Cryptocurrency Roundup: Bitcoin Holds Below $80,000 As Wall Street Targets $125,000 And Leverage Data Warns Of Volatile September

Bitcoin finishes the week flat at around US$78,600 after holding on to the gains from a rally that delivered a 26 per cent return for August, the fourth-best August on record and the largest monthly gain since November 2024.

Ethereum rose 34 per cent over the past month in its strongest result since July 2025, while the ETH/BTC ratio gained 6 per cent for the month. Analyst, Ted Pillows, observed that the Ethereum price had made higher highs, unlike Bitcoin.

XRP lost about 8 per cent on the week. Solana gained 1 per cent after validators voted to curb inflation. Hyperliquid climbed close to 6 per cent on reports of a proposed partnership with Payward and Bitnomial to enter the US market.

The Crypto Fear and Greed Index sits at 62, in Greed territory.

Retail activity is beginning to heat up again, with Robinhood Chain taking US$1 million in 24-hour fees on Monday, more than Solana, Tron or Ethereum, less than two months after it launched.

Ethereum ETFs notched up ten straight days of inflows and took in US$824 million last week. Bitcoin ETFs saw US$925 million in inflows.

There are macro dangers ahead, however. Hawkish comments on inflation by US Federal Reserve Chair, Kevin Warsh, lifted the odds of a September rate hike to 62 per cent. The US and Iran have also returned to exchanging missile fire, once again pushing Brent crude back over US$90 a barrel.

Derivatives Data Paints A More Complex Picture

Beneath the headline prices, derivatives data tells a more nuanced story about what comes next.

For most of mid-August, leverage across both Bitcoin and XRP was muted. Bitcoin’s open interest held between US$46 billion and US$49 billion. XRP’s sat in the US$2.6 billion to US$2.8 billion range. From August 20 onward, both broke sharply higher in parallel.

Bitcoin’s open interest climbed toward US$57 billion as price pushed toward US$80,000. XRP’s expanded simultaneously, peaking near US$3.7 billion to US$3.75 billion as its price advanced from around US$1 toward US$1.50.

When price and open interest rise together, it signals the entry of new capital rather than short covering. Traders were not simply closing bearish positions. They were actively building new exposure across both assets at the same time.

That distinction matters because it changes what a pullback means. A short-covering rally unwinds cleanly when it reverses. A rally built on new long positions creates a liquidation structure that shapes the next move.

Some of the leverage built during the advance is now being trimmed. The question is how much remains and where it sits.

Liquidation Zones Set The Boundaries

Three-day Binance liquidation heatmaps make the structure visible.

Bitcoin shows a dense liquidity cluster in the US$77,000 to US$78,500 region, partially cleared during the recent advance and now functioning as a critical support zone. Residual liquidity above US$80,500 helps explain the rejection near the highs. The market ran into a wall of stacked positions that needed to be cleared before price could extend.

XRP shows its own concentrated liquidation band around US$1.44 to US$1.46, where price is now consolidating after failing to hold near US$1.55.

Bitrue Research Institute highlighted the alignment between elevated open interest, clearly defined liquidity zones and a constructive macro calendar.

“Bitcoin and XRP are not moving in isolation,” the institute wrote. “The leverage buildup and the location of liquidation clusters suggest that Bitcoin’s ability to secure a hold above $80,000 could serve as a meaningful catalyst for XRP’s next directional move.”

Because XRP has traded with high beta to Bitcoin during this recovery, a decisive defence or breakdown of Bitcoin’s US$77,500 to US$78,000 support is likely to trigger a corresponding move in XRP around its own US$1.44 to US$1.46 liquidity level. The heatmap data effectively turns Bitcoin’s next move into a leading indicator for XRP.

On-chain data adds one more constructive signal. XRP’s active addresses rose more than 650 per cent during the recent advance, suggesting the price move was accompanied by genuine network engagement rather than pure derivatives-driven speculation.

Wall Street Sees Bull Market Returning

Conventional wisdom holds that a new Bitcoin bull market will not be confirmed until the price holds above the 50-week moving average, currently around US$81,300. Galaxy Research has found the 50 WMA signal held true for 11 of the past 13 bear markets.

Wall Street research firm, Bernstein, believes the recent rally of 28 per cent over ten days has already signalled the return of bull market conditions. The firm expects Bitcoin to reclaim US$125,000 by late 2026 in both its base and bull-case scenarios.

Bernstein’s base case would see Bitcoin at US$150,000 by mid-2027, peaking at US$300,000 in 2029. Its bull case suggests US$200,000 in less than a year and US$500,000 by 2029. Its long-term target for both scenarios is US$1 million by 2033.

Three September Events Could Decide What Happens Next

Three events in September could determine whether the current leverage structure becomes a foundation or a trap.

The US Treasury’s expanded long-term bond buyback program is scheduled to begin around September 9. Buybacks inject liquidity into fixed income markets, which historically reduces pressure on risk assets and supports the broader debasement trade narrative that has underpinned both Bitcoin and major altcoins throughout 2026.

The Senate is expected to take up a procedural vote on the CLARITY Act near mid-September. Regulatory clarity has been a persistent overhang for assets with unresolved legal status, and XRP has been among the most sensitive to developments on that front. Progress would be constructive not just for sentiment but for the institutional inflow picture.

Any continued softening in the US dollar or long-term yields would reinforce both catalysts. The macro environment that produced this recovery remains intact. The question is whether it has enough momentum to absorb the leverage overhang now sitting above current prices.

Bitrue Research Institute framed the risk: “The mild reduction in open interest during the recent pullback remains a reminder that leverage cuts both ways. Upcoming events, particularly the start of expanded Treasury buybacks and potential progress on the CLARITY Act, may provide the fundamental support needed to turn short-term positioning into a more sustained move. But the structure only holds if Bitcoin does.”

The Debasement Trade Goes Mainstream

The so-called debasement trade that has been pumping crypto and precious metals has broken through into the mainstream.

The Kobeissi Letter reports that the word “debasement” appeared in 1,533 Bloomberg articles last week, double the week before and the third-highest number of mentions on record.

VanEck Asia Pacific Managing Director, Arian Neiron, told the Australian Financial Review the trade reflected a fiscal reckoning for the world’s largest economy.

“The US is holding so much debt and long-term yields are at 2007 levels,” he explained. “So the question for an investor is: well, if I’ve got too much US Treasuries, what is my real store of value? What’s the asset that’s really going to hedge the risk? That’s why the debasement trade has come to the fore again.”

The US primary budget deficit of negative 3.58 per cent is the largest among major advanced economies.

Stablecoin Push Continues Despite BIS Scepticism

The Chief of the Bank for International Settlements, Pablo Hernandez de Cos, argued this week that stablecoins do not credibly function as a means of payment at scale. He contended that tokenised bank deposits should instead be used for most day-to-day payments.

It is increasingly a minority view. A dozen large banks including Bank of America, Wells Fargo and Santander are advancing plans for a USD stablecoin project aimed at commercial clients across G7 currencies. The Wall Street Journal also reports that JPMorgan Chase held preliminary internal discussions about launching its own stablecoin.

Revolut has launched a Euro-backed stablecoin called EURR for 2 million customers in Denmark, Poland and Portugal, with plans to expand. Revolut has more than 75 million app users across 40 different markets.

In Singapore, payments company Nium will test the use of USD and Euro-backed stablecoins for cross-border payment settlement outside of business hours using the Visa payments network. The trial is part of the Monetary Authority of Singapore’s Project Bloom and aims to reduce delays and give financial institutions faster access to funds.

Bridge Founder, Zach Abrams, told Fortune he believed Singapore businesses would embrace local stablecoins.

“Businesses in Singapore are going to want to hold tokenised Singapore dollars, so they can convert them into Treasuries or other assets to earn yield,” he offered. “The region is warming to stablecoins, but it’s not as warm as the US yet.”

In Hong Kong, Franklin Templeton and HashKey have launched a US tokenised money fund for professional investors, called the Franklin OnChain US Government Liquidity Fund.

Zilliqa Pushes Migration Fix After Ledger Exploit

Zilliqa has completed the first phase of a hard fork to migrate exchange balances from legacy addresses to Zilliqa EVM, six weeks after it disabled legacy transactions to stop the exploitation of a signing flaw in the Zilliqa Ledger app.

The hard fork reassigned balances at the protocol level for a first group of ten exchange partners, moving their legacy Schnorr-based balances directly to their Zilliqa EVM addresses. No user action was required, and exchanges are working through their own testing before restoring ZIL deposits and withdrawals.

A second hard fork for mid-September will migrate the next group of exchanges once address mappings are verified.

The larger group of legacy wallet holders who self-custody their ZIL has been harder to serve. Zilliqa reports the self-guided migration tool is in its final stages of development and is on track for release in mid-September.

The tool is built on zero-knowledge proofs, which means holders will be able to migrate their stuck legacy ZIL balances to Zilliqa EVM addresses themselves, without exposing a seed phrase or private key.

Because a ZK-based migration of this kind depends on a trusted setup, Zilliqa is finalising the group of participants who will take part in the setup ceremony. It will include Zilliqa, LTIN, an independent web3 security audit firm, an exchange partner and community participants.

Zilliqa Proposes Token Mint For Compensation

On the question of compensation, Zilliqa is not dancing around it.

The team acknowledged that legal recovery of stolen assets through cross-border tracing and enforcement is a real avenue but is also a slow and uncertain one.

“Anyone who tells you otherwise about a process like this isn’t being straight with you,” the team wrote. “We don’t think it’s fair to make affected holders wait on that outcome alone.”

In parallel with the legal process, Zilliqa is preparing a community vote on an adjustment to ZIL tokenomics that would include a proposed mint of new tokens specifically to compensate impacted users. The decision is being put to the community rather than made unilaterally because it changes token supply and affects every ZIL holder.

The full proposal, including the mechanics, amounts and eligibility, will be published on gov.zilliqa.com when it is ready.

Zilliqa also noted the incident forced it to make a decision it had been deferring: retiring the legacy, non-EVM transaction infrastructure entirely. That legacy stack predated not just Zilliqa 2.0 but the current era of tooling, automation and increasingly sophisticated exploit techniques.

The project’s strategic roadmap, focused on building a mediation layer for institutional finance with compliance checks that happen before settlement rather than after, has not changed. The team aims to have the organisation’s full attention back on executing that roadmap from mid-September.

Ransomware Affiliate Exposed With AI-Assisted Attack Planning

In a separate development with implications for the crypto ecosystem, a misconfigured server has exposed the working environment of an Aurora ransomware affiliate linked to attacks on more than 20 organisations across nine countries.

The exposed directory contained the operator’s Linux home directory, shell history, credential material, attack tooling, victim data, AI-assisted planning sessions and the Aurora ransomware encryptor itself, a CloudSEK investigation has revealed.

Working with TRM Labs, CloudSEK traced a ransom payment on-chain. TRM Labs’ wider analysis identified two confirmed victim payments and two additional payments consistent with separate victims, with the funds ultimately converging through shared laundering infrastructure.

CloudSEK found the attacker achieved domain-level or interactive access at 17 organisations. Four were subsequently listed on Aurora’s public leak site, connecting the activity observed inside the operator’s infrastructure with later public extortion.

The victim set covered multiple industries including manufacturing and industrial organisations, food and agriculture, professional and financial services, transport and logistics, consumer goods, environmental services and IT and backup infrastructure. The United States accounted for the largest share of confirmed victims.

AI Coding Tools Used To Plan Real-World Intrusions

One of the more significant findings was the operator’s use of Cursor, an AI-powered coding assistant, during attack planning.

Recovered sessions showed the attacker using Cursor in Russian to reason through attack sequences, including detailed planning around Active Directory Certificate Services exploitation. The chat history showed sustained back-and-forth use of the AI tool during victim engagements.

The finding offers direct visibility into how readily available AI tools are being incorporated into cybercriminal workflows, not just for generating code but for planning and working through attack paths against enterprise environments.

The operator maintained custom NetExec modules, including tools designed to collect browser credentials across multiple browsers and identify ESXi infrastructure. Exploit code for at least a dozen vulnerabilities was stored in the exposed environment, including a FortiOS toolkit rebuilt as an independent framework.

Ransom Payments Traced Through Crypto Laundering Infrastructure

The wallet address the operator provided for payment held 7 BTC at the time of analysis, a balance more consistent with accumulated proceeds from several victims than a single payment.

A key recovered from the Aurora encryptor allowed CloudSEK to access records from a completed ransom negotiation. Working with TRM Labs, CloudSEK traced the resulting payment on-chain and examined how the funds moved after payment.

Researchers observed differing splits across the payments analysed, including 35/65, 21/79, 46/54 and 40/60, with no single ratio consistently repeated. The finding suggests that the division of proceeds between participants was not based on a single fixed percentage.

Most of the traced funds passed through two dominant consolidation clusters before reaching cash-out addresses. One payment followed a different route through a peeling chain, where funds were gradually moved across a sequence of transactions rather than through the main consolidation hubs.

The ransomware itself was written in Zig, a relatively uncommon programming language in ransomware development, with versions targeting Windows and Linux/ESXi systems. The Linux/ESXi version contains functionality specifically designed for virtual infrastructure, including the ability to enumerate running virtual machines and force-terminate them before encryption begins.

CloudSEK assesses with high confidence that the operator is Russian-speaking based on Cursor conversations, module documentation and session notes written in Russian. No CIS-allocated IP ranges or CIS-country domains appeared in three months of the operator’s target lists, scans or success logs.

Bitrue Marks Eight Years With AI Trading Copilot

Elsewhere, crypto exchange Bitrue is marking its eighth anniversary with the launch of Bitrue AI, a free AI-powered trading copilot offering eight real-time strategies across three risk profiles: Aggressive, Growth and Stable.

Bitrue was founded in 2018 as the first exchange to list XRP as a base pair, a structural commitment that shaped the exchange’s identity and user base. The platform now serves more than 40 million users across 100 countries.

Each strategy in Bitrue AI is refreshed continuously against live market data and comes with explainable reasoning, surfacing not just what it recommends but the market conditions it identified, the signals it acted on and the logic behind every parameter it set.

The exchange has built out what it describes as a growing suite of real-world asset products, including tokenised stocks for Tesla, Apple and Nvidia available for trading directly on the platform, 3x leveraged tokenised stock tokens including retail exposure to SpaceX and tokenised RWA futures contracts.

Bitrue also operates an XRPL validator, contributing directly to the decentralisation and security of the XRP network. As the XRP Ledger has matured into a settlement layer for tokenised government assets, including Dubai’s Land Department placing legal property titles on-chain, the exchange argues its eight-year commitment to the ecosystem has positioned it at the intersection of crypto infrastructure and institutional adoption.

Quantum Proofing Efforts Accelerate

Efforts to prepare major blockchain networks for the threat of quantum computing are picking up pace.

Blockstream researchers have published a new Bitcoin Improvement Proposal to upgrade Bitcoin with the SHRINCS signature scheme. While SHRINCS is over 13 times smaller than the post-quantum signature scheme it was derived from, the smaller size has drawbacks, including requiring a 5,777-byte fallback transaction if a wallet needs to be restored from a seed phrase. The BIP also warns that a security proof remains to be completed.

StarkWare has tested an experimental quantum secure transaction on the existing Bitcoin mainnet that protects against short-range attacks in the mempool. However, it takes hours of computation and costs around US$200.

Developers at Ripple have laid out a four-stage plan to upgrade the XRP ledger to quantum secure, including an emergency fallback plan.

On the Ethereum side, core developers have confirmed EIP-8141 for next year’s Hegota hard fork. Known as Frame Transaction, the EIP combines native account abstraction, which turns accounts into smart wallets, with post-quantum readiness. It enables adding any signature scheme without a hard fork.

Solana Votes To Curb Inflation

Solana validators have voted to reduce the rate of inflation on the network, resulting in 18.9 million fewer SOL coming into existence over the next six years.

Known as double disinflation, the plan will enable Solana to reach a 1.5 per cent annual inflation rate within 2.8 years, instead of 5.7 years under the previous schedule.

Last Updated on September 3, 2026 by Nick Ross