Crypto Corner

Friday, 2026-09-18 · covering the last 24h

Market signal

Bitcoin reclaims $80,000 for the first time since September 7 as a regulatory one-two punch overtakes this week's Fed hike. Bitcoin gained roughly 5% on the day to print above $80,800 and ether pushed toward $2,600 as markets digested Thursday's CFTC rulemaking filing (see Policy) on top of Wednesday's SEC tokenized-stock exemption, treating the pair as a durable regulatory tailwind even with the CLARITY Act dead; the move caught short sellers offside, with more than $445m in short positions liquidated within hours, per exchange-tracked data. The Block · KuCoin

Markets & flows — ETFs, stablecoins & on-chain

Spot bitcoin ETFs snap back to a net inflow; ether ETFs extend their outflow streak to a third day. US spot bitcoin ETFs took in $159.5m net on Thursday, September 17, per SoSoValue data, with BlackRock's IBIT leading at +$184.0m while Fidelity's FBTC gave back $16.6m; spot ether ETFs recorded their third straight net-outflow day at $39.2m, BlackRock's ETHA alone responsible for $42.9m of redemptions even as Fidelity's FETH and VanEck's ETHV posted small inflows. KuCoin (SoSoValue data) · KuCoin (SoSoValue data)

Column becomes the first FDIC-insured US bank to build stablecoins directly into its banking core. The federally chartered bank launched native, 24/7 USDC and USDT conversion with no prefunding required — stablecoin balances sit on the same ledger as bank accounts — alongside new card-issuing and multi-currency products, naming Solana the default settlement chain in its developer API. Column says the rails already move tens of billions annualized for fintech clients including Ramp, Brex and Mercury, one of the clearest signs yet of stablecoins moving into regulated US banking plumbing rather than sitting alongside it. Column · KuCoin

The industry — exchanges, miners & infrastructure

The listed crypto complex posts its best day in months as regulators signal they'll act without Congress. Coinbase, Strategy, Circle, Galaxy Digital and Robinhood all logged double-digit percentage gains Friday — Coinbase around +10–12%, Strategy +12–16%, Galaxy +7%, Circle +6%, Robinhood +7.5% — as investors read the SEC's tokenized-stock exemption and the CFTC's new rulemaking filing together as a lasting regulatory tailwind; bitcoin miner MARA also rose more than 13% on the same rotation. 24/7 Wall St. · Yahoo Finance

Haruko cyberattack exposes API and trading data at 15 institutional clients; some smaller funds lose assets. The London-based crypto trading-infrastructure provider, which connects institutional clients to more than 100 exchanges and 30 blockchains, said an attacker exploited a vulnerability to extract a user-access token and pull read-only exchange API and trading data from process memory. Co-founder and CTO Adam Carlile called it a targeted attack, said the flaw is patched and server-side secrets refreshed, and that a handful of smaller hedge-fund clients with weaker security controls lost a small amount of funds; a technical post-mortem is pending. CoinDesk · KuCoin

Policy & regulation

CFTC files a two-part crypto rulemaking with the White House, moving to regulate without Congress. The agency submitted "Regulation Crypto Asset Transactions" and "Regulation Crypto Asset Markets" (RIN 3038-AF80) to the White House's OIRA on Thursday, two days after the Senate's 49-50 rejection of the CLARITY Act. The filing is a confidential "prerule" covering trade, custody, settlement and registration requirements for crypto spot and derivatives venues; OIRA has up to 99 days to review it before it returns to the Commission for a vote, meaning a proposed rule open for public comment is unlikely before 2027. The Block · 24/7 Wall St.

The Chatter

David Hoffman, Bankless co-founder (X, Sep 18): argues NEAR is "the generalized version of ZEC" — where Zcash's shielded pool only encrypts a user's money, he frames NEAR's privacy-preserving smart-contract stack as encrypting commerce more broadly ("for everything else, there's NEAR") — disclosing he holds both tokens as part of a personal rotation out of ETH. TechFlow, via David Hoffman on X

Glassnode, BTC Market Pulse (Week 38): reads bitcoin's pullback into a $76,600–$80,400 range as orderly rather than a breakdown — exchange netflow and spot volume have cooled into net-selling territory and profitability is easing from elevated levels, but monthly realized-cap growth is still running above its normal band, which the report reads as long-term holders continuing to accumulate rather than distribute. Glassnode Research