Crypto Rallies as Rate Hopes Cool, Bitcoin Reclaims $81,000 and ETFs Post Biggest Inflows Since January

Christopher Waller said Thursday he would be inclined to support holding rates steady if inflation data keeps improving, and that was enough to trigger one of crypto’s biggest daily rallies in weeks. Bitcoin climbed back above $80,000 and briefly traded over $81,100. The Dow added 453 points. More than 119,000 traders were liquidated for over $500 million. Spot Bitcoin ETFs pulled in $731 million in net inflows, the largest daily tally since January. The move spread across the market. XRP led the majors with a 7.8% gain. BNB and Solana each rose about 5%. Ether added 4.7% to $2,497. Zcash jumped 18% to a fresh all-time high above $1,000. Riskier names ripped even harder. PONS rose 56% and is up 3,001% over the past 30 days. Lighter gained 16.8% and also hit a new all-time high. Ethena climbed 13.6%, Arbitrum rose 12%, and SPX6900 advanced 13.2%. The report said the 24-hour rebound erased a week of damage, but it also stressed that the picture is still uncertain. Waller’s comment was conditional, not final, and the next major test is the August jobs report, due this morning before the Sept. 15-16 Federal Reserve meeting. Hike odds were still being priced at 50.4%. Across the broader crypto market, majors were green by 4% to 6%. BTC was around $81,300, ETH around $2,526, SOL around $104 and HYPE around $87. HYPE, LIT and ZEC all set new highs. Macro and market developments kept piling up. The CFTC asked a judge to toss CME’s lawsuit over its approval of Kalshi’s Bitcoin perpetual contract, calling it “much ado about nothing” and saying CME could list the same product itself. Polymarket launched Polymarket Perps with up to 20x leverage across crypto, stocks, commodities and more. Coinbase filed two SEC notice registrations to bring single-stock perpetual futures to U.S. traders. Standard Chartered began offering institutional Bitcoin and Ethereum spot trading through its Dubai branch. SoFi and Kraken parent Payward said they are linking Kraken to SoFi’s around-the-clock dollar settlement network, listing SoFiUSD on the exchange and routing SoFi crypto trades through Kraken Prime. Bitget CEO Gracy Chen said she is in talks with BlackRock and other Wall Street firms about distributing tokenized ETFs across Asia, where roughly half of Bitget’s 125 million users are located. ETF flows stayed strong. U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs saw $730 million in net inflows on Thursday, while Ether ETFs took in $141 million and broke a three-week green streak. Memecoins joined the move. DOGE rose 6%, SHIB gained 3%, PEPE added 6%, PENGU climbed 7%, TRUMP rose 6% and SPX jumped 22%. AMC CEO Adam Aron called Robinhood’s stock tokens “contemptible, outrageous, and vile,” saying the theater chain has no connection to tokens tracking its share price and is bringing in outside securities counsel. Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev replied, “What’s the concern?” The exchange sparked a broad meme rally. On Robinhood Chain, PONS climbed to a $500 million market cap before pulling back. MEME surged 260x to $100 million in just a few hours. Cinema rose 13x, Fatcoin gained 37% and Concern added 15%. On Solana, Useless jumped 70%, Troll rose 80% and ZCAT exploded 500%, while Ansem gained 5% to $250 million. Binance listed Marscoin for spot trading, and the token rose 60% to $180 million, lifting several other BSC tokens as well. Uniswap said it purchased PONS tokens to “deepen alignment,” which sent PONS to $500 million. Hyperliquid is testing HIP-3, an optional layer that lets market deployers run onchain whitelists restricting who can trade specific markets. Robinhood Chain posted $4 million in chain revenue again on Thursday, and PONS posted a new daily revenue high at $1.26 million. NFTs were mixed. Punks fell 1% to 30.8 ETH, BAYC rose 2% to 7.57 ETH and Pudgy declined 2% to 3.8 ETH. Argonauts rose 25%, Identity MD gained 20% and Chubbicorns jumped 50%.