Crypto markets opened Sept. 4 with a clear macro catalyst: traders sharply cut expectations for a Federal Reserve rate hike this month. CME pricing showed the odds of a 25-basis-point increase at roughly 50%, down from 70% a day earlier, after comments from Fed Governor Christopher Waller and New York Fed President John Williams signaled that a hike is not a settled outcome. Bitcoin briefly moved above $82,000 in early trading, while most major tokens in centralized exchange volume rankings posted gains, including BTC, ETH, XRP, SOL, BNB, DOGE, UNI, and ZEC. The day’s policy picture was mixed. A Galaxy research executive said House Republican leadership had canceled voting weeks in late September, leaving the CLARITY Act with very low odds of passing before the midterm elections. At the same time, SEC Chair Paul Atkins told Fox Business he expects the bill to be voted on in the Senate on Sept. 15 and ultimately sent to the president for signature. Separately, G20 finance ministers and central bank governors backed a clearer regulatory path for digital assets and called for stronger anti-money-laundering enforcement in large virtual-asset jurisdictions. Elsewhere, Coinbase said it is working to launch single-stock perpetual futures in the U.S., Polymarket rolled out perpetual contracts more broadly, Robinhood Chain DEX volume hit a record $1.89 billion in 24 hours, and Nvidia agreed to acquire Hugging Face for $12.9303 billion.

Bitcoin opened September on weaker footing after posting a 25% gain in August, its strongest monthly rise since November 2024 and its best August performance since 2017, according to Decrypt’s Morning Minute newsletter by Tyler Warner. The piece says BTC fell below $77,000 as broader risk markets softened, with oil prices and sovereign bond yields climbing. Warner notes that September has historically been Bitcoin’s weakest month on average since 2013, though the last three Septembers have still finished in positive territory. The newsletter ties current pressure to macro developments. Fed Chair Kevin Warsh emphasized elevated inflation in his Jackson Hole speech on Friday, while the U.S. 10-year Treasury yield rose to 4.784% and markets priced in a 66% chance of a 25-basis-point hike at the September 16 meeting. WTI crude also moved to $88 a barrel, up 2% on the day and its highest level since late July, after continued U.S. strikes against Iran. Beyond Bitcoin, the update covers $237 million in net outflows from spot Bitcoin ETFs on Tuesday versus $8.6 million in inflows to Ethereum ETFs, an SEC proposal that would let blockchains function as official ownership records for transfer agents, plans by 21 banks and asset managers to form a stablecoin company in 2026, and fresh activity across Robinhood Chain, meme coins, token launches, and NFTs.

WuBlockchain’s latest daily crypto digest rounded up seven developments across regulation, trading, and corporate strategy. The biggest item on the supply side was next month’s token unlock calendar: one-off unlocks above $10 million are expected for HYPE, XPL, ENA, ZRO, H, CARDS, and ARB, while linear monthly unlocks above the same threshold include RAIN, SOL, CC, TRUMP, ZEC, ASTER, WLD, MORPHO, PUMP, TAO, AVAX, and NEAR. The total value of large linear unlocks over the next month was put at more than $1.535 billion. In macro data, U.S. ADP employment rose by 38,000 in August, below the 48,000 consensus and the previous 44,000 reading, marking the weakest increase since January. Strategy CEO Phong Le told Bloomberg TV that the company’s Bitcoin trading decisions are driven by cost of capital rather than spot price, defending prior sales around $60,000 to $65,000 and more recent purchases near $80,000. Elsewhere, August trading volume for CEX stock-linked perpetual futures reached $665.42 billion. Tether is facing a lawsuit tied to roughly $42.4 million in frozen USDT, and Hyperliquid Strategies raised its equity financing capacity to $2.5 billion. Thailand’s SEC also approved a new crypto Travel Rule that will take effect on Feb. 27, 2027.

On-chain data shows Machi Big Brother used a rolling leveraged strategy on Hyperliquid to turn $150,000 in starting capital into a $12.72 million long position over three days, generating roughly $12.5 million in profit on that trade. As of 18:00 on Aug. 24, the machibigbrother.eth account on Hyperliquid held total assets of $10.07 million while supporting $123.72 million in long exposure. According to the figures cited in the source report, only the ETH leg remains above break-even by a meaningful margin, while HYPE, BTC and PUMP have already slipped below their break-even levels. ETH also represents 59% of total exposure, making its liquidation level of $2,229 the key line for the entire account. The report says the trader has paid about $256,000 in funding to maintain the four positions and estimates effective leverage at around 13.1x. It also links the latest gain to the same high-risk playbook that has defined Machi’s trading for months: aggressive long bias, repeated use of leverage, and adding margin instead of cutting losses. Before this rebound, he had also been selling Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs at steep losses, with earlier sales and on-chain tracking from Lookonchain indicating the proceeds were used to support leveraged ETH longs and delay liquidation.

Bitcoin ripped more than 26% last week, touching $79,500 on Aug. 21 and breaking above its 200-day moving average for the first time since November 2025. U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs took in $1.918 billion last week, while spot Ether ETFs drew $697 million. Coinbase’s Bitcoin premium index turned positive at 0.0032%, ending a 97-day negative streak, and Polymarket now puts the odds of BTC reaching $90,000 before 2027 at about 48%. Ether outperformed with a weekly gain of nearly 30%, but on-chain deleveraging signals remained visible.

The crypto market is set for a heavy week of token unlocks in the final stretch of August 2026, with total unlocked value expected to exceed $705 million, according to Techub News. The biggest named projects in the schedule include decentralized identity protocol Humanity, payments finance network Huma Finance, and Layer 1 blockchain platform Plasma. Humanity is scheduled to unlock 266.47 million H tokens on Aug. 25, worth about $18.3 million and equal to 7.92% of its released supply. Huma Finance will unlock 458.75 million HUMA on Aug. 26, worth roughly $10.07 million and representing 16.7% of released supply. Plasma is also set to unlock 88.89 million XPL on Aug. 25, with a value of about $8.91 million. Other projects listed for the same period include SoSoValue, Sahara AI, and AltLayer. BeInCrypto said token unlocks are key events for market liquidity, price swings, and investor sentiment.

Altcoins held onto their upward momentum over the weekend, according to market data cited by BlockBeats from HTX on Aug. 23. ZRO posted the biggest 24-hour gain among the tokens listed, rising 20.40% to $1.198. DGB followed with an 18.47% increase to $0.00494, while STX climbed 16.24% to $0.2341 and PUMP added 15.67% to reach $0.005314. FF rose 14.18% to $0.08578. Several other tokens also posted solid gains. ENA was up 11.68% at $0.1760, ETHFI rose 9.27% to $0.6374, and MORPHO gained 8.47% to trade at $2.433. PENDLE increased 7.25% to $1.775, YB advanced 7.09% to $0.0967, SAGA climbed 6.71% to $0.01527, XPL rose 6.65% to $0.10437, and BOME added 6.33% to $0.0012187. AAVE also remained in positive territory, up 5.53% over the past 24 hours at $132.6, putting it above the $130 mark.

Several crypto tokens are scheduled for sizable unlocks next week, according to data from Token Unlocks, with Humanity Protocol (H) leading the list by value. The project is set to unlock about 266 million H tokens at 8:00 a.m. Beijing time on Aug. 25, an amount equal to roughly 7.92% of its circulating supply and worth about $19.9 million. Huma Finance (HUMA) follows with an unlock of about 459 million tokens at 9:00 p.m. Beijing time on Aug. 26. That tranche is equivalent to around 16.70% of circulating supply and is valued at about $9.5 million. Plasma (XPL) is also on the schedule, with about 88.89 million tokens set to unlock at 8:00 p.m. Beijing time on Aug. 25, worth about $8 million. Other projects listed by Token Unlocks include SoSoValue (SOSO), Falcon Finance (FF), Collector Crypt (CARDS), and Kamino (KMNO). Their planned unlock values range from about $5.6 million to $7.3 million, with unlock ratios spanning 2.57% to 6.35% of circulating supply.