After last week’s historic high, Bitcoin spent the week in the range of ~$112-117k, approaching $117k by the end of Friday; Ethereum is holding around $4.6k. Total crypto market capitalisation is around $3.97 trillion, BTC’s share is 58.2%, ETH – 14.0%; the “skew” towards bitcoin reflects the weakness of some altcoins (Altcoin Season Index ≈44/100). These figures are according to CoinMarketCap.
The market was reacting to the speech of Fed Chairman Jerome Powell in Jackson Hole: A cautious hint of further rate cuts supported risk assets – BTC and major altcoins rebounded after morning weakness.
Early in the week, net outflows from spot bitcoin-ETFs were recorded (several consecutive days of withdrawals), reinforcing the correction after the August ATH. Towards the end of the week, the ether-ETF saw a notable net inflow of ~$287m – the First after a four-day series of outflows.
Overall market regulatory policy
AUSTRAC obliged Binance Australia to conduct an independent AML audit – Another signal of increased scrutiny of large marketplaces.
- The EU is accelerating work on the digital euro against the backdrop of the US passing the Stablecoin Act; public blockchains are also being discussed as a possible technical basis. For the market, this is a story of currency competition and liquidity “onshoring”.
- In the US, the SEC is formalising “Project Crypto” – a roadmap for differentiating tokens (collectibles, commodities, stablecoins, securities) and modernising custody and trading requirements.
Technology and Networks. Investor focus on performance roadmaps (e.g. Firedancer and bandwidth upgrades in the Solana ecosystem) that maintain interest in high-performance L1/L2 despite price fluctuations. AInvest
What to watch out for next week
- Net flow dynamics in spot BTC/ETH-ETFs in the US and Hong Kong;
- US macro calendar (new inflation/labour market data) → rate expectations;
- Highly loaded network patches/updates (Solana, Ethereum L2);
- security incident reports and regulatory releases.