Over the course of her long and influential life, Gloria Steinem went from being described in the pages of TIME as “one of the best dates to take to a New York party these days” and “smashing looking Gucci liberal” to being lauded as a “feminist icon.” If nothing else, the shift in the tone of her coverage in the magazine provides a window into the change in attitudes toward women that she helped engineer over the course of her 92-year life, which ended on Sept. 2.
Let’s add one more description to the list: durable dynamo. Steinem never outlived her ability to be relevant, inspiring several generations of women to organize and strive to be given the same opportunities as men. She never stopped blazing a trail for those who faced a particularly dense thicket and she never thought small. “I believe that things are a circle, not a hierarchy,” she said to TIME in 2011. “The kind of society we are striving toward is one in which things are linked not ranked. And one in which we understand that the women’s movement and the anti racist movement and the gay movement and the environmentalist movement, they’re all linked.”
Steinem was born on March 25, 1934, to a homemaker mother and a father with, she later said, only two points of pride: “He never wore a hat, and he never had a job. He was always going to make a movie, or cut a record, or start a new hotel, or come up with a new orange drink.” She didn’t spend a full year in school until she was 12, when her parents split and she ended up living with her mother, whose mental health was in a dire state, in East Toledo, Ohio. At 16, she was sent to live with an aunt in Washington. Before that, she says, “I’d never lived any place to invite anybody home to. I thought that people always ate out of refrigerators.”
After graduating from Smith College in 1956, she spent two years in India on a fellowship (and also to get out of an engagement), then came home to work in Cambridge, Mass., for a group encouraging American students to attend Communist youth festivals abroad. It was later revealed to be CIA-funded, but Steinem was unfussed, saying she “was happy to use the Establishment’s money against the Establishment.”
In 1963, she famously published a first-person account of her glamour-free month undercover as a Playboy Bunny in Show magazine. It was her big break, and it also threatened to be her curse, since at first she almost exclusively got offered assignments along the same lines. This was the period when TIME thought it important to note an appearance in which she wore “a Luis Estevez creation that consisted of five widely spaced bands of chinchilla held together by transparent black net. In between was supposed to be little more than a bare bodkin.”
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She later got hired at the fledgling New York magazine, where in 1968 her first story was about Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh’s stint as a New York City waiter and laundryman. As she steadily found her journalistic feet, she began to find her calling: to use her charm, wit and platform to promote equality. Steinem understood the fear that these ideas stirred up in people. “Women don’t want to exchange places with men,” she wrote in an essay for TIME in 1970, shortly after the magazine identified her as “a trim, undeniably female, blonde-streaked brunette who has been described as ‘the thinking man’s Jean Shrimpton.’ ” She went on to add: “But we do want to change the economic system to one more based on merit. In Women’s Lib Utopia, there will be free access to good jobs—and decent pay for the bad ones women have been performing all along, including housework.”
Inevitably, her activism moved beyond writing to organizing. In 1971, along with Shirley Chisholm, Bella Abzug, Betty Friedan and several others, she convened the National Women’s Political Caucus to try to get more women into government offices. Shortly after that she co-founded Ms. magazine, which she described as “a how-to magazine; not how to make jelly but how to seize control of your life.” TIME’s writers, by this time calling her “feminism’s superstar,” finally began to acknowledge her impact. A story about the 1972 Democratic convention—titled, alas, “Eve’s Operatives”—opened with: “Gazing around the convention through her blue-tinted glasses, Gloria Steinem pronounced with satisfaction: ‘We’ve changed the population here. It almost looks like the country. What she meant was that women are 52% of the nation’s population, and last week close to 40% of the convention delegates were women—a dramatic jump over their 13% representation at the 1968 Democratic Convention.”
There was a still way to go, however—both for women and for TIME. “Decorative as the women were in their bell-bottom trousers, miniskirts, jeans and hot pants,” the magazine went on to say, “they were not there to be on display but to seek power. Except for a couple of setbacks, they got enough to satisfy and even surprise them.” After the crushing loss of Democratic Presidential Candidate George McGovern to Richard Nixon, Steinem’s political campaigning took a backseat to her advocacy work. The 1977 women’s conference, which she has called “the most important event that nobody knows about,” remained one of her proudest achievements, even as it sparked a conservative backlash and perhaps the founding of the religious right.
As the decades passed, Steinem’s activism grew to encompass more than women’s equality. She campaigned on behalf of native people, was arrested while protesting apartheid, publicly opposed the first Gulf War, advocated for disarmament in Korea, spoke against child abuse, female genital mutilation and pornography, and was an early supporter of LGB rights. (It took her a little longer to endorse the transgender movement.) Her advocacy was always couched in pragmatism and compassion. She pointed out that the pedestal women were put on was “as much a prison as any small, confined space” and called her 2019 memoir The Truth Will Set You Free, But First It Will Piss You Off! Writing, her first calling, remained one of her great loves—”the only thing that, when I do it, I don’t feel I should be doing something else.” She published books throughout her career, many of which, including her first memoir, 1983’s Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions, were bestsellers, and she had another one due out this fall. (She often joked that she wished her books didn’t get republished so much because it would mean they were no longer relevant.)
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By the ’90s, Steinem had scored a TIME cover, albeit one about a pushback against feminism, after her book about female self esteem—Revolution From Within—was a bestseller. “As she tours shopping malls, Steinem is being mobbed by crowds that, according to one bookstore owner, exceed those of Oliver North and Vanna White, the backlash icons of American manhood and womanhood,” Nancy Gibbs wrote. As well as writing her own books, Steinem contributed to countless others, appeared in more than 120 films, help produce several documentaries and inspired the 2019 Off Broadway play, Gloria: A Life. She cast her gaze domestically, locally, nationally and globally, founding Equality Now, which aimed to elevate and protect the rights of girls and women internationally.
Somewhere around the turn of the century, the times—and TIME— caught up with Steinem; her ideas became mainstream and her words and activities were covered with the kind of reverence reserved for icons. In 2013, President Barack Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Half a century after writing her Women’s Lib Utopia essay for TIME, she annotated it, warning that women had made many advances but that the “time of greatest danger comes after a victory, and that’s where we are now.” (She also noted that she found out later that she had been paid less than the men who wrote for the same issue.)
Through it all she kept one of her less acknowledged gifts intact: her sense of humor. She did not come up with the classic feminist saying that women need men like a fish needs a bicycle, but she popularized it. She was always threatening to get a back tattoo for her 70th birthday. So frequently was she asked about her beauty secret that she came up with the perfect reply: “Revolution,” she would say. “It keeps you young.”
In 2011, TIME asked what she would do if she only had two years to live. “It seems to me one of the uses of age is to help you know what you want to do and keep from wasting time,” she said. “And I have this unfortunate notion that I’m immortal, which doesn’t cause you to plan very well. I think it would be mainly about writing and seeing friends, my chosen family. And writing what I believe. And maybe living with elephants. I do still want to live with elephants.”
Ethereum price is trading around $2,390, but the chart is starting to look tired. ETH has shed 3%-6% over the past week, and the bounce that carried it above $2,400 last week is losing steam fast. What’s not showing up in the number? A quieter shift in derivatives positioning that suggests traders are hedging, not accumulating.
Spot Ethereum ETFs logged inflows for a 12th consecutive session before turning red yesterday, even as Bitcoin ETFs bled outflows, a gap that would normally read bullish for ETH. Institutional buyers keep showing up, yet the spot price refuses to follow.
Ethereum ETF Flows, Coinglass
A Bybit market note flagged ETH as “consolidating at high levels” while facing “increased downward pressure” from liquidity spillover and leverage unwinds, a dynamic that often precedes a liquidation cascade rather than a clean breakout.
Macro conditions aren’t helping. Rate-cut odds have been getting repriced hard this week, and that kind of shift tends to hit risk assets like ETH before it hits anything else.
ETH’s $2,400 zone is the line in the sand right now. Bybit’s own data flags a breach below that level as a potential accelerant for further downside, and our technical mapping shows a support ladder underneath at $2,290, then $2,210, then $2,160, with $2,550 standing as the key resistance overhead.
Bull case: ETH reclaims $2,438.85 (the 0.618 Fibonacci retracement) and pushes toward $2,550, opening a path to $2,800 if momentum returns.
Bitcoin Hyper Targets Early Mover Upside as Ethereum Tests Key Levels
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Selling pressure like this is exactly why long-term ETH holders start eyeing the exits, or start looking for asymmetric bets elsewhere.
When a $290 billion asset struggles to hold $2,400, the marginal upside on adding more ETH at these levels looks thin. That’s pushing capital toward earlier-stage infrastructure plays with room to actually multiply.
Bitcoin Hyper ($HYPER) is building the first Bitcoin Layer 2 with full SVM integration, aiming to process transactions faster than Solana while settling back to Bitcoin’s base layer for security.
The presale has raised $33 million at a current token price of $0.0136856, with staking rewards live at a high 60% APY for early participants. Its Decentralized Canonical Bridge lets BTC move into the L2 without a custodial middleman, a real fix for Bitcoin’s programmability gap.
Gloria Steinem, the feminist activist who inspired a generation of women and fought for gender equality, has died at age 92.
Her foundation announced the news in a social media post Thursday morning, sharing that Steinem had “passed away peacefully” at her home in New York City the day before, surrounded by her loved ones.
“Gloria’s greatest gift was her ability to listen to others, to make others feel seen and heard. Her words, actions, and example gave people permission to be their truest selves. Gloria lived true to her independent spirit, always with curiosity and a great sense of humor,” the statement read.
“Gloria loved the tradition of lighting signal fires on hills to light the way to the other side of the mountain. Lighting your own candle for Gloria makes you part of this global and celestial community circle.”
Bitcoin is back above $77,500 with every major green on the day, though the week still reads red. Global investors are carrying their lowest currency protection on U.S. assets in a decade.
Brazilian mills have switched cane away from sugar and into ethanol. Brent crude near $94 a barrel makes fuel the better payer, and the Hormuz closure keeps energy costs high. Mills entered the season less than half-hedged, so they moved quickly. Center-South sugar output fell 26.3% year over year in June, according to UNICA.
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India has meanwhile turned buyer. New Delhi banned exports in May, then allowed 1 million tonnes of duty-free raw imports through Oct. 31. That is its first sizeable purchase since the 2017-18 season. Domestic prices hit a 16-year high, and the government capped bulk buyers at 15 days of stock.
Forecasters have also flipped the global balance. Green Pool projects a 3.2 million tonne deficit for 2026/27, while StoneX sees 1.7 million tonnes. Covrig Analytics and Czarnikow both expected surpluses in June.
Czarnikow now forecasts a second shortfall in 2027/28. A strong El Niño adds risk to Indian and Thai cane, a threat Goldman flagged in June.
Three drivers behind the sugar price rally / Source: BeInCrypto
Sugar Price Technical Analysis Eyes 19.48 Cents
The weekly chart tracks a retracement of the slide from 23.38 cents. Sugar broke above the 0.236 Fibonacci level at 15.58 cents in August, turning that band into potential support.
Price now sits at the 0.5 retracement at 18.28 cents. Thursday’s candle tagged 18.58 cents before easing back, so resistance has held on the first attempt.
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A weekly close above 18.28 cents would expose the 0.618 retracement at 19.48 cents. That level coincides with the declining 200-week moving average, which reinforces it as resistance. The 0.786 level at 21.20 cents sits above.
Sugar weekly chart / Source: Tradingview
On the downside, the 0.382 retracement at 17.08 cents offers first support. A deeper correction would retest 15.58 cents.
Volume has risen sharply over the past three weeks, which suggests conviction behind the breakout. The weekly RSI also sits at its highest reading since April 2023. Momentum, therefore, favors the commodities bulls for now.
Managed money held 207,100 net long contracts in late August, a two-year high, after sitting net short in May. However, crowded positioning could sharpen any reversal.
State fairs might also be the last best venue we have where people compete for the love of their passions. At the Creative Arts building this year, I walked by display cases with hundreds of cookies, scones, and bars from kitchens across the state. Tiny flags glued to toothpicks poked out from atop the winners.
Next, I stopped by the horticulture building to see our neighbor’s prize-winning floral arrangements; she grows flowers all summer to show them at the fair. And over at the livestock barns, I watched farmers carefully parade their perfectly groomed sheep in a circle around a judge who was picking winners. I asked one of the contestants what they would get if they won.
“A trophy, a ribbon, and about 28 bucks,” she said, adding with a smile, “If you’re getting into sheep for the money, it’s not worth it.”
In a time when almost every level of competition is heavily commercialized, from youth sports to the NIL era to the professionalization of everything, it’s refreshing to see people competing solely for the pride of putting their work on display. And thankfully, there’s nothing controversial about a flower, a cookie, or a beautiful animal—they’re things everyone can enjoy.
BeInCrypto is officially partnering with the Government Blockchain Association (GBA) for their flagship summit, The Future of Money, Governance, and the Law (FoMGL) taking place September 29 to October 2, 2026 across Washington, D.C.and New York.
The partnership will mark the launch of BeInCrypto’s Legal & Regulatory Expert Council, with the council making its public debut during the event’s New York programme at the United Nations Headquarters (pending final room confirmation).
Intersection of Policy, Capital and Technology
The three-day GBA programme will move from Capitol Hill discussions with U.S. policymakers to a full-day summit at the National Press Club focusing on the impact of AI, blockchain and quantum on financial services, including digital assets, tokenization, and regulatory frameworks.That evening features cryptopoly, gala reception in a historic georgian mansion where the guests receive movie money and cryptocurrency themed cards to buy, trade and sell to win generous crypto themed prizes. The event is followed by the Future of Money, Governance & the Law FinTech Summit in New York.
Confirmed speakers include Dino Cataldo Dell’Accio (UN Joint Staff Pension Fund), Jarod Koopman (U.S. Treasury / IRS), Landon Zinda (SEC Crypto Task Force), Thomas Puschnik (World Bank), Lauren Belive (Ripple), Corey Then (Circle), Robin Cook (Coinbase), Dr. Scott Stornetta (blockchain co-inventor), Charles Hoskinson (Cardano), Markus Veith (Grant Thornton), and Christopher Bramwell (Utah State Government) amongst many others.
The Legal & Regulatory Expert Council unites senior practitioners working across crypto and digital-asset regulation, compliance, tax, financial data, AML and sanctions, and institutional adoption.
Its focus is on the issues around how digital asset businesses operate across markets, including the right jurisdiction, navigating new regulatory frameworks and understanding the implications of tax, market structure, privacy and cross-border compliance.
The council will bring these perspectives to the global policy conversation at FoMGL, where BeInCrypto’s Global Head of News, Brian McGleenon, will moderate a panel on the state of global crypto regulation. Panel details and council members joining him on stage will be announced ahead of the event.
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Both legs of the summit are open to the BeInCrypto community. The New York programme at the United Nations Headquarters (pending final room confirmation) is free to attend. For Washington, D.C., readers can use the code BEINCRYPTO20 at checkout for 20% off tickets. You can secure your spot here.
BeInCrypto is part of the BeInNews Academy Ltd, an independent media group covering the convergence of finance and digital assets. We help professionals act with confidence in a complex and fast-changing industry through our newsroom, Expert Councils, Research Division, the Institutional 100 Awards, and event activations.
Ukraine has dismantled a network of fake crypto investment platforms that allegedly drained wallets belonging to people in more than 20 countries, with investigators identifying 62 victims so far.
Summary
Ukraine dismantled fake crypto investment platforms that targeted victims across more than 20 countries.
Investigators have identified 62 victims, while the network reportedly handled up to $1 million a month at its peak.
Victims were shown fake investment gains before a wallet drainer stole their crypto when they tried to withdraw funds.
Police conducted 34 searches and seized more than 100 computers, over 100 phones and 15 vehicles.
The National Police of Ukraine said investigators from its Main Investigation Department worked with the Security Service of Ukraine and the Office of the Prosecutor General to uncover the operation, which maintained several offices in Kyiv and the surrounding region.
Поліцейські припинили діяльність мережі фейкових інвестиційних платформ, через які шахраї викрадали криптовалюту у громадян понад 20 країн
More than 46 Ukrainians were recruited into the network, while authorities are still identifying other participants, victims and the total amount stolen.
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Fake crypto investment platforms targeted more than 20 countries
Investigators said the group created websites designed to look like legitimate investment platforms and used them to offer supposedly profitable cryptocurrency projects.
The Security Service said the scheme began with advertising distributed through Telegram, where potential customers were offered opportunities to invest in crypto projects. Users who registered were instructed to connect a cryptocurrency wallet and transfer funds to the platform.
Behind the websites, developers maintained the infrastructure and worked to keep the platforms accessible when attempts were made to block them. Other members of the group staffed offices, communicated with customers and provided security for the operation.
Once funds were deposited, employees manually simulated investment activity. Customers could see account balances rising inside their dashboards, although investigators said the displayed trading activity was fabricated.
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A 25-year-old IT specialist organized the network, according to the Security Service. At its peak, the operation had monthly turnover of up to $1 million.
Authorities have so far identified 62 victims from more than 20 countries. They included citizens of Germany, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Spain, France, the UK, Canada and Israel.
The number could rise as investigators continue examining information recovered from the network’s infrastructure and determining how many people transferred cryptocurrency through its websites.
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Wallet drainer activated during withdrawal attempts
The alleged theft entered another stage when customers attempted to withdraw their funds.
Operators blocked withdrawal requests and told victims that another verification procedure was required before their money could be released. Users were instructed to connect their primary cryptocurrency wallet and approve a small test transaction to demonstrate that the platform was functioning.
Investigators said the websites contained a wallet drainer that used the authorization to transfer assets from a connected wallet to addresses controlled by the group. After the cryptocurrency had been moved, the victim lost access to the investment platform.
The method relied on the same type of malicious authorization used in wallet drainer attacks, where users can unknowingly give an attacker-controlled contract permission to move their tokens. As crypto.news previously reported in July, approval phishing can involve token approvals, permit signatures and other authorizations that allow assets to be transferred without an attacker obtaining the wallet owner’s private key.
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A similar technique surfaced in August when a Hyperliquid user lost roughly 550,000 USDC after interacting with a fraudulent website promoted through a Google advertisement. Security firm Salus later connected the fake Hyperliquid website to infrastructure associated with the Inferno drainer ecosystem.
Salus said that operation included malicious scripts, approval-command generation, automated draining, cross-chain withdrawals and tools for consolidating stolen funds. The Ukrainian case used a different investment pitch, but investigators similarly said victims were induced to authorize a transaction before assets were removed from their wallets.
The fake platforms collected more than cryptocurrency. Registration and verification procedures gathered victims’ passport information, phone numbers, email addresses, account logins, passwords and photographs, according to Ukrainian authorities.
Netherlands servers held records of victims and stolen crypto
Investigators traced server equipment used by the network to the Netherlands and obtained access to a database stored there.
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The records contained information about victims, including cryptocurrency wallet addresses and the amounts allegedly stolen from individual users. Authorities said the servers held internal correspondence between members of the group and records describing how the fraudulent platforms operated.
Access to the database helped investigators trace the network across several countries and identify people who had interacted with the websites.
The international element follows several law enforcement operations targeting online investment fraud and crypto-linked social engineering schemes. INTERPOL said in August that Operation Jackal IV resulted in 58 arrests and identified 263 suspects after authorities in 22 countries targeted investment scams, romance fraud and related money laundering networks.
South African authorities seized $2.67 million during that operation and blocked 257 bank accounts, while Romanian police arrested 11 suspects in an investment scheme associated with an estimated €143 million, according to INTERPOL.
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A larger INTERPOL crackdown reported in July produced 5,811 arrests across 97 countries and territories. Operation First Light intercepted $293 million in illicit assets, blocked more than 31,000 bank accounts and identified over 142,000 victims while targeting investment fraud, romance scams, impersonation and other forms of social engineering.
Investigators in that operation uncovered crypto laundering activity that used several digital assets and cross-chain swaps. INTERPOL said one wallet linked to a Thai investigation had processed more than $122.5 million over a 10-month period.
Approval phishing has drawn separate enforcement attention. A UK-led operation involving authorities in the United States and Canada froze more than $12 million in suspected scam proceeds earlier this year and identified more than 20,000 potential victims.
The operation focused on schemes in which victims were persuaded to sign malicious blockchain authorizations that gave scammers permission to move cryptocurrency from their wallets.
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Police seized more than 200 computers and phones
Ukrainian officers carried out 34 searches at homes, offices and vehicles across Kyiv and the surrounding region as part of the investigation.
More than 100 computers and other pieces of computer equipment were seized along with over 100 mobile phones, 79 SIM cards and a GSM gateway. Police recovered cash and records connected with the operation, while 15 vehicles were taken during the searches.
Some cars and real estate used by members of the network had been registered in the names of suspects’ wives and other relatives, investigators said. The alleged organizer traveled with armed guards.
The criminal proceedings are being conducted under Part 5 of Article 190 of Ukraine’s Criminal Code, which covers fraud. Authorities have not disclosed a final loss figure because they are continuing to identify suspected members of the network and additional victims.
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Ukraine has separately been developing procedures for handling cryptocurrency recovered through criminal cases. Authorities transferred more than $8.3 million in seized USDT to a state-managed wallet in June, the first time confiscated cryptocurrency had been placed under direct state management.
The Royal United Services Institute has estimated that stronger rules for tracing, seizing and managing illicit cryptocurrency could help Ukraine recover at least $10 billion in stolen funds and lost tax revenue.
Police said investigators are continuing to identify everyone involved in the fake investment network, locate further victims and determine the total value of cryptocurrency stolen through the platforms.
Hyperliquid opened its HIP-4 outcome-market infrastructure to outside venues on Aug. 29, and daily trading volume nearly tripled within three days, according to research published Sept. 3.
Summary
Hyperliquid opened HIP-4 deployment August 29, and reported daily outcome volume tripled within three days.
Two outside venues each posted 500,000 HYPE bonds to deploy markets using approved templates independently.
Outcome captured 85% of reported volume while offering traders a $1 million active rebate program.
Hyperliquid validators publish settlement prices every three seconds, according to the research collective’s analysis publicly.
U.S. availability would require regulatory authorization, while sports contracts could face additional federal scrutiny requirements.
Daily volume increased from an August average of approximately $545,000 to $1.97 million on Aug. 31, the Hyperliquid Research Collective reported. The trailing daily figure subsequently reached approximately $2.75 million.
Two outside venues, Outcome and Skew, posted 500,000 HYPE bonds and began deploying markets through seven templates approved by Hyperliquid validators. However, the early volume was heavily concentrated in Outcome and supported by trading incentives.
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The rollout makes market deployment permissionless at the protocol level. It does not automatically authorize HIP-4 operators to serve U.S. customers or offer every category of event contract.
Hyperliquid HIP-4 opens deployment to outside venues
HIP-4 supports fully collateralized outcome contracts that settle within a fixed range, usually zero or one. Prices can represent the market’s assessment of whether a specified event will occur.
Unlike perpetual futures, these contracts do not use leverage, funding payments or liquidations. Traders must provide the full collateral required for their positions.
The Aug. 29 upgrade opened deployment to outside builders. Each operator must bond 500,000 HYPE for at least six months. The bond can be slashed if validators determine that a deployer created an invalid market, settled it incorrectly or failed to complete settlement within the permitted period.
Permissionless deployment also remains limited by templates. Validators approve standard market formats and their permitted language. Builders can then launch markets that follow those specifications without seeking separate approval for every contract.
This design separates market creation from template governance. Outside operators gain control over individual listings, while validators retain influence over the categories and settlement structures that the protocol supports.
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Incentives drove most of the early volume
Outcome accounted for approximately 85% of reported HIP-4 volume after third-party deployment opened. Skew produced roughly 1%, leaving the remaining activity with existing validator-deployed markets.
Hyperliquid opened HIP-4 to outside venues on August 29 and daily volume tripled in three days, from a $545,000 August average to $1.97 million on August 31.
Two venues posted 500k HYPE bonds and drew from the 7 validator-approved templates. Outcome took 85% of volume behind a…
— Hyperliquid Research Collective (HRC) (@HyperliquidR) September 3, 2026
Outcome introduced a $1 million rebate campaign that paid users approximately one cent for every dollar traded, according to the research. The incentive means the initial increase should not be treated entirely as evidence of lasting demand.
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Rebate programs can encourage participants to trade more frequently or execute transactions that would be less attractive without rewards. The reported volume remains genuine trading activity, but its durability will become clearer after incentives decline or expire.
The concentration also creates an early test for HIP-4’s permissionless model. Two operators have posted bonds, yet one venue controls most of the new activity. More deployers, market templates and liquidity sources would be needed to establish a broader competitive market.
The current 500,000 HYPE requirement provides an economic penalty for misconduct. However, its dollar value also creates a high entry barrier. Only operators controlling or borrowing large HYPE positions can deploy markets directly.
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No verified market data showed that the permissionless rollout alone caused a distinct change in HYPE’s price. Wider crypto-market conditions and other activity on Hyperliquid also affect the token.
Shared settlement connects outcomes with perpetuals
HIP-4 contracts settle using prices published by Hyperliquid validators every three seconds, according to the collective. The outcome positions use the same account environment supporting Hyperliquid’s perpetual markets.
This architecture can allow a trader to hedge a binary outcome with a perpetual contract referencing the same mark price. Because both positions use the same underlying price source, the hedge avoids differences created when separate venues use different indexes or settlement times.
For example, a contract paying one dollar if Bitcoin closes above a specified level could be paired with a Bitcoin perpetual position. Both instruments would respond to a common Hyperliquid mark rather than independent external references.
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The arrangement does not remove every risk. Traders still face liquidity, execution and settlement risks. Validators also play a central role in publishing the prices used for settlement.
The collective argued that neither Kalshi nor Polymarket can offer an identical hedge because their event contracts do not share Hyperliquid’s perpetual account and mark-price system. That comparison concerns technical market structure, not liquidity quality, regulatory protection or overall platform risk.
Kalshi operates as a regulated U.S. designated contract market. Polymarket has used blockchain settlement and external resolution systems. Hyperliquid instead places matching, collateral and validator-directed settlement within its own network.
That tighter structure may reduce basis differences between instruments. It also concentrates operational dependencies within Hyperliquid’s validator and trading systems.
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U.S. access remains a separate challenge
None of the current HIP-4 templates reportedly covers sports, elections or other categories commonly associated with federal event-contract disputes. Existing listings instead focus on prices, economic figures and other objectively measurable results.
Avoiding sports does not by itself make the markets lawful for U.S. customers. A platform offering commodity derivatives to U.S. persons generally requires an appropriate regulatory framework, regardless of whether its software permits permissionless deployment.
The Commodity Exchange Act allows registered entities to submit new contracts to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Federal law also allows the CFTC to review event contracts involving gaming, terrorism, assassination, war, unlawful activity or similar subjects considered contrary to the public interest.
Current CFTC rules establish a review process for contracts involving those categories. The regulator can request a trading suspension during a 90-day review before approving or rejecting a contract.
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Sports would therefore add another legal question. The research collective found that sports accounted for 91% of HIP-4’s largest historical trading session. Opening third-party sports markets could increase demand, but it could also trigger scrutiny under the gaming provision.
The collective described regulatory “permission” as the remaining constraint, but no regulator has confirmed that registration alone would authorize every HIP-4 structure or market category.
The legal status could also depend on who operates the interface, controls market parameters, receives fees and makes the platform available to U.S. users. A protocol’s decentralized architecture does not settle those questions automatically.
What happens next for HIP-4
The clearest test will be whether volume remains above its August average after Outcome’s rebate campaign ends. Activity will also need to spread beyond a single operator to demonstrate that permissionless deployment has produced durable competition.
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Additional builders may enter after posting the required HYPE bonds. Hyperliquid validators could approve more templates, expanding the range of economic, crypto and financial outcomes available for deployment.
U.S. access would require a separate compliance path. Any operator seeking American users would need to determine whether its contracts require CFTC registration, submission or other authorization.
Sports markets would face an added review question because federal law specifically identifies gaming as an event-contract category that may be examined under the public-interest standard.
FAQs
What is Hyperliquid HIP-4?
HIP-4 is Hyperliquid’s framework for fully collateralized outcome contracts. The contracts commonly settle at zero or one based on a predetermined result.
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When did permissionless HIP-4 deployment begin?
Hyperliquid enabled outside HIP-4 deployment on Aug. 29, 2026. Builders must use validator-approved templates and post a 500,000 HYPE bond.
Why did HIP-4 volume triple?
Outcome generated most of the increase after launching third-party markets. Its $1 million rebate program also rewarded users according to their trading volume.
Can U.S. customers legally trade HIP-4 markets?
Permissionless protocol deployment does not establish lawful U.S. access. Operators may require CFTC registration or authorization, depending on their products and activities.
Why could sports markets face greater scrutiny?
The Commodity Exchange Act allows the CFTC to review certain event contracts involving gaming under a public-interest standard.
Bitcoin was trading almost flat at $77,700 as crypto traders awaited Friday’s U.S. jobs report. The data could influence expectations for the Federal Reserve’s next major move. Ethereum was also holding near $2,400.
The market was in a wait-and-see mode ahead of the employment release. Bitcoin’s limited move and Ethereum’s similarly quiet trading reflected a period of caution as traders looked for a clearer signal from the U.S. data.
Could US payrolls post another decline on Friday? The number of hires fell by -278,000 in July, to 5.05 million, the lowest since February. At the same time, total separations, the number of workers leaving their jobs through quits, layoffs or other departures, dropped… pic.twitter.com/Hq4JOuRGyX
Friday’s report could either reinforce or alter the market’s view of the policy outlook. For crypto traders, that makes the release a key focus while Bitcoin remains near its current level.
The flat price action comes alongside signs of resilience in Bitcoin holdings. About 68% of all Bitcoin in circulation is currently in profit despite global uncertainty. That measure indicates that a substantial share of the supply is above its purchase price.
At the same time, demand for Bitcoin ETFs has become less consistent after strong inflows in August. The pattern hints that large investors have been less active lately, even as Bitcoin has held near $77,700.
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Bitcoin (BTC)
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Avinash Shekhar, the CEO of Indian Crypto Exchange, has urged a cautious approach to Bitcoin accumulation. He said investors may benefit from seeking confirmation instead of chasing sudden price moves, and suggested gradual accumulation at defined levels while watching trading volumes and Bitcoin’s ability to sustain higher levels.
The combination of profitable Bitcoin supply and less consistent ETF demand describes a market with signs of resilience but without the same steady demand seen during the August inflow period.
Bitcoin near $77,700: the snapshot, and its limits
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The available snapshot as of September 3 shows Bitcoin near $77,700 and down 0.1%, Ethereum near $2,400, roughly 68% of Bitcoin supply in profit, and ETF demand becoming less consistent after August’s strong inflows. Markets also see a 64% chance of a Fed rate hike.
The supplied information does not identify confirmed support or resistance levels, moving-average signals, or a specific breakout threshold. The available evidence instead points to a market waiting for the jobs report and its possible effect on expectations for the Fed.
Friday’s Bureau of Labor Statistics release could shift expectations around the Fed’s next move. That possibility is why traders are focused on the report while Bitcoin remains near $77,700.
Geopolitical tensions add risk alongside possible Fed rate hikes. The supplied evidence says that any price breakout could set the next trend for crypto, while the market’s current position remains one of caution ahead of the jobs data.
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