Cryptocurrency Roundup: Bitcoin Holds Steady As Currency Debasement Fears Drive Investors Toward Crypto And Gold

Bitcoin and Ethereum have maintained the bulk of their late-August gains as renewed institutional demand through exchange-traded funds and a growing narrative around currency debasement continue to underpin sentiment across digital asset markets.

Bitcoin was trading around US$78,600 at the end of the week, while Ethereum held near US$2,470. August delivered a 26 per cent return for Bitcoin, making it the fourth-strongest August on record and the largest monthly gain since November 2024. Ethereum fared even better, rising 34 per cent over the month for its strongest result since July 2025.

The relatively calm price action follows a sharp rebound in late August, when both assets recovered from an earlier pullback that had weighed on market confidence.

ETF Inflows Signal Renewed Institutional Appetite

One of the more notable developments has been the return of sustained inflows into US spot crypto ETFs.

Bitcoin ETFs recorded nine consecutive days of net inflows before a single day of outflows, taking in roughly US$925 million over the past week. Ethereum ETFs went one better, notching ten straight days of positive flows and attracting approximately US$824 million.

ETF flows do not explain every short-term price move, but they remain a useful gauge of institutional demand. When fund flows are positive, ETF issuers generally need to purchase the underlying cryptocurrency to meet redemption obligations. The recent improvement gives the market a more constructive backdrop than it had earlier in the month.

‘Debasement Trade’ Breaks Into The Mainstream

A broader macroeconomic narrative has been building behind the rally. The so-called “debasement trade,” in which investors rotate into hard assets such as gold and Bitcoin as a hedge against currency erosion, has gained significant mainstream attention.

The word “debasement” appeared in 1,533 Bloomberg articles last week, more than double the prior week’s count and the third-highest weekly total on record. The figure surged roughly 750 per cent over two weeks, according to financial commentary outlet, The Kobeissi Letter.

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,” Neiron 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?”

The US primary budget deficit of -3.58 per cent is the largest among major advanced economies, a dynamic that has pushed investors to seek alternative stores of value.

Wall Street Forecasts Point Higher

Wall Street research firm, Bernstein, argues 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.

Its base case projects Bitcoin reaching US$150,000 by mid-2027, peaking at US$300,000 in 2029. The bull case is more aggressive, forecasting US$200,000 within a year and US$500,000 by 2029. Both scenarios carry a long-term target of US$1 million by 2033.

However, the broader technical picture has not yet fully confirmed a new bull cycle. Conventional wisdom holds that a new Bitcoin bull market is not confirmed until the price holds above the 50-week moving average, currently around US$81,300. Galaxy Research points out this signal has held true in 11 of the past 13 bear markets.

Analyst Ted Pillows observed that Ethereum has made “higher highs” in its price action, a pattern Bitcoin has not yet replicated, suggesting Ethereum may have bottomed for this cycle.

Strategy Resumes Bitcoin Accumulation

Strategy, the company led by Executive Chairman, Michael Saylor, and formerly known as MicroStrategy, has shifted back to buying Bitcoin after a 10-week pause during which it sold some of its holdings.

Between August 24 and 30, the company purchased 4,603 Bitcoin for approximately US$330 million, at an average price of around US$71,700 per coin.

The acquisition lifted Strategy’s total Bitcoin holdings to 845,050 coins. That represents about 4.0 per cent of Bitcoin’s eventual maximum supply of 21 million, underlining how significant the company has become in the broader Bitcoin market.

Across all of its purchases, Strategy has spent approximately US$57 billion to build its position, implying an average purchase price of roughly US$67,300 per Bitcoin. The latest batch was acquired above that average, but the move marks a clear shift back to accumulation.

Robinhood Chain Gains Rapid Traction

Robinhood Chain, which launched in July, has continued to gain traction at a rapid pace. Total value locked in its decentralised finance applications has climbed from just over US$270 million in late July to roughly US$640 million.

The chain is built around Robinhood’s broader push into tokenised assets and on-chain finance, with products spanning trading, stablecoins and real-world assets. Its stablecoin supply and decentralised exchange volumes have both increased alongside TVL.

Retail activity on the chain has been particularly striking. Robinhood Chain took in more than US$1 million in 24-hour fees on a single day, exceeding the fee income of Solana, Tron and Ethereum over the same period, less than two months after launch.

Pons, a token launchpad on the chain, has surged to become Robinhood Chain’s largest token by market capitalisation. Arbitrum has also benefited from the chain’s growth, as Robinhood Chain is built on Arbitrum’s technology and returns 10 per cent of its protocol revenue to the network.

HOOD Summit, Robinhood’s annual conference, is scheduled for Houston on September 29 and 30. The company has flagged product announcements for the event, and further details about Robinhood Chain may be shared there.

Hyperliquid Eyes US Perpetual Futures Market

Hyperliquid could move closer to offering perpetual futures to US traders through a proposed partnership involving Payward, the parent company of Kraken, and Bitnomial.

Payward has presented the planned structure to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, though the arrangement still requires final regulatory approval. Under the proposal, Bitnomial would give registered US users access to selected crypto perpetual contracts tied to markets on Hyperliquid’s decentralised exchange and Layer 1 blockchain.

Payward gained control of Bitnomial earlier this year in a deal valued at up to US$550 million, acquiring access to regulated US derivatives infrastructure including exchange, clearing and brokerage services.

Former SEC Senior Counsel, Ashley Ebersole, cautioned that both the SEC and CFTC may need to revise interpretive rules covering custody and order routing before such a model can proceed. Ebersole, who now serves as Co-Founder and Chief Legal Officer at real-world asset platform tx, estimated the process could take at least 10 to 12 months even if regulators moved quickly.

The CFTC has already opened the door to more crypto perpetual products, having allowed KalshiEX and Coinbase to list crypto perpetual futures in May. President, Donald Trump, mentioned Hyperliquid during a press conference, indicating that CFTC Chair, Michael Selig, was working on a compliant path for the platform.

Hyperliquid’s native token was trading near US$84, up about 1.3 per cent over 24 hours, and has gained more than 85 per cent over the past year.

Stablecoin Push Accelerates Despite Central Bank Scepticism

The push toward stablecoins continues to accelerate across the banking sector, despite pushback from some central banking authorities.

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

That view appears increasingly at odds with the direction of the industry. 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. JPMorgan Chase has reportedly held preliminary internal discussions about launching its own stablecoin.

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

In Singapore, payments company, Nium, will test the use of USD and Euro-backed stablecoins for cross-border payment settlement outside 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,” Abrams remarked. “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.

Quantum-Proofing Efforts Advance For Bitcoin And XRP

Efforts to protect major blockchain networks against future quantum computing threats have taken several steps forward.

Blockstream researchers have published a new Bitcoin Improvement Proposal to upgrade Bitcoin with the SHRINCS signature scheme. While SHRINCS is 13.23 times smaller than the post-quantum signature scheme it was derived from, the smaller size carries drawbacks, including a 5,777-byte fallback transaction required for wallet recovery from a seed phrase. The proposal also acknowledges that a formal security proof remains incomplete.

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

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

Solana Validators Vote To Curb Inflation

Solana validators have voted to reduce the rate of inflation on the network, a move that will result in 18.9 million fewer SOL tokens coming into existence over the next six years.

Known as double disinflation, the plan will allow Solana to reach a 1.5 per cent annual inflation rate within 2.8 years, compared to 5.7 years under the previous schedule. Solana gained 1.2 per cent on the week following the vote.

Ethereum Confirms Hegota Hard Fork Details

Ethereum’s core developers have confirmed EIP-8141 for inclusion in next year’s Hegota hard fork. Dubbed Frame Transaction, the proposal combines native account abstraction, which turns accounts into smart wallets, with post-quantum readiness. It would enable the addition of any signature scheme without requiring a further hard fork.

Pump.fun Continues Revenue Growth

Pump.fun, the Solana-based token launchpad and trading platform, has continued to show improving fundamentals through late August. Platform revenue, trading activity and token buybacks have all remained elevated compared with earlier in the quarter.

The protocol directs 50 per cent of eligible net revenue to buying back and burning its token. In the final week of August, daily buybacks were generally around US$1 million or more, with the amount fluctuating alongside trading activity. This gives the token a direct link to platform usage: higher revenue results in more tokens being removed from circulation.

The project’s growth reflects a broader recovery in activity across the Solana ecosystem.

Macro Risks Linger

Despite the constructive tone in crypto markets, macro risks remain. Hawkish comments on inflation by US Federal Reserve Chair, Kevin Warsh, have lifted the odds of a September rate hike to 62 per cent.

Geopolitical tensions have also resurfaced, with the US and Iran returning to exchanging missile fire, pushing Brent crude back above US$90 a barrel.

The Crypto Fear and Greed Index sits at 62, placing market sentiment in the “Greed” territory.

Last Updated on September 5, 2026 by Nick Ross