Crypto Shockwaves: Bitcoin's Red September, Trump's Token Turmoil & Stripe's Blockchain Bombshell - Roundup Sep 4-5, 2025

Key Facts

• Bitcoin Braces for “Red September”: Bitcoin (BTC) hovered near $110,000 after sliding from its mid-August peak of ~$124K. Traders warn the largest crypto has historically fallen in 9 of the last 14 Septembers (avg. –12%) coindesk.com. Fragile macro sentiment, low volumes and technical weakness (BTC failed to hold $112K support) have many eyeing a possible drop toward $105K or even the psychological $100K level coindesk.com. “The market feels toppy… I think there is still room for one more big thrust, perhaps to $125,000 to $150,000, but it is running out of time,” veteran trader Peter Brandt said, adding he’ll stay bullish if BTC stays above $107K cointelegraph.com. Notably, Solana’s SOL led majors with a 4% weekly gain as some traders rotate into high-conviction altcoins coindesk.com.
• U.S. Regulatory Shift & Trump Token Drama: In Washington, SEC Chair Paul Atkins unveiled a “new day” regulatory agenda poised to overhaul crypto rules. The SEC plans to propose clearer frameworks for digital asset offerings (including safe harbors/exemptions) and even allow crypto trading on U.S. stock exchanges reuters.com reuters.com – moves hailed as a “major win” for an industry long craving integration with traditional finance reuters.com. Meanwhile, President Donald Trump’s family DeFi venture launched its WLFI token, briefly inflating Trump’s net worth by $4.1B on paper dlnews.com. Analysts warn this “turns a ‘crypto policy’ vote into an ‘enrich the president’s family’ vote,” complicating upcoming crypto legislation dlnews.com. WLFI’s market debut has been turbulent – down 42% since Sept. 1 coindesk.com – and the project even blacklisted Tron founder Justin Sun’s address (holding $107M of unlocked WLFI) after suspicious token movements coindesk.com coindesk.com. Sun protested the freeze as unfair and urged the team to unlock his tokens to preserve investor confidence coindesk.com.
• Global Crypto Regulations Heat Up: EU lawmakers pushed back on the European Central Bank’s latest pitch for a digital euro CBDC, citing privacy fears and bank disintermediation risks cointelegraph.com cointelegraph.com. ECB board member Piero Cipollone argued a digital euro would ensure payments continuity “even in case of major disruptions,” promising cash-like privacy (including offline usage) cointelegraph.com cointelegraph.com. In Asia, South Korea unveiled a draft law to legalize ICOs (initial coin offerings) for the first time since 2017, replacing the ban with a disclosure-based regime and stablecoin issuer safeguards cointelegraph.com cointelegraph.com. Korean regulators simultaneously imposed new crypto lending rules: banning leveraged or cash loans, capping interest rates at 20% annually, and mandating exchanges give full disclosure of lending and liquidations binance.com binance.com. Over in China, confusion surrounded reports that state-owned Futian Investment issued $70M of bonds on Ethereum – touted as a first for real-world assets – only for the firm to scrub the announcements and stay silent cointelegraph.com cointelegraph.com. And in Japan, the FSA proposed bringing crypto under securities law to extend investor protections, noting 12 million+ Japanese crypto accounts now hold over ¥5 trillion (~$33.7B) in assets cointelegraph.com.
• DeFi Exploits Surge, Communities Fight Back: Decentralized finance faced another costly breach as Bunni DEX – a Uniswap v4-based exchange – suffered an $8.4M exploit on Sept. 2 when hackers manipulated its custom liquidity rebalancing code bravenewcoin.com bravenewcoin.com. The team swiftly paused contracts and even offered the attacker a 10% bounty to return funds bravenewcoin.com. This attack adds to a record year of crypto hacks: over $2.2 billion has been stolen so far in 2025, already 6% more than all of 2024 dlnews.com. (One February exchange hack alone contributed $1.5B of those losses dlnews.com.) In response, DeFi projects are taking unprecedented steps. A dozen major protocols (with $20B+ TVL) have signed onto a “Safe Harbor” pact pledging not to prosecute white-hat hackers who intercept and return stolen funds during an attack dlnews.com dlnews.com. “With Safe Harbor, our goal is to… empower whitehats to rescue funds,” explains security alliance group, after too many good Samaritans hesitated for fear of legal blowback dlnews.com. DeFi communities themselves are also mobilizing: on Sept. 2, Venus Protocol stakeholders emergency-voted to liquidate a hacker’s wallet and return $13.5M stolen via phishing – “Stolen funds will be recovered in a single transaction [and] this will not affect any other user positions,” the Venus team vowed dlnews.com dlnews.com.
• NFT Market Rebounds as SEC Backs Off: After a prolonged slump, the NFT sector is flashing signs of life. August marked the strongest two-month stretch since February for NFTs, with trading volumes rising ~9% month-over-month startupnews.fyi. Interestingly, total sales counts dipped ~4%, meaning fewer assets traded hands, but collectors paid more per sale – a sign of renewed high-value buyer interest startupnews.fyi. According to DappRadar, NFT volumes even spiked 25% in early September, briefly topping $7.9 million in 24 hours startupnews.fyi. In the marketplace arena, sentiment got a boost when OpenSea revealed the U.S. SEC had closed its investigation into the platform with no action. The SEC under Atkins dropped its tentative stance that some NFTs might be securities cryptobriefing.com cryptobriefing.com. “This is a win for everyone… Trying to classify NFTs as securities would have been a step backward,” OpenSea CEO Devin Finzer said, celebrating the reprieve for creators and collectors cryptobriefing.com. The more permissive regulatory climate, combined with rising adoption (e.g. gaming and brand collectibles), has NFT proponents hopeful that a sustainable recovery is underway.
• Enterprises Embrace Blockchain: New Networks and Treasury Bets: Big players are doubling down on blockchain tech. Payments giant Stripe and VC firm Paradigm officially unveiled “Tempo,” a new high-speed blockchain purpose-built for stablecoin payments coindesk.com. Incubated at Stripe, Tempo targets 100,000+ TPS with sub-second finality and lets fees be paid in stablecoins, aiming to disrupt cross-border payments and micropayments coindesk.com coindesk.com. “We hope that Tempo makes it easier for [payments, payouts, remittances and more] to move on-chain,” Stripe CEO Patrick Collison wrote, as partners like Visa, Deutsche Bank, Shopify, Nubank, OpenAI and Revolut joined the project’s testnet coindesk.com coindesk.com. Not to be outdone, custody leader Fireblocks launched its own Stablecoin Payments Network, already connecting 40+ institutions (including Circle) that move $200B+ in stablecoins monthly coindesk.com coindesk.com. Fireblocks touted the network as a “stablecoin equivalent to SWIFT” for global banks coindesk.com. The stablecoin sector’s rapid growth (market cap now ~$280B, up from $200B in January) is spurring similar initiatives – both Circle and Stripe are also developing proprietary blockchains for digital dollars coindesk.com coindesk.com.
• Bitcoin Goes Mainstream in Treasuries: On the corporate front, public companies’ Bitcoin holdings just surpassed 1,000,000 BTC for the first time coindesk.com – over $110 billion in value – underscoring BTC’s emergence as a treasury asset. MicroStrategy alone accounts for ~636,500 BTC (nearly 64% of the total) after five years of relentless accumulation coindesk.com. Newly public companies are following suit: Design software firm Figma disclosed it holds $91 million in Bitcoin (via an ETF) as part of a $1.6B cash reserve coindesk.com. “We’re not trying to be Michael Saylor here… It’s not like a Bitcoin holding company – it’s a design company – but I think there’s a place for [BTC] on the balance sheet as part of a diversified treasury,” Figma CEO Dylan Field said of the move coindesk.com. The nuanced approach didn’t stave off all skepticism (Figma’s stock slid 18% post-earnings despite its crypto stake coindesk.com coindesk.com), but it adds to the growing roster of mainstream firms quietly hedging with digital assets. Even blockchain networks themselves saw technical leaps: this week the Solana community approved a landmark “Alpenglow” upgrade with 98% support of voting stake coindesk.com, reflecting continued innovation and confidence in crypto’s long-term roadmap despite short-term market jitters.

Cryptocurrency Market Movements: Bitcoin’s Big Test and Altcoin Plays

After riding high through the summer, Bitcoin entered September on shaky ground. Historically, September has been a notoriously weak month for BTC, and 2025 appears to be no exception. Bitcoin opened this week around $110K – its lowest in nearly two months – triggering déjà vu for traders aware that BTC has fallen in 9 of the past 14 Septembers (with average ~12% drawdowns) coindesk.com. “Bitcoin’s slide into September comes with an uncomfortable reminder that history is not on [the bulls’] side,” CoinDesk noted, as total crypto market cap slipped to $3.74 trillion (a three-week low) amid the downturn coindesk.com coindesk.com.

Market sentiment has clearly soured: macroeconomic uncertainty (e.g. a cooling U.S. jobs market) and “thinning volumes” have left “little room for error” in what is often crypto’s toughest month coindesk.com. Technical indicators are flashing warnings too. Alex Kuptsikevich, chief market analyst at FxPro, observed that the broader crypto cap chart is “recording a series of lower lows, signaling a downward trend.” He pointed to Bitcoin’s failure to hold the $112,000 support as a bearish omen, cautioning of “further decline toward the $105,000 area” before the critical $100K level if sentiment doesn’t improve coindesk.com. Indeed, a popular “fear index” for crypto dropped back toward 40 (on a 0–100 scale) this week – its lowest since April – indicating growing anxiety among investors coindesk.com.

Yet not everyone is in panic mode. In a Cointelegraph interview, legendary trader Peter Brandt maintained that Bitcoin may have one last leg up left in this cycle. “I think there is still room for one more big thrust, perhaps to $125,000 to $150,000, but it is running out of time,” Brandt said, noting he’ll stay “constructive” (bullish) as long as BTC holds above $107,000 cointelegraph.com. If that level breaks, however, Brandt warned he’d expect as deep as a 50% drop from the highs (which would imply ~$60K BTC) cointelegraph.com. Other prominent analysts are similarly divided – some (Galaxy Digital’s research head, Arthur Hayes, Tom Lee) have lofty six-figure targets for BTC by year-end cointelegraph.com, while many short-term traders are hedging downside. Options markets saw a spike in demand for protective puts this week, skewing bearish for the first time in weeks as traders brace for potential volatility coindesk.com.

Meanwhile, Ethereum and altcoins are showing mixed resilience. Ether (ETH) has been largely steady around the mid-$4,000s, with bulls “quietly building pressure” for a possible Q4 surge, according to some analysts cointelegraph.com. Solana (SOL) in particular stood out by rallying ~4% this week coindesk.com, buoyed by positive developments in its ecosystem. (Notably, Solana’s community just approved a major “Alpenglow” protocol upgrade with 98% approval coindesk.com, and institutional demand for SOL is reportedly rising.) Other top altcoins like XRP and Cardano also notched modest gains around 1–1.5% coindesk.com even as Bitcoin lagged, suggesting some rotation of capital. In fact, ETF flow data hints at rotation from Bitcoin into Ether: U.S. spot BTC ETFs saw $440M in net outflows last week, while Ether ETFs gained $1B+ in new inflows coindesk.com – a rare divergence that implies investors are reallocating rather than exiting the market entirely. This dynamic, coupled with strong retail interest in Solana and other high-speed chains, has some predicting an “altcoin season” if Bitcoin continues to consolidate. Crypto options platform PowerTrade, for instance, reported traders betting on a strong year-end rally in SOL, XRP and even newer tokens like TRUMP (the WLFI token) and HYPE coindesk.com coindesk.com.

For now, all eyes are on the macro triggers. A crucial U.S. jobs report due on Friday was expected to show only ~45,000 new jobs – evidence of a slowing economy coindesk.com. A much weaker labor print could spur the Federal Reserve to consider an interest rate cut in September, which in turn might “flip sentiment back to risk-on” and give Bitcoin a relief bounce coindesk.com. Until such a catalyst arrives, however, crypto markets are in a cautious holding pattern. Traders are acutely aware that “liquidity drains and macro jitters often coincide with the end of summer” coindesk.com, and September has a habit of punishing over-optimism. Bitcoin’s defense of the $100K-$110K zone will be the key story to watch in the coming days – success could restore confidence for the next leg up, while failure might validate the bears’ case for a deeper correction.

Regulatory Developments: A New U.S. Crypto Stance and Trump’s $4B Token Windfall

Regulators in the U.S. made waves this week with a decidedly more crypto-friendly tone. On Sept. 4, SEC Chairman Paul Atkins revealed the agency’s fall rulemaking agenda, and it contained several bombshells for the digital asset industry. According to Reuters, the SEC plans to propose new rules clarifying the offer and sale of crypto assets, potentially including safe harbor exemptions for certain token sales and guidance on when tokens are not securities reuters.com reuters.com. The agenda also indicates the SEC will consider allowing crypto trading on national securities exchanges and alternative trading systems reuters.com – a move that could finally open the door for regulated listing of crypto assets on U.S. stock markets. If enacted, these policies would mark a “major win for the digital asset industry”, which has long lobbied for clearer rules and integration with traditional finance rails reuters.com.

Atkins struck an optimistic tone, stating “it is a new day at the Securities and Exchange Commission” and that the agenda reflects a “renewed focus on supporting innovation, capital formation, market efficiency and investor protection.” reuters.com This is a stark departure from the previous SEC regime under Gary Gensler, which was known for aggressive enforcement. In fact, under the pro-crypto Trump administration, the SEC has dropped several high-profile lawsuits that Gensler’s team initiated. Notably, the SEC has dismissed its cases against major exchanges Coinbase and Binance reuters.com, which were accused of operating unregistered securities platforms. It also quietly ended investigations into crypto firms like OpenSea (the top NFT marketplace) without pursuing charges, confirming that it “will not classify NFTs as securities” or take enforcement action there cryptobriefing.com cryptobriefing.com. This regulatory about-face earned cheers from the crypto community – OpenSea CEO Devin Finzer lauded the SEC’s retreat as “a win for everyone… [Regulating NFTs as securities] would have been a step backward that misinterprets the law and slows innovation.” cryptobriefing.com Critics, however, worry that Atkins’ SEC may be too lenient. (Bloomberg noted the agency has paused or dropped at least eight crypto cases recently, delighting industry but raising some eyebrows about oversight rigor bloomberg.com bloomberg.com.)

No discussion of U.S. crypto policy this week is complete without the drama surrounding President Donald Trump’s own crypto venture. In an extraordinary intersection of politics and DeFi, Trump’s family-backed project World Liberty Financial unleashed trading of its WLFI token on Sept. 1. The token’s launch sent shockwaves: by Sept. 4, Trump’s personal net worth had ballooned on paper by $4.1 billion thanks to his family’s stash of WLFI dlnews.com. This figure reportedly exceeds the value of Trump’s real estate portfolio dlnews.com, making the sitting President one of the world’s richest crypto holders overnight. The catch? That valuation is highly illiquid and volatile – and potentially politically explosive. As DL News reported, the multi-billion dollar WLFI windfall “turns a ‘crypto policy’ vote into an ‘enrich the president’s family’ vote,” in the words of Sam Mudie, CEO of alternative investment platform Savea dlnews.com. In other words, any legislation affecting crypto markets could directly swing the Trump family’s wealth, a glaring conflict of interest that could stall bipartisan support for upcoming bills.

Indeed, Washington insiders say Democrats are re-evaluating crypto market structure reforms in light of Trump’s holdings. “Democrats who voted for [Trump’s earlier stablecoin bill] can plausibly say ‘stablecoins needed rules; market structure that looks like it benefits WLFI can wait,’” Mudie noted, predicting efforts to narrow new legislation or delay it until after the election cycle dlnews.com. Some lawmakers have already lambasted Trump’s crypto entanglements – back in May, Rep. Gerry Connolly called Trump’s crypto dealings “open corruption,” alleging rife conflicts of interest dlnews.com. The White House insists Trump’s assets are in a blind trust run by his children dlnews.com, but the optics are difficult. The President’s crypto fortune spans not just WLFI, but also NFTs, memecoins, and even $60M in the project’s USD1 stablecoin dlnews.com. On paper it’s “billions of dollars”, though much is locked or illiquid, so true value is likely lower dlnews.com.

The WLFI token itself has been on a wild ride in its first week. After an initial surge, WLFI’s price plunged 42% from its debut by Sept. 5 coindesk.com. Over a 24-hour span it dropped 20% coindesk.com, prompting crisis measures within the project. In a controversial move, World Liberty Financial’s team blacklisted the Ethereum address of Justin Sun, the founder of Tron and a key investor in WLFI coindesk.com. Sun’s address holds 595 million unlocked WLFI tokens – worth about $107M at current prices coindesk.com coindesk.com – but those tokens are now frozen, preventing him from moving or selling them. Blockchain data showed Sun’s wallet had made several large outbound transfers of WLFI (one for $9M) ahead of the blacklist coindesk.com. Sun quickly denied any foul play, claiming those were “generic exchange deposit tests… very low amounts… not involving any selling, which could not possibly impact the market.” coindesk.com He took to social media to urge the WLFI team to unfreeze his tokens, arguing that a “truly great financial brand must be built on fairness, transparency, and trust – not on unilateral actions that freeze investor assets.” Such freezes, Sun warned, “violate the legitimate rights of investors” and could damage confidence in the project coindesk.com coindesk.com. As of now, WLFI’s team has not publicly commented beyond saying the blacklist was to protect the market.

While Trump’s crypto conflict complicates U.S. legislation, not everyone thinks it will derail things entirely. “Crypto legislation has gotten even more bipartisan over time, not less,” noted Ron Hammond, head of policy at Wintermute. Hammond told DL News he believes the broad support for reasonable crypto rules will “continue, despite the WLFI token boosting Trump’s crypto wealth.” dlnews.com In fact, Trump’s administration has already notched a legislative win with the Genius Act, a law he signed in July establishing rules for USD-backed stablecoins dlnews.com. That law saw broad bipartisan backing (framed around consumer protection and payments innovation), and it’s possible lawmakers will similarly compartmentalize the upcoming market structure bills to avoid directly “enriching” any one entity. Two major bills – the House’s Clarity Act (which passed a vote in July) dlnews.com and the Senate’s Responsible Financial Innovation Act – are in play, and their fate may hinge on inserting conflict-of-interest provisions or delaying sections that could specifically benefit WLFI dlnews.com. In any case, the spectacle of a sitting U.S. president effectively moonlighting as a DeFi token baron is uncharted territory. It underscores why clear ethics rules and perhaps blind trust reforms may need to accompany crypto policy – a truly 21st-century governance challenge.

On the international front, several notable regulatory moves occurred in parallel:

• In Europe, debate over the Digital Euro intensified. At a Sept. 4 European Parliament committee meeting, ECB board member Piero Cipollone tried to assuage lawmakers’ fears about a central bank digital currency. He argued a digital euro would “ensure all Europeans can pay at all times… even in case of major disruptions,” serving as a backup payments system if private networks go down cointelegraph.com cointelegraph.com. Cipollone emphasized that the CBDC would complement cash, not replace it, and promised the ECB “will not know anything about the payer or payee” – i.e. user privacy would be protected on par with physical cash, especially via offline payment functionality cointelegraph.com cointelegraph.com. Despite these assurances, multiple EU Parliament members remained skeptical. They worry that a popular digital euro account (backed by the central bank) could siphon deposits from commercial banks, or that the ECB might impose holding caps and then lift them in a crisis, effectively competing with banks cointelegraph.com cointelegraph.com. One lawmaker warned that if wealthy Europeans lose confidence, “it will take them a second to buy stablecoins [in other currencies]… The digital euro at that point would be the least of our problems.” cointelegraph.com The legislation enabling a digital euro has been stalled since 2023 amid these political concerns cointelegraph.com. Cipollone noted they assume a law by Q2 2026 and a possible rollout by 2029 cointelegraph.com, but clearly a lot of persuasion remains before EU officials and the public embrace a CBDC.
• In South Korea, regulators took both liberalizing and tightening actions. A ruling-party lawmaker, Lee Kang-il, introduced a bill to lift Korea’s ban on ICOs (initial coin offerings) which has been in place since the 2017 ICO mania cointelegraph.com. Lee’s proposal would replace the outright prohibition with a disclosure-based framework – treating crypto token sales somewhat like public offerings, requiring transparency rather than forbidding them. The draft defines various crypto business categories (trading, custody, payments, etc.), sets up licensing for exchanges and brokers, and imposes oversight on stablecoin issuers (including minimum capital ~₩1B, reserve asset backing, and regular audits) cointelegraph.com cointelegraph.com. If passed, this law would reopen Korea’s vibrant crypto market to domestic coin launches under watchful eye of regulators, potentially reversing the trend of Korean projects going overseas to raise funds. On the flip side, the Korean Financial Services Commission (FSC) rolled out new guidelines for crypto lending services aimed at curbing reckless leverage and protecting users binance.com binance.com. Announced Sept. 5, these rules (developed with Korea’s self-regulatory group DAXA) ban exchanges from offering any leveraged crypto loans or “cash lending” in fiat binance.com binance.com. Exchanges can only lend out crypto they own (no intermediaries) and must cap interest (fees) at 20% APR binance.com. They also must enforce personal borrowing limits (₩30M–₩70M per user, scaled by experience) and give borrowers advance warning and options (e.g. add collateral) before any forced liquidations binance.com. Additionally, only top-tier coins (top 20 by market cap or listed on 3+ big Korean exchanges) can be lent, to avoid exposing users to illiquid, volatile tokens binance.com. These comprehensive measures, essentially outlawing high-yield degen lending schemes, come after intense competition among Korean exchanges to offer lending products raised regulator concerns. By eliminating excessive leverage and requiring transparency (exchanges must publicly post their lending status and any liquidation events per coin) binance.com, the FSC aims to preempt the kind of blow-ups seen in overseas platforms.
• In China, a curious case of blockchain adoption and censorship played out. Media reports early in the week claimed that Futian Investment & Holding, a state-owned enterprise in Shenzhen, had issued the country’s first public blockchain-based bonds – roughly 500 million yuan (~$70M) of digital bonds on Ethereum, tokenizing real-world assets (RWA) cointelegraph.com. This was touted as a milestone: a Chinese SOE using Ethereum’s public network for an official financial instrument. However, soon after, the company’s official announcement on its website and WeChat were scrubbed cointelegraph.com. By mid-week, Futian hadn’t addressed the matter, leaving Chinese netizens puzzled whether the bond issuance actually occurred or if it was premature news. Observers speculated that either regulatory pushback or internal reconsideration led to the info being pulled. It shows the sensitive balance in China’s approach to blockchain – while private and permissioned blockchain uses are encouraged, tapping a public chain like Ethereum for large-scale state business may still be a step too far, at least without higher approval.
• In Japan, regulators signaled a potentially stricter stance by suggesting crypto be brought under existing securities law. On Sept. 2, Japan’s Financial Services Agency (FSA) published a proposal to regulate crypto-assets under the Financial Instruments and Exchange Act (FIEA) cointelegraph.com. This would mean treating crypto trading more like traditional securities trading, with all the attendant investor protection rules (disclosure, conduct requirements, etc.). The FSA pointed out that crypto has become a mainstream asset class in Japan – over 12 million accounts holding a total ¥5 trillion (>$33B) in crypto, mostly retail investors cointelegraph.com – yet adequate safeguards aren’t in place. The push comes as part of a broader effort by Japanese authorities to tighten oversight after some high-profile failures (Japan was relatively early in licensing exchanges and dealing with hacks like Mt. Gox, but DeFi and offshore activity remain grey areas). If enacted, this could increase compliance costs for Japan’s crypto industry but also further legitimize it by folding it into the established financial legal structure.

Overall, the regulatory landscape from Washington to Brussels to Seoul seems to be evolving rapidly – with a mix of carrots and sticks. The U.S. is pivoting to clearer rules and retreating from enforcement maximalism, perhaps recognizing that nurturing innovation (and competing with pro-crypto jurisdictions) is in the national interest. Europe is cautiously exploring innovation (CBDCs) but remains prudent about systemic risks. Asia continues to experiment: Korea finding a new equilibrium post-crypto boom and bust, China forging ahead with blockchain while keeping tight control, and Japan extending traditional finance laws to the crypto realm. For the crypto industry and users, these moves bring hope for long-term clarity, even if near-term they introduce new complexities to navigate.

DeFi Developments and Exploits: Hacks, Hacks Everywhere – But New Defense Strategies Emerge

It’s been a dramatic week in decentralized finance, illustrating both the ongoing threat of exploits and the community’s growing ability to respond. Early in the week, news broke of a significant hack: Bunni DEX, an up-and-coming decentralized exchange built on Uniswap v4, lost an estimated $8.4 million in a sophisticated smart contract attack bravenewcoin.com. The breach occurred on Sept. 2 and targeted Bunni’s custom Liquidity Distribution Function (LDF) – an innovative mechanism meant to optimize liquidity deployment. According to security analyses, the attacker executed precisely crafted trades that confused Bunni’s rebalancing logic, causing it to miscalculate liquidity shares bravenewcoin.com. By repeating these steps, the hacker was able to withdraw far more tokens than entitled, draining about $2.4M from Bunni’s Ethereum pool and $6M from its Uniswap v4 sidechain pool bravenewcoin.com. The stolen funds were then bridged out to Ethereum for consolidation bravenewcoin.com.

Bunni’s team reacted quickly upon detecting the anomaly. Within hours, they suspended all smart contract operations on every network (Ethereum mainnet, Base, Arbitrum, BSC) to halt further damage bravenewcoin.com bravenewcoin.com. They publicly urged users: “If you have money on Bunni, remove it ASAP,” stressing that funds should be withdrawn while contracts were paused bravenewcoin.com. In an unusual but increasingly common tactic, Bunni’s developers also offered the hacker a 10% bounty (around $840k) if they would return the remaining funds bravenewcoin.com. They even sent an on-chain message with contact info to open negotiations bravenewcoin.com. As of this writing, the hacker has not yet responded or refunded the money.

The Bunni exploit is part of a larger trend of rampant DeFi hacks in 2025. By early September, over $2.2 billion worth of crypto has been stolen in hacks and exploits across exchanges, bridges, and DeFi protocols this year dlnews.com. This already exceeds the total stolen in all of 2024 by 6% dlnews.com, putting 2025 on pace to be the worst year on record for crypto theft. A huge chunk (about $1.4–$1.5B) of this sum came from a single incident in February – the Bybit exchange hack, attributed to North Korean cybercriminals dlnews.com. But even excluding that, hundreds of millions have been siphoned from DeFi platforms in dozens of smaller attacks. Just last month (August 2025) saw at least 16 separate crypto exploits tallying $163M in losses, a 15% jump from July bravenewcoin.com. And these attacks are getting more technically advanced – targeting novel protocol features (as in Bunni’s case) or subtle vulnerabilities that sometimes slip past audits bravenewcoin.com bravenewcoin.com.

In the face of this onslaught, the DeFi community is starting to band together with new defensive strategies. One remarkable initiative launched around Sept. 1 is the adoption of a standardized “Safe Harbor” agreement for white-hat hackers. Spearheaded by the nonprofit Security Alliance, the Safe Harbor framework provides legal assurances to benevolent hackers who intervene during an active exploit dlnews.com dlnews.com. Typically in a DeFi hack, there’s a short window where a savvy third-party (a white hat) could counter-hack or copy the attacker’s transaction to rescue funds. But until now, white hats often hesitated – because even if they intended to return the money, technically they’d be hacking the protocol too and could face lawsuits or criminal charges. With Safe Harbor agreements, protocols promise not to sue or prosecute white hats who “rescue funds without initiating the exploit” and return the loot promptly dlnews.com dlnews.com. There are conditions (they must act during an ongoing attack or imminent threat, and return assets to an official recovery address within 72 hours) dlnews.com. But this carve-out essentially deputizes altruistic hackers to act as first responders in an emergency.

According to DL News, as of this week 12 DeFi protocols (collectively holding ~$20B in user deposits) have signed onto Safe Harbor dlnews.com dlnews.com. These include blue-chip projects like Uniswap (the largest DEX with ~$6B TVL) and Pendle (a yield derivatives platform with ~$10B) dlnews.com. By publicly adopting Safe Harbor, these protocols send a clear message: “If you see a hack happening on us, go ahead and secure the funds – we won’t punish you for doing the right thing.” The hope, as Security Alliance put it, is to ensure that scenes like the 2022 Nomad bridge hack – where “over $190 million was drained over hours while white hats stood by, willing to help but unable to act without legal protection” – “never happen again.” dlnews.com In that event, several ethical hackers could only watch as an exploit ran rampant, fearing intervention would put them in jeopardy. Safe Harbor aims to empower them instead. The framework was crafted with input from major crypto law and venture firms (a16z, Cooley, Paradigm, etc.) dlnews.com, indicating broad support for this community-driven defense mechanism.

Beyond legal tools, DeFi governance itself is proving to be a powerful security ally. A case in point: Venus Protocol, a Binance Smart Chain-based lending platform, was hit by a $13.5M theft on Sept. 2 due to a phishing attack on one large user dlnews.com dlnews.com. The attacker got the victim to sign a malicious transaction, then drained their account on Venus. However, because Venus is governed by its community (token holders and delegates), they were able to react almost immediately. Within hours of the hack, Venus’s stakeholders held an emergency vote and passed a proposal to liquidate the hacker’s account and return the stolen funds to the victim dlnews.com dlnews.com. The protocol had paused operations as soon as the exploit was noticed dlnews.com, preventing the hacker from moving funds off-platform. Five large wallet addresses (likely core devs or community multisigs) quickly voted unanimously for the liquidation plan dlnews.com. As the Venus team explained, “Stolen funds will be recovered in a single transaction [and] this will not affect any other user positions on Venus.” dlnews.com Essentially, they executed a targeted wipe-out of the hacker’s positions and restoration of those assets to the rightful owner, then restarted the protocol for everyone else dlnews.com dlnews.com. This kind of “code red” response – reversing or mitigating an attack via governance – remains controversial in some circles (critics argue it’s undoing supposedly immutable transactions). But in Venus’s case, it showcased how decentralized communities can coordinate faster than even centralized exchanges at times, to limit damage.

It’s worth noting that not all stolen funds are recoverable – many attackers still escape with the loot, and cross-chain bridges or mixers help launder proceeds. Nonetheless, these developments highlight a maturing DeFi ecosystem that is learning from past disasters. Projects are improving audits (Bunni, for instance, had multiple audits but may integrate even more rigorous testing now bravenewcoin.com), setting up war rooms, and collaborating on standards like Safe Harbor. Security experts caution that as long as DeFi protocols keep pushing the innovation envelope (and they will), clever hackers will seek out edge-case bugs to exploit bravenewcoin.com. The custom nature of many new DeFi mechanisms – the very thing that offers higher yields or novel features – also creates fresh attack surfaces that aren’t battle-tested bravenewcoin.com. Thus, 2025’s hackathon unfortunately rages on. But the silver lining is that DeFi isn’t taking it lying down. Whether through aligning incentives for white hats, rapid community interventions, or simply raising user vigilance (e.g. education to avoid phishing scams), the crypto community is arguably more united than ever in combating hackers. It’s an arms race – black hats vs. white hats – playing out in real time with billions at stake.

NFT Trends and Marketplaces: Volume Climbs and a Win on the Regulatory Front

After weathering a brutal crypto winter, the NFT market is showing flickers of a comeback heading into the fall of 2025. Over the past two months, NFTs have quietly notched their best performance of the year in terms of trading activity. Blockchain analytics firm DappRadar reported that July–August saw the highest NFT trading volumes since February 2025, marking a clear rebound from the doldrums earlier in the year startupnews.fyi. In August alone, NFT trading volume was up about 9% compared to the month prior startupnews.fyi. Interestingly, the number of NFT sales (transactions) actually fell by ~4% in the same period startupnews.fyi. This implies that while fewer NFTs are changing hands, they’re selling at higher prices on average – a sign that serious collectors and investors are re-entering the market and competing for desirable pieces. “Fewer assets traded hands, [but] collectors are paying more per sale,” DappRadar noted, pointing to a trend of consolidation where quality matters more than quantity startupnews.fyi.

This resurgence became especially apparent in early September. According to CoinGecko data cited by Cointelegraph, NFT trading volumes spiked more than 25% in 24 hours at one point this week startupnews.fyi. Daily volume across marketplaces hit about $7.9 million, the highest single-day level in many months startupnews.fyi. While still a far cry from the multi-hundred-million dollar days of peak NFT mania in 2021, this jump suggests renewed enthusiasm possibly driven by a few factors: the successful mint and trading of new high-profile collections, increased activity on emerging NFT platforms (such as those on Base, Coinbase’s new L2 network which saw a flurry of NFT memes), and perhaps anticipation of the fall arts season which often brings marquee drops and auctions.

Breaking it down by segments, “blue-chip” NFT collections (established ones like CryptoPunks, Bored Ape Yacht Club, Art Blocks, etc.) have seen floor prices stabilize or tick up, which boosts volume as confidence returns. Newer generative art projects and gaming-related NFTs are also attracting fresh capital. For instance, there’s buzz around on-chain gaming items and avatars as several Web3 games near launch. Additionally, multi-chain NFT ecosystems are growing; Solana, Polygon, and others are contributing more to overall volume, diversifying activity beyond just Ethereum. In fact, data shows Solana’s NFT sales have been robust, aided by its low fees and fast throughput which make it attractive for in-game assets and profile-picture (PFP) collections.

In the marketplace arena, competition remains fierce, but the landscape is stabilizing after the “royalty wars” earlier in the year. Blur – the upstart marketplace that incentivizes traders – continues to drive a large share of pro trader volume with its zero-fee, reward-token model. OpenSea, still the largest overall NFT marketplace, recently announced changes to honor creator royalties (after backlash to zero-royalty moves), which has won back some goodwill among artists. Meanwhile, regulatory clarity (or at least relief) just gave all marketplaces a boost of confidence.

The big news on that front: The U.S. SEC has formally concluded that NFTs traded on mainstream marketplaces are not to be deemed securities, ending a probe that had cast a shadow over the industry. OpenSea confirmed it received notice that the SEC’s investigation, which began in mid-2024 and included a Wells notice alleging some NFTs might be unregistered securities, was closed with no enforcement action cryptobriefing.com cryptobriefing.com. This effectively means the SEC will not pursue legal action classifying NFTs as investment contracts. OpenSea’s co-founder and CEO Devin Finzer hailed this outcome, saying: “Trying to classify NFTs as securities would have been a step backward — one that misinterprets the law and slows innovation. This is a win for everyone who is creating and building in our space.” cryptobriefing.com Finzer’s stance, shared via social media and an internal memo, resonated across the NFT community, which has long argued that most NFTs are more akin to digital collectibles or art, not fractionalized investment schemes. The end of the SEC probe lifts a cloud that was hanging over the likes of OpenSea, Blur, Rarible, etc., and by extension gives collectors and creators peace of mind that their activities won’t suddenly be subject to securities laws or punitive crackdowns.

Elsewhere, NFT adoption and innovation continue apace. In the enterprise world, Starbucks expanded its Odyssey NFT rewards program after a successful beta, signaling confidence that consumers will engage with brand NFTs when there’s real utility. Gaming giant Ubisoft teased new in-game NFT integrations (despite mixed feedback from gamers), and Disney is rumored to be exploring NFT tickets or collectibles for its franchises, which could debut next year. On the infrastructure side, projects are working on NFT lending/borrowing platforms (so collectors can use valuable NFTs as collateral) and fractional ownership models that comply with regulations (to avoid being labeled securities).

Back to the numbers: one report from CoinCentral noted Q3 2025 NFT volumes reached ~$580M, up 35% from June ainvest.com, indicating the slump’s worst may be over. NFT marketplace rankings also saw a shuffle – besides OpenSea and Blur, others like X2Y2, LooksRare (which focus on token incentives) have tapered off, while Magic Eden (focused on Solana and other chains) has held strong, and newcomers on Layer 2s (Immutable X for gaming NFTs, Base’s native markets, etc.) are growing. Artist and celebrity NFT drops have become more curated: rather than hype for hype’s sake, there’s emphasis on community and long-term value. For example, this week a famous photographer’s limited NFT series sold out quickly on OpenSea, and a new generative art project on Art Blocks saw enthusiastic bidding, showing the art-focused segment is alive and well.

In summary, the NFT space appears to be entering a healthier, more sustainable phase after shaking out much of the speculative excess. Trading volume upticks and higher average sale prices suggest that serious collectors are re-engaging, and perhaps a new wave of users is arriving via friendlier on-ramps (like Reddit’s Collectible Avatars and gaming NFTs that don’t even feel like crypto to end-users). The positive regulatory news certainly removes a big overhang – had the SEC decided differently, major marketplaces and thousands of NFT holders might have faced legal chaos. Instead, the industry now has an opportunity to continue innovating with clearer guardrails. Challenges remain (like securing intellectual property rights, preventing fraud, and improving NFT platform UX), but as we head into the end of 2025, NFTs seem poised to remain a core pillar of the broader blockchain economy, rather than a passing fad.

Enterprise Blockchain Adoption and Tech Innovations: Stablecoins Rule, and Bitcoin Finds a Home on Corporate Balance Sheets

The past two days brought a flurry of announcements highlighting how mainstream companies and finance giants are diving deeper into blockchain – especially in payments and treasury management.

Stablecoins were front and center as two major crypto infrastructure firms unveiled their answers to the question: how do we move money faster and cheaper, at scale? On Sept. 4, Stripe, the $50B Silicon Valley payments company, and Paradigm, a leading crypto VC, introduced “Tempo,” a new payments-oriented blockchain coindesk.com. Tempo is designed specifically for high-throughput stablecoin transactions, aiming to handle tens of thousands of transfers per second with sub-second finality coindesk.com coindesk.com. Unlike general-purpose chains, Tempo’s “stablecoin-first” design lets users pay transaction fees in stablecoins (rather than a native volatile token) and includes a built-in automated market maker to maintain liquidity neutrality across different stablecoins coindesk.com coindesk.com. It’s also Ethereum-compatible (built on the Reth execution client) but optimized beyond even fast L1s like Solana for Stripe’s needs coindesk.com. Stripe CEO Patrick Collison said the motivation was that current blockchains “don’t match Stripe’s throughput or payment-focused requirements” coindesk.com. “We hope that Tempo makes it easier for [everything from] payment acceptance [to] global payouts, remittances, microtransactions, tokenized deposits, agentic payments, and more, to move onchain,” Collison elaborated in an X (Twitter) post coindesk.com. In other words, Stripe sees this as the future backbone for things like paying creators globally in USDC, powering in-game micro-purchases, or AI agents transferring funds – all use cases where traditional payment rails are too slow or expensive, especially across borders.

The roster of partners involved in Tempo’s early design underscores its ambition: Visa, Standard Chartered bank, Deutsche Bank, DoorDash, Nubank, OpenAI, Revolut, Shopify, and more are participating in the test phase coindesk.com coindesk.com. Many of these are heavyweights in fintech and tech, signaling a serious push to make Tempo industry-wide. Tempo is currently in private testnet with Paradigm’s CEO Matt Huang leading the project’s team of 15 coindesk.com. Huang emphasized they’re “building Tempo with principles of decentralization and neutrality,” including launching with a diverse set of validators (with plans to open it up permissionlessly over time) coindesk.com. This is notable – a critique of some corporate chains is that they’re closed or centralized, but Stripe/Paradigm are at least signaling intent to decentralize governance eventually. Tempo joins a growing field of custom stablecoin blockchains: as CoinDesk notes, stablecoins (now a $270B asset class) are projected to reach $1T and disrupt global payments coindesk.com, so everyone from Circle to Telegram to now Stripe is racing to build the rails for that future.

Speaking of Circle, the other big announcement came from Fireblocks, a well-known crypto custody and infrastructure firm used by banks and fintechs. Fireblocks introduced the “Fireblocks Network for Payments,” essentially a stablecoin transfer network connecting institutional players coindesk.com coindesk.com. Fireblocks already had a large private network for crypto transactions; this iteration focuses on stablecoins as the medium of exchange. It boasts 40+ participants at launch – notably including Circle (issuer of USDC) and Bridge (a stablecoin platform Stripe acquired) – and these participants together process over $200 billion in stablecoin payments per month coindesk.com coindesk.com. Fireblocks envisions this as a “SWIFT for stablecoins” coindesk.com, offering a more efficient, always-on alternative to the traditional interbank SWIFT system (which is slower and mainly for fiat). The network will streamline on/off-ramps, link banks, liquidity providers, and payment companies so that moving a dollar-pegged token becomes as seamless as sending an email. With stablecoin volumes hitting $800B per month globally as of June coindesk.com, there’s a lot of demand for such infrastructure.

Crucially, the biggest stablecoin players are all building similar capabilities – an indication this is where finance is headed. Stripe, as mentioned, acquired Bridge last year to integrate stablecoin payouts coindesk.com and is building Tempo; Circle launched its own payments network (called Circle Network) back in April coindesk.com; even JP Morgan has its JPM Coin network for internal stablecoin transfers. And both Circle and Stripe are working on their own proprietary blockchains for stablecoins/tokenized assets, separate from public chains coindesk.com. We are essentially seeing the emergence of a parallel financial stack: instead of correspondent banks and wire transfers, it’s federated but blockchain-inspired networks moving value in seconds. The difference is these new networks, while permissioned at first, leverage crypto assets (stablecoins) as the medium, potentially plugging into public chains when needed. For users and businesses, this could mean near-instant cross-border settlements, 24/7 operations (no waiting for weekend or midnight batch processing), and lower fees – all without needing to understand the crypto underpinnings.

Moving from payments to corporate treasury, there’s notable news on how companies are embracing Bitcoin as a reserve asset. A CoinDesk analysis revealed that publicly traded firms now collectively hold over 1,000,000 BTC in their treasuries coindesk.com. This milestone – one million bitcoins, roughly 4.7% of all BTC supply – underscores the trend of institutional adoption of Bitcoin as “digital gold.” The charge has been led by MicroStrategy (renamed “Strategy” on the markets), which famously started accumulating in 2020. MicroStrategy/Strategy alone holds about 636,505 BTC (worth ~$72B), nearly two-thirds of all public-company Bitcoin coindesk.com. The top 10 BTC-holding companies (including names like Marathon Digital, Coinbase, and even Trump’s own media company with 15,000 BTC in its treasury) account for ~863k BTC coindesk.com coindesk.com. This trend hit a fever pitch in the first half of 2025, with multiple firms adding to their stash. One new entrant is Metaplanet (Japan), which acquired ~20,000 BTC by 2024 and more this year coindesk.com. According to CoinDesk, the corporate bitcoin buying “hit a frenzied inflection point in 2025” before cooling off coindesk.com – likely as BTC’s price soared and then pulled back from $124K to around $110K now. Indeed, companies that pivoted heavily to crypto have seen their stocks become correlated with it: Strategy’s stock is down ~30% from its July highs, and Japan’s Metaplanet stock has plummeted after peaking in May coindesk.com. This was exacerbated by Nasdaq reportedly tightening rules to require shareholder approval for any public company issuing new shares to buy crypto (a tactic some used to accumulate BTC) mexc.com mexc.com. So corporate appetite for bitcoin remains, but avenues to finance those buys are being normalized (no more diluting shareholders without a vote).

One particularly interesting case was revealed in a first earnings report this week: Figma, a popular collaborative design software company that IPO’d in July, announced it now holds Bitcoin as part of its treasury coindesk.com. Specifically, Figma’s CFO said they have $91 million worth of Bitcoin in an exchange-traded fund (ETF), out of about $1.6 billion total cash reserves coindesk.com. This is notable because Figma is not a crypto or fintech firm; it’s a mainstream tech company (recently nearly acquired by Adobe). Figma’s CEO Dylan Field took pains to frame the move as conservative: “We’re not trying to be Michael Saylor here… This is not a Bitcoin holding company. It’s a design company, but I think there’s a place for [Bitcoin] in the balance sheet as part of a diversified treasury strategy.” coindesk.com Field’s comments (given to CNBC) emphasize that Figma sees BTC as a small hedge or store of value, rather than a pivot away from their core business coindesk.com. In fact, Figma’s $91M BTC represents roughly 5.7% of its cash – a modest allocation akin to how some firms keep a few percent in gold or alternative assets. That didn’t stop market observers from drawing comparisons to MicroStrategy’s bold bet. But crucially, Figma chose a Bitcoin ETF (spot ETF) for exposure coindesk.com, likely for ease of accounting and liquidity, rather than buying and custodying coins directly. This points to the role of regulated investment vehicles in making crypto accessible to corporate treasurers who might otherwise be reticent.

Stepping back, the fact that 95% of the Fortune 500 are Figma customers (as noted on their call) coindesk.com means CFOs everywhere will hear about Figma’s BTC allocation. If Figma – fresh off an IPO, with presumably lots of scrutiny – can do it, it could encourage other growth companies to consider a similar, incremental approach to Bitcoin as a reserve asset. Especially with inflation concerns and yields still relatively low, a small BTC position might be seen as an acceptable risk-reward play by more boards.

Finally, in the realm of protocol-level tech innovation, it’s not just new blockchains like Tempo grabbing headlines. Existing networks are evolving too. This week, Solana’s community overwhelmingly approved a major upgrade codenamed “Alpenglow.” Over 98% of staked SOL that participated voted in favor, with only ~1% opposed coindesk.com. This upgrade (set to roll out soon) promises significant improvements – early details point to better handling of stake-weighted quality-of-service and maybe further steps toward the long-awaited Fire Dancer second validator client. The key point is Solana’s developers and community are proactively addressing past pain points (like network outages) by refining the protocol’s core. It’s a reminder that even as new blockchains launch, established ones aren’t standing still. Ethereum, for instance, just had its Holesky testnet launch (for testing sharding and other upgrades) and is gearing up for an early 2026 mainnet upgrade to incorporate sharding and more. Bitcoin’s tech progression is slower by design, but discussions around Drivechains and covenants continue in that community. In essence, the blockchain ecosystem is simultaneously expanding (new chains, sidechains, L2s) and deepening (major upgrades to throughput, security, functionality on L1s).

Across the board, these enterprise and tech developments signal a maturation of the crypto industry. Large corporations are no longer just dipping toes; they’re building critical infrastructure (Stripe’s chain, Fireblocks’ network) and holding material crypto assets (1 million BTC in public companies!). Financial institutions are finding ways to plug crypto into existing systems (e.g. stablecoins in banking), while crypto-native players are scaling up (Circle, Coinbase, etc., each now systemically important in their own right). The flurry of activity from Sept. 4–5, 2025, shows an industry at an inflection point: moving from the fringes toward the core of global finance and tech. It’s not happening without bumps – market volatility, regulatory about-faces, and security setbacks are all part of the journey – but the trajectory is clearer than ever. Blockchain and digital assets are increasingly “business as usual” topics in boardrooms and developer summits alike, and the events of this week only reinforce that reality.