Category: Business

Ethereum’s latest breakout extends a trend that has steadily shifted support higher. The recent pullback at $2,560 and a brief test of lower support at $2,550. Following this, buyers re-entered the market, pushing the price to a new high in the $2,600 to $2,700 range.

The move accelerated between the 20th and the 21st of September as Ethereum [$ETH] reached $2,712 before declining slightly, settling around the $2,700 level. Volume also increased during this time, indicating greater participation in the increase.

Meanwhile, RSI climbed to 68.66, approaching overbought territory. Despite that, it did not cross that threshold, which is above 70. A sustained move above $2,700 would reinforce the breakout and keep higher resistance levels within reach.

The current strength indicates the potential for a short-term cooling after the large gain. However, the structure still appears supportive so long as $2,560 continues to hold.

$ETH whale demand strengthens

Ethereum’s recent breakout has attracted significant spot demand from larger holders, adding depth to the move above $2,700. Wallet 0x4cee purchased 7567 $ETH worth approximately $19.9 million after transferring stablecoins to Binance.

This purchase stood out due to the fact that the same wallet sold 10500 $ETH a month ago for an average price of about $2252 per $ETH.

The buyer secured $3.66 million in profits on that sale. This indicates that the trader is more convinced of an upside potential than during the earlier sale.

Notably, the recently purchased $ETH was transferred from Binance, reducing the supply immediately available for resale. As such, this represents a much stronger positive demand indicator than if the investor had established a leverage position.

If similar accumulation continues, whale buying could reinforce the breakout and help $ETH sustain prices above $2,700.

Can $ETH hold $2,700?

Ethereum’s breakout now faces a derivatives market that supports momentum without showing excessive leverage. Hyperliquid holds roughly $3 billion in $ETH Open Interest, yet funding remains slightly positive.

On the other hand, short liquidation volumes reached $170 million as Ethereum forced short-sellers to buy back their positions during the upward breakout through $2,700.

When prices surged past resistance, forced market orders from liquidated short positions acted as secondary buying pressure. As a result, they accelerated the upward momentum toward $2,712.

In turn, buying pressure will increase the upward speed of prices, but it may fade as soon as all shorts are liquidated. As a result, $ETH will need to get spot buyers to replace that temporary demand and defend $2,700

Whale accumulation strengthens this setup, while mixed ETF flows leave confirmation incomplete. Holding $2,700 could open $2,760. Consequently, if it loses $2600, it could lead to weakened momentum.

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Final Summary

Hana Bank issued a $100 million digital bond through Euroclear’s blockchain settlement platform, completing the transaction the same day, the Yohnap Agency reported Monday.

This was the first time a Korean financial institution directly used the international depository’s distributed ledger infrastructure, the bank said, ranked second in South Korea with nearly $500 billion in client assets under management. Euroclear is a Brussels-based financial services company and one of the world’s largest central securities depositories (CSDs).

It shows how tokenization could make capital markets faster and more efficient. In this case, a traditional multi-day bond settlement process was replaced with same-day settlement on a distributed ledger.

“The $100 million digital bond issuance and implementation of T+0 settlement represent a significant step beyond simply diversifying our funding channels, as they bring blockchain technology into the capital market,” a Hana Bank official said, according to the Korea Herald. “We will continue to adopt advanced infrastructure and explore innovative funding solutions that meet the needs of global investors.”

Hana Bank and Euroclear did not immediately respond to a CoinDesk request for information.

Crypto markets are demonstrating robust resilience to start the week, with bitcoin

BTC$83,915.85

approaching the $84,000 threshold, for the time being at least shrugging off the immediate hawkish sentiment from last week’s Federal Reserve rate hike, which pushed the benchmark target to 4.00%.

The macro calendar centers on midweek U.S. jobless claims and housing and durable goods figures. Meanwhile, cross-asset markets continue to digest the policy path following recent rate decisions from the Bank of Japan and Bank of England.

On the market structure front, attention centers on the SEC opening its tokenized securities pilot framework.

What to Watch

(All times ET)

• Crypto
  • Sept. 22: The SEC’s conditional 5-year exemption window opens, allowing select institutional venues to begin pilot trading of tokenized stocks directly on public blockchains.
• Macro
  • Sept. 24, 8:30 a.m.: Canada Retail Sales MoM for August est. -0.8% (Prev. 0.6%)
  • Sept. 24, 8:30 a.m.: U.S. Initial Jobless Claims for period ending Sept. 19 est. 201K (Prev. 196K)
  • Sept. 24, 10:00 a.m.: U.S. New Home Sales for August est. 700K (Prev. 739K)
  • Sept. 25, 8:30 a.m.: U.S. Durable Goods Orders MoM for August est. -0.3% (Prev. 1.1%)
  • Sept. 25, 10:00 a.m.: U.S. Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index Final for September est. 47.8 (Prev. 51.7)
• Earnings

Token Events

• Governance votes and calls
  • Lido DAO is voting on a proposal to authorize a contingent $LDO centralized-exchange liquidity market-making mandate—budgeting up to $1.5 million in recallable $LDO and 480,000 USDC, to maintain orderbook depth and prevent potential exchange delistings. Voting ends Sept. 21.
  • Uniswap Governance is holding a temperature check on extending its protocol fee collection and UNI burn infrastructure to Arc, an L1 network built by Circle. Voting ends Sept. 23.
  • CoW DAO is voting on a redesign of its solver quote competition, setting aside a dedicated quote reward budget equal to 10% of protocol revenue to improve price routing and order conversion. Voting ends Sept. 25.
• Unlocks
  • Sept. 21: Canton

    CC$0.1127

    to unlock 0.38% of its circulating supply worth $17.17 million.

  • Sept. 22: TON (TON) to unlock 1.3% of its circulating supply worth $51.2 million.
  • Sept. 23: Humanity

    H$0.07641

    to unlock 14.7% of its circulating worth $20.8 million.

• Token launches
  • No confirmed major token launches.

Conferences

CoinMarketCap’s cryptocurrency fear and greed index measured a level of 72. This value indicates that the trend of greed continues in the cryptocurrency market. The index is used to measure the general sentiment of market participants; a value closer to zero indicates extreme fear, while a value closer to 100 indicates extreme optimism.

According to CoinMarketCap data, the index being at 72 indicates that investor sentiment remains positive. However, it is noted that the indicator alone is not a tool for determining the future direction of the market and should be evaluated in conjunction with other market data.

The fear and greed indicator is calculated by combining different market and investor behaviors. The price movements of the top 10 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization play a significant role in the calculation. Market volatility is also among the index’s components.

CoinMarketCap also uses data from derivative markets in its calculations. Indicators such as the put/call ratio are used to assess investors’ risk-taking tendencies. The Stablecoin Supply Ratio (SSR) is also among the data included in the index calculation.

In addition, CoinMarketCap’s own search data is also used to measure investor interest. Thus, price movements, market volatility, derivatives data, stablecoin supply, and user searches are combined to create an indicator of overall market sentiment.

The index hovering around 72 indicates a significant level of optimism in the market during the current period.

*This is not investment advice.

While large whale transactions in the cryptocurrency market attracted attention, significant developments occurred in $PONS, $ZEC, and $HYPE. A whale selling millions of $PONS put pressure on the price, while another whale who opened a long position in $ZEC about a month ago saw their unrealized profit approaching $10 million. Hyperliquid, meanwhile, burned $2.42 million worth of $HYPE in the last 24 hours.

According to on-chain data, a whale sold 2.25 million $PONS tokens withdrawn from Binance for approximately $1.29 million worth of USDG and Ethereum. On the day of the large sell-off, the price of $PONS fell by 12 percent.

On the $ZEC side, a whale stood out, having opened a long position of 9,810 $ZEC approximately a month ago at an average price of $517.68. As the $ZEC price rose to $1,534.70, the investor’s unrealized profit reached $9.98 million. It was also noted that the same investor held a short position of 3,550 ETH, resulting in an unrealized loss of approximately $2.60 million.

Hyperliquid also continued its token burning operations to reduce its supply. Over the past 24 hours, the platform burned 26,310 $HYPE tokens at an average price of $91.86. The total value of the transaction was estimated at approximately $2.42 million.

Hyperliquid has burned a total of 48.76 million $HYPE tokens to date, with a current market value of approximately $4.50 billion. This amount represents 4.88% of $HYPE’s maximum supply. The platform’s revenue over the last 30 days reached $64.34 million, while its all-time total revenue stands at $1.26 billion.

*This is not investment advice.

With Bitcoin’s price once again climbing above critical technical levels, analyst PlanB offered a noteworthy assessment. PlanB stated that Bitcoin closed above the 50-week moving average, which is around $79,000, and that the next technical target is the 100-week moving average at approximately $89,000.

PlanB noted that Bitcoin was trading around $81,000, stating, “Bitcoin closed above the 50-week moving average. The next target is the 100-week moving average, around $89,000.”

The renowned analyst also stated that his assessment that the bear market in Bitcoin has ended is now clear. He noted that after August closed at $78,571, a recovery was observed in various market indicators, and pointed out that the percentage of Bitcoin supply in a profitable state increased from 50% to 72%.

In addition, the analyst noted that the monthly RSI indicator rose from 41 to 51, arguing that this data points to an improvement in market momentum. According to PlanB, these developments suggest that Bitcoin may have passed its bottom, and the technical outlook supports bullish expectations for the upcoming period.

*This is not investment advice.

As the wider crypto market saw a boom, so did the altcoin market, with the latter’s market capitalization hitting $222 billion for the first time in 8 months.

However, while altcoins may be showing some signs of life, their rally still lacks the power needed to ignite a full-blown altseason.

Altcoin traders need to put in more work

According to Glassnode, despite this surge in market capitalization, altcoin leverage is reportedly still below a level that would historically be considered a major risk threshold.

In simple words, traders have not yet piled into altcoin futures positions to an extent typically associated with overheated markets. This can be concluded by the fact that the altcoin futures open interest relative to Bitcoin [BTC] was around -10% to -15% at press time, still below the red risk-threshold line near parity.

Historically, spikes towards or above that threshold have coincided with periods when altcoin leverage became stretched, increasing the risk of sharp liquidations.

However, with the metric below that level right now, the derivatives market may be relatively less crowded. This means that there may still be room for altcoins to attract more speculative capital before leverage reaches historically elevated levels.

Previous $ATH and Bitcoin dominance stir the pot

This is also because the gap from previous all-time highs is significant. Bitcoin is still around 36% below its $ATH. Ethereum [ETH] is still approximately 47% below its $ATH.

Solana [SOL] remains around 61% below its $ATH. And, as expected, the broader altcoin market capitalization is still around 54% below its $ATH.

While the altcoin market has been struggling to gain momentum, Bitcoin’s dominance was still sitting at a healthy 59.19% at press time. This implied that Bitcoin still controls a majority of the crypto market’s total capitalization.

Is altcoin season incoming?

At the same time, the altcoin season index had a reading of 54 at press time, placing the market firmly between Bitcoin Season and Altcoin Season.

Unfortunately though, while the index has repeatedly climbed towards the 75+ zone, it has failed to sustain those levels for long. Hence, it’s been a while since a true altseason came by. In other words, while altcoins are gaining momentum, the market has not yet reached the breadth or consistency required for a confirmed altseason.

This was further confirmed by a recent report by AMBCrypto. It clearly highlighted that while altcoins may finally be breaking out after nearly two years of stagnation, a broad altseason is yet to arrive.

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Final Summary

• Altcoin market cap’s surge and the altcoin season index hinted at an upcoming altcoin season.
• However, altcoin leverage lying still below a major risk threshold may be cause for concern.

One of the largest $XRP buying campaigns of the second half of 2026 is unfolding on the market. In just 96 hours, large investors have absorbed approximately 1.54 billion tokens from the market.

At the current exchange rate, this amount is valued at $2.2 billion. Against this backdrop, $2.00 per coin has once again become a tangible target.

Data from the analytics platform Santiment clearly confirms a sharp shift in sentiment among key network participants. The supply distribution chart shows a vertical surge in holdings. The combined balances of whale addresses have broken out of a prolonged plateau in just a few days and surged toward peak levels.

The buying spree comes amid the formation of a rare technical pattern, the inverse head and shoulders, on the daily $XRP/USD chart. The anatomy of this move is as follows:

• Defense zone: Large investors have established strong support around $1.33, forming a solid right shoulder of the pattern.
• Current base: The token’s price is currently holding around $1.40, demonstrating firm stability.
• Main barrier: The key resistance for buyers remains the neckline at $1.55.

The main barrier is $1.55. What happens if $XRP breaks through?

The market is successfully absorbing massive volumes of incoming liquidity. According to on-chain trackers, a large inflow of $XRP to the Binance exchange has been recorded. Under normal conditions, the arrival of such volumes on trading platforms triggers panic and a decline in prices.

However, the current aggressive buying demand is fully absorbing this supply. Tokens are being rapidly withdrawn from exchanges to cold wallets for long-term holding. This factor significantly reduces selling pressure and limits the risk of sudden sell-offs.

The fate of the large-scale rally is being decided within the current price range. If the current 96-hour momentum allows bulls to secure a daily close above the $1.55 resistance level, the bullish pattern will be confirmed. In that case, the technical setup could open a direct path for $XRP toward the psychological $2 mark.