Treasury Yields Return to Around 5% as U.S. Equities Trade Mixed, While BTC Holds Near Recent Highs After Breaking Above 80K
🔍 Core Insights
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📊 Market Overview
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Global rate pressure remained elevated on Friday, with Treasury yields moving higher again and U.S. equities trading mixed, while crypto staged a clear independent rebound as BTC quickly rallied from around 76K to above 80K and briefly topped 81K. Following the Fed’s rate hike, markets continued to price in the possibility of further tightening later this year. The U.S. 2-year Treasury yield rose to 4.74%, its highest level since July 2024, while the 10-year yield briefly moved back above 5%. Oil prices continued to retreat but remained above $100, meaning interest-rate and inflation pressures have not fully eased. U.S. equities were broadly range-bound on Friday, with the Dow falling 0.18% to 51,682.64, the S&P 500 gaining 0.17% to 7,650.50, and the Nasdaq rising 0.40% to 26,522.55, with tech stocks relatively stronger. Crypto assets, by comparison, significantly outperformed. BTC gained around 5.9% on Friday and briefly broke above 81K, while ETH recovered to around 2.6K. Crypto-related equities also rallied sharply, with Strategy up around 16.4%, Coinbase up around 11.7%, and Robinhood gaining around 9.1%, reflecting a clear shift in risk appetite toward crypto assets. BTC continued to hold around 80K–81K over the weekend, suggesting that selling pressure around 75K has temporarily eased, although the market is now approaching the upper end of its previous trading range. In the short term, the key question is whether 80K can turn into effective support. A further break above 82K–83K could open additional upside, while failure to do so would leave the market vulnerable to high-level consolidation following the rapid rebound.
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BTC: $81,260.7 (+0.46%); ETH: $2,632.61 (+0.79%); NASDAQ: 26,522.55 (+1.69%); S&P 500: 7,650.50 (+0.17%); Fear & Greed Index: 71 (previous: 56) (Data as of 2026-09-20 00:00 UTC)
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🧠 Market Insights
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U.S. platforms began moving quickly on on-chain equity and perpetual products immediately after the SEC’s new policy was introduced. On September 17, the SEC unveiled a five-year “Innovation Exemption,” for the first time allowing eligible platforms to facilitate on-chain trading of tokenized U.S. equities backed by real underlying shares. Just one day later, on September 18, Coinbase Derivatives filed with the CFTC to offer single-stock perpetual futures, while Kalshi submitted rules for equity perpetual trading and contracts linked to individual stocks including Apple. Bitnomial is also advancing perpetual products tied to stocks such as Palantir, with all of these products still undergoing regulatory review. While tokenized equities and equity perpetuals are structurally different products, the timing of these filings suggests that clearer signals from the SEC around on-chain equity trading are being followed by rapid product expansion across U.S. crypto and derivatives platforms. Equity-related offerings are now expanding beyond tokenized shares into perpetual futures and other trading formats. The key next steps are whether these applications receive regulatory approval and how broadly the U.S. market ultimately opens.
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🔥 Alpha Project Performance
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RWA remains a major capital rotation theme: AVAX rose around 24% over 24 hours, with the NYSE reportedly having tested Avalanche technology for more than a year and evaluating its potential use in tokenized securities infrastructure. INJ gained around 18% after 21Shares updated its Injective ETF filing on September 18, while INJ’s recent expansion onto Solana and into tokenized-equity trading use cases also provided support. Both benefited from renewed market interest in bringing traditional assets on-chain.
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Privacy momentum continues to spread from ZEC into infrastructure projects: ZAMA rose around 38% over 24 hours, supported by the recent expansion of its privacy-focused DeFi offering to 16 Morpho privacy vaults, the launch of private swaps, and privacy-asset TVL surpassing $75 million. Other privacy-related assets were also active, with XTZ up around 25% and ZEN gaining around 11%, suggesting capital continues to rotate from ZEC into the broader privacy theme.
Macro Economy
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Middle East tensions: Iran has set out seven conditions for entering any negotiations with the U.S. and conveyed three key demands to Washington through Qatar: an end to fighting across all fronts, the unfreezing of Iranian assets, and the lifting of the maritime blockade. Tehran is awaiting a response from Trump. The U.S. is also engaged in substantive talks with Yemen’s Houthis. Saudi Arabia’s capital came under air attack, prompting a rare request for Israeli assistance.
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Trump signed the Lindsey Graham Russia and Iran Sanctions Act of 2026, expanding statutory sanctions, tariffs, and restrictions against Russia and authorizing tariffs of up to 100% on countries purchasing Russian oil, while also extending existing sanctions against Iran.
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Trump announced that the U.S. has reached an agreement with Denmark over Greenland, under which the U.S. would obtain permanent security control over the territory at no cost.
Industry Events
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The U.S. CFTC moved forward with crypto regulation despite the stalled CLARITY Act, submitting its “Regulation Crypto Asset Transactions and Regulation Crypto Asset Markets” proposal to the White House for review.
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Hong Kong plans to launch a wholesale central bank digital currency, or wCBDC, by year-end for interbank settlement of tokenized deposits and around-the-clock payments.
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Vietnam plans to issue its first licenses to crypto service providers in 2026.
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Deutsche Bank plans to provide Bitcoin and digital-asset custody services to European institutional clients by the end of 2026.
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Hyperliquid launched manual borrowing, allowing users to collateralize HYPE or BTC to borrow USDC or USDT.
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Stablecoin infrastructure company Bastion received approval from the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to apply for a national trust bank charter.
Weekly Outlook
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September 20: ZRO unlock equivalent to 7.28% of circulating supply, worth approximately $26.45 million; BR unlock equivalent to 18.68% of circulating supply, worth approximately $10.40 million.
