KuCoin Ventures said in its latest weekly report that US crypto policy signals intensified last week just as risk appetite returned to digital assets, setting off a broader repricing discussion across the market.
Three US policy tracks moved at the same time
The report said President Donald Trump met with representatives from the crypto and traditional finance industries at the White House and again called on Congress to advance the CLARITY Act. At the same time, the US Securities and Exchange Commission proposed a Regulation Crypto Assets framework designed to create new exemptions, disclosure requirements, and safe harbor arrangements for certain crypto-asset financings and investment contracts. The US Treasury also released a new round of proposed implementation rules tied to the GENIUS Act.
KuCoin Ventures said those developments should be read carefully. The CLARITY Act is still moving through the legislative process, while the SEC and Treasury documents are proposed rules rather than final requirements already in effect.
According to the report, the CLARITY Act focuses on digital-asset market structure and the division of oversight between agencies including the SEC and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, or CFTC. The SEC proposal reaches more directly into token fundraising, disclosures, and the way investment-contract rules may apply. The GENIUS Act has already been passed, and the Treasury is now working through more specific implementation rules covering the issuance and sale of payment stablecoins.
KuCoin Ventures said the three policy lines differ in timing and scope, but taken together they show that US crypto oversight is moving more deeply into legislation and formal rulemaking rather than staying centered only on enforcement cases.
The report cited a White House page as background material: https://www.whitehouse.gov/gallery/president-donald-j-trump-participates-in-a-cftc-innovation-advisory-committee-launch-with-tech-leaders/?utm_source=chatgpt.com
Crypto rose even as US equities weakened
Price action changed quickly in the same period. KuCoin Ventures said Bitcoin climbed nearly 20% last week, posting one of its strongest weekly performances in about two and a half years and briefly breaking above $79,000. Ether rose by roughly 20% to 30% over the same stretch.
That move came while the broader US stock market was soft. The Nasdaq fell about 2.1% for the week, and the report said crypto assets showed a degree of short-term divergence from traditional risk assets. Shares tied to the sector, including Coinbase, Strategy, and Circle, also jumped noticeably during the week, which the report said showed that improving sentiment was not confined to token trading alone.
Still, KuCoin Ventures said the rally should not be pinned on regulation by itself. It pointed to the Treasury’s larger long-dated bond buyback operations, a weaker dollar, and the unwinding of previously built short positions as parallel factors that could all affect risk assets. The report added that crypto’s own leverage structure amplified price swings.
Its conclusion was narrower: policy headlines, macro liquidity shifts, position adjustments, and fresh capital all appeared within the same window. Some market views see better policy expectations as an important backdrop for the repair in sentiment, but not the only driver.
ETF inflows returned as trading broadened across channels
Capital flows improved alongside the rebound in prices. KuCoin Ventures said US spot BTC and ETH ETFs both recorded some of their strongest inflows of the year last week, with trading volumes also recovering.
Spot markets, ETFs, and crypto-linked equities all became more active at the same time, according to the report. That suggested the bounce was not limited to high-leverage derivatives desks.
The report also said market pricing around US policy has started to shift. In the past, traders often focused on enforcement actions, court rulings, or comments from a single agency. More recently, attention has moved toward bill progress, public consultations, and the details of rule design.
For traders, KuCoin Ventures said the first effect may be on risk premia and willingness to hold positions. Longer-term effects will depend on final texts, implementation speed, and coordination between regulators. The report said markets should keep watching the CLARITY Act in Congress, revisions to the SEC proposal after public consultation, and the final scope of the Treasury’s GENIUS Act implementation rules.
Treasury buyback changes and a weaker dollar
In its market-signals section, KuCoin Ventures said global assets showed clearer divergence last week. Long-end US Treasury yields moved sharply higher at one point, with the 30-year yield touching about 5.34%, the highest level since 2007. That rate backdrop pressured long-duration assets such as technology stocks and left all three major US equity indexes lower for the week.
On Aug. 19, the US Treasury said it would raise the size of single liquidity-support buybacks for 10-20 year and 20-30 year Treasuries from a maximum of $2 billion to at least $4 billion. The new arrangement will run from Sept. 9 to Nov. 4. After the announcement, the 30-year yield pulled back from its highs.
KuCoin Ventures drew a sharp line between that move and quantitative easing by the Federal Reserve. It said Treasury buybacks are aimed at improving liquidity in older issues and longer-dated bonds. They do not change the overall fiscal deficit or funding needs, so the direct effect is more about easing short-term term premium and market-liquidity pressure than creating a sustained increase in base money.
The report also highlighted a shift in the dollar’s behavior. Treasury stress did not simply translate into a stronger dollar. Instead, the dollar index weakened by nearly 1% over the week, while gold and Bitcoin both rose. KuCoin Ventures said the market is no longer trading entirely on the old logic of higher rates leading to a stronger dollar. Focus has shifted more toward long-term fiscal financing costs, term premium, and the risk compensation investors demand to hold long-duration dollar assets.
From that angle, rising yields do not automatically help the dollar. If yields climb mainly because of term premium rather than stronger growth or higher policy-rate expectations, the dollar and long bonds can come under pressure together.
FOMC minutes kept rate expectations unsettled
The report said minutes from the July Federal Open Market Committee meeting carried a hawkish overall tone and showed wider internal differences. Many participants judged that further tightening could become necessary if inflation fails to fall as expected. Some officials also said current financial conditions may still be insufficient to bring inflation back to the 2% target.
Using CME FedWatch data, KuCoin Ventures said the market is still debating the Federal Reserve’s endpoint for rates this year, and those expectations remain unstable.
Bitcoin returned to the $77,000 area as altcoins outperformed
KuCoin Ventures said crypto assets clearly outperformed traditional risk assets during the week. Bitcoin rebounded from a recent low near $60,000, broke above $79,000 at one point, and moved back to around $77,000 near the weekend, for a gain of about 23% over the week. Ether rose about 26% to around $2,400. The report described both moves as among the stronger weekly performances seen in recent years.
Beyond the large caps, HYPE, LINK, and ZEC each rose more than 30%, while major high-beta assets such as SOL also outpaced BTC. In the report’s view, that showed risk appetite spreading from Bitcoin into altcoins.
KuCoin Ventures said the macro backdrop behind the rally was unusual. US equities were under pressure while BTC climbed. Long-end Treasury yields stayed high while the dollar weakened. The report said that divergence suggests the move may not be driven by a standard Federal Reserve policy-expectation trade. Instead, it looks closer to an internal repricing of dollar assets, with part of the capital rotating defensively into scarce assets such as gold and Bitcoin.
The firm also said a long stretch of deleveraging and price declines had already taken place earlier, and marginal macro improvement then triggered short covering, which mechanically magnified the rebound.
Even so, KuCoin Ventures said a short-term technical breakout is not enough to confirm a long-cycle trend reversal. It said follow-through demand from both onshore and offshore capital may become one of the key tests for whether the move can last. The report called for close tracking of sustained net inflows into spot ETFs and expansion in stablecoin supply.
If prices keep rising while ETF balances and stablecoin supply grow together, the funding base behind the rally would look firmer, the report said. If ETF inflows fade quickly and stablecoin supply stalls, traders should stay alert to the risk that short covering and short-term trading capital made up too much of the move.
Stablecoin supply turned back to net growth
On crypto-native dollar liquidity, the report cited DeFiLlama data showing the total stablecoin market cap rose to about $303.1 billion. That was up roughly $2.4 billion over the past seven days, a 0.8% increase from the prior period.
USDC rose 2.32% over seven days, representing about $1.7 billion in added supply and making it the largest source of growth among the biggest stablecoins. Ethena USDe gained about 3.30% on the week, while PayPal USD rose about 4.39%.
KuCoin Ventures said the pace is still well below some of the faster liquidity-expansion phases seen in 2025, but stablecoin supply has shifted from stagnation back to net growth.
What the market is watching next
The report listed two near-term macro dates that could shape cross-asset liquidity expectations:
- Aug. 26: US core PCE inflation and the quarterly GDP revision, along with NVIDIA earnings.
- Aug. 27-29: the Jackson Hole conference of global central bank governors.
Given sticky inflation data and the internal divisions shown in the FOMC minutes, KuCoin Ventures said tail risk has built that the Federal Reserve’s message at Jackson Hole could lean hawkish. If the easing path already priced by the market does not arrive on schedule, that could interrupt the valuation recovery in long-duration risk assets.
Primary-market activity stayed soft, with AI and infrastructure drawing capital
On private funding, KuCoin Ventures cited CryptoRank data and said activity in crypto primary markets changed little from the past few months. Capital kept tilting toward institutional finance and infrastructure. The report said news around larger deals increased, but venture financing for pure startup projects remained weak.
AI x Crypto remained one of the clearest themes of the week. The largest single financing was NeoSoul’s $11 million Pre-A round, with investors including MH Ventures, Amber Group, ArkStream Capital, 0G Foundation, and Kirin Capital. The funds are set to support Agentic Trading products and AI economic infrastructure. The project aims to let AI agents carry out prediction, trading, and on-chain economic activity on their own.
Beldex completed an $8 million financing led by Sigma Capital, with participation from NTC, Nxgen, Digital Consensus Fund, and EAK Ventures. The money will go toward privacy infrastructure, AI agent identity, encrypted communications, and privacy payments.
The report said that compared with the previous wave of Crypto AI projects, which centered more on computing power, models, and agent issuance, this week’s projects leaned more toward execution, identity, privacy, and underlying financial infrastructure. That, it said, shows the AI-Crypto overlap continuing to split into narrower segments and moving closer to real application.
About KuCoin Ventures and the disclaimer in the report
The report described KuCoin Ventures as the main investment arm of KuCoin Exchange. It said KuCoin serves users in more than 200 countries and regions and has over 40 million users. KuCoin Ventures said it invests in Web3.0 infrastructure, artificial intelligence, consumer applications, decentralized finance, and payment finance, while supporting crypto and Web3.0 builders with strategic and financial resources.
The weekly note also carried a disclaimer stating that the material is for general market information only and may include information from third-party, commercial, or sponsored sources. It said the content does not constitute legal, compliance, financial, or investment advice, nor an offer, solicitation, or guarantee. It also warned that trading and investing carry risk, past performance does not guarantee future results, and users should conduct their own research and, if needed, consult legal, tax, or financial advisers.
The report ended with an additional warning that market risk remains and investors should judge whether the views and conclusions fit their own situation before acting on them.
