP Ripple said the proceeds of the offering will be used to support its expansion into financial services including prime brokerage, financing and multi-asset clearing. The company acquired Hidden Road last year in a roughly $1.25 billion deal. That acquisition allowed the Ripple to launch its institutional prime brokerage business, which was later rebranded as Ripple Prime. In May, Ripple secured a $200 million credit facility from funds managed by Neuberger Berman to expand the lending capacity of its institutional prime brokerage business. In July, it launched Ripple Mint, a platform that gives institutions new ways to access, mint, redeem and manage its US dollar-pegged stablecoin, Ripple USD (RLUSD). At last look, RLUSD has a market cap of $1.76 billion,