Track market-moving stories before they get noisy

Solana (SOL) exchange-traded funds (ETFs) have seen a dramatic increase in investor interest, with net inflows far surpassing those of XRP products in the United States. On September 28, daily net inflows into Solana funds reached $12.70 million, while XRP-linked products attracted $3.96 million—a gap of more than 300%.

Solana closes the gap with XRPThis trend is not limited to a single day. Over the last 30 days, Solana ETFs collected $278.20 million in inflows, more than doubling the $127.05 million brought in by XRP funds. Cumulative net inflows now stand at $1.62 billion for Solana and $1.80 billion for XRP, showing that XRP’s lead is shrinking rapidly.

A closer look at assets under management reveals that Solana funds now command $1.93 billion, overtaking the $1.68 billion held by XRP products. Notably, investors have a broader selection with SOL, as there are currently nine Solana ETFs compared to five for XRP.

Despite XRP’s higher market capitalization—$95.47 billion versus Solana’s $70.69 billion—Solana ETFs represent 2.72% of SOL’s market cap. By contrast, XRP funds account for just 1.76%. Trading activity also reflects this heightened interest, with Solana’s daily value traded at $90.43 million, more than double XRP’s $39.37 million.

Technical strength and institutional demandPrice action in Solana has responded accordingly. SOL decisively cleared the 200-day moving average near $95, rallying from the $75 level in early August to $119.81. The token reached fresh highs in September, peaking locally near $125. Shorter-term averages, including the 50-day moving average, are climbing above the 200-day, indicating sustained bullish momentum.

Technical indicators remain balanced. The Relative Strength Index sits near 60, signaling ongoing momentum rather than excessive buying pressure. Recent chart patterns show a moderate pullback from $125, along with a decline in trading volume. These developments suggest room for further gains, provided the asset can hold key support levels.

Institutional appetite now skews toward Solana. ETF flows are widely watched as a gauge of large-scale investor demand, and while XRP continues to lead in cumulative inflows, the momentum has turned in favor of SOL.

If Solana maintains support above $110 and current inflow rates persist, its approaching leadership in both assets under management and overall market share may continue to build.

Comparisons across the crypto ETF sectorSolana’s ETF presence remains small compared to the market’s giants—Bitcoin and Ethereum—with $107.82 billion and $17.69 billion in assets, respectively. However, analysts point to Solana’s growth trajectory as a crucial factor in its rising institutional profile.

In a market where a single Fed decision or a sudden altcoin listing can change everything in seconds, efficiency has become a necessity. Many investors are turning to privacy-first platforms like CryptoAppsy, which combine real-time charts, targeted price alerts, coin-specific news, and macro data on a single screen without requiring account creation. As ETF competition intensifies, such tools offer traders an edge in rapidly shifting conditions.

Fee Surge Overwhelms X Money IntegrationUsePaid, a Solana-based protocol that automatically routes memecoin creator fees to X accounts, has temporarily suspended payouts through X Money after a sharp spike in activity driven by Pumpfun token launches. The disruption emerged on September 28, 2026.

On September 27, claimed fees through the platform surged to $1.54 million, roughly 26 times what had been processed the day before, according to reporting from Crypto Briefing. The protocol was barely two weeks old at the time.

The model behind UsePaid is straightforward. Anyone can launch a token on Pumpfun, permanently redirect its creator fees to UsePaid, and designate virtually any X account as the beneficiary. Trading then generates creator fees, and UsePaid converts the beneficiary's share into dollars. Under the current arrangement, 80% of each claim belongs to the designated X recipient, while the remaining 20% is used to purchase the protocol's Solana-based $PAID token and burn it.

The self-reinforcing nature of the model helps explain the sudden surge: as more tokens launch and generate fees, more influencers discover they have unclaimed money waiting. Crypto influencer Tiffany Fong reportedly received over $6,000 through the protocol, while another X user received a $33,000 payment, according to The Currency Analytics.

Manual Claims Portal Launched as Interim FixThe volume spike forced UsePaid to act quickly. The team first capped payouts at $750 per recipient per day before suspending X Money payments entirely. The protocol stated that existing balances remain safe and that fees will continue to accrue.

As an interim solution, UsePaid has launched an on-chain claims portal, allowing recipients to bypass X Money and withdraw directly to a Solana wallet. Cumulative payouts through UsePaid had already exceeded $1.4 million to various X accounts before the suspension. The protocol's native $PAID token fell 38% in the aftermath of the disruption, according to Crypto Briefing.

Sources:
Crypto Briefing: UsePaid launches claim portal after $PAID token drops 38%
Protos: UsePaid suspends X Money payments after volume spike
U.Today: UsePaid Pauses X Money Payouts After $1.54M Fee Surge

Every major crypto spot ETF had a good day on September 28. Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, and XRP products each recorded net inflows simultaneously, according to data from SoSoValue, bringing the day’s combined total to roughly $65 million.

Where the money went Bitcoin ETFs led on the day with $31.07 million in net inflows, which was actually the lowest single-day figure for Bitcoin ETFs during that month. Ethereum followed at $17.10 million, Solana at $12.70 million, and XRP at $3.96 million.

Those daily numbers look small against the cumulative picture. Bitcoin spot ETFs have now absorbed $57.58 billion in total net inflows since launching in January 2024, with total net assets sitting at $107.82 billion. That represents 6.42% of Bitcoin’s entire market cap sitting inside regulated ETF wrappers.

Ethereum’s cumulative net inflows stand at $13.96 billion against $17.69 billion in total assets. XRP ETFs, which launched in late 2025, have already accumulated $1.79 billion in cumulative inflows. Solana’s tally sits at $1.62 billion.

Solana and XRP products only came to market in 2025, after Bitcoin’s January 2024 launch and Ethereum’s May 2024 follow-on.

The week ending around September 25 set the stage for this. Bitcoin ETFs pulled in approximately $2.39 billion that week alone, the largest single-week figure of 2026, enough to push Bitcoin ETFs’ 2026 net flows into positive territory after earlier redemptions had dragged the year-to-date figure negative. Solana set a single-day inflow record of $86.7 million on September 25, just three days before the synchronized four-asset inflow day.

Why Solana and XRP are picking up institutional interest The issuer lineup for these products includes BlackRock, Fidelity, Bitwise, and Grayscale, competing on fees and product structure.

Solana ETFs carry an additional feature that Bitcoin and Ethereum products currently lack: staking integration. Some Solana ETF structures pass through staking yield to holders, which turns a passive index exposure into something closer to a yield-bearing position.

XRP’s trajectory is its own story. The asset spent years in regulatory limbo following the SEC’s lawsuit against Ripple. With that resolved and ETFs now live, pent-up demand from investors who were waiting for a regulated vehicle is the most straightforward explanation for $1.79 billion in cumulative inflows in a relatively short window since the late 2025 launch.

Disclosure: This article was edited by Kaye Quema. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.

Alpenglow is running through Solana’s testing networks, while mainnet still relies on its existing consensus. The proposed switch would change how validators agree that a block is final. A 150 millisecond target is a performance claim under conditions, not a promise that every user payment clears in that time.

Summary

SIMD-0326 remains listed as pending mainnet activation in Anza’s validator schedule. The tracker lists Agave 4.3.0 for Alpenglow and a lower 4.2.2 mainnet version floor. The initial proposal brings Votor consensus but retains Turbine data propagation. Alpenglow’s proposal describes a 20% adversarial plus 20% unresponsive stake model. A September 28 feature activation window did not itself schedule Alpenglow’s mainnet switch. Solana’s most consequential consensus change is moving through a sequence of validator tests. Anza’s feature gate tracker lists SIMD-0326, Alpenglow, among pending mainnet activations. It records testnet and devnet activation positions and identifies Agave 4.3.0 as the software version tied to the feature. The mainnet version floor shown in the same snapshot was 4.2.2, with 4.3.0 listed as the next expected floor. A planned version floor and a live consensus feature are different milestones.

The earlier testnet report described the shift into wider validator testing. A later devnet account noted both testing networks, while mainnet continued with its current consensus. That is the status against which any promised speed gain must be judged.

JUST IN: Solana’s biggest consensus upgrade, Alpenglow, enters testnet this week

The upgrade marks a major step toward modernizing Solana’s consensus system, with testing set to begin ahead of its potential mainnet deployment. pic.twitter.com/L4oAQU2nWp

— crypto.news (@cryptodotnews) September 23, 2026 September 28 was a calendar trap One schedule entry said mainnet feature activations would resume on September 28. It did not say Alpenglow itself would switch on that day. The tracker separately names Alpenglow as pending. Treating a date for resuming a queue of feature gates as a scheduled protocol cutover turned a process marker into a false deadline. A September 29 correction traced that confusion and said Anza had rejected the claimed launch date.

The distinction is material. Validators can adopt a software release containing dormant code without activating the feature. A version floor can rise after a stake threshold and epochs pass. A separate feature gate can enable the new behavior. Users who see a version number change on a dashboard have not thereby seen a faster finality protocol go live.

The correct news hook is that the testing and activation process is still open after the widely circulated date. A final mainnet window requires an explicit schedule, operator preparation and evidence from public testing. None of those steps is replaced by a social post describing an upgrade as imminent.

Votor changes votes, while Rotor waits The SIMD-0326 proposal defines the initial move primarily around Votor, the new consensus mechanism. It explicitly leaves Rotor, the proposed data dissemination replacement, for a separate change and keeps the existing Turbine propagation initially. Marketing descriptions of a complete Alpenglow stack can blur that scope.

Consensus answers when enough validators have agreed on a block that it should be treated as final under the protocol. Data propagation answers how the block reaches those validators. Execution answers whether a transaction successfully ran. An app also waits for its RPC provider to report the outcome. A faster vote cannot eliminate every other delay in that path.

The 150 millisecond figure is best read as a finality objective under favorable network conditions, measured at the consensus layer. It is not an end-to-end checkout time for a user whose wallet must sign, submit, reach a leader, be included in a block, execute and return through an RPC service. A useful public benchmark should name its start and end points. A stopwatch started at block proposal is not comparable to one started when a customer presses Send.

The proposal replaces a voting arrangement with a different security and liveness tradeoff. It describes a 20 plus 20 model that can tolerate an adversarial share and a separate nonresponding share under stated assumptions. The authors explicitly note that one-round voting does not deliver the same 33% Byzantine threshold achievable by two-round designs. That admission belongs beside the speed claim, not in a footnote.

A two-column test prevents a misleading benchmark One column should measure protocol finality from a validator’s view: elapsed time from a proposed block to a finalization certificate, including the distribution of slow outcomes. The second should measure a user’s confirmed transaction: submission through execution, inclusion, finality and the RPC response. The difference between those columns is the work the consensus headline does not measure.

Suppose a test reports 150 milliseconds for finalization after proposal, but transaction inclusion waits one 350 millisecond slot and RPC delivery takes another 100 milliseconds. The customer sees at least 600 milliseconds under those illustrative assumptions, before adding signing or retries. The calculation is 350 plus 150 plus 100. These are hypothetical timings, not measurements of Alpenglow in production. They show why a subsecond consensus figure need not be the same as a subsecond payment experience.

Median latency can hide the cases operators care about most. A validator stuck behind a poor network route, a temporary partition, a missing vote, or heavy replay work might see a long tail. Exchanges and payment providers generally build finality policies for rare bad conditions, not just a benchmark median. A credible rollout would publish percentile results, recovery behavior and the consequences of failed leaders.

The slot-time proposal is another variable. It seeks staged reductions from a 400 millisecond target toward 200 milliseconds. Slot interval and finality are related but distinct; claiming that every shorter slot proves Votor works confuses two upgrades. The earlier validator test account followed the protocol testing before this wider rollout.

Validators have to test the failure cases A network’s happy path is the easiest environment in which to produce a fast number. A mainnet candidate must survive validators joining late, messages delayed across regions, software restarts, leader failures and conflicting views of the chain. The Alpenglow migration proposal addresses the handoff from the old voting state to the new one. A correct steady-state protocol can still be exposed by a poor transition.

Tests should show whether the cluster reaches one consistent final decision after a partition heals, how quickly it resumes if a meaningful share of stake goes offline, and whether nodes with different compatible versions report the same outcome. The testnet is valuable because validators with different infrastructure encounter conditions a controlled lab may miss. It cannot exactly reproduce the economic incentives and traffic of a live network.

The client mix matters. Anza’s tracker marked Firedancer and Frankendancer as unsupported for the Alpenglow row in the observed snapshot. That is a compatibility status in a specific schedule, not a permanent claim about either client. A production migration must account for stake running each implementation or specify what those operators need to change.

Validator incentives are part of the test as well. Running a new voting protocol can alter bandwidth, hardware demands and participation costs. If smaller operators drop out because they cannot meet requirements, the faster network could end up with fewer independent participants. Actual operator counts and stake distribution after activation would test that tradeoff.

A fast certificate and a slow certificate serve different conditions The protocol does not depend on one route always finishing in 150 milliseconds. SIMD-0326 defines fast finalization when validators representing 80% of stake notarize a block in one round. Its slower route relies on two rounds involving 60% of stake and both notarization and finalization certificates. A leader may fail to deliver a valid block in time, in which case validators can vote to skip that slot. The design includes certificates for skipped slots and a fallback path. A headline benchmark that measures only the 80% fast route would omit exactly the situations that make finality valuable.

The distinction can be put into a practical test. For every proposed slot in a day, count the share finalized with the fast certificate, the share using the slower path, and the share skipped. Give the median and 95th and 99th percentiles separately for each class. A fast median is useful, but an operator needs to know how frequently the network leaves the fast path and how long it then takes to recover. A payment service handling thousands of receipts a day may experience a long-tail event even if that event is rare for an individual transfer.

A certificate is a compact, verifiable record of stake-weighted agreement. It is not a vote by a fixed number of machines. Ten small validators cannot substitute for one validator representing a large amount of stake merely by outnumbering it. Reporting validator counts without stake distribution would therefore misstate the safety test. The correct figures are stake participating in each round, stake that is offline, and stake that disagrees. Those figures need timestamps because stake assignments and operator availability change.

The proposal says a directly finalized block also decides its ancestors: prior blocks in its chain become finalized and omitted slots are treated as skipped. That means a dashboard can show finality arriving in groups after a slow period. A measurement that averages those ancestors’ apparent completion times into one attractive number would be hard to compare with a user who waited through the pause. The test should retain each block’s original proposal time and certificate observation time.

The protocol authors do not claim the same adversarial threshold as every competing design. Their 20 plus 20 framing accepts a different balance between Byzantine faults and unresponsive stake in exchange for a shorter normal path. Whether that trade is acceptable is a governance judgment informed by threat modeling and performance evidence, not a matter settled by a single fastest-case demonstration. The unusually candid security section in SIMD-0326 makes it possible to report the trade without attributing motives to either side.

Switching consensus requires a shared starting block The migration document addresses a problem that a speed chart cannot show. Old and new consensus cannot safely run as independent histories after the cutover. Validators must agree on the final old block that becomes the parent of the first Alpenglow block. The document calls that shared point the Alpenglow genesis block. If operators disagree on it, their subsequent finality certificates would refer to incompatible histories.

The proposed handoff begins after a feature activation slot, but the boundary used for migration sits 5,000 slots later. The extra interval is meant to avoid the start of an epoch. The process then waits for a block meeting a strong optimistic confirmation condition, with votes representing at least 82% of stake in the proposal’s specified pattern. Validators sign a genesis vote for a common ancestor block. An 82% genesis certificate gives them the evidence to switch. The arithmetic of those thresholds is part of the migration design, separate from Votor’s 80% fast finalization route after the switch.

A validator receiving the genesis certificate verifies its signatures against the relevant epoch’s BLS keys and broadcasts it. The plan then initializes Votor from the selected block and stops TowerBFT for later slots. It rolls back blocks after the selected genesis point and resets the associated state before processing new blocks. The document argues this rollback is safe because user transactions are not packed into those interim blocks. That claim deserves a test on the actual cluster; it is not something an app operator can verify from the finality headline alone.

A node may be offline during the handoff. The document describes how a returning validator can learn the genesis certificate from a snapshot or catch up after observing a valid Alpenglow finalization certificate. This is where release engineering meets consensus theory. If a late node interprets the transition incorrectly, it can present stale or inconsistent data even when the majority cluster continues. Exchanges and RPC providers should exercise restart and snapshot restore scenarios, not just watch the initial cutover succeed.

There is an explicit liveness cost. The migration proposal says the handoff can interrupt progress, optimistically for one slot beyond the boundary. A one-slot expectation is not a maximum service-level guarantee. The public postmortem after activation should state how many slots were skipped, whether user transaction packing paused, and how long external services took to resume normal confirmation reporting. A fast steady state cannot make the transition interval disappear from users’ experience.

This is why the mainnet date cannot be inferred from a general software calendar. A safe cutover needs compatible BLS key registration, an adopted feature gate, a shared starting block, certificate distribution, rollback behavior and recovery for lagging nodes. Those are observable tasks for operators. The migration specification gives them a checklist, while the actual network exercise will show whether the checklist is sufficient.

JUST IN: Tokenized equities on Solana hit a record $684 million

The total has jumped 47% in just three weeks, marking a new all-time high for tokenized stocks on the network. pic.twitter.com/nR1NvaIMll

— crypto.news (@cryptodotnews) September 11, 2026 Validator costs could change who participates The upgrade has an economic design as well as a latency target. Under current voting, operators send vote transactions and pay the associated fees. SIMD-0326 proposes a validator admission ticket, or VAT, charged instead of that pattern of fees. The document gives an initial estimate of about 0.8 SOL per day, or 1.6 SOL per epoch, and says the entire payment would be burned. The figure is an initial parameter in a proposal, not a live billing statement for every validator.

A fixed admission cost can simplify one expense while weighing more heavily on a small operator with little delegated stake. A large validator and a small one do not earn the same rewards. The question is whether their net economics improve after accounting for saved vote fees, hardware costs, bandwidth and the VAT. The proposal says operators should see lower resource use after migration. That is an expected effect, not a measured outcome across the live validator set.

A useful before-and-after comparison would follow the same operators through the upgrade. For each stake band, compare daily vote fees before the switch with VAT and operating costs after it. Count the share of independent operators who stop producing votes or leave the active set. A decline in machine count would not by itself prove a loss of decentralization if departing validators had negligible stake, but it would be a warning to investigate. Stake concentration and geographic diversity would add necessary context.

The proposal says an insufficiently funded validator would be removed from the active set. That makes ticket balance management an uptime issue. Operators need alerts before funds run out, and delegators need to understand what happens if their chosen validator falls inactive. The difference between a consensus protocol that works in a lab and a network that works day after day includes mundane account funding. The earlier report on Solana validator governance describes the formal decision path; continued participation after implementation is a separate test.

The production question is not simply whether 150 milliseconds is achievable. It is whether a broad enough set of validators can deliver that performance without an unreported rise in cost or operational fragility. Faster finality with a narrower operator base would be a different outcome from the full promise of the proposal. Both latency and participation need a baseline taken before the switch.

A transaction can be final while a service is still behind An exchange deposit illustrates the gap between chain finality and a user’s usable balance. First the customer submits a signed transaction. The transfer reaches a leader and is included in a block. Validators vote and a finalization certificate forms. An RPC service observes the certificate and reports it. The exchange’s deposit monitor identifies the address and asset, performs its policy checks, and credits the account. The consensus change principally shortens one interval in that sequence.

An exchange may wait longer by choice. It might require additional checks for large deposits, compare results across multiple RPC providers, or delay credit during an incident. That does not mean the chain failed its finality objective. It means a chain benchmark cannot be advertised as the customer’s guaranteed credit time. A fair product claim should distinguish block finality, RPC visibility and the institution’s own credit decision.

The reverse mistake is possible as well. An app might display a pending success as soon as its RPC node sees a block, before the finalization certificate arrives. A user could experience a quick green check even though the protocol’s strongest assurance comes later. During migration, an app that continues to label its preupgrade commitment status in the same way should be tested against the new semantics. A visually unchanged wallet interface can conceal a changed risk model.

For decentralized applications, a final block does not guarantee a favorable trade. A transaction can execute and fail under an application rule, pay fees, or settle at a price the user did not expect within the submitted parameters. Consensus finality means the ledger has decided that outcome. It does not certify that a smart contract is safe or that an oracle input was correct. The upgrade should be credited for the narrower property it is designed to improve.

To make the claim falsifiable, infrastructure providers could publish paired timestamps for a sample of transactions: arrival at their service, first inclusion, certificate observation, RPC response and customer-visible credit. They should disclose missing observations and retries. Comparing those intervals before and after activation, with similar loads and fee conditions, would show how much of the total journey Alpenglow actually shortened. That would be stronger evidence than repeating the white paper’s target.

The strongest case is a real improvement to settlement Supporters can make a substantial argument. Solana’s current confirmation path has long left a gap between rapid block production and stronger finality. If Votor reduces that gap reliably, an exchange can credit deposits sooner, a trader can reduce uncertainty after an execution, and a payment provider can settle with less waiting. The protocol proposal is a serious engineering design, and validators have already spent time testing it outside mainnet.

The prior governance coverage records the validator decision behind the proposal. The validator governance path also means the change is not merely a company promise. Operators must adopt software and participate in activation. The staged feature gate gives the network an opportunity to expose problems before production. Those strengths do not prove the final service level, but they make the testing phase consequential.

JUST IN: UsePaid shifts users to manual $SOL claims after X Money payout issues

The Solana-based protocol restricted payouts after $1.54 million in creator fees surged in 24 hours, about 26 times more than the previous day, due to a surge in creator fee activity across Solana… pic.twitter.com/TVbvOdIGVn

— crypto.news (@cryptodotnews) September 29, 2026 The opposing case is a tradeoff the authors themselves disclose: different failure assumptions accompany the faster voting design. Operators must also manage migration and client compatibility. A 150 millisecond median obtained on a calm test cluster would not answer how the protocol behaves when meaningful stake is offline or network links are unstable. That is why the evidence belongs in a failure-case report, not only a speed demonstration.

Mainnet readiness has several separate gates The first is software adoption: enough stake runs a compatible release. The second is protocol verification on testnet and devnet: votes and certificates remain correct during normal and adverse conditions. The third is operational preparation: exchanges, RPC providers, block explorers and wallets know how to observe the new finality signal. The fourth is the scheduled feature activation itself.

Anza’s tracker indicates a mainnet version floor can rise after 95% of stake adopts a new minor version and two full epochs pass. That rule governs the minimum supported version; it should not be paraphrased as an automatic Alpenglow activation at 95%. The independent feature row remains the place to check the actual pending change.

No reported test establishes that SOL price must respond in a particular way. Token prices incorporate macro conditions, funding, supply, application demand and expectations about upgrades before deployment. The earlier activation outlook covers why a consensus milestone is relevant without making it a price catalyst by definition.

What the public evidence still lacks A dated, final activation plan and a comparable public series of finality measurements under varied loads would let readers judge how close the network is to the headline promise. The test results should specify the software versions, participating stake, client types, message conditions, transaction inclusion and percentile latencies. A single best-case finalization time would be incomplete.

The most decisive report will come after the switch: repeated mainnet observations of finality and app-visible settlement, plus disclosure of any recovery events. Until then, validator testing shows the proposed system is being exercised. It does not establish that every user will experience 150 millisecond settlement.

What to watch Feature gate: Anza’s explicit Alpenglow mainnet status and activation slot, distinct from a general version-floor date. Stake adoption: The share of validator stake running a release that supports the feature. Client compatibility: Updates for validator implementations listed as unsupported in the current tracker row. Failure tests: Published recovery and long-tail latency under partitions, restarts and missing votes. User timing: Mainnet measurements from submission through finality and RPC notification, not just certificate time. FAQ Is Alpenglow live on Solana mainnet? The Anza tracker consulted for this feature listed SIMD-0326 under pending mainnet activation. Testnet and devnet activity is not mainnet activation.

Did Alpenglow launch on September 28? No verified Alpenglow mainnet launch follows from the general September 28 feature activation window. Its own feature gate remained a separate pending item.

What is Votor? Votor is the new consensus voting component in the initial Alpenglow proposal. It is intended to change how validators finalize blocks.

Is Rotor included in the initial switch? SIMD-0326 says the initial scope leaves Rotor’s replacement of data propagation for a separate proposal. The network retains Turbine at first.

Does 150 milliseconds mean every payment completes that fast? No. A consensus finality target excludes some time spent signing, submitting, awaiting inclusion, executing and hearing back from an RPC provider.

What does the 20 plus 20 model mean? The proposal describes resilience under assumptions involving adversarial stake and separately unresponsive stake. It explicitly discusses a different Byzantine tradeoff from two-round protocols.

What is the version floor? It is the minimum software version supported on a cluster. Raising it can prepare nodes for a feature without automatically activating that feature.

What would prove the performance claim? Repeatable mainnet data showing fast finality and acceptable tail behavior under real traffic, with start and end points defined. This is educational analysis, not investment advice.

Disclaimer: This article is for information and educational purposes only and does not constitute financial or investment advice. Figures reflect regulatory filings and reporting available at the time of writing and change with each disclosure. Nothing here is a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold any security or asset. Always do your own research. Information is accurate as of September 29, 2026.

Cover image via depositphotos.com Disclaimer: The opinions expressed by our writers are their own and do not represent the views of U.Today. The financial and market information provided on U.Today is intended for informational purposes only. U.Today is not liable for any financial losses incurred while trading cryptocurrencies. Conduct your own research by contacting financial experts before making any investment decisions. We believe that all content is accurate as of the date of publication, but certain offers mentioned may no longer be available.

Unexpectedly, Solana (SOL) ETFs have surpassed XRP by a significant margin, surprising many. On September 28, U.S. daily net inflows into Solana funds totaled $12.70 million, while XRP products brought in $3.96 million. That is more than 300%, or about 3.2 times more.

The lead is consistent over time. SOL's inflows more than doubled those of XRP over the last 30 days, with Solana ETFs collecting $278.20 million compared to $127.05 million for XRP. The cumulative net inflows for Solana and XRP are $1.62 billion and $1.80 billion, respectively, indicating that XRP's lead is rapidly diminishing.

SOL/USDT Chart by TradingViewThe shift is even more evident in net assets. Solana funds now hold $1.93 billion, surpassing the $1.68 billion held by XRP. Additionally, Solana has nine ETFs available, while XRP has only five. Even though XRP has a higher market capitalization of $95.47 billion compared to $70.69 billion for SOL, SOL products make up 2.72% of the token's market capitalization, significantly more than XRP's 1.76%. Daily value traded stood at $39.37 million for XRP and $90.43 million for Solana.

HOT Stories

Demand is also reflected in price action. SOL easily cleared the 200-day moving average around $95 after rising from the $75 area in early August to about $119.81. Higher highs were reached in September, with a local peak near $125. The 50-day moving average is pulling away from the 200-day, while the moving averages are rising and stacked bullishly.

Staying heavily overboughtAlthough the RSI is comfortably near 60 rather than in extreme territory, recent candles show some cooling, with a pullback from $125 and fading volume. That leaves room for further upside without the asset immediately entering heavily overbought territory.

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Institutional appetite is currently leaning toward Solana, and ETF flows are frequently used as a proxy for institutional demand. In terms of cumulative inflows, XRP continues to lead, but recent momentum has clearly shifted toward SOL. The difference in assets under management and market share may grow further if SOL maintains support at $110 and inflows continue at this rate.

Compared to Bitcoin's $107.82 billion and Ethereum's $17.69 billion, Solana's ETF footprint is still modest, but what counts in this case is its trajectory.

Key Takeaways Solana retreated from the $125 level and currently hovers around $118 support. The breakdown below an ascending trendline has flipped $120-$121 into a resistance zone. Technical analyst Sweep anticipates a brief correction before potential movement toward $150. The network’s stablecoin holdings reached an all-time high of $17 billion, climbing over 5% within seven days. Exchange-traded funds accumulated 2.32 million SOL tokens in the last fortnight, valued at approximately $278 million. Solana (SOL) experienced a setback following its inability to maintain momentum above the $125 threshold. The cryptocurrency is currently hovering around $118, where it’s encountering a crucial support boundary.

Solana (SOL) Price Market participants now face a pivotal decision. Maintaining this price floor could stabilize the asset, while failure to do so may trigger a more substantial decline toward the $100-$105 region.

Technical analyst Jesse Peralta examined the price movement using a two-hour timeframe. His analysis revealed that SOL breached its upward-sloping trendline around $120-$121, effectively converting this area into a barrier for future upward attempts.

Looking out for a strong base above $100 levels for solana:So11111111111111111111111111111111111111112

I want to see that base so we can start challenging upside more strongly 👀

Base and target $150 > $200 pic.twitter.com/bNGufFU0XD

— Jesse Peralta (@jesseperalta) September 28, 2026

This trendline had previously underpinned SOL’s ascent from approximately $96. Its violation suggests diminishing bullish momentum in the near term.

The $115-$118 range now represents the primary defensive barrier. Successfully maintaining this zone could enable SOL to establish a fresh foundation before attempting another upward move.

Technical Outlook Points to Temporary Retracement Before $150 Target Solana is approaching an extensive high-volume trading band spanning $120 to $200. This zone has historically witnessed significant market activity, establishing it as a formidable resistance area to overcome.

Market analyst Sweep forecasts a brief downward correction in the coming days. He suggests a possible descent toward $100-$105 before SOL initiates another attempt at reaching $150.

Sweep also highlighted a notable surge in SOL long positions on Bitfinex, which climbed dramatically to approximately 84,398 contracts. According to his assessment, this uptick indicates traders are positioning themselves for an upward reversal.

While the data doesn’t differentiate between retail investors and institutional players, it clearly demonstrates increased market participation favoring a price recovery.

Network Fundamentals Remain Robust Amid Price Volatility The stablecoin ecosystem on Solana has expanded beyond $17 billion, establishing a fresh benchmark. This represents a surge exceeding 5% within just seven days, introducing over $800 million in additional liquidity to the network.

Meanwhile, worldwide money supply reached an unprecedented $103.66 trillion in August. Central banks including the Federal Reserve, European Central Bank, Bank of Japan and People’s Bank of China collectively injected approximately $1 trillion during that period.

Solana-focused ETFs acquired 2.32 million SOL tokens, representing nearly $278 million in value, throughout the past fourteen days. Combined ETF holdings have now reached $2.283 billion.

Solana commands the altcoin spot ETF sector. According to information shared by Jesse Peralta, SOL captures 46% of trading activity, surpassing Zcash at 27%, XRP at 12% and Hyperliquid at 11%.

Market commentator Gordon Gekko weighed in on the accumulation pattern. He noted that the initial strategy involved acquiring SOL below $80, but now the focus has transitioned to building positions under $120, describing the upcoming phase as “the real move.”

A significant whale transaction also put SOL’s stability to the test. Whale Alert identified a transfer of 500,000 SOL tokens to Binance on September 26, representing roughly $60.5 million at an average price near $121.

Remarkably, SOL showed minimal reaction to this substantial sale. The asset concluded that trading session with only a 0.3% decline and subsequently gained 0.4% the next day.

The critical price levels currently under observation include $115-$118 as support and $120-$125 as resistance. A breakdown beneath $100 would potentially expose the $90-$80 range.

According to current market data, SOL is trading at $118.17, representing a 2.99% decrease over the previous 24-hour period.

US spot Solana exchange-traded funds (ETFs) took in about $188 million in net new money last week, the strongest weekly result since the products began trading. The official Solana account highlighted the figure on September 27, calling it the biggest week since launch.

All seven funds in the group recorded inflows rather than seeing demand pile into a single ticker.

Bitwise Asset Management again captured most of that capital.

Its BSOL product brought in roughly $128 million across the five sessions through September 25, 2026 or about 68 percent of the weekly total.

Grayscale’s GSOL followed with about $28 million. Fidelity’s FSOL added roughly $18 million.

The remaining $14 million was split among Morgan Stanley, VanEck, Franklin Templeton, and 21Shares.

More precise daily tallies from Farside Investors put Friday’s category-wide intake near $86.7 million, with BSOL alone taking $55.7 million that session.

US Solana ETFs post $188M in weekly inflows, the biggest week since launch. pic.twitter.com/Psba4s3JLR

— Solana (@solana) September 27, 2026

Net inflows count cash that stays after redemptions.

They are not the same as trading volume among existing shareholders.

That distinction is why the week matters: new money entered the wrappers rather than simply rotating inside them.

Friday’s haul supplied nearly half the weekly total and set a daily high for the category.

Bitwise’s longer-term lead is larger still.

BSOL has absorbed about $1.2 billion of the group’s roughly $1.6 billion in cumulative net inflows, close to three-quarters of all capital raised since the October 2025 debut.

Last week’s 68 percent share was a bit below that historical concentration, because the other issuers together collected around $60 million.

The products let investors hold SOL through ordinary brokerage accounts and, in several cases, receive staking rewards without running a validator or wallet.

The Solana inflow came during a broader week for crypto funds.

Bitcoin ETFs took in about $2.4 billion, and ether products added roughly $690 million. SOL itself traded near $119, still about 60 percent below its prior peak near $293.

Price and fund flows have not always moved together, which is why the ETF numbers are being watched as a separate demand signal.

The same week, developers continued testing Alpenglow, an upgrade aimed at shrinking payment finality from about 12.8 seconds toward 150 milliseconds.

The work reached a second public test environment, though no mainnet date has been set.

Combined assets in the spot Solana ETFs recently approached $2 billion, with Bitwise still holding the dominant share. Whether last week’s record is a one-off or the start of wider issuer participation will depend on whether the other six funds keep attracting capital.

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Coinbase is accused of covering up losses exceeding $1 billion from a hack, with at least a dozen institutions affected.

Crypto hedge fund BlockTower Capital founder and CIO Ari Paul said that Coinbase "lost" roughly $25 million from his firm several years ago, an incident later revealed to be a cover-up for multiple large-scale hacks, with the funds still unrepaid to date. Paul also claimed that at least a dozen affected institutions have been identified, with the total amount concealed exceeding $1 billion, though he cannot disclose more details due to multiple ongoing legal proceedings. In response, Coinbase’s official customer support account has contacted Paul to arrange a private conversation, and the platform has not yet issued any further public response.

14 minutes ago

Instinct and Muse have aligned on the same model: their agents are free to use, with revenue generated from transaction commissions.

Beating AI Express News: Noah Shinn, founder of personal AI agent Instinct, detailed the company’s monetization plans in his first public in-depth interview. Shinn aims for Instinct to eventually remain free long-term, with no subscription fees charged to users. After the agent completes transactions on users’ behalf—such as booking hotels or shopping—Instinct collects a small commission from the merchants receiving the orders. However, this is currently just his goal; Instinct has not yet committed to permanent free access. Shinn also explicitly ruled out advertising. Personal AI agents will grow more familiar with users and increasingly adept at influencing their decisions. If the platform relied on ad revenue, agents might start pushing users to purchase items they had no intention of buying. He prefers Instinct to generate revenue solely from transactions users were already set to complete. The exact commission rate has not been finalized. Shinn cited the platform fees charged by Shopify, Amazon, and Apple as references. Currently, roughly half of Instinct’s transaction volume comes from travel, with some boutique hotels willing to pay commissions of over 30% for orders it drives—though Instinct may not charge that high a rate. Coincidentally, Mark Zuckerberg previously envisioned the same model for Muse: most users would access the service for free, with the agent charging merchants for transactions it facilitated.

14 minutes ago

Meme coin GP’s market cap briefly topped $9 million, surging more than 82.5% in the past 24 hours.

According to GMGN data monitoring, the market capitalization of Solana-based meme coin RuneScape Gold (GP) briefly exceeded $9 million, surging more than 82.5% in 24 hours with a trading volume of $3.6 million. GP is themed after in-game gold from the classic game *RuneScape* and paired with tokenized gold GLDx. Each GP transaction incurs a 3% tax; accumulated fees are periodically converted by StonkFun and distributed proportionally to eligible holders in GLDx form, forming a mechanism of "earning gold price exposure rewards by holding tokens". It is a high-volatility meme asset integrating nostalgic gaming narratives, transaction tax dividends, and tokenized gold concepts. BlockBeats reminds users that most meme coins lack practical use cases, have significant price volatility, and require caution when investing.

14 minutes ago

Bank of America: Bond market volatility is testing the AI bull market, with deleveraging risks heating up.

Bank of America strategist Michael Hartnett’s latest warning flags that sharp volatility in the U.S. Treasury market is emerging as a new pressure source for risk assets. The MOVE index he tracks jumped roughly 35% over two trading days, reflecting heightened volatility in the financing system that uses U.S. Treasuries as core collateral. Hartnett warns that if the Global Financials ETF (ticker: IXG) falls below $125 while the MOVE index remains above 125, the market could enter a broader "risk-off deleveraging" phase. This would subject AI trades to more stringent interest rate tests. For some time, the resilience of tech giants’ earnings and AI-related capital expenditures have supported U.S. stocks, but rising long-term interest rates will simultaneously push up financing costs and valuation discount rates. The 10-year U.S. Treasury yield briefly topped 5.2% last week, hitting its highest level since 2007; a prior Bank of America survey of fund managers also showed that "disorderly upward movement in bond yields" has overtaken the AI bubble as the market’s most feared tail risk. Hartnett’s core view is that rising yields alone do not necessarily end risk appetite; the truly dangerous combination is high yields paired with weak financial stocks. This would mean interest rates have shifted from a signal of economic expansion to a source of tightening liquidity and credit conditions; leveraged funds will be forced to reduce positions, and pressure could then spread from bonds to tech stocks, bank stocks, and other high-valuation assets. For AI bulls, the next key factors to watch are whether bond volatility eases, bank stocks stabilize, and long-term yields show signs of peaking. Bank of America continues to view yields as the primary potential threat to current economic and stock market expansion; once interest rate pressures ease, large-cap tech stocks could regain investor favor.

14 minutes ago

CoinShares: SEC's innovation exemptions will continue to push TradeFi on-chain, but high yields are still weighing on Bitcoin.

In its latest report, CoinShares stated that the U.S. CLARITY Act’s failure to advance in the Senate has cooled short-term expectations for crypto market structure legislation, though integration between traditional finance and on-chain infrastructure persists. The report argues that regulatory setbacks have not halted corporate investment in payments, stablecoin distribution, and tokenized securities, with the market continuing its institutionalization process via practical business collaborations. CoinShares highlighted recent TradeFi-related developments in crypto, including the NYSE and Blockchain.com exploring 24-hour trading channels for tokenized U.S. stocks and ETFs, ICE establishing a two-way data partnership with Blockchain.com, and Circle expanding its five-year collaboration with Binance while securing $100 million in strategic investment to boost USDC distribution. The firm believes these moves, combined with the SEC’s recent innovation exemptions, will further drive the on-chain migration of trading, payment, and clearing infrastructure. Market performance indicates crypto assets have temporarily weathered dual pressures from regulation and interest rates. Per CoinShares’ data, its blockchain stock index rose 1.9% last week, while Bitcoin gained 3.8%. However, the U.S. dollar hit an eight-week high, 10-year U.S. Treasury yields topped 5.2%, and oil prices remain supported by Middle East tensions, leaving the macro environment unfavorable for liquidity-sensitive assets.

14 minutes ago

Coinbase被指掩盖超10亿美元黑客攻击损失，至少十几家机构受影响

Crypto hedge fund BlockTower Capital founder and CIO Ari Paul said that several years ago, Coinbase "lost" roughly $25 million from his firm. It was later revealed that the exchange had covered up multiple large-scale hacks and has yet to return the funds. Paul also added that at least a dozen affected institutions have been identified, with the covered amount exceeding $1 billion. He cannot disclose more details, however, as multiple legal proceedings are still ongoing. In response, Coinbase’s customer support account has contacted via private message, but the platform has not issued a further public statement.

14 minutes ago

1 hours ago

According to GMGN data, Solana-based PAID has plummeted nearly 50% (down 47%) over the past 24 hours. Its current market capitalization stands at $13.6 million, with a 24-hour trading volume of $21.8 million. Paid suspended X Money payments yesterday, and announced today that its dedicated claim portal is now live. Eligible users can receive new fee distributions, with related assets issued in the quote asset corresponding to the fees—most commonly SOL. Additional claiming methods will be rolled out later, including via direct messages or tagging the official account in posts. X Money payments remain suspended for now, with no resumption timeline provided; users’ historical balances will be retained separately, and the team is developing an independent claiming solution for these funds, while aiming to restore X Money payments in the future. BlockBeats reminds users that the relevant token is highly volatile, so caution is required for investments.

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Crypto markets are moving through several powerful narratives at once. Privacy is back in focus through Zcash, tokenization is lifting Quant, faster blockchains are supporting Solana, and AI-powered memecoin platforms are opening a different kind of early-stage opportunity.

Each narrative solves a different problem. Zcash focuses on private digital payments, Quant is linked to tokenized bank deposits, Solana is pushing faster settlement, and MemeToro is building an AI-led BNB Chain platform for memecoin creation and discovery. Comparing them helps buyers understand where attention is moving in 2026.

AI Memecoins Give Altcoins a Different Growth Angle MemeToro is not trying to copy the privacy, bank tokenization, or high-speed blockchain stories. It is building an AI memecoin narrative on BNB Chain, where the goal is to make new token launches easier to create, verify, and explore.

The project has passed $155K in Stage 8, with $MT priced at $0.00528. Its AI agent is designed to propose memecoin concepts using live trend data and published reasoning. Users can review the token supply, price, and caps in a launch manifest before a funding round begins.

The planned MemeToro process includes:

AI-led trend discovery and token concepts fixed-rate rounds with no private allocation tiers public FairLaunchEscrow contract rules future memecoin trading and discovery tools $MT is designed to support platform access, launch funding, rewards, staking, and wider ecosystem activity. MemeToro also plans prediction markets and a crypto news portal, giving users a place to follow new narratives before they become token launches.

Privacy and Tokenization Are Creating Big Institutional Narratives Zcash has moved into the institutional spotlight as privacy assets regain attention. ZEC trades near $1,530 after reaching a local peak around $1,698. New investment products and growing interest in privacy technology have helped bring the asset into a larger market conversation.

Quant represents a different trend. QNT is trading near $254 after a major tokenization catalyst linked to transaction settlement across 25 large U.S. banks. Tokenized deposits aim to move traditional value across new digital rails, giving Quant a narrative tied to financial infrastructure.

These stories are easy to understand:

ZEC focuses on private transactions and privacy technology. QNT focuses on tokenized money and bank settlement systems. Both are driven by major shifts in how digital assets may be used. The next altcoin narrative does not need to be one winner. Crypto markets often rotate between several themes, especially when each theme offers a clear use case. Privacy and tokenization are attracting attention because they connect blockchain technology to real-world financial needs.

Fast Blockchains Are Competing on Speed and User Activity Solana is another major 2026 narrative. SOL trades near $118.36 after a 68% rally over two months, with traders watching the $124 resistance level. The network’s Alpenglow upgrade has reached its second public test network and is designed to reduce settlement time from roughly 13 seconds to 150 milliseconds.

That speed matters for apps, payments, games, and high-volume trading. A faster network can support more user activity with less waiting, which is why Solana remains a major name in the fast blockchain narrative.

NEAR offers another angle. It trades near $4.90 after breaking a multi-month resistance area. The network is now consolidating between $4.79 and $5.00, while its ecosystem continues to attract attention from users who want flexible Layer-1 tools.

Fast blockchains are not only competing on token price. They are competing on how quickly and smoothly users can move through applications. This is a key part of the next altcoin narrative because better infrastructure can create room for more consumer-facing products.

Final Words The next altcoin narrative may come from several directions. Zcash is bringing privacy back into the conversation, Quant is linked to tokenized finance, and Solana is showing how faster blockchain settlement can attract more users.

MemeToro adds a different early-stage narrative. The project has raised more than $155K in Stage 8 and is building an open-source AI memecoin launchpad for BNB Chain. Its platform is designed to turn live trends into transparent token proposals that users can verify before funding.

This makes MemeToro an interesting project for buyers who want to watch the meeting point of AI, memecoins, and public smart-contract rules. As crypto narratives continue to rotate through 2026, $MT gives users an early way to follow a platform built for the next wave of trend-led token creation.

FAQs What is the privacy altcoin narrative? The privacy narrative focuses on digital assets such as Zcash that use technology designed to support private transactions.

Why is Quant gaining attention? Quant is gaining attention because tokenized deposit settlement is creating a strong use case around financial infrastructure.

What is MemeToro’s AI memecoin narrative? MemeToro is building an AI-led BNB Chain launchpad where users can review trend-based memecoin proposals, published launch manifests, and public funding rules.

More Information on MemeToro ($MT) Presale Here:

Website: https://memetoro.com/

X: https://x.com/memetoro_mt

Telegram: https://t.me/memetoro_mt

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gY0jgWy_DtA

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Donald Trump is willing to offer Iran sanctions relief in exchange for "substantive progress" on the nuclear issue.

According to Al Jazeera, U.S. President Donald Trump is open to considering easing sanctions on Iran and unfreezing Iranian funds if "specific progress" is made on the Iran nuclear issue. U.S. officials said the U.S. and Iran are holding "positive and constructive" discussions via intermediaries, but no deal will be reached if the nuclear issue is not resolved. The official added that Iran has signaled some flexibility on the nuclear issue, though the two sides have yet to agree on the timeline for implementing relevant commitments. Trump previously rejected Iran’s proposal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, calling the plan "unacceptable." Trump said more talks with Iran are expected this week. Negotiations on the U.S. side are led by Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, Jared Kushner, Vice President JD Vance, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio. U.S. Ambassador to the UN Mike Waltz said Trump is skeptical of Iran’s proposals, believing Iran is demanding all its conditions be met before advancing further negotiations. White House officials also noted the U.S. is cautious about Iran’s commitments, citing Iran’s violation of the U.S.-Iran memorandum of understanding reached in July, which included attacks on commercial vessels. (Source: Jinshi)

2 hours ago

Crypto markets saw a short-term rally, as foreign media reported that Trump is prepared to ease sanctions on Iran.

According to Al Jazeera, U.S. officials said the U.S. is continuing active discussions with Iran via intermediary channels; no agreement will be reached unless the nuclear issue is resolved. Trump is prepared to ease sanctions on Iran and unfreeze its frozen assets in exchange for progress on the Iran nuclear issue. Possibly as a result, the crypto market rallied in the short term, while U.S. WTI and Brent crude oil prices dropped by roughly $1 each, hitting $92.02 per barrel and $105.65 per barrel respectively.

2 hours ago

Analysis: The restaking 'gold rush' is ebbing, profits of Ethereum's leading protocols have shrunk sharply

As restaking yields continue to decline and smart contract risks rise, Ethereum’s leading liquid restaking protocol ether.fi is gradually exiting the restaking business and shifting to a "crypto neo-bank" model. Data shows that as of September 8, the restaking sector’s assets under management (AUM) stood at approximately $10.02 billion, generating only around $99,977 in fees over the past week. By contrast, liquid staking protocols manage roughly $51.87 billion in AUM and produced about $27.35 million in fees. Calculated per dollar of assets, fees from liquid staking are roughly 53 times higher than those from restaking. ether.fi CEO Mike Silagadze noted that restaking offers "no meaningful yield opportunities" while exposing users to additional risks, prompting the firm’s exit from the segment. As of August, less than 1% of ether.fi’s assets remained restaked via EigenLayer, with the company expected to fully sever related structural connections by the end of this year. Meanwhile, the five major liquid restaking protocols—Renzo, Kelp, Swell, Puffer Finance, and Bedrock—combined to generate around $953,000 in gross profit in Q2 2026, a sharp decline from the $2.18 million they earned over the prior three quarters. ether.fi has since pivoted its business focus to crypto neo-banking, including offerings such as crypto payment cards, lending markets, yield vaults, and tokenized stocks and metals.

2 hours ago

Bonk Guy pumps MARSCOIN, claiming it could see 'explosive growth' in the fourth quarter.

Renowned crypto trader Bonk Guy has stated in a post that MarsCoin (MARSCOIN) features a "very clean" recent technical trend, indicating it could be primed for a significant rally in the fourth quarter. He noted that BNB and BNB Chain’s influence is growing in this cycle, while MarsCoin combines the "Elon Musk + CZ" concept alongside narratives like SPCX, with its fundamentals gradually taking shape. Bonk Guy also added that during the last cycle, he helped drive rallies for multiple Elon Musk-themed meme coins, with SHIB and DOGE once surpassing $40 billion and $80 billion in market cap respectively. He explained that this cycle, MarsCoin integrates Elon Musk, CZ and SPCX narratives, and Binance currently supports SPCX via its reward program, allocating a portion of trading fees to related incentives. As a result, the market may be underestimating MarsCoin’s future upside potential.

2 hours ago

Manus 2.0 Officially Launched: New Architecture, Professional Studio Tool, and Personal AI Agent Application Cue Roll Out Simultaneously

Beating AI Express (Dongcha) – Manus has officially launched Version 2.0, a comprehensive upgrade rather than a simple iteration, centered on the question of "what the next-generation Manus should look like". Key upgrades include: its self-developed Agent framework Cascade, which tests show cuts token consumption by 23.2%, reduces task completion time by 28.2%, and lowers operating costs by 32%; a new cloud PC for dedicated environments such as game servers or long-term automation; event-triggered automation that enables workflows to start from changes in email, Slack, Notion, and more; a desktop app upgraded to Manus Studio, allowing on-demand integration of tools; and new offerings including a video editor (supporting timeline fine-tuning and Alchemy creative mode) and a game development environment (supporting real-time modification, one-click multiplayer online, and cloud PC hosting). The Computer Use capability has also been upgraded, letting users remotely control authorized computers via natural language. A new standalone app, Cue, has launched for personal Agents, supporting mobile and desktop. Each Agent comes with its own email, phone, wallet, and PC, can form multi-Agent teams for collaboration, and integrate with offline services. Manus noted that Version 2.0 focuses on refinement and control after idea implementation, continuing its core mission of "helping people turn ideas into reality".

2 hours ago

An address linked to BlackRock withdrew approximately $127 million worth of BTC and ETH from Coinbase Prime.

According to monitoring by Onchain Lens, BlackRock’s address has cumulatively withdrawn approximately $126.95 million in crypto assets from Coinbase Prime over the past hour, including roughly $95.43 million in Bitcoin (BTC) and $31.52 million in Ethereum (ETH).

2 hours ago

Nansen just made it significantly easier to peek at what the most active social traders are actually doing with their money. The blockchain analytics firm has rolled out a search feature covering more than 200,000 wallets linked to FOMO, the mobile-first copy-trading app that’s been quietly eating market share on Solana and Base.

Users can now pull up detailed holdings, trade histories, and profit-and-loss data for FOMO-connected wallets directly through Nansen’s platform.

What the integration actually unlocks The update goes beyond surface-level wallet tracking. Nansen’s integration includes FOMO-associated addresses that aren’t even visible within FOMO’s own app interface, which means the analytics capture a more complete picture of how these traders are operating across chains.

With more than 500 million labeled wallets already in its database, Nansen has been building toward this kind of granular, protocol-specific profiling for a while. Adding a concentrated batch of 200,000 wallets from a single, high-activity platform gives analysts a dense cluster of trading behavior to study rather than scattered data points across the broader ecosystem.

FOMO’s rapid rise FOMO launched around May 2025 as a non-custodial copy-trading platform with a focus on mobile users. The app supports gasless swaps across multiple chains, lowering the friction that typically keeps casual traders from engaging with on-chain markets.

The growth trajectory has been steep. The platform has processed billions in cumulative trading volume since launch. In 2026, FOMO reported an all-time high weekly revenue of $264 million, placing it among the top revenue-generating protocols in the Solana ecosystem.

Those numbers attracted serious capital. FOMO closed a $75 million Series B funding round in June 2026, bringing total funding to approximately $94 million.

Why this convergence keeps accelerating Nansen’s move reflects a broader trend in crypto infrastructure where social trading platforms and analytics tools are becoming increasingly intertwined. The memecoin market in particular benefits from this dynamic. These tokens move on sentiment, attention, and early-mover advantage rather than fundamentals. Being able to see, in near real-time, when a cluster of profitable FOMO wallets rotates into a new token provides a signal that pure price charts simply can’t.

For Nansen, the competitive implications are clear. The analytics space has gotten crowded, with platforms like Arkham, DeBank, and Cielo all competing for the same user base. Adding proprietary wallet labels from a fast-growing platform like FOMO creates a differentiation moat.

The 200,000 wallets Nansen just made searchable represent one of the densest concentrations of active trading behavior available on Solana and Base today.

Disclosure: This article was edited by Kaye Quema. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.

Solana just posted over 800 million successful non-vote transactions in a single week, marking a new all-time high and the second consecutive week the network has broken its own record. That distinction, “non-vote,” matters more than it sounds.

Blockchain networks like Solana generate enormous transaction counts from validator consensus activity, the routine housekeeping that keeps the chain running. Strip those out, and you’re left with what actually reflects human behavior: trades, token transfers, DeFi interactions, NFT mints. By that measure, Solana just had its busiest week ever.

What’s driving the surge The catalyst has a decidedly unsexy name: SIMD-0286. This network upgrade, implemented on July 29, raised the maximum compute limit per block by 66%.

The results were almost immediate. Daily non-vote transactions climbed to 169.9 million on August 4, then pushed higher to 171.9 million by August 10. On a monthly basis, non-vote transactions hit 5.2 billion in August, up from 4.2 billion in July.

That 5.2 billion monthly figure surpassed the combined totals of all other major Layer 1 and Layer 2 blockchain networks. Block times have held steady at around 400 milliseconds throughout the surge.

Follow the money Validator fee revenue jumped by over 80% across a three-month stretch, averaging roughly 9,200 SOL per day by late August.

Context and competition Solana’s summer of 2026 has been a steady climb. Week-over-week and month-over-month improvements in activity metrics have been consistent rather than spiky. DeFi activity and the transfer of tokenized assets appear to be primary drivers.

Disclosure: This article was edited by Estefano Gomez. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.

Solana’s Real Economic Value, the metric that tracks what the network actually earns from transaction fees across its ecosystem, just hit its highest weekly level since January. That’s a notable turnaround for a network whose revenue had been sliding for months after the memecoin frenzy cooled off.

The numbers behind the rebound Solana’s daily revenue crossed $1 million on August 19, marking the highest single-day revenue output in six months.

Daily average application fees during September reached levels not seen since January, suggesting this isn’t just a one-day spike but a sustained trend.

Solana processed 5.2 billion non-vote transactions in August alone, a figure that surpassed all other Layer 1 and Layer 2 networks combined during the same period. Non-vote transactions are the ones that actually represent user activity, not the validator housekeeping that inflates Solana’s total transaction numbers.

The stablecoin supply on Solana hit an all-time high of roughly $17.63 billion in August. The real-world asset ecosystem on Solana pushed past $4 billion in value, including tokenized treasuries, private credit, and other financial instruments.

From memecoins to meaningful revenue Monthly REV peaked at $551.6 million back in January 2025, driven almost entirely by memecoin activity. By Q2 2026, quarterly REV had collapsed to $51 million.

July marked the inflection point. Solana reclaimed the top spot for daily REV among all blockchains after spending four months at lower rankings. The network also held 16.5% of all tracked protocol fees that month.

Technical upgrades and governance shifts Slot times have dropped to an average of 250-300 milliseconds. A governance vote in August targeted doubling the network’s disinflation rate, meaning validators would increasingly rely on transaction fees rather than newly minted tokens for their income.

Figures within the Solana Foundation have publicly signaled that revenue metrics are becoming the primary lens through which the ecosystem evaluates its own success.

Disclosure: This article was edited by Estefano Gomez. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.

Not financial or tax advice. PANews content is strictly educational and informational and is not investment advice, financial advice, tax advice, legal advice, or a solicitation to buy or sell any digital asset, security, or financial product. Do your own research and consult qualified advisers.

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For the first time, Solana has become the top chain for weekly tokenized commodities spot trading volume, overtaking Robinhood in the process.

Between September 21 and September 27, Solana recorded $91.1 million in tokenized commodities spot volume, giving it a 28% market share across all chains. Robinhood followed with $81.3 million, representing 25% of the market.

The shift marks a sharp change in Solana's position within the market. Its share of tokenized commodities trading rose from just 5% to 28% in 4 weeks.

Across all chains, tokenized commodities generated approximately $322.7 million in weekly spot trading volume.

Gold Drives Solana's Market Solana's growing activity comes alongside a sizeable supply of tokenized commodities on the network. The supply reached an all-time high of $50.5 million on August 25 and currently stands at approximately $45.6 million.

Gold remains the dominant commodity on Solana. Paxos' $PAXG leads the market with a $10.89 million circulating supply, followed by xStocks' $GLDx at $10.12 million, Tether's $XAUT0 at $8.98 million, Matrixdock's $XAUM at $6.71 million, and Oro's $GOLD at $2.46 million.

The figures show that gold-backed tokens still account for most of Solana's tokenized commodity supply, though the market has begun to expand beyond gold.

Solana Reclaims DEX Volume Leadership Solana's momentum extends beyond tokenized commodities. The network also reclaimed the top spot for weekly spot DEX volume after Robinhood briefly claimed the No. 1 position 3 weeks ago. Solana's share has increased each week since, reaching 39% of weekly spot DEX volume last week.

The network has also strengthened its position in memecoin trading. Solana's share of weekly memecoin DEX volume climbed from 51% 3 weeks ago to 80% last week, marking its highest share in 4 weeks. Over the same period, Robinhood's share fell to 13%.

The figures point to a broader resurgence in Solana's trading activity across both tokenized real-world assets and crypto-native markets.

Read More on SolanaFloor Solana Stablecoin Supply Hits $17.39B ATH, Up 7% in 24 Hours
Solana’s Rally Is Reviving DAT Stocks and Opening the Door to More $SOL Buys

What's Next For Crypto & Solana? With Kash Dhanda

Crypto buyers are watching a wide mix of narratives as the market moves into its next cycle. Ethereum is testing a key $2,700 area, Solana is preparing a major speed upgrade, XRP is showing relative strength, and Zcash is gaining institutional attention through new privacy products.

Quant is leading the tokenization discussion after its bank-settlement deal, while NEAR is holding a constructive Layer-1 range near $4.90. MemeToro adds an earlier BNB Chain story built around AI-guided memecoin launches and public fair-launch contracts.

The best altcoins to watch right now are not all trying to solve the same problem. Some focus on payments, some on privacy, some on scaling, and some on making crypto creation easier for everyday users. That variety is what makes the next cycle especially interesting.

MemeToro Adds an AI Memecoin Narrative for BNB Chain Users MemeToro is entering Stage 8 with more than $155K raised and $MT priced at $0.00528. The project is building a BNB Chain ecosystem for users who want to discover trends, create memecoins, and access future trading features.

Its MemeToro AI agent is designed to scan news, social platforms, and online communities for new narratives. Once it finds a theme, it can help form a token concept, branding direction, supply plan, and launch structure.

The project also uses public fair-launch contracts. The FairLaunchEscrow design is built to lock key launch terms before contributions begin, giving users a visible structure for caps, claims, refunds, and finalization.

MemeToro’s planned platform includes:

AI trend scanning and token creation public fair-launch contract rules a crypto news portal prediction-market features future memecoin trading tools $MT staking, rewards, and platform access This gives MemeToro a different role from Ethereum, Solana, or Quant. It is not another Layer-1 chain or bank-settlement token. It is designed to make trend-led token creation and discovery easier for the BNB Chain community.

Why $MT Is Positioned for the Next Cycle $MT is intended to connect the different parts of the MemeToro ecosystem. It can support premium access, transactions, launch funding, staking, rewards, and planned memecoin trading.

The public sale receives 71% of the total 1.2 billion $MT supply. This gives Stage 8 participants a strong place in the project’s planned user base as the AI agent, launchpad, news portal, and trading features develop.

At $0.00528, a $500 purchase secures about 94,697 $MT before processing costs. At the displayed $0.05186 launch price, that amount would show a paper value of about $4,910.

The platform’s strongest idea is its connection between trend discovery and public launch rules. Instead of moving from a social-media trend to an unclear token launch, users can move through an AI-led proposal and a more visible fair-launch structure.

Readers who want to explore Stage 8 can use the official how to buy $MT page.

Ethereum, Solana, and NEAR Lead the Network Growth Narrative Ethereum is trading near $2,647 after breaking out of a multi-week bull flag earlier this month. The token has met strong selling around $2,700, while the $2,570 level acts as an important support area for the current structure.

ETH remains central to crypto because it supports a huge range of decentralized applications. New work around Layer-2 scaling and instant collateralization is also helping Ethereum payments become faster before full chain settlement.

Solana is taking a different path. SOL trades near $118.36 after a 68% rally in two months, while its Alpenglow upgrade has reached a second public test network.

The upgrade aims to cut settlement time from around 13 seconds to 150 milliseconds. That could make Solana more attractive for fast trading, payments, games, and other consumer apps.

NEAR is another Layer-1 project to watch. It trades near $4.90 after breaking a multi-month resistance channel and settling between $4.79 and $5.00.

These three networks offer different strengths:

Ethereum brings a deep developer ecosystem and Layer-2 expansion. Solana brings speed and Alpenglow upgrade progress. NEAR brings a fresh technical breakout and a stable consolidation range.

XRP, Zcash, and Quant Show the Demand for Utility Narratives XRP is trading near $1.60 after securing back-to-back daily gains. The token is showing relative strength as the XRP Ledger prepares for its delayed Batch Upgrade, now scheduled for October 9.

The XRP story remains linked to remittances and payment networks. Its ability to hold firm while the wider market processes major news has kept it on many altcoin watchlists.

Zcash is taking the privacy route. ZEC trades near $1,530 after reaching a local high near $1,698, and institutional attention has grown through 21Shares’ physically backed Zcash ETP on Euronext and strong Grayscale trust inflows.

Quant has created the sharpest tokenization story. QNT is near $254 after a 350% weekly rise, following The Clearing House’s choice of Quant for tokenized-deposit settlement across 25 major U.S. banks.

The three narratives are easy to separate:

XRP focuses on payment and remittance use. Zcash focuses on privacy technology and institutional access. Quant focuses on tokenized deposits and bank settlement infrastructure. Each project shows that the next crypto cycle may be driven by practical use cases as much as price momentum.

Best Altcoins to Buy Right Now? The best altcoins to watch right now represent several major crypto narratives. Ethereum, Solana, and NEAR are pushing network growth. XRP, Zcash, and Quant highlight payments, privacy, and tokenized finance.

MemeToro adds a fresh consumer-facing angle. Its Stage 8 presale, AI agent, public fair-launch contracts, and future memecoin trading tools position it around the growing link between artificial intelligence and internet-native crypto culture.

The next cycle may reward several types of projects. The strongest watchlists will include major networks, institutional infrastructure, privacy assets, and early platforms such as MemeToro that are creating new ways for users to launch and explore tokens.

FAQs Which altcoin is focused on tokenized deposits? Quant is the main tokenization name in this group after its settlement-layer deal connected it to tokenized deposits across 25 major U.S. banks.

Why is Zcash getting attention? Zcash is gaining institutional attention through a physically backed ETP in Europe and inflows into Grayscale’s ZEC trust.

What is MemeToro’s main utility? MemeToro is building AI tools, public fair-launch contracts, memecoin discovery, trading features, staking, rewards, and a news portal around $MT.
More Information on MemeToro ($MT) Presale Here:

Website: https://memetoro.com/

X: https://x.com/memetoro_mt

Telegram: https://t.me/memetoro_mt

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gY0jgWy_DtA

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Table of contents

Solana treasury company Forward Industries (NASDAQ: FWDI) has closed a $25 million registered direct offering, selling stock to an institutional investor to fund further purchases of SOL. The Austin, Texas-based firm sold 3,125,000 shares of common stock at $8.00 apiece, according to a September 24 announcement, receiving gross proceeds of roughly $25 million before placement agent fees and other offering expenses.

The mechanics of the raise The shares were issued under Forward’s shelf registration statement on Form S-3ASR, which the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission declared effective in September 2025, with A.G.P./Alliance Global Partners acting as sole placement agent. Forward said it will use the net proceeds primarily to acquire additional SOL, growing the absolute size of its treasury while lifting the amount of SOL backing each share — a metric Chief Investment Officer Ryan Navi called “the measure of growth that matters most to our shareholders.”

Scaling a Solana-focused balance sheet Forward launched its digital asset treasury strategy in September 2025 through a private placement supported by Galaxy Digital and Jump Crypto, and it now describes itself as the leading Solana treasury company. The firm buys, holds, stakes and trades SOL, and it previously assembled what it called the world’s largest Solana treasury. Navi said the new capital “positions us to expand our SOL treasury and increase SOL per share” without adding ongoing balance sheet obligations.

A bet on Solana after a bruising stretch The raise lands after a difficult stretch for Solana treasury firms. Forward reported a nearly $1 billion unrealized loss earlier this year as SOL slumped from its 2025 highs, and the company’s stock remains closely tied to the token it holds. Raising equity now to buy SOL at current prices is a wager that expanding the position will reward shareholders if the token recovers.

What happens next Forward has not set a timeline for deploying the proceeds. The company cautioned that its forward-looking statements carry risks tied to the volatility of Solana and other digital assets, and that placement agent fees and offering expenses will reduce the net amount available for SOL purchases. The raise is the latest move in a treasury strategy built around accumulating SOL and increasing the exposure backing each outstanding share.

AUTHOR

Blockchain analyst specializing in the regulatory impact of government policies on the crypto industry. Known for his thorough research and clear, engaging writing, Emmanuel provides insightful analysis on the latest trends, market shifts, and emerging crypto innovations. His work aims to educate and inform both novice and experienced readers, offering expert perspectives on the fast-evolving world of digital assets. With a passion for staying ahead of the curve, Ogwu is a trusted voice in the cryptocurrency and blockchain space.

2 min read

Solana ETFs' record week ran through one fund. (Shaurya Malwa/CoinDesk)Summary

U.S. spot Solana exchange-traded funds drew a record $188 million in net inflows last week, with every fund in the group attracting new money.Bitwise’s BSOL led with about $128 million, or 68 percent of the weekly total, and has captured roughly $1.2 billion of the group’s $1.6 billion in cumulative inflows.The record flows came as Solana developers tested Alpenglow, an upgrade intended to reduce payment finality from about 12.8 seconds to roughly 150 milliseconds.U.S. spot solana exchange-traded funds attracted a record $188 million last week, with Bitwise’s BSOL taking about two-thirds of the money as every fund in the group recorded inflows.

BSOL brought in roughly $128 million during the five sessions through Sept. 25. Grayscale’s GSOL followed with $28 million and Fidelity’s FSOL with $18 million, according to weekly figures shared by Solana’s official account. Morgan Stanley, VanEck, Franklin Templeton and 21Shares accounted for the remaining $14 million.

Friday supplied nearly half the weekly total. The funds added about $87 million that day — the largest since going live — including $56 million for Bitwise and $19 million for Grayscale.

Spot ETFs let investors hold exposure to SOL through brokerage accounts without managing a crypto wallet. Net inflows measure money entering the funds after withdrawals, rather than the value of shares changing hands between traders.

Bitwise has dominated that demand. Data shows the firm’s BSOL product accounted for about $1.2 billion of the group’s $1.6 billion in cumulative net inflows, or roughly 76%. Its 68% share last week was below that longer-term proportion, with competing funds collecting about $60 million between them.

The buying extended across crypto funds. U.S. bitcoin ETFs attracted about $2.4 billion during the week, while ether products added roughly $690 million, according to CoinDesk calculations using Farside’s daily figures.

SOL traded around $119 during Monday Asian morning hours, according to CoinDesk data, still about 60% below its record near $293.

The flows come as Solana developers are also testing Alpenglow, an upgrade intended to shorten the time before a payment is considered irreversible from about 12.8 seconds to roughly 150 milliseconds.

It reached the network’s second public testing environment on Friday. The speed remains a target, and a launch date for the live blockchain has not been announced.

Read More: Solana’s 150-millisecond settlement upgrade reaches second public test network

12345678910The Definitive Stablecoin Landscape Series: Asia Pacific

The Definitive Stablecoin Landscape Series: Asia Pacific

As stablecoins move into regulated finance, APAC is becoming a key proving ground. This report maps the region’s rules, use cases, and RLUSD’s role.

Sep 15, 2026

As stablecoins move into regulated finance, APAC is becoming a key proving ground. This report maps the region’s rules, use cases, and RLUSD’s role.

Why it matters:

As stablecoins move into regulated finance, APAC is becoming a key proving ground. This report maps the region’s rules, use cases, and RLUSD’s role.

USDT can now cover gas through Binance Wallet on four networks. The estimated network fee is shown before a transaction is confirmed. TRON currently has a separate zero-fee promotion for eligible transfers. Binance Wallet has added a way for users to pay blockchain transaction fees with USDT instead of first acquiring the network’s native gas token, removing a familiar obstacle for stablecoin transfers.

The option is available on BNB Smart Chain, Ethereum, Solana and TRON. Users with USDT in Binance Wallet can select it as their network fee payment method through the wallet’s Network Fee Payer interface.

The update does not change how those blockchains charge for transactions. Its practical value is simpler: a wallet containing USDT but no ETH, BNB, SOL or TRX may no longer need a separate native-token transfer before the user can move funds.

How to Pay Gas With USDT in Binance Wallet The new payment option appears when the user selects how the network fee will be funded.

For TRON transfers, Binance’s published instructions show the process beginning with Send, followed by selecting the destination, token and recipient address. When signing the transaction, the user opens Network Fee Payer, chooses USDT and then confirms.

BINANCE WALLET

Paying a Network Fee With USDT

1

Prepare the transfer

Tap Send, select the token and enter the destination.

2

Choose the fee payer

Open Network Fee Payer when signing the transaction.

3

Pay with USDT

Select USDT, review the estimated network fee and confirm.

Supported: BNB Smart Chain · Ethereum · Solana · TRON

Binance’s support documentation says that if neither USDT in the wallet nor another supported fee-payment method is available, users still need to obtain a suitable gas token or USDT before completing the transaction.

Why This Solves a Real Stablecoin Problem A wallet balance and a spendable wallet balance are not always the same thing in crypto.

Someone can receive USDT on Ethereum and still be unable to send it without ETH for gas. The equivalent problem occurs when a user has tokens on BNB Smart Chain without BNB or on Solana without SOL.

That can produce an unnecessary second transaction: acquire a small amount of the native asset, transfer it into the wallet and only then send the asset the user originally wanted to move.

Binance Wallet’s new option removes that intermediate step when USDT fee payment is available.

The feature is particularly relevant to stablecoin users because they may have little reason to maintain small balances of several native assets when moving USDT between different networks.

Does Paying Gas in USDT Cost More? There is no single USDT gas price across the four supported networks.

Binance says network fees are dynamic and depend on blockchain conditions, with the wallet calculating an estimated fee based on current network conditions. Its documentation does not disclose a universal percentage markup for using USDT as the fee-payment asset. Binance

That means the USDT option should not automatically be described as cheaper than paying with the native asset.

ETHEREUM

USDT instead of ETH

BNB SMART CHAIN

USDT instead of BNB

SOLANA

USDT instead of SOL

TRON

USDT instead of TRX

The payment option does not change each blockchain’s underlying fee mechanism.

For readers trying the feature, the relevant number is therefore the estimated USDT cost displayed before confirmation, rather than an assumed conversion rate or fixed surcharge.

What Happens If There Is Not Enough USDT? Selecting USDT does not remove the requirement to have enough value available to cover the fee.

Binance says that when a wallet lacks sufficient native gas tokens, users can choose USDT from Binance Wallet or, where available, use supported assets from their Binance Exchange Account. If none of the available sources contains sufficient supported funds, additional gas tokens or USDT must be obtained before the transaction can proceed.

This makes checking the confirmation screen particularly important when someone is attempting to move most of a wallet’s available funds.

TRON Gets a Separate Zero-Fee Window TRON currently comes with an additional incentive.

From September 23 through December 22, 2026, Binance Wallet is offering zero gas fees on eligible transfers of USDT and other TRC-20 tokens through the wallet, subject to limited availability. Binance says the initiative is supported by TRON DAO.

After the promotional period, Binance says discounted transfer fees of 1 USDT per transaction will apply.

TRON PROMOTION

0 Gas Fees

LIMITED AVAILABILITY

Promo period
Sep. 23 – Dec. 22, 2026

After promotion
1 USDT / transfer

The promotion should not be confused with the broader USDT gas feature. Zero-fee treatment applies to the specified TRON promotion, while Ethereum, Solana and BNB Smart Chain continue to have network-dependent transaction costs.

USDT Is the Payment Method, Not the Native Gas Token There is one technical limitation readers need to know.

Ethereum has not replaced ETH with USDT for protocol-level gas, and the same principle applies to the native fee mechanics of the other supported networks.

Binance Wallet is handling the fee-payment process for the user. Binance’s documentation says network fees ultimately go to the blockchain network rather than Binance and explains that Ethereum and BNB Smart Chain use network-dependent gas pricing, Solana has its own fee mechanics, while TRON operates through a bandwidth-and-energy resource model.

That distinction explains how Binance can present the same USDT payment option across technically different networks without those networks adopting a common fee token.

For users, however, the result is considerably simpler.

They can hold the asset they intend to transfer, choose USDT to cover the fee where supported, inspect the cost and confirm, without first stopping to source a small balance of another cryptocurrency.

That is a modest technical abstraction with a very practical outcome: having USDT in a wallet is less likely to leave a user unable to move it.

Alexander Zdravkov is a crypto journalist and market analyst specializing in digital assets, blockchain technology, and the rapidly evolving cryptocurrency market. He entered the industry more than four years ago, drawn to the speed of innovation in crypto and the potential of blockchain-based financial systems to reshape traditional markets. His work focuses on understanding the forces behind crypto market movements, from Bitcoin and altcoin cycles to institutional adoption, regulation, exchange-traded products, stablecoins, DeFi, and emerging blockchain ecosystems. Rather than simply following price action, Alexander looks at liquidity, investor positioning, market structure, and macroeconomic conditions to identify developing trends and explain what they could mean for digital assets. With a degree in International Relations, he brings a broader perspective to cryptocurrency coverage by connecting developments in the sector with monetary policy, geopolitics, regulation, and global capital flows. This allows him to examine crypto not as an isolated market, but as an increasingly interconnected part of the global financial system. Over the course of more than five years in financial journalism, Alexander has written over 5,000 articles covering cryptocurrencies, blockchain, traditional markets, and the global economy. His reporting spans Bitcoin, Ethereum and altcoins, DeFi protocols, institutional crypto adoption, regulation, market infrastructure, security incidents, and major developments shaping the wider digital asset industry. His approach is centered on giving readers context behind the numbers and headlines, explaining not only what is happening in crypto markets, but why it matters and what could come next.

Full Profile

Key Highlights Between September 21 and September 25, 2026, Solana ETFs registered their highest weekly inflow ever at $188.21 million. Bitwise’s BSOL product dominated the period, capturing $128.46 million—representing 68% of total weekly flows. SOL is currently priced at $121.69, showing a 0.23% increase after successfully breaching the $94.85 resistance barrier. The network’s DeFi total value locked expanded from $4.7 billion in early August to $6.7 billion by September’s end. SOL derivatives open interest has reached approximately $7.5 billion, accompanied by trading volume exceeding $12 billion. The Solana ETF market just witnessed its most impressive performance since these products first became available. During the five trading days from September 21 through September 25, 2026, the collective fund lineup accumulated $188.21 million in fresh capital.

Every one of the seven Solana ETF offerings contributed to this achievement, with each fund registering net positive flows throughout the period. The final trading day alone saw $86.67 million enter these products, cementing the week as a historic milestone.

Bitwise maintained its dominant position in the competitive Solana ETF landscape. The firm’s Bitwise Solana Staking ETF (BSOL) captured $128.46 million during the week, accounting for more than two-thirds of all investor capital flowing into these instruments.

Grayscale secured the runner-up position. The asset manager’s Solana-focused products absorbed $28.06 million across the same timeframe.

Market analyst Lana Valentis characterized this inflow momentum as indicative of a larger trend. She highlighted that Solana ETFs have now delivered 13 consecutive weeks of positive flows, while also observing that stablecoin reserves on the blockchain hit a record $17.3 billion. Her technical assessment identified SOL as developing a rounding bottom formation on daily timeframes, projecting potential price targets of $200, $250, $500, and $1,000.

$SOL The Chart Is Curving Up. The Money Is Flowing In 💸

Solana is forming a rounding bottom on the daily timeframe, quietly preparing for a massive bullish expansion.

– Stablecoin supply reached a new ATH of $17.3 billion.
– ETFs have posted 13 straight weeks of inflows.
– The… pic.twitter.com/ZgCvvFXo6d

— Lana Valentis (@LanaValentis) September 27, 2026

Technical Analysis Shows Strength Above Critical Zone At current levels, SOL is changing hands at $121.69, representing a modest 0.23% uptick from the previous session. During today’s trading, the asset reached a peak of $124.95.

Solana (SOL) Price The recent advance followed a decisive breakthrough above the $94.85 threshold, which had previously limited upside movement throughout September. This breakout propelled SOL from sub-$100 territory to its current position above $120.

Chart watchers have identified $73.62 as a significant support zone. Technical strategists suggest that maintaining ground above the $120 mark preserves the ongoing bullish framework, whereas a retreat beneath $94.85 would compromise the positive structure.

TradingView momentum gauges indicate the Relative Strength Index at 68.44, positioned above its moving average of 62.91. This measurement hovers just below the conventional 70 threshold that often indicates overbought territory.

The MACD indicator registers at 6.40, surpassing the signal line value of 5.36, with a corresponding histogram reading of 1.04. These metrics collectively suggest ongoing accumulation pressure.

Network Activity Shows Robust Expansion Solana’s decentralized finance sector has experienced notable growth. Based on DeFiLlama tracking, total value locked climbed from approximately $4.7 billion at the beginning of August to $6.7 billion by late September.

Decentralized exchange volumes, active wallet counts, and transaction throughput have all maintained elevated levels throughout September.

CoinGlass derivatives metrics reveal open interest approaching $7.5 billion, while daily trading volume surpasses $12 billion. The simultaneous increase in both open interest and price typically indicates fresh leveraged positions are being established as the asset appreciates.

Blockchain monitoring service Lookonchain highlighted one particularly aggressive wager. Approximately one month ago, a market participant initiated a 20x leveraged long position comprising 550,087 SOL tokens, valued at $67.88 million. According to Lookonchain’s assessment, this position currently carries an unrealized gain exceeding $23 million, with the trader’s profit target established at $200: “If $SOL reaches $200, he could make over $65M in profit!”

Market participants are now focused on the $124.95 level, which represents today’s session high. Breaking above this price point would represent a continuation of the established upward trajectory. Conversely, a decline below $120 would redirect attention toward the $94.85 support zone.

The crypto market will welcome tokens worth more than $913 million this week. Major projects, including DoubleZero (2Z), Sui (SUI), and Collector Crypt (CARDS), will release significant new token supplies. 

These unlocks could introduce market volatility and influence short-term price movements. So, here’s a breakdown of what to watch.

1. DoubleZero (2Z) Unlock Date: October 2 Number of Tokens to be Unlocked: 1.66 billion 2Z Released Supply: 3.47 billion 2Z Total Supply: 10 billion 2Z DoubleZero is a network layer built for blockchains and other distributed systems. It routes validator traffic over fiber links supplied by independent contributors, which reduces latency compared with the public internet.

On October 2, the network will unlock 1.66 billion 2Z, worth $113.20 million. The tokens account for 47.69% of the released supply. The date also marks one year since 2Z began trading on October 2, 2025.

2Z Crypto Token Unlock in October. Source: TokenomistDoubleZero will split the supply 7 ways. Jump Crypto will receive the largest share at 575 million 2Z. Malbec Labs and institutions will get 350 million and 300 million tokens, respectively.

The team will receive 250 million 2Z, while contributors will get 100 million. Finally, builders and validators will receive 50 million and 30 million tokens.

2. Sui (SUI) Unlock Date: October 1 Number of Tokens to be Unlocked: 13.26 million SUI Released Supply: 4.1 billion SUI Total Supply: 10 billion SUI Sui is a high-performance Layer-1 blockchain. It utilizes the Move programming language to enable scalable, secure, and efficient decentralized applications (dApps). 

Moreover, the network focuses on parallel execution for high throughput, making it suitable for gaming, decentralized finance (DeFi), and Web3 ecosystems. 

On October 1, Sui will unlock 13.26 million altcoins as part of its monthly schedule. This stack represents 0.32% of the released supply. Furthermore, it is worth approximately $16.84 million.

SUI Token Unlock in October. Source: TokenomistOf the unlocked supply, early contributors and the community reserve will get 7.19 million and 4 million SUI, respectively. Lastly, Mysten Labs will receive 2.07 million altcoins.

3. Collector Crypt (CARDS) Unlock Date: September 29 Number of Tokens to be Unlocked: 59.26 million CARDS Released Supply: 558.21 million CARDS Total Supply: 2 billion CARDS Collector Crypt is a marketplace on the Solana (SOL) blockchain for tokenized trading cards. Users can buy, trade, and redeem graded physical cards that the platform keeps in storage vaults. CARDS is the platform’s native token.

On September 29, Collector Crypt will unlock 59.26 million CARDS. The tokens are valued at $11.67 million and account for 10.62% of the released supply.

CARDS Crypto Token Unlock in September. Source: TokenomistThe team will receive most of the unlocked tokens: 32.50 million CARDS. The community will get 14.58 million tokens. In addition, advisors and seed investors will receive 7.01 million and 5.16 million CARDS, respectively.

In addition to these three, Ethena (ENA), Falcon Finance (FF), and Sign (SIGN) will also experience new supply entering the market this week. Tokenomist has marked the unlocks as pending verification, so these figures remain projections.

Hyperliquid generated $1.11 million in priority fee revenue this week.

Hyperliquid’s priority fee revenue reached $1.11 million this week. If priority fees were treated as a standalone protocol, its revenue would rank 36th across the entire network, right behind Dexscreener and Lighter. Hyperliquid’s priority fees are extra payments traders make to get their orders processed and filled faster, used to secure priority execution or front-run trades during periods of network congestion.

24 minutes ago

NVIDIA brings AI Agent security down to the chip level, delivering millisecond isolation for boundary breaches.

Beating AI Express News: NVIDIA has launched the Open Agent Safety Platform, composed of two components: OpenShell and Sentry. OpenShell sets permission boundaries for AI agents, while Sentry deploys monitoring and isolation on the BlueField-4 chip. If an agent crosses its boundaries, it can be isolated in milliseconds. OpenShell was open-sourced earlier, and can be directly applied to existing agents such as Claude Code and Codex without modifying the agents themselves. It restricts file access, network connections, tool calls, and credential usage, and enforces these rules during agent operation. Sentry is the newly added hardware security layer. It operates independently of agents, continuously monitoring agent behavior, tool calls, and data access, and handling threat detection and security policy enforcement. Even if an agent malfunctions, security control remains under the external hardware. Jensen Huang noted that over 100 industry partners are currently participating in the platform, including Anthropic, Microsoft, Salesforce, SAP, SpaceX, CrowdStrike, and Palantir. As agents start running continuously for hours or even days and interacting with code, tools, and enterprise data, NVIDIA is shifting security boundaries from within the model to the system and chip layers that the model cannot directly control.

24 minutes ago

Bitget’s Bitcoin (BTC) withdrawals are now open, with processing running smoothly; the first batch of around 6,900 transactions has completed on-chain confirmation.

Bitget opened Bitcoin (BTC) withdrawal services as scheduled at 16:00 (UTC+8) today. In a community live stream, Bitget CEO Gracy shared the latest progress in the initial recovery phase: BTC withdrawal channels are operating smoothly, with the first batch of withdrawal requests processed and credited to users’ accounts. According to real-time data disclosed during the live stream, as of 16:50 (UTC+8), the platform has processed approximately 7,683 BTC withdrawal applications, totaling around 3,609 BTC, with no order backlog. Among these, roughly 6,946 withdrawal requests have been confirmed on the blockchain, while remaining applications are being processed in an orderly manner. Per the previously announced timeline, withdrawals for Ethereum (ETH) related networks will open at 16:00 (UTC+8) on September 29; withdrawals for Tether (USDT) related networks will open at 16:00 (UTC+8) on September 30; withdrawals for other tokens, fiat, and C2C services will resume gradually starting at 16:00 (UTC+8) on October 2.

24 minutes ago

Kioxia trades at $113.6 after stock split adjustment, with the largest new position being a short order.

On Hyperliquid, the KIOXIA contract is trading at $113.61, with an open interest nominal value of approximately $1.46 million. The contract completed a 1-for-3 split adjustment today; after old positions were uniformly settled and existing orders canceled, trading resumed. Following the reference price adjustment for the split, the current 24-hour decline stands at around 6.19%. The first post-resumption trade occurred at 16:11 at $114.93; as of press time, the trading range is $112.10–$124.04, and the current price is roughly 1.15% lower than that first trade. Among the top three directional KIOXIA positions since trading resumed, two are short positions totaling ~$585,000: one short position of ~$374,000 with an average entry price of $113.24 (0x4c78…), and another short position of ~$211,000 with an average entry price of $113.16 (0xfe7c…). The long position totals ~$178,000 with an average entry price of $113.43 (0xcd4e…). Prior update: KIOXIA’s 1-for-3 split triggered on-chain uniform settlement, with the largest long position exiting at a loss just before breaking even.

24 minutes ago

NVIDIA releases open-source AI agent security platform OpenShell 0.1.0

Beating AI News Flash: NVIDIA (NVDA) has officially launched the open-source AI agent runtime platform OpenShell 0.1.0. The platform aims to establish security boundaries and runtime controls outside workloads without modifying the AI agent’s own code. OpenShell integrates technologies including kernel-level sandbox execution, external oversight services, external credential injection, and formal policy verification, supporting fine-grained interception of HTTP, GraphQL, and MCP network traffic (e.g., allowing data reads while blocking write operations) and preventing sensitive credential leaks. Additionally, the platform features a built-in formal logic policy analyzer that can block AI agents from bypassing permission checks via adversarial prompts. Currently, OpenShell supports mainstream frameworks such as Codex and Claude Code, and is applied in sectors including chip design, enterprise automation, and robotics.

24 minutes ago

Trade.xyz has relisted Kioxia perpetual contracts, as the underlying asset underwent a 1-for-3 stock split.

Trade.xyz’s perpetual contract market has re-listed Japanese storage firm Kioxia (KIOXIA), with a maximum leverage of 10x. The re-listing comes after Kioxia implemented a 1-for-3 stock split. Official arrangements state the contract was suspended for trading at approximately 06:35 UTC (14:35 Beijing time) on the same day, with all open positions settled; trading resumed at around 07:30 UTC (15:30 Beijing time) based on the post-split price. The platform cannot adjust existing positions proportionally to the stock split, so traders need to open new positions.

24 minutes ago

TLDR Solana (SOL) is trading at $121.69, up 0.23% on the day, after reaching an intraday high of $124.95. SOL climbed from below $100 earlier in September after breaking above the $94.85 level. The RSI sits at 68.44, just under the overbought mark, and the MACD remains positive. Solana TVL grew from $4.7 billion in early August to $6.7 billion by late September, and open interest reached about $7.5 billion. Lookonchain reported that a trader holds a 20x long worth $67.88 million with more than $23 million in unrealized profit. Solana (SOL) is trading at $121.69, up 0.23% over the past 24 hours. The token reached an intraday high of $124.95 during the session.

The move comes as activity picks up in both the spot and derivatives markets. SOL has climbed from below $100 earlier in September to above $120.

The rally gained pace after SOL broke above the $94.85 level on the TradingView chart. That level now acts as a key support for the current uptrend.

A deeper support level sits at $73.62. Holding above $120 keeps the current bullish structure in place, while a drop below $94.85 would weaken it.

Solana Price on CoinGecko What the Charts Show Technical indicators on TradingView continue to show positive momentum. The Relative Strength Index (RSI) stands at 68.44, above its moving average of 62.91.

That reading sits just below the 70 mark. A reading above 70 is often seen as a sign that an asset is overbought.

The MACD also points upward. The MACD line is at 6.40, above the signal line at 5.36, with a histogram reading of 1.04.

Together, these readings suggest buyers remain active. However, the RSI shows SOL is nearing a level where momentum could start to cool.

Activity across the Solana network has also grown. Data from DeFiLlama shows total value locked (TVL) on Solana rose from about $4.7 billion in early August to $6.7 billion by late September.

DEX volume, active addresses and transaction counts also stayed strong through September. Still, this data alone does not prove that network activity drove the price rise.

Derivatives and a Large Leveraged Bet Derivatives traders are also building positions. CoinGlass data shows Solana open interest has climbed to around $7.5 billion, while derivatives volume is above $12 billion.

Rising open interest alongside rising prices means more leveraged trades are being opened as SOL climbs. This setup can lead to larger price swings in either direction.

On-chain analytics firm Lookonchain flagged one large trade in a recent post on X. According to Lookonchain, a trader opened a 20x long position of 550,087 SOL, worth $67.88 million, about a month ago.

The position now shows more than $23 million in unrealized profit. Lookonchain said the trader has set take-profit orders at $200, adding, “If $SOL reaches $200, he could make over $65M in profit!”

The post shows how much leverage some traders are using on SOL. It also lines up with the wider technical picture as traders watch whether the rally can continue.

The next level to watch is $124.95, the latest high on the TradingView chart. A move above it would extend the uptrend, while failure could shift focus back to $120 and then $94.85.

At the time of writing, SOL trades at $121.69, just below that $124.95 high.