Bitcoin pulled back sharply after U.S. August nonfarm payrolls came in above expectations, reinforcing expectations that the Federal Reserve may keep policy tight for longer. Over the past 24 hours, BTC fell from a high of $81,423 to a low of $78,660 and was trading at $79,583 at the time of writing, down 1.81%. Ether also weakened, falling 2.06% to $2,452, while other major tokens moved lower as well. Liquidations accelerated across the derivatives market. Total crypto liquidations reached $402 million in 24 hours, including $277 million in long positions and $125 million in shorts. A total of 89,201 traders were liquidated, with the largest single liquidation order recorded on Binance’s BTCUSDT contract at $23.17 million. The report said U.S. nonfarm payrolls increased by 162,000 in August. After the data release, the U.S. dollar index strengthened, Treasury yields rose, and all three major U.S. stock indexes closed lower. Market sentiment also cooled slightly, with Alternative.me’s Fear and Greed Index slipping to 73 from 74 a day earlier, while still remaining in the greed zone.

At Coinfest Asia 2026 in Bali, MEXC product chief Vivien Lin laid out how the exchange is trying to separate itself from rivals as parts of the centralized exchange field thin out. In an interview with Odaily, she argued that the business has become increasingly driven by network effects: platforms with deep liquidity, stronger systems and broader product stacks can keep compounding, while those built around a single narrative or a narrow product line face mounting pressure. Lin said MEXC’s focus has shifted well beyond its old reputation for listing a wide range of tokens. The platform now covers more than 3,000 digital assets and has added deeper exposure to traditional finance products, including stocks, precious metals and commodities. She said MEXC’s TradFi trading volume has risen 100x since January 2025 and more than 60x since November last year, with over 350 TradFi assets already listed. She also described the exchange’s broader product thesis: a one-stop platform should not be a pile of features, but a stable technical base with modular components that can be rearranged for different markets and regulatory regimes. Lin highlighted AI as one of MEXC’s biggest investment areas, from user-facing tools such as AI News, Smart Search and AI Strategy to back-end systems that help the platform read user behavior and tailor products. She also called perpetual futures one of crypto’s most meaningful product innovations and said she sees Bitcoin finding support in the $55,000 to $60,000 range.

MEXC Product Director Vivien Lin used a lengthy interview with BlockBeats to lay out how the exchange thinks about product design, retail user acquisition, real-world asset access and AI-driven trading. Her core argument is that the next phase of exchange competition will not be decided by simply listing more assets or piling on more features, but by reducing the distance between users and tradeable opportunities. Lin said MEXC’s zero-fee approach was designed to cut both direct trading costs and the psychological barrier to entering the market. Combined with liquidity and low-slippage execution, she described that mix as a key part of the platform’s retail-focused edge. She also said the exchange now serves more than 40 million users worldwide. On listings, Lin said MEXC mainly looks at two factors: user participation and liquidity. On market expansion, she said MEXC has already launched more than 350 RWA-linked instruments, including single stocks, indexes, gold, silver and crude oil, and that its Real Stock product connects directly to licensed traditional brokerage infrastructure to give users 1:1 exposure to underlying assets. Lin also mapped out MEXC’s AI plan in three steps: Assistant, Copilot and, eventually, a Financial Operating System. She said the company is now moving from the second stage toward the third while working through computing, algorithm and performance constraints.

U.S. equities started September on a weaker note, with the three major indexes opening lower on Sept. 1 as higher oil prices and rising global bond yields pressured risk assets. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.64%, the S&P 500 dropped 0.71%, and the Nasdaq slid 1.31%, while the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index was at one point down more than 3%. Among large-cap names, Intel and Qualcomm each fell nearly 3%. AMD and Meta were down more than 2%, while Tesla, Alibaba, and Nvidia each lost nearly 2%. According to the report, Brent crude rose above $92 a barrel during the session. Markets were focused on concerns that tensions in the Middle East and possible disruptions to transport through the Strait of Hormuz could lift energy prices and inflation, reinforcing expectations for another Federal Reserve rate increase. CME FedWatch showed the probability of a 25-basis-point hike in September, to 3.75%-4.00%, had climbed to 66%. Strategists from Bank of America, Miller Tabak, and JPMorgan offered differing views on what higher yields could mean for equities in the near term.

Ether has staged one of its strongest relative moves of the year, rising from about $1,867 on Aug. 1 to an intraday high of $2,545.88 by Aug. 21, a gain of roughly 36%. The sharpest leg came between Aug. 19 and Aug. 21, when ETH climbed nearly 20% while BTC rose about 7%, marking the first major 2026 rally in which Ether clearly outperformed Bitcoin. Yet the move has not been defined by price alone. The article argues that a tighter supply backdrop is now a key part of the story: U.S. spot Ethereum ETFs took in about $697 million in net inflows in the week ended Aug. 21, around 41.7 million to 42 million ETH are staked, exchange balances fell from about 7.7 million ETH in early June to 6.54 million by mid-August, and corporate treasury buying has continued. Those forces together have reduced the amount of ETH readily available for sale. At the same time, the rally also carried clear signs of short covering and leverage expansion, and ETF demand has not yet been tested over a longer stretch. The setup has improved, but the market still needs confirmation through sustained ETF inflows, ETH/BTC holding 0.033, and a clean break above the $2,500-$2,550 resistance zone.

WhiteForest, a former co-founder of Foresight Ventures, has published a lengthy critique of the current AI trading market while introducing Mojo, a product he says is designed to confront retail traders with their own repeated mistakes instead of feeding them more signals. Drawing on his time overseeing five business lines at Bitget and reviewing trading data from hundreds of thousands of retail users, he argues that retail losses are not mainly caused by weak judgment or a lack of information. In his view, the bigger problem is execution at critical moments and the absence of systems that can surface a trader’s own prior rules, comments, position limits, and repeated behavior before another trade is placed. The article groups most AI trading offerings into four categories: strategy cards, copy-trading agents, AI analysis chatboxes, and products that integrate large language models but reduce them to rigid, hard-coded workflows. WhiteForest says those products optimize distribution, engagement, or data collection rather than decision quality. He uses that framework to present Mojo as a system that can show a user what they did over the prior 12 months, what they previously said they would do, and whether they are simply repeating a pattern. He also makes broader claims about how user behavior data could be captured and monetized by proprietary trading firms if the market keeps moving in its current direction.

Bitcoin moved back above $77,600 on Aug. 24, rising 0.5% over the past 24 hours, while Ether led major tokens with a 1.4% gain to $2,464. Solana and XRP both slipped modestly, with SOL at $95.44 and XRP at $1.50. CoinGlass data showed total crypto liquidations reached $393 million in the past 24 hours, including $221 million in long positions and $172 million in short positions, affecting about 82,000 traders. The largest single liquidation order took place on Binance in the ETH-USDT pair, totaling $11.72 million. Over the past 14 days, Bitcoin traded between $62,552 and $78,524, while Ether ranged from $1,861 to $2,524. The report also said the Fear and Greed Index rose to 73 from 66 a day earlier, returning to the greed zone after sitting as low as 31 on Aug. 17. Technical readings cited in the source placed both BTC and ETH in overbought territory, with BTC’s daily RSI at 80.8 and ETH’s at 79.1, while both assets traded near their upper Bollinger Bands.

Bitcoin extended its rally on Aug. 21, climbing from an overnight low near $68,900 to as high as $73,990, its strongest level in nearly two months. The move came after the U.S. Treasury said it would expand long-dated bond buybacks, a development the report cited as a key macro catalyst, while short covering in crypto derivatives added force to the advance. Ethereum moved higher as well, holding above $2,340. Liquidation data from CoinGlass showed that $960 million worth of crypto positions were wiped out over the past 24 hours. Short positions accounted for $788 million of that total, compared with $171 million in long liquidations, and 121,000 traders were liquidated. The largest single liquidation order was a $25.13 million BTC-USD position on Hyperliquid. The broader market also moved up. Bitcoin was quoted at $73,685, up 6.04% over 24 hours, while Ether traded at $2,340, up 3.36%. XRP led major tokens with a gain of more than 14% to $1.2648, after touching $1.3441. Solana rose 3.62% to $88.18. The Crypto Fear and Greed Index rose to 72 from 62 a day earlier, after falling as low as 29 within the prior eight days.