Fed Rate Cuts Ignite Crypto Surge: Solana Investments Soar as SEC Hints at Altcoin ETF Approval

Markets pivot as monetary policy shifts—digital assets catch fire.

THE RATE CUT CATALYST

Federal Reserve slashes rates, sending institutional capital flooding into risk-on assets. Crypto markets respond instantly—liquidity pumps through every major chain.

SOLANA'S MOMENTUM SURGE

Smart money piles into SOL infrastructure. Development activity hits unprecedented levels—builders deploy capital faster than TradFi can blink.

ETF DOMINOES FALL

SEC drops strongest signals yet for altcoin-based ETF approvals. Regulatory gates creak open—market structure shifts permanently in crypto's favor.

Because nothing says 'sound monetary policy' like watching hedge funds ape into memecoins between golf sessions.

Main news

Bitcoin

• Forecasts and macroeconomic drivers

Arthur Hayes, co-founder of BitMEX and investment director of the Maelstrom fund, rejected the theory of a four-year Bitcoin cycle, predicting its growth to $200,000 due to macro liquidity, while cryptosceptic Peter Schiff warned of the asset’s loss of momentum and the advantage of gold.

In his turn, BitMine CEO Tom Lee believes that the Federal Reserve’s rate cut will help bitcoin, Ethereum, and the Nasdaq 100. Thus, expert opinions vary from a “strong bullish” scenario to a sceptical approach, reflecting the instability of market expectations.

At the time of writing, bitcoin is trading at $115 662, according to TradingView.

• Institutional and corporate actions

Amid discussions about the prospects of bitcoin, companies are implementing active strategies:

• Hyperscale Data will create a $100 million reserve;
• GD Culture will receive 7,500 BTC through a share exchange with Pallas Capital;
• Whale moved 1000 BTC after 12 years of hibernation;
• Corporate holders, according to K33 Research, trade the first cryptocurrency at a discount in a quarter of cases.

• Mining

Bitdeer has launched a new line of SEALMINER A3 rigs with a capacity of up to 660 TH/s and plans to create an even more efficient A4 model, but Bit Digital CEO Sam Tabar predicts the collapse of private mining after the next halving, when the market may be taken over by states.

Despite this, Laos, on the contrary, sees mining as a tool to get out of the debt trap, planning to use excess hydroelectricity to develop its digital economy by 2030.

Ethereum

• Market trends and metrics

Institutions and analysts have mixed opinions on Ethereum’s prospects: Citigroup predicts a price drop to $4,300 by the end of the year, while whales are already recording unrealized profits at the levels of the 2021 peak, which historically preceded active sales.

At the time of writing, the price of ethereum is at $4464, according to TradingView.

• Technological development of the network

The Ethereum Foundation has focused on security and privacy: the organization has published a roadmap for full network privacy and announced a $2 million competition to audit the Fusaka update, which is due to be launched on the mainnet on December 3.

Crypto-ETFs

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has approved rules that reduce the time for reviewing applications for their launch by three times, paving the way for the emergence of ETFs based on Solana or XRP. At the same time, Poland has taken its own step in the development of instruments — the Warsaw Stock Exchange has launched the first bitcoin ETF.

Regulation

• International regulations

The US SEC shows a change of tone — the new head Paul Atkins promised a softer approach, saying that technical violations will not lead to harsh sanctions.

France wants to tighten control by blocking companies with soft licences from other jurisdictions, while the UK, on the contrary, chooses a model of simplified regulation with exceptions for crypto companies.

In turn, Ukraine is delaying the adoption of the draft law “On VIRTUAL Assets” and defines cryptocurrencies as a non-payment instrument.

• Political and legal aspects

US President Donald TRUMP has filed a $15 billion lawsuit against The New York Times, accusing it of defamation, which, according to him, has also affected his TRUMP crypto project. Meanwhile, US congressmen have asked the SEC about possible ties between TRON founder Justin Sun and the Trump family, demonstrating how the crypto sphere is increasingly intersecting with political risks.

At the same time, Binance is in talks with the US Department of Justice to end its external monitoring early, which could be replaced by stricter reporting requirements. Against this backdrop, BNB’s exchange rate has updated its all-time high of over $1,000.

Investor optimism and the Fed rate

A Bank of America survey showed that fund managers are showing the highest level of Optimism since February 2025, actively buying up tech stocks despite fears of a market overvaluation. At the same time, inflation and the weak dollar remain the main risks for them, rather than asset appreciation.

In addition, the Binance crypto exchange continues to dominate the market: its spot trading volume has exceeded the total of all other exchanges, which CryptoQuant considers a positive signal for the industry.

At the same time, on September 17, the Federal Reserve cut its interest rate by 0.25% to 4-4.25% for the first time since December 2024, which led to a moderate rise in bitcoin and reinforced investors’ expectations of monetary policy easing.

Stablecoins

• Development, launch, and enhancements

This week, the following companies launched or improved their own stablecoins:

• MetaMask released its own mUSD stablecoin, backed by short-term US bonds and integrated into a wallet that supports Ethereum, Linea, and DeFi tools;
• The Hyperliquid community chose Native Markets to create the USDH stablecoin backed by cash and government bonds;
• Custody services provider BDACS launched a stablecoin pegged to the South Korean won;
• PayPal expanded support for the PayPal USD (PYUSD) stablecoin to eight new blockchains.

• The Bank of England’s plan

Amid the active launch of new stablecoins, crypto companies in the UK have sharply criticized the Bank of England’s plan to limit the ownership of such assets to £20,000, warning that this could slow down the country’s development in the global regulatory race.

Projects

• Traditional finance in the blockchain

The London Stock Exchange has introduced a blockchain platform for private fund tokenization, starting with its MembersCap product, while DBS, Ripple, and Franklin Templeton have partnered to tokenize funds — both initiatives show traditional financial players are stepping up their efforts in the digital marketplace.

Meanwhile, Tristan Thompson, the National Basketball Association (NBA) champion in the 2015/2016 season, decided to tokenize the value of basketball players in his new project basketball.fun.

• Fintech and innovation

Crypto trading platform MoonPay has acquired fintech company Meso to combine banks, card networks, stablecoins, and blockchains into a global payment system.

At the same time, Saudi Awwal Bank is integrating chainlink to develop online finance in Saudi Arabia, aiming to combine traditional finance with new blockchain solutions.

• Crypto trading

At the same time, Spanish company Santander, through its subsidiary Openbank, launched cryptocurrency trading for retail customers in Germany with further expansion to Spain.

Coinbase is again considering the launch of a native token for the Base network, although it previously rejected the idea due to regulatory risks, while crypto wallet MetaMask and the L1 blockchain team Plasma confirmed the launch of MASK and XPL tokens.

Hackers

• Attacks and leaks

Monero’s network suffered an 18-block reorganisation attack, forcing users to be more cautious, while Coinbase’s problems are more human than technical — the leak of 69,000 customers’ data was linked to an employee of an Indian outsourcing company.

• Fighting financial crime

In the fight against illegal transactions, Israel has released a list of crypto addresses linked to Iran worth $1.5 billion in USDT, while Tether simultaneously helped the Canadian police recover $460,000 in USDT from a fraud victim — examples of how blockchain is being used to circumvent both sanctions and crime.

Also, Canadian law enforcement officers made the largest cryptocurrency seizure in Canadian history — $56 million after the TradeOgre exchange was shut down.

In addition, the CEO of Praetorian Group International is awaiting sentencing after pleading guilty to creating a $200 million Ponzi scheme.

Amid rising risks, financial institutions are getting new tools: Quantexa has introduced Cloud AML, a cloud-based product for US banks aimed at detecting cryptocurrency crimes and taking into account the future regulation of stablecoins.

Meanwhile, Binance founder Changpeng Zhao revealed the four main tactics of North Korean hackers infiltrating crypto and fintech companies.

Artificial intelligence

• Security and application of AI

Vitalik Buterin criticized the idea of AI-assisted governance, pointing to the vulnerabilities confirmed by the ChatGPT hole found by EdisonWatch, which allows data to be stolen through the calendar. At the same time, Coinbase demonstrated the practical use of AI in crypto infrastructure by launching NodeSmith, which reduced engineering costs for node upgrades by 30%.

• Competition between tech giants

Google integrated Gemini into Chrome and introduced the AP2 protocol for AI agent payments, while Gemini overtook ChatGPT in downloads thanks to the Nano Banana editor.

At the same time, Huawei presented SuperPoD Interconnect, an analogue of Nvidia NVLink, while NVIDIA itself entered into a partnership agreement with Intel, investing $5 billion in the development of AI infrastructure.

• Geopolitics of AI

The UK and the US signed the $42bn Technological Prosperity Agreement, which covers AI, quantum computing, and civilian nuclear power. As part of it, Microsoft, Google, and NVIDIA promised large-scale investments in the UK.

However, China has banned local tech companies from purchasing new NVIDIA chips, relying on its own processors and at the same time strengthening Huawei’s position.

Institutional boom around Solana

Solana is rapidly establishing itself as a leading corporate backup:

• Helius has committed more than $500 million to build inventory on it, while Forward Industries has already invested $1.58 billion and plans to raise another $4 billion through its ATM program;
• This was joined by Galaxy Digital, which acquired 1.24 million SOLs for $300 million, and Pantera Capital confirmed its $1.1 billion position, calling Solana the asset that has outperformed bitcoin over the past four years;
• At the same time, a new company, Solmate, created after the rebranding of Brera Holdings and funded for $300 million, is deploying Solana’s infrastructure in Abu Dhabi, strengthening the network’s global expansion.

In other news:

• Memecoin trader earns $4.6 million, increasing its deposit more than 100 times thanks to KIND and Bagwork;
• Polkadot will limit the issue to 2.1 billion DOT, which will almost halve the amount of tokens in circulation by 2040;
• Standard Chartered is preparing a $250 million fund to invest in digital assets to be launched in 2026;
• dYdX closed the migration bridge, causing more than 45,000 investors to lose about $25 million and 41.6 million tokens to become useless, but the community has called on dYdX to find a solution for the frozen assets;
• BitGo received a license from BaFin to launch regulated crypto trading in the EU;
• A golden statue of US President Donald Trump with a bitcoin in his hand now stands in Washington, DC;
• Creditors of the bankrupt FTX crypto exchange will receive compensation totaling $1.6 billion in the third round of payments.

What’s up with Incrypted?

Articles

The Incrypted editorial team has prepared an article about the projects with a token buyback program, which can be found in the corresponding section:

Airdrops

Guides and activities:

• OKX Boost — X Launch;
• Linera — Testnet Conway;
• Forte Protocol.

Updates:

• Project X — Phase 2.

In addition..

• We have collected for you the key investments in blockchain, cryptoassets, and AI over the past week in one article.
• We regularly update the Incrypted crypto calendar, where you will find a lot of interesting events and announcements.

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