NEAR posted a sharp gain during Asian trading on Sept. 21, with CoinDesk reporting that the token rose about 23% on the day and moved above $4. CoinGecko data showed NEAR at $4.31 by the afternoon in Taipei, up roughly 24% over 24 hours. CoinDesk tied the move to NEAR Intents, a cross-chain swap service on the NEAR blockchain that has recently become a main route for Zcash conversions. The report said Zcash wallets including ZODL and Vizor have integrated NEAR Intents for ZEC swaps. Over the past week, daily ZEC volume through the service grew to six times its previous level. ZODL said swaps inside its wallet are executed through NEAR Intents, matched by independent market makers, enforced on-chain by smart contracts, and delivered directly to a newly created shielded address. Vizor, a self-custodial Zcash wallet built by the Keplr wallet team, also lists NEAR Intents as its cross-chain swap provider. DefiLlama data showed total daily volume across all assets on NEAR Intents ranging from about $90 million to $200 million between Sept. 5 and Sept. 16, then rising to about $303 million on Sept. 17. Volume was about $228 million on Sept. 18 and about $119 million on Sept. 20, with roughly $1.16 billion over the past seven days.

Trader Boomer, whose linked address is tracked under the X account solanadoomer1, posted about $12.271 million in net profit over the past 30 days on Hyperliquid, according to TradingBeats. That result placed the account among the top three for contract net profit on the platform over the same period. TradingBeats data shows Boomer completed 52 trades this month, with about 23 ending in profit. The account’s gains were driven mainly by several long ZEC trades, especially two large rounds. From Sept. 2 to Sept. 10, Boomer bought and closed roughly 13,000 ZEC, entering at an average price of about $869.6 and exiting at about $1,261.6, for profit of about $5.096 million. From Sept. 15 to Sept. 19, the trader rebuilt and gradually expanded a ZEC long to 15,000 coins, with an entry cost of about $1,210 and a final average exit price of about $1,557.1, producing another $5.206 million. Those two rounds alone accounted for about $10.302 million in closed profit. Boomer has now shifted the main position to ETH. At 06:27 this morning, the trader added 2,500 ETH in about three seconds in transactions worth about $6.603 million. Current core positions include a 12,500 ETH long valued at about $33.284 million and a NEAR long of about 482,500 tokens valued at about $2.102 million. Combined, the two longs stand at about $35.386 million, with ETH making up about 94%, and there are currently no open resting orders.

ChainFeeds’ Sept. 21 research roundup pulled together five separate threads shaping the crypto market: Michael Saylor’s argument that the digital asset industry should keep moving without waiting for the CLARITY Act; Hyperliquid’s new lending feature, which drew $269 million in borrowing on day one and gave HYPE a new role as on-chain collateral; Glassnode’s view that Bitcoin has slipped below a key cost basis while fresh capital demand is fading; Bankless co-founder David Hoffman’s call that altcoin season has already begun; and GSR’s long-range review of token launch structures, which found that low-circulating, high-FDV launches have repeatedly produced weak post-listing returns. The report spans regulation, market structure, token design and project-specific momentum. It also includes a separate list of daily headlines, from Uniswap domain claims involving SBF to a ZetaChain vote on moving ZETA to Solana, a TRUMP token transfer to BitGo, and an update on stolen assets tied to the Fetch.ai attacker. Taken together, the roundup offers a snapshot of how policy signals, leverage, liquidity conditions and issuance mechanics are interacting across the crypto market.

The total cryptocurrency market capitalization climbed back to $2.8 trillion on Sept. 19 and at one point came close to $2.9 trillion, according to an Odaily report citing Bitcoin.com News. Bitcoin rose 5% on the day to $81,914, its highest level since Sept. 4, after briefly falling below $75,000 on Sept. 16. Among major altcoin moves, Hyperliquid’s HYPE token reached a record high of $94.48, posting an 18% weekly gain and pushing its market capitalization above $20 billion. Zcash’s ZEC jumped 36% to $1,590, marking a multi-year high and lifting its market value to nearly $25 billion. Other tokens also advanced during the period. NEAR rose from $2.33 on Sept. 13 to $4.06, while AVAX gained nearly 50% over the week. ETH and XRP were up between 3% and 6%. Altcoin market capitalization increased from $1.17 trillion at the start of the week to $1.23 trillion before easing back to just under $1.2 trillion.

HYPE climbed past 94 USDT on Sept. 21, extending its record run with a 24-hour gain of 9.33%, according to OKX market data. The day’s roundup also featured a regulatory filing from prediction market platform Kalshi, which is seeking approval to list perpetual contracts tied to U.S. stocks. The proposal has been submitted to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, but it has not been approved. Elsewhere, Circle-backed blockchain Arc launched an agent payments feature through its Facilitator Service, giving x402 developers a custodial access route that accepts USDC and supports onchain settlement across Arc, Base, and Polygon without requiring Relayer keys or a separate gas wallet. Vietnam also said it plans to issue its first licenses to crypto asset service providers in 2026 under a pilot legal framework, while stepping up regulatory coordination with Austria’s Financial Market Authority. Other items in the market update included strong gains in crypto-related U.S. equities, a warning that pPOLY is not an official Polymarket token or direct equity exposure, criticism from ZachXBT over the zkSNARKs NFT project, and Standard Chartered’s long-term price targets for ARB through 2030.

The US Senate failed to advance the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act after a cloture motion drew 49 votes in favor and 50 against, short of the 60 needed. Republican Senator Thom Tillis later said his “no” vote was procedural, leaving open the possibility of another vote, though time on the congressional calendar appears limited. In the gap left by stalled legislation, the US Securities and Exchange Commission rolled out a five-year exemption for limited trading of tokenized US stocks on decentralized public blockchains, while the Commodity Futures Trading Commission offered relief for passive software providers connecting users to regulated derivatives venues and submitted draft crypto rules to the White House. Separately, the House Financial Services Committee passed the American Reserve Modernization Act of 2026, which would put a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve into law, and the House Ways and Means Committee advanced the Digital Asset Tax Certainty Act. Outside Washington, Revolut faced a second ransom demand tied to stolen customer passport and KYC selfie data, Chainalysis reported a 420% rise in onchain malware-related activity over 12 months, and Standard Chartered said Arbitrum could reach $10 by 2030, implying roughly 70x upside from current levels.

Altcoins continued to post broad gains on Sept. 21, according to HTX market data cited by BlockBeats. The move came as the broader cryptocurrency market recovery kept supporting risk appetite across smaller-cap tokens and major altcoins alike. FTT rose more than 34% over the past 24 hours, lifting its market capitalization to $89 million, while SAGA led the group with a gain of more than 48% and a market cap of $39 million. LUNA climbed more than 19% to a market cap of $68 million, and S rose more than 18% to $113 million. KMNO and NEAR each advanced more than 17%, with their market capitalizations reaching $283 million and $5.456 billion, respectively. AVAX and MINA also recorded gains of more than 11%, bringing their market caps to $5.009 billion and $152 million.

A joint report from crypto analytics firm Glassnode and exchange Bybit says Bitcoin has outperformed most of the broader crypto market over the past two years, rising 28% while the median market-cap altcoin fell 74% on average. Ethereum was broadly flat over the same period. The report describes that divergence as a defining feature of the current cycle, standing in contrast to earlier “altseason” patterns in which capital rotated from Bitcoin into smaller tokens as the market matured. The report also points to a sharp concentration of leverage in riskier parts of the market. Bitcoin futures open interest stands at roughly 2% of its market capitalization, while the figure for speculative smaller tokens such as PEPE is close to 24%, according to the report. It adds that the data was measured through the settlement close on Aug. 23 and only reflects venues tracked by Glassnode, whose exchange coverage is limited. Institutional flows were also tilted toward Bitcoin. Spot Bitcoin ETFs have recorded about $55.2 billion in cumulative net inflows, compared with about $13.1 billion for spot Ethereum ETFs, which have recently logged several consecutive days of net outflows.