Bitcoin (BTC) speculators have held onto profits for nearly a month in what new analysis sees as a key sign of market strength.

Key points:

• Bitcoin short-term holders were in partial profit for the past month, marking the longest consecutive in-profit stint of 2026.
• STH profitability — a historical hallmark of bullish BTC price reversals — currently stands at $168.2 billion in profit versus $102.6 billion in loss.
• The broader Bitcoin investor base has stayed in net profit since Aug. 19.

Short-term holders boost optimism over BTC price comeback

Data from onchain analytics platform CryptoQuant shows that a subset of Bitcoin’s short-term holder (STH) cohort has been in profit since Aug. 16.

STH investors are wallets holding an unspent transaction output (UTXO) for less than six months. They correspond to newer buyers who are more sensitive to short-term price moves and volatility, adding or reducing exposure more readily than seasoned Bitcoin holders.

Since Aug. 16, the STH investor base has been split in terms of profits on their existing exposure. STH coins held in profit total $168.2 billion as of Tuesday, while $102.6 billion are held below acquisition price.

Bitcoin STH holdings in profit and loss. Source: CryptoQuant

To CryptoQuant, however, the ratio is less important than the fact that STHs have held onto at least some profit for 30 consecutive days.

“This is the first time STH have sat in profit territory for a sustained stretch since the market top. The last time was in January, but that episode didn’t last more than a week. In May, losses held by STH remained dominant,” it wrote in an accompanying blog post.

The phenomenon of lengthening uninterrupted periods of STH profitability is one that has characterized Bitcoin market recoveries throughout BTC price cycles. It was also observed at the end of Bitcoin’s 2022 bear market. CryptoQuant thus sees it as a prerequisite for the return of a long-term BTC price uptrend this cycle.

“The bear market trend only truly reverses once profits settle in for good STH and then push them to hold their positions and ride the upside,” it added.

Bitcoin STH holdings in profit and loss through year-end 2023. Source: CryptoQuant

Newer investor cost bases cluster above $70,000

The data echoes a similar stint of aggregate profitability currently being witnessed across the Bitcoin investor base as BTC/USD retains the majority of its 25% August upside.

Related: CLARITY Act vote meets Fed rate hike: Five things to know in Bitcoin this week

As Cointelegraph reported, the spent output profit ratio (SOPR), which tracks net profits or losses across all investors, passed its breakeven level of 1 on Aug. 19 and has narrowly held above it since. Last week, onchain analytics suite Checkonchain argued that STH profitability in particular was “starting to look more like those early bull-market recoveries.” 

STH profitability is currently being driven by entities holding between one and three months, CryptoQuant data shows, with that cohort having a cost basis (also known as realized price) at $63,372. The cost basis of the more mature end of the STH base — wallets holding for between three and six months — now sits at $73,190.

Bitcoin realized price by wallet age. Source: CryptoQuant

Fin.com has raised $20 million in seed funding as the New York payments startup expands infrastructure for moving stablecoins into local bank accounts and digital wallets.

Fortune reported on Sept. 15 that the financing closed in August and was led by Expa and Uber cofounder Garrett Camp, with Coinbase Ventures, Tenet Fund, founders of Figure, Mesh founder Bam Azizi, Second Sight Ventures and investors linked to sovereign and royal family offices in the Gulf and Africa participating. Fin.com did not disclose its valuation.

Founded by Nabeel Alamgir and Mustafa Dar, the company is building white-label payment infrastructure that lets businesses collect, convert and distribute money using a mixture of stablecoins and local banking rails. Its focus includes South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, regions the founders identified as central to the company’s expansion strategy.

Fin.com funding targets the stablecoin-to-fiat gap

Fin.com’s product focuses on a point in cross-border payments where blockchain settlement still depends on conventional financial systems: delivering digital dollars as spendable local currency. Alamgir described the company’s objective as solving the “last mile delivery problem,” referring to the process of moving funds from stablecoin rails into bank accounts and wallets.

Through one API, Fin.com says businesses can accept bank transfers, international wires and stablecoins while sending payouts to bank accounts, mobile wallets and local payment networks. Its current platform lists support for more than 40 currencies and payouts across over 30 countries, with USDC and USDT available as settlement assets.

The service supports local methods including ACH, SEPA, Faster Payments, PIX and UPI. On the payout side, Fin.com lists mobile-money services such as M-Pesa, GCash and Airtel Money among the available routes. The company says its routing technology selects payment paths based on factors such as speed, cost and availability.

Fin.com claims most transfers can settle in under 60 minutes, compared with the two-to-five-business-day window it assigns to conventional cross-border banking. The performance figures are company claims and will vary by corridor, banking partner, currency and compliance requirements.

Expa backed Fin.com after working with its founders

Fin.com’s relationship with Expa developed before the seed announcement. Dar joined Expa as an investor in 2023 after stepping away from private aviation company 24/7 Jet, while Alamgir previously founded restaurant technology company Lunchbox. The pair began working on Fin.com after reconnecting in late 2025.

Expa now lists Fin.com among its portfolio companies and describes the startup as an operating system for cross-border payments. The venture firm says the platform combines local payment networks with stablecoins for settlement through a single API. Expa identifies Alamgir and Dar as the founders and places the company in New York City.

Fortune reported that Expa founding partner Vitor Lourenço joined the investment after Dar moved from prospective investor to company cofounder. Garrett Camp, who founded Expa and co-founded Uber, participated in the seed financing.

Other investors bring direct exposure to crypto infrastructure and payments. Coinbase Ventures was the most active crypto-focused venture investor during the first half of 2026, completing 30 investments, according to data previously covered by crypto.news. Payments, DeFi and AI ranked among the main areas attracting its capital.

Fin.com focuses on emerging-market payment corridors

Fin.com has identified South Asia, Africa and the Middle East as priority regions. Besides New York, Fortune reported that the company has operations or offices in Las Vegas, Dubai, Dhaka, Bangalore and Lahore.

Its website gives several examples of how those corridors can work. For South Asian payments, Fin.com says it supplies infrastructure supporting local-currency accounts and stablecoin settlement for users receiving Indian rupees, Philippine pesos and Pakistani rupees. The examples are company case studies and should not be treated as independently audited transaction data.

For African routes, the company says its infrastructure can connect USDC settlement with local currencies including Nigerian naira and Kenyan shillings. Fin.com positions stablecoins as the middle settlement layer while recipients receive local money through banking or mobile-payment networks.

Its crypto service supports BTC, ETH, USDC and USDT, with options for automatic conversion into fiat and payouts to external wallets. Fin.com says it performs wallet screening, transaction monitoring and Travel Rule processing on covered transfers. Crypto payment documentation lists exchanges including Crypto.com and Kraken among supported payment channels.

The company’s legal structure remains relevant as it expands. Fin Inc. is a Delaware holding company, while regulated activities run through separate entities and payment partners. Current legal disclosures state that Wind Technologies holds a Dubai Financial Services Authority Innovation Testing Licence, which is limited to approved testing conditions.

Fin.com’s licensing page says the UAE authorization is not unrestricted permission for full-scale financial activity and notes that some standard protections may not apply during the testing phase. It states that financial transactions under the relevant entity cannot begin until an approved client-money account is in place.

Stablecoin payment infrastructure keeps drawing capital

Fin.com enters a market where venture firms have continued financing companies connecting stablecoins with bank accounts and local payment networks.

TransFi raised $19.2 million in March to expand stablecoin payment infrastructure across South Asia, Southeast Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America. Its financing combined $14.2 million of Series A equity with a $5 million liquidity facility.

In June, El Dorado secured a $9 million Series A led by Paradigm, with Coinbase Ventures participating. The company said it was expanding stablecoin-powered payments across Latin America after processing more than five million transactions.

More recently, crypto.news reported that stablecoin payments startup Latitude raised $35 million in a Series A during the week ended Sept. 11, placing stablecoin cross-border payment infrastructure among the larger crypto venture deals announced immediately before Fin.com’s funding.

Current DeFiLlama data puts the total stablecoin market capitalization near $305 billion, with Tether’s USDT accounting for roughly 60.1% of supply and USDC remaining the second-largest stablecoin.

Fin.com said its business customers collectively serve more than 800 million end users, although it declined to identify those clients in Fortune’s report. The company plans to use the seed capital to continue building its cross-border network and payment infrastructure across the markets it has selected for expansion.

Once a household name in the DeFi sector, decentralized exchange Balancer is considering calling it quits.

In a proposal posted to the project’s governance forum, Balancer Labs CEO Marcus Hardt suggests a “phased sunset of the protocol.”

The post explains that none of the efforts to return to profitability, employed in response to last year’s hack, “converted into sustained revenue growth.”

Under Hardt’s proposal, Balancer’s $9 million treasury would be distributed to BAL holders, pro-rata.

A proposal to wind down Balancer and distribute the treasury to BAL holders is live on the forum, authored by Marcus Hardt. Discussion is open; a Snapshot vote is expected to happen from 25 to 29 September.

Nothing changes today: pools and withdrawals work as they do now. Any…

— Balancer (@Balancer) September 14, 2026

Read more: Balancer exploit drains $129M in DeFi disaster

The problem

Launched just in time for 2020’s “DeFi summer,” Balancer innovated on the existing two-asset automated market maker model used by Uniswap and Bancor to introduce multi-asset pools and custom pool weighting.

It was a successful project in itself and was widely ‘forked,’ its popular v2 code has been used in 27 protocols across multiple blockchains, according to DeFiLlama data. Balancer’s total value-locked (TVL) peaked in November 2021 at over $3 billion, and now stands at just $58 million.

Then on its third iteration, Balancer’s v3 protocol was hit by a devastating exploit in November last year, with losses totalling almost $130 million and causing a ripple effect across the sector.

Both before and since, the project experienced a handful of smaller security incidents. The latest came just last month, when its original v1 codebase was exploited for over $200,000.

We are aware of a bug found in legacy Balancer v1 contracts that allows draining LP funds. These pools are deprecated and non-pausable. Users are encouraged to withdraw proportionally via https://t.co/W9YXbyre0K. Other Balancer products are not affected.

— Balancer (@Balancer) August 31, 2026

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Read more: Osmosis took 74 days to discover 40-BTC Nomic exploit

Previously, in September 2023, Balancer lost approximately $1.2 million from “Boosted Pools” across its Ethereum and Optimism deployments. DeFiLlama’s database includes incidents from 2023 and 2020, totalling a further $1.3 million in losses. 

The proposal

Hardt proposes an “orderly wind down,” which would include stripping back the DAO as much as possible and distributing treasury funds to BAL holders.

The wind down would see all pools moved to withdrawal-only mode on October 30, and the fate of DAO-owned assets beyond the treasury would be subject to a further vote.

The proposal brings forward a pending review of the recovery plan’s success, as Hardt feels that “waiting for the calendar would change the numbers, not the conclusion, and every month of waiting is spent from the treasury.”

He further detailed his reasoning in a post on X. The cost-reduction side of the recovery plan was a success, he claims, but protocol revenue failed to grow.

He “underestimated how much the exploit would continue to limit adoption,” which led to smaller sums deployed and hesitation from counterparties.

He also paid tribute to the Balancer team who kept v3 “safe,” “usable” and “alive,” during the “hardest year the protocol has had,” all as “smaller team and with less money.”

Shutdown season

Balancer’s decision comes as many other well-known DeFi projects opt to close down, or take a substantial pivot.

Last week, Harmony announced it would shut down its blockchain in response to “threats posed by state actors and AI agents.” It will move operations to Ethereum and plans a pivot to become “the remix economy for AI video.”

Popular DEX aggregator Odos Protocol shut down in July and beleaguered “real-world asset” lending platform Goldfinch threw in the towel the month prior.

Outside of DeFi, centralized exchange AscendEx announced its cessation of operations in early July, amidst concerns over liquidity to process pending user withdrawals.

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Just hours ago, CoinEx gave its users a three-month deadline to withdraw assets, warning it would charge a 5% monthly custody fee from December 22.

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Poland has been drawn into a $378 million criminal case over failed Venezuelan oil contracts after new reporting traced part of a $230 million payment through USDT.

The FT reported on Sept. 15 that Orlen Trading Switzerland, the Swiss trading arm of Poland’s state-controlled energy group Orlen, agreed in late 2023 to purchase roughly six million barrels of Venezuelan Merey 16 crude in a transaction valued near $345 million. OTS advanced approximately $230 million through Dubai-based Hannon International, with much of the money reportedly converted into Tether’s USDT as brokers attempted to arrange payment inside Venezuela.

Polish authorities are examining a larger set of transactions. Warsaw prosecutors indicted three former managers on Aug. 7 over three oil contracts signed between August and December 2023, alleging their decisions caused $378 million, or around PLN 1.5 billion, in damage to Orlen and OTS. The defendants could face sentences of up to 25 years if convicted.

230 mln dolarów zaliczki. Zamówionej ropy brak. „Financial Times” opisuje interesy Orlenu za Obajtka: pośrednicy, kryptowaluty, pendrive’y przekazywane w restauracjach w Caracas.

Tak PiS pilnował polskiego majątku. Stołki dla swoich. Straty dla Polski. pic.twitter.com/xlEoqjyKb2

— Adam Szłapka (@adamSzlapka) September 15, 2026

Poland’s oil deal sent $330 million through Dubai firms

The Venezuelan trade involved more than the $230 million payment now linked to Hannon. Reuters reported in 2024 that OTS sent a combined $330 million to two Dubai-based intermediaries, with Hannon receiving approximately $230 million and Horizon Global receiving another $100 million.

Venezuela’s state oil producer PDVSA did not receive the expected money, according to the Reuters investigation. Sources familiar with the transactions said the producer therefore did not allocate the crude cargoes that OTS expected to collect. Tankers chartered for the trade spent time waiting near Venezuela before leaving without the planned shipments.

The FT’s later investigation provided new detail on the $230 million Hannon leg. Its reporting said much of the payment was “largely transferred as Tether (USDT)” through a series of intermediaries. The report described traders moving information needed to conduct digital-asset transactions while attempting to complete payments to Venezuelan brokers.

The available reporting does not establish that cryptocurrency itself caused the commercial loss. Investigators are examining the contracts, counterparties, supervision and flow of funds, while the criminal charges concern alleged failures by executives to protect Orlen’s assets when the agreements were approved.

OTS ultimately received only a limited amount of petroleum product from the planned Venezuelan purchase, according to the FT. The bulk of the six million barrels covered by the contract did not arrive, while chartered tankers generated extra costs as they waited for cargo.

USDT became part of Venezuela’s oil payment system

The use of USDT in the Orlen transaction came during a period when Venezuela was increasing its use of cryptocurrency in oil sales.

As crypto.news previously reported, PDVSA began moving more crude and fuel transactions toward USDT as U.S. sanctions complicated access to conventional banking channels. Venezuelan oil officials said at the time that contracts could use different currencies and that cryptocurrency could be preferred in certain transactions.

Reuters had reported in April 2024 that PDVSA was gradually moving oil transactions toward Tether and had begun requiring some new customers to hold cryptocurrency in digital wallets. Sources told the publication that the company was requesting 50% prepayment in USDT for some spot cargoes as U.S. restrictions returned.

For trading firms, such structures could involve additional intermediaries because some established financial institutions would not process the payment routes required by PDVSA. The reported use of intermediaries does not by itself establish illegal conduct, and each transaction remains subject to its own sanctions, compliance and contractual circumstances.

Venezuela’s reliance on USDT has continued expanding outside oil transactions. Binance’s Venezuelan peer-to-peer market processed an estimated 1.389 billion USDT between June 11 and July 13, 2026, based on data from Ecoanalítica. The estimate concerns domestic P2P activity and is unrelated to the Orlen criminal proceedings.

Poland’s prosecutors put alleged damage at $378 million

Poland’s official loss figure is lower than some recent estimates of the total cost of the affair.

The Aug. 7 indictment states that three unfavorable crude contracts caused $378 million in alleged damage, equivalent to approximately PLN 1.5 billion. Prosecutors charged former Orlen board member Michał R., former OTS board member Marcin O., and former Orlen and OTS executive Filip W.

According to the filing, prosecutors allege the men acted jointly by failing to carry out supervisory duties and protect the interests of Orlen and its subsidiaries. The charges remain allegations and have not been proven in court. One defendant faces a separate accusation related to allegedly concealing assets from potential seizure.

The Polish Internal Security Agency, or ABW, said investigators carried out searches, questioned witnesses, reviewed documents and secured assets belonging to suspects during the investigation. The agency confirmed that the indictment concerns contracts entered into between August and December 2023.

The often-cited figure of roughly $424 million refers to a wider estimate. The FT calculated a higher overall cost after taking into account expenses beyond the alleged contract losses, including shipping and legal costs. Polish prosecutors have not adopted $424 million as the damage figure in the criminal indictment.

The distinction is important for reporting the case accurately: $378 million is the loss alleged by prosecutors, while approximately $424 million is a broader estimate that includes related costs.

Former OTS chief remains in separate extradition case

The criminal proceedings against the three indicted former managers do not cover former OTS chief Samer A., whose case remains separate.

Poland’s National Prosecutor’s Office said Samer was detained in the United Arab Emirates in January 2025 after authorities sought him through an Interpol Red Notice. The proceedings against him concern the same group of contracts that prosecutors say caused hundreds of millions of dollars in losses.

The August indictment confirms that Polish authorities are still seeking his extradition from the UAE. Prosecutors separated his case from the proceedings against the other three defendants because the extradition process had not been completed.

The ABW said its investigation into Samer remains active even though the other three defendants have now been sent for trial.

Polish investigators initially placed the suspected losses connected to Samer and other executives at approximately $370 million before refining the figure to $378 million in later proceedings. The current indictment uses the $378 million figure for the three contracts covered by the case.

The defendants indicted in August could each face up to 25 years in prison under the charges filed by the Warsaw Regional Prosecutor’s Office. Samer’s case will proceed separately if the UAE extradition process results in his return to Poland.

Ethereum and Base are set to implement different account abstraction standards after efforts to agree on a shared account abstraction standard broke down last week.

Interoperability standards became secondary to each chain’s core goals, leading both to go their separate ways and “putting the burden on wallets,” Derek Chiang, founding member and researcher at Ethlabs, as well as a co-author of Ethereum’s EIP-8141 proposal, said in a Monday X post.

The divergence could require wallet developers to support separate transaction formats to provide a consistent experience across networks. Account abstraction allows programmable rules for authorizing transactions and paying fees.

Ethereum is now advancing Frame Transactions under EIP-8141 as a “headliner” item under its Hegotá upgrade, which would introduce native account abstraction and create a path toward post-quantum authentication. Separately, Base is developing native account abstraction via Keystore under EIP-8130, currently live on devnet.

The divergence also highlights different priorities between layer-1 and layer-2 blockchain networks. Chiang said L1s are increasingly focused on censorship, capture-resistance, open-source, privacy and security features, favoring different account standards, while scalability-focused L2s are more aligned with standards such as EIP-8130.

The researcher argued that the separation won’t necessarily result in a bad outcome, as both Ethereum and Base are now “free to innovate on AA to the maximal extent in accordance with their own visions.” 

Ethereum developers could begin implementing Hegotá in late 2026 following Glamsterdam, arguably one of the most consequential upgrades of the year. Glamsterdam is designed to improve scalability, harden the L1, and make the network easier to use, with a mainnet launch expected sometime in the second half of 2026, according to Ethereum’s public roadmap.  

Related: Standard Chartered forecasts SKY rising fivefold to $0.325 by 2028

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