New comments from Solmate’s Marco Santori and two widely followed analysts put the focus on SOL's $238 pivot and what would confirm higher prices.

Marco Santori's comments

In an X thread, Santori, a former Kraken CLO, introduced Solmate, which he described as “brand new Solana infrastructure” for the UAE, adding that he will be CEO.

He said Solmate is aligned with the Solana Foundation and backed by UAE investors, and he highlighted additional support from Ark Invest, which he characterized as a rare DAT PIPE investment by an ETF.

Santori framed Solmate’s remit as a digital asset treasury and crypto infrastructure company focused on SOL-per-share growth for shareholders.

Santori outlined the strategy behind the vehicle by calling digital asset treasuries “capital accumulation machines.” In his view, the best DAT is the one with the best access to capital, and he argued the UAE is “the Capitol of Capital.”

He said Solmate’s sponsors include the Pulsar Group, positioning the firm to raise fiat and convert it into crypto more efficiently than individual investors.

On operations, Santori said Solmate is partnering with RockawayX, which he called a leader in staking infrastructure, and that Viktor Fischer will join the board.

The plan includes standing up bare-metal validators in Abu Dhabi to target performance and reliability for staking, with more initiatives to follow.

Santori also made a broader case for the Solana ecosystem.

He said Solana is the “fastest, most used” blockchain and is growing faster than comparable networks. He contrasted it with Ethereum by saying Solana “delivers what Ethereum promised,” and closed the thread with an emphatic “I’m all in on it.”

Comments from analysts on SOL's price action

Analyst Rekt Capital said SOL has broken a long-term downtrend and is now retesting about $238 —f ormerly major monthly resistance —a s support on the weekly chart. He sees a successful retest as confirmation that the old ceiling has flipped to a floor, which would keep the path open for attempts at new all-time highs.

Trader KALEO said “$1,000+ sol isn’t a meme,” presenting four-figure prices as plausible; he did not specify timing in the post.

CoinDesk Research's technical analysis

Time window. The analysis covers Sept. 17, 2025, 19:00 UTC to Sept. 18, 2025, 18:00 UTC.

What happened. During that window, SOL moved from $233.78 to $250.59 (about +7.2%), swinging about $19.72 in total. That tells us buyers were generally in control during this period.

Where buyers showed up. Around 22:00 UTC on Sept. 17, 2025, price pushed above ~$245 on much heavier trading (~2.32M units). “Heavier trading” means more coins changed hands than usual.

When price climbs on bigger-than-normal activity, it’s a sign demand is strong enough to overcome sellers. After that push, ~$245 started acting like a floor (support) — traders were willing to buy dips there.

Where sellers pushed back. At 17:00 UTC on Sept. 18, 2025, price stalled near ~$253.44 on very high trading (~2.88M units). That shows ~$253 is a ceiling (resistance) — many traders chose to sell or take profit there, absorbing buy orders.

How the window ended. Between 17:56 UTC and 18:55 UTC on Sept. 18, 2025, price eased from $251.55 to $250.40. That small, orderly fade after a strong run is typical cool-off or consolidation — the market catching its breath rather than reversing trend.

Levels to watch:

• Floors (support): ~$245 first, ~$238 if ~$245 breaks. Support = areas where buyers have recently stepped in.
• Ceilings (resistance): ~$252–$253 first, then ~$255–$260 if price gets through ~$253. Resistance = areas where sellers have recently pushed back.

Bottom line. Buyers defended ~$245; sellers capped ~$253. A daily/4-hour close above ~$253 (UTC) would likely invite a push toward ~$255–$260. A drop below ~$245 would likely bring a check of $242–$243, then ~$238.

Analysis of latest SOL-USD CoinDesk Data charts

24-hour chart (ending Sept. 18, 19:51 UTC): Range $237.01–$252.81; coiling above ~$245 with a ceiling ~$252–$253. Hold ~$245 and a push through ~$253 would likely target ~$255–$260; lose ~$245 and the path is $242–$243, then ~$238.

One-month chart (ending Sept. 18, 19:52 UTC): Uptrend of higher highs/lows (roughly $179.71 → $250.50). $238 is the pivot: above it keeps the breakout case clean; below it suggests a pause toward the low $230s before another try higher.

Payments firm PayPal's (PYPL) U.S. dollar stablecoin is being introduced to nine more blockchains by interoperability protocol LayerZero (ZRO), expanding the token beyond the four blockchains — Ethereum, Solana, Arbitrum and Stellar — where it's natively issued.

LayerZero integrated PayPal USD (PYUSD), issued by fintech firm Paxos, into its Hydra Stargate system, creating a permissionless version of the token dubbed PYUSD0 that's one-to-one interchangeable with the underlying stablecoin.

The move makes the token available on Abstract, Aptos, Avalanche, Ink, Sei, Stable, and Tron, while existing community-issued versions on Berachain and Flow will convert automatically.

PayPal launched its PYUSD in 2023 as one of the first major payments firm-backed stablecoins. With LayerZero's expansion, the token aims to reach new markets more quickly and provide a dollar-pegged stablecoin within the crypto economy.

Currently, PYUSD has a supply of $1.3 billion, up from around $520 million at the beginning of this year, RWA.xyz data shows.

Read more: PayPal Adding Crypto to Peer-to-Peer Payments, Allowing Direct Transfer of BTC, ETH, Others

Pure-play bitcoin (BTC) mining stocks are waking up from their slumber after lagging behind those pivoting to the red-hot data center business.

Pure-play miners such as MARA Holdings (MARA) and CleanSpark (CLSK) surged 10% and 17% on Thursday, leading gains among the CoinShares Bitcoin Mining ETF members.

There are two key factors that may be driving the sharp gains.

The first is the idea that investors could be front-running expectations of a strong year-end for bitcoin, a period that has historically delivered some of its most bullish returns. BTC is climbing towards $118,000 following the Federal Reserve's interest rate cut, up 2.2% on Thursday and trading only 5% below its all-time high.

With sentiment improving, miners with significant BTC stash on the balance sheet could be leveraged plays on bitcoin's potential rally to new records. MARA and CleanSpark remain the sector’s largest BTC holders with 52,477 ($6.2 billion) and 12,703 ($1.5 billion) tokens, respectively. Strategy (MSTR), the world's largest corporate owner of BTC, is up 7% as well today.

The second driver could be investors rotating profits from stocks in high-performance computing (HPC) and artificial intelligence (AI), which have enjoyed outsized gains over the past months. Iren Energy (IREN), Cipher Mining (CIFR), and Bitfarms (BITF) have all surged, with Bitfarms up 150% in September alone, IREN gaining over 600% since April and CIFR advancing 500% during the same period. However, to reinforce the rotation thesis, CIFR is down 7% and IREN has slipped 4% on Thursday.

Binance, the largest global crypto exchange, is still under the constraints of a massive, $4.3 billion U.S. enforcement action, though Senator Elizabeth Warren and other Democrats are asking the Trump administration about reports that it's easing off on those orders.

In 2023, the major digital assets platform agreed to settle with U.S. authorities for sanctions violations, insufficient money-laundering protections and operating without proper licensing, and its leader, Changpeng "CZ" Zhao, pleaded guilty to Bank Secrecy Act violations, stepping down from the company and serving a brief prison sentence. Warren and two other senators, Richard Blumenthal and Mazie Hirono questioned Attorney General Pam Bondi in a letter this week, asking about reports by outlets including Bloomberg News that the company has spoken to the U.S. about dropping its independent compliance monitor.

The senators also raised the continuing financial ties between the family of President Donald Trump and Binance, through their stake in World Liberty Financial.

"These reports make it more important than ever that the public understand the Trump administration’s interactions with, and relationship to, Binance and its employees," they wrote, demanding "meaningful" answers to several questions about the U.S. Department of Justice's interactions with Binance, including whether a pardon is being considered for CZ.

As the markets contemplated a potential return of CZ, the Binance-tied BNB token rocketed over $1,000 for the first time, leaping over SOL to become the fifth-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization.

The prosecution of Binance in the U.S., where the independent Binance.US arm still operates, occurred under the previous administration, and the arrival of President Trump and his pro-crypto choices to be regulators and law enforcement officials has rapidly shifted the stance of the U.S. government. Many of the efforts of previous officials to address digital assets market risks and the dangers of their use in illicit finance and drug trafficking have been overtaken by the administration's interest in financial innovation and establishing the U.S. as a global crypto hub.

In May, the Securities and Exchange Commission moved to drop its long-running lawsuit against Binance.

Read More: BNB Hits $1,000 All-Time High as Binance Nears DOJ Deal, Rumors of CZ’s Return Grow

Oracle network Chainlink's (LINK) native token surged 6% over the past 24 hours crossing $24.5 on Thursday as crypto prices climbed higher with altcoins outperforming.

The price action happened as large-cap altcoins led crypto markets higher in anticipation that spot-based ETFs could hit the market soon with the SEC approving general listing standards.

That could include Chainlink's LINK, too, with several applications filed earlier this year and LINK futures being traded on U.S.-regulated exchanges like Coinbase Derivatives.

Caliber (CWD), a public wealth management firm that adopted a Chainlink treasury reserve asset initiative, said on Thursday it bought $6.5 million worth of tokens as part of its digital asset strategy.

The Chainlink Reserve also purchased on Thursday another 43,000 LINK ($1.05 million) as part of the initiative to buy tokens using revenue from protocol integrations and services, similar to public companies' share buyback programs.

Since August, the reserve has accumulated a total of 323,116 tokens, worth $7.9 million, data shows.

Technical Analysis

The technical indicators underscore LINK's gaining momentum, according to CoinDesk's Research's technical analysis data.

• Robust support established at $22.82 with high-volume confirmation of 5.56 million units, significantly surpassing the 24-hour average of 1.48 million.
• Multiple resistance levels breached including $24.16 and $24.42, demonstrating sustained purchasing pressure.
• Ascending low formations throughout the recovery phase indicating consistent upward momentum.

U.S.-listed cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase (COIN) has rolled out a USDC lending product that allows its customers to earn yield directly from the exchange’s app, deepening its integration with decentralized finance (DeFi).

The feature is powered by Morpho, a protocol that routes deposits through curated “vaults” managed by Steakhouse Financial, according to a blogpost on Thursday

When users deposit USDC, their funds are lent out to borrowers — including those already tapping Coinbase’s crypto-backed loans secured by bitcoin. The interest borrowers pay generates returns for depositors, who can withdraw anytime without lockups.

Coinbase said the setup creates a flywheel effect where its lending and borrowing products reinforce each other. The launch follows more than $900 million in loans originated through Coinbase’s crypto-backed loan service. Together, the two offerings form what the company calls its first complete onchain lending and borrowing ecosystem.

By outsourcing the backend to Morpho’s smart contracts while keeping the Coinbase interface, the company is betting on what it calls the “DeFi mullet” approach: a familiar fintech user experience at the front, powered by open, decentralized infrastructure in the back.

For users, the product offers an easier way into decentralized lending markets without leaving Coinbase’s platform. For Morpho, it underscores the argument that the future of finance will be built on open networks, but accessed through trusted gateways.

Stellar’s XLM demonstrated notable resilience during the 24-hour session from Sept. 17, 17:00 to Sept. 18, 16:00 (UTC), trading within a $0.02 corridor between $0.38 and $0.40.

The asset showed a sharp recovery following early weakness, with strong volume-driven advances at $0.39 around 19:00 and again at $0.40 near 15:00.

Transaction volumes of 40.04 million and 33.80 million at these levels both exceeded the 24-hour average of 30.47 million, underscoring firm buying interest. Repeated testing of the $0.40 resistance zone highlighted the threshold as a key battleground, while support consolidated just below, pointing to steady accumulation.

The final hour of trading proved particularly strong, with XLM rising from $0.40 to a session high of $0.40 at 15:36, backed by a surge in volume to 7.50 million—roughly 24 times the typical hourly level. This outsized activity reinforced a breakout move, with buyers consistently defending the $0.40 level. Market behavior suggested sustained institutional participation, laying the foundation for an extension of the 24-hour uptrend.

Across the period, XLM appreciated nearly 4%, climbing from $0.38 to $0.40. Trading data pointed to steady institutional positioning, with high-volume moves suggesting longer-term accumulation strategies rather than short-term speculative flows. The ability to hold higher support levels while repeatedly probing resistance zones further confirmed bullish momentum.

Technical Indicators Signal Continued Strength

• Trading corridor of $0.02 constituting 5% differential between $0.38 floor and $0.40 ceiling during 24-hour session.
• Volume-reinforced advances at $0.39 and $0.40 with 40.04M and 33.80M volumes surpassing 30.47M baseline.
• Primary resistance within $0.40-$0.40 territory with repeated testing demonstrating institutional engagement.
• Support establishment around $0.40-$0.40 indicating accumulation during market pullbacks.
• Remarkable 60-minute volume acceleration of 7.50M constituting 24 times standard hourly benchmark.
• Reliable support above $0.40 threshold following primary breakout configuration.

Disclaimer: Parts of this article were generated with the assistance from AI tools and reviewed by our editorial team to ensure accuracy and adherence to our standards. For more information, see CoinDesk's full AI Policy.

NBA champion Tristan Thompson is teaming up with Improbable CEO Herman Narula and co-founder Hadi Teherany to roll out a new web3 experience designed to reinvent basketball fandom for the digital era.

The project, named basketball.fun, will debut in October ahead of the NBA season and will attempt to gamify the way fans interact with players and games, Thompson announced.

It has been developed on Somnia, a layer 1 blockchain that went live at the start of this month, already notching billions of dollars worth of trading volume in its first two weeks.

“This is how we experience moments together, it’s not just about basketball,” Tristan Thompson said in a press release. “We’re creating something for the fans that lives beyond the game, where your presence, passion, and play actually matter.”

Tokenized NBA players

Unlike traditional fantasy sports or fan tokens, the platform will tokenize NBA players with values that fluctuate in real time based on sentiment and performance. Fans will be able to assemble rosters, speculate on rising talent, and earn rewards tied to their predictions and engagement.

“The way fans value and perceive players should be different than owners and news networks,” Teherany said in an interview with CoinDesk. “We’re trying to give power back to the fan — not just to predict who they think is great, but to actually earn incentives from it. Imagine being able to prove that the fan consensus on a rookie’s potential is more accurate than a team’s front office.”

Teherany stressed that the app won’t launch with a native token, distancing itself from projects like Socios that hinge on token price. Instead, players will hold in-app value that reflects fan sentiment and game outcomes.

Why Somnia, Not Solana?

Asked why the team chose to build on Somnia instead of more established chains like Solana or Avalanche, Teherany pointed to both relationships and philosophy.

“Everything in this industry comes from authentic relationships,” he said. “When we met Herman Narula, it was an alignment of vision. He’s not chasing short-term token hype but is committed to building sports and entertainment on-chain for the long term. That gave us confidence that this wouldn’t just be valued on market speculation.”

The decision also came after lessons learned from a previous project, TracyAI, which Teherany said became too dependent on token performance. This time, the focus is on infrastructure, gamification, and sustainability.

Somnia’s Technical Edge

Somnia went live on Sep. 2, following a six-month testnet that processed over 10 billion transactions and onboarded 118 million wallets. Backed by UK-based metaverse company Improbable, the network is positioning itself as the fastest EVM-compatible chain, claiming to handle more than one million transactions per second with sub-second finality.

At launch, Somnia onboarded 60 validators, including Google Cloud, and has integrated with protocols like LayerZero, Sequence, and Thirdweb. Its native token, SOMI, has nearly doubled in value since launch and is already processing billions in daily volume.

For Teherany, Somnia’s traction adds credibility: “They’ve done billions in daily volume, bigger than some of the major exchanges. That’s a testament to what they’re building—and what we’re building on top of it.”

Road to Tip-Off

The project’s first major reveal is scheduled for Korea Blockchain Week, where Thompson will share his vision alongside Narula and Teherany. Attendees of Somnia House, the network’s flagship side event in Seoul on September 23, will get an early look at the app and roadmap.

“We want to make this as approachable as possible,” Teherany said. “The blockchain layer should feel invisible. Whether you’re a crypto native or just a basketball fan, you’ll be able to join, play, and help define the narrative of the sport.”

HBAR posted a strong 7% gain over the past 24 hours, climbing from $0.24 to $0.25 as trading volumes surged well above the daily average. The move was supported by heavy accumulation early in the session, where HBAR established a firm base around $0.23 before steadily advancing toward key resistance levels.

Momentum accelerated during the morning window between 07:00 and 09:00, with volumes peaking at 119 million tokens traded — nearly double the 24-hour average of 67.5 million. This breakout through multiple resistance zones suggested heightened institutional activity and reinforced the bullish case for further price discovery.

HBAR ultimately tested resistance near $0.25 in late trading, where selling pressure began to weigh. Despite this, the token maintained support at the same level during the final hour of the session, signaling resilience and sustained investor interest. With elevated volumes and consistent buy-side pressure, HBAR appears positioned for continued upside.

Technical Indicators Signal Sustained Strength

• HBAR exhibited robust bullish momentum throughout the 23-hour period from 17 September 17:00 to 18 September 16:00, advancing from $0.24 to $0.25 with an overall range of $0.02 representing 7% volatility.
• The cryptocurrency featured a notable surge at 08:00 achieving a $0.25 peak before consolidating around the $0.25 resistance threshold.
• HBAR maintained its robust bullish momentum during the final 60 minutes from 18 September 15:05 to 16:04, establishing a defined ascending channel between $0.25 support and $0.25 resistance with multiple successful breakout attempts.
• The cryptocurrency demonstrated pronounced institutional buying interest with significant volume spikes exceeding 2.50 million during critical resistance breaches at 15:33 and 15:54.
• HBAR preserved consistent higher lows throughout the session, confirming the continuation of the established uptrend and positioning HBAR favourably for further gains beyond the $0.25 resistance level.

Disclaimer: Parts of this article were generated with the assistance from AI tools and reviewed by our editorial team to ensure accuracy and adherence to our standards. For more information, see CoinDesk's full AI Policy.

Shares of Gemini (GEMI), the crypto exchange founded by billionaire twins Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, were trading under their IPO price of $28 on Thursday, changing hands at about $25.15.

That marked a 2.5% gain on the day after the stock recouped earlier losses. The shares first broke below the IPO price on Wednesday.

Gemini went public last week at $28 a share, valuing the company at more than $3 billion. The stock opened above the IPO price, at $37.01, and closed 14% higher.

The offering raised $425 million through the sale of 15.2 million shares.

Gemini, headquartered in New York, operates a suite of crypto services including a spot exchange, custody solutions for institutions, a U.S. dollar-backed stablecoin, a crypto rewards credit card, and staking products.

As of the end of July, the crypto exchange held more than $21 billion of assets on its platform.

Read more: Gemini Shares Slide 6%, Extending Post-IPO Slump to 24%

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) have executed the country’s largest cryptocurrency seizure to date, recovering more than $56 million CAD in crypto from the exchange TradeOgre.

The move not only marks a record seizure but also the first time Canadian police authorities have dismantled a cryptocurrency trading platform, the RCMP said in a press release.

According to the authorities' Eastern Region division, the seizure followed a year-long probe by the Money Laundering Investigative Team (MLIT). The case began in June 2024 after a tip from Europol came in, which flagged the platform’s alleged non-compliance with Canadian law.

Investigators determined that TradeOgre had failed to register with the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada (FINTRAC) as a money services business and neglected to verify the identities of its clients, the authorities claim.

The RCMP allege that most of the funds passing through TradeOgre stemmed from illicit sources. By offering anonymous account creation, the platform provided an easy gateway for organized crime groups seeking to conceal the origins of their money, they claim.

"The transaction data obtained from the platform will be analyzed and charges may follow. The investigation is ongoing," RCMP wrote in their press release.

The first exchange-traded funds (ETFs) offering exposure to XRP and dogecoin (DOGE) started trading in the U.S. on Thursday.

Products offered by Rex Shares and Osprey Funds listed on the Cboe BZX exchange under the tickers DOJE and XRPR and follow Rex-Osprey Solana ETF, which debuted in July. DOJE was recently trading at $26.90 and XRPR at $25.73.

DOJE will differ slightly from similar products for the other tokens, however, in that it will not hold DOGE directly. Instead, it will use a Cayman Islands-based subsidiary to gain exposure through futures and other derivatives.

While XRPR is structured to hold XRP directly, it will also invest in spot ETFs from outside the U.S. to achieve exposure, Bloomberg Intelligence analyst James Seyffart wrote on X.

XRP, the native token of the financial institutional payments-focused network XRP Ledger, and memecoin DOGE are the third-largest and eighth largest crypto tokens by market cap, according to CoinDesk data.

Spot crypto ETFs debuted in the US. in January 2024 after many years of rejections and delays by Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Bitcoin (BTC) funds were approved first, followed a few months later by ETFs offering spot exposure to ether (ETH).

Buying shares of ETFs offers exposure to assets without having to take ownership of the underlying asset themselves. As such, crypto ETFs offer a means of direct exposure to cryptocurrencies without having to worry about storage, custody and so on, making them a more practical and secure means of investment for deep-pocketed institutional investors.

Plasma, a new blockchain built specifically for stablecoins, is set to flip the switch on its long-awaited mainnet beta next week, introducing the chain and its native token, XPL, on Sept. 25.

According to a blog post from the team, the network will debut with more than $2 billion in stablecoin liquidity from over a hundred partners on day one — an aggressive attempt to position Plasma not as just another general-purpose chain, but as the backbone for stablecoin transfers.

That won’t be an easy feat. Ethereum and Solana already dominate stablecoin volumes, while newer chains continue to optimize for similar flows. Plasma’s bet is that its architecture, dubbed PlasmaBFT, will give it an edge. The system is designed for fast, composable stablecoin transactions the team said, and from launch, users will be able to move USDT with zero fees through Plasma’s dashboard — a feature the team hopes will stand out in a crowded DeFi landscape.

Token distribution is also aimed at broad accessibility. Prior to launch, 10% of XPL was sold in a public offering. At launch, 25 million tokens will be allocated to the community, with another 2.5 million reserved for members of the so-called Stablecoin Collective.

Backing the project are heavyweights from the crypto and venture worlds: the $24 million in seed and Series A funding was led by Framework Ventures, with participation from Bitfinex, Peter Thiel and Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino, among others.

“Plasma’s mission is to become the foundation for global money movement. Mainnet beta is the next step in making that vision real,” the team wrote.

Read more: Peter Thiel-Backed Plasma Raises $20M to Develop Bitcoin-Based Network for Stablecoins

Strategy (MSTR) is approaching its 200 day simple moving average (200SMA), a widely followed technical indicator that smooths out price action by calculating the average closing price over the past 200 trading days. Traders often view it as a key marker for long-term trend direction.

MSTR is currently trading just over $350, slightly below the 200SMA at $355. The stock has been under this level since Aug. 25, with the only other period of weakness this year coming in April during the so-called Trump tariff tantrum. On Thursday, shares jumped 6%, rebounding from a support line last tested in September 2024 and April 2025.

The rally coincides with strength in bitcoin, which is nearing $118,000, almost a one-month high. Bitcoin is up more than 8% in September, putting it on pace for its best September since at least 2013. Year-to-date, MSTR has gained 18% compared to bitcoin’s 22% rise.

Elsewhere in the bitcoin treasury space, companies continue to get hit hard. Japan’s Metaplanet (3350) fell 10% on Thursday and is now down nearly 75% from its all-time high.

Brera Holdings (BREA), a Nasdaq-listed sports club owner, is the latest entrant into the growing Solana (SOL) digital asset treasury field raising $300 million to accumulate the token.

Announced on Thursday, the firm secured backing from UAE-based Pulsar Group, Cathie Wood's ARK Invest, RockawayX and the Solana Foundation in a private investment in public equity (PIPE) round. It will also rebrand to Solmate, while maintaining its sports-ownership business.

The shares rallied 14% following the news. SOL rose 5% over the past 24 hours.

Solmate's debut follows recent high-profile Solana treasury plays such as Galaxy-backed Forward Industries (FORD) and Pantera-backed Helius Medical Technologies (HSDT) as the digital asset treasury trend is expands beyond bitcoin (BTC) and ether (ETH).

The Brera venture aims to hold and stake SOL tokens, build out validator infrastructure in Abu Dhabi and pursue revenue from Solana-native projects. Its first planned deployment is a set of bare metal servers configured to outperform traditional validator setups, giving regional investors direct access to Solana’s staking yields, the firm said.

Marco Santori, a longtime digital asset lawyer and former Kraken executive, will lead Solmate as CEO, while economist Arthur Laffer, RockawayX CEO Viktor Fischer and two appointees from the Solana Foundation join the board.

Read more: Ether Bigger Beneficiary of Digital Asset Treasuries Than Bitcoin or Solana: StanChart

Volatility in shiba inu's (SHIB) dollar-denominated price has plummeted, while the token continues to lose ground against its peer, dogecoin (DOGE).

SHIB's 90-day realized volatility has dropped to an annualized 64%, the lowest since December 2023, according to data source TradingView. Realized volatility measures how much an asset’s price has actually fluctuated over a specific past period. In other words, it quantifies the price swings that have already happened, giving a view of historical price turbulence.

Since May, the cryptocurrency has entered a narrowing price range, characterized by converging trendlines that connect lower highs and higher lows. The direction in which the range eventually resolves will likely set the tone for the next big move.

In the past 24 hours, SHIB's dollar-denominated price has gained over 2%. According to CoinDesk analytics, the token achieved a notable technical breakthrough, reaching an intraday peak of $0.000013584 at 22:00 on Sept. 17, underpinned by extraordinary trading volumes of 2.08 trillion tokens.

Notably, critical resistance materialized around the $0.000013584 threshold, where price action reversed amid heightened volume, whilst robust support established itself near $0.000012882, delineating a trading corridor of $0.000007020 or 5%.

Amid this, whale activity intensified, with over 7 trillion tokens moved on-chain on Saturday, including 512 billion SHIB transferred from Kraken to undisclosed addresses.

Key technical insights

• Price Parameters: The token traded between $0.000012882 support and $0.000013584 resistance, establishing a $0.000007020 trading range representing 5% volatility.
• Volume Assessment: Exceptional volume surge of 2.08 trillion tokens during the 18:00 hour substantially exceeded the 24-hour average of 533.5 billion tokens.
• Support and Resistance Levels: Robust support materialised near $0.000012882, while key resistance emerged at the $0.000013584 level, where the price reversed amid elevated volume.
• Consolidation Framework: The final hours demonstrated tight consolidation between $0.000013323 and $0.000013373, suggesting potential accumulation preceding the next directional movement.
• Volume Characteristics: Heightened activity during resistance tests with a 7.55 billion token surge at 11:40, followed by diminished volume of 187 million tokens in the concluding minutes.

SHIB at record lows against DOGE

The Binance-listed SHIB-DOGE pair, which represents SHIB's price relative to DOGE, has dropped to 0.0000472, the lowest since the exchange listed the pair in November 2021.

The pair has recently dived out of a sideways pattern, marking a continuation of the prolonged downtrend from March 2024 highs. The outlook for SHIB relative to DOGE will remain bearish while the downtrend remains intact.

Wall Street bank Citi (C) has raised its price target on Bullish (BLSH), the owner of CoinDesk, to $70 from $66 after the crypto exchange’s second quarter results came in slightly ahead of expectations.

The long-anticipated NYDFS BitLicense approval removes a key regulatory overhang, strengthening investor confidence heading into FY 2026, Citi said.

But the biggest surprise, according to the bank, was Bullish’s accelerating Subscription, Services and Other (SS&O) growth pipeline, an inflection it attributes in part to momentum from the firm’s recent IPO.

Citi reiterated its buy rating, citing the firm's "highly attractive operating leverage."

Meeting high expectations

Broker Canaccord said Bullish had delivered a strong debut as a public company, meeting high expectations in its first reported quarter post-IPO.

In just a month since going public, the exchange has made meaningful strides, including securing the coveted BitLicense from the New York Department of Financial Services (NYDFS), showing solid quarter-to-date pricing trends in Q3, and continuing to scale its subscription services business, the report said.

The broker noted that Bullish is also on track to launch options trading in Q4 and has already raised its Q3 guidance above Wall Street's estimates.

Despite the early momentum, Canaccord believes current forward estimates remain conservative. Trading volume assumptions do not yet price in any spot market appreciation, and projected contributions from the U.S. business and options rollout reflect cautious timelines.

Canaccord reiterated its buy rating and unchanged $68 target.

Investment bank KBW said it viewed the BitLicense and Money Transmission License wins as positive for "near-term platform expansion into the United States with the inclusion of New York state."

That said, Bullish still faces significant challenges in building brand recognition in new markets, where established players have long provided turn-key exchange solutions, KBW said.

The bank maintained its market perform rating on Bullish shares and $55 price target.

Bullish shares were up over 8%, trading around $58.18 at publication time.

Read more: Wall Street Sees U.S. Entry as Catalyst for Bullish’s Next Leg Up

The total amount of capital locked on decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols hit $170 billion on Thursday, a landmark figure as now all of the the losses from the 2022 Terra/LUNA ecosystem collapse and subsequent bear market have been erased.

While Ethereum still commands the lion's share of capital at 59%, newcomers including Coinbase-backed layer 2 network Base, HyperLiquid's layer 1 blockchain and Sui have begun to chip away at Ethereum's dominance, collectively amassing more than $10 billion worth of total value locked (TVL), representing around 6%.

Investor trends have shifted in this recent cycle; institutional adoption of ether has led to outflows from traditional liquid staking products like Lido into institutional staking products like Figment, while there has also been growth in Solana and BNB Chain due to a seismic rise in memecoin activity.

Solana is now the second largest blockchain in terms of DeFi with $14.4 billion in TVL with BNB chain behind that with $8.2 billion.

A maturing sector

The previous bull market between January 2021 and April 2022 saw rapid growth across the DeFi ecosystem, with TVL jumping from $16 billion to $202 billion. This cycle has been more measured with a slow but steady gain from $42 billion in October 2022 to $170 billion in September 2025.

The rise suggests crypto investors might be learning from their mistakes of 2022 and have created a more mature ecosytem to lend, borrow and generate yield.

The Terra implosion saw $100 billion worth of TVL wiped off almost overnight as investors, including bankrupt crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital, took a gung ho approach on an algorithmic stablecoin that ultimately failed — leading to contagion and bad debt spreading across the entire industry.

Terra was the crypto-form of a classic "dividend trap," a product that offered yields that were too good to be true but ultimately turned out to be unsustainable.

Now, yields have receded with lending protocol Aave offering a 5.2% yield on stablecoins while restaking protocol Ether.fi is offering 11.1%, far less than the 20% Terra was offering on its stablecoin.

What next for DeFi?

With the DeFi sector now being back where it was before the Terra debacle, albeit with more sustainable yields, critics will ask how can the market continue to grow to topple 2021's record high in terms of TVL.

The answer to that is nuanced. While it's true that institutional adoption and inflows to assets like ether and solana will continue to drive a bullish narrative, the industry is still battling with rampant hacks, scams and rug pulls connected to memecoins.

Crypto investors lost $2.5 billion to hacks and scams in the first half of 2025 and in order for the industry to truly become a viable alternative to traditional finance, investors need to be protected.

Unlike traditional finance where deposits are often insured and protected, the very essence of cryptocurrencies means that you are on your own; if you lose your keys, get phished or hacked, there is no helpline to call.

The next iteration of DeFi, whether that is in this cycle or the next, will need to focus on security and hack prevention — because the industry is still one major implosion away from another crypto winter.