At the moment, polling conducted this month of 1,000 likely Ohio voters showed 48% support Brown and 45% are backing the Republican incumbent, Senator Jon Husted. And betting on Polymarket has Brown at a 57% likelihood to win.

Asked for comment on the Fairshake spending, Brown’s campaign sent CoinDesk a press release it issued today that included a statement from the former senator’s campaign manager.

“Jon Husted’s for sale and the billionaires and corporations pouring millions into this race know it,” said Patrick Eisenhauer, the campaign manager.

Until the commitment against Brown, first reported by the New York Times, the second-biggest race for Fairshake’s cash infusions was the Alabama Senate primary contest in which the super PAC committed about $12 million to get Barry Moore his nomination in a deeply Republican state in which he’s expected to win the general election. But the third-highest spending was an expensive disappointment for the sector, with Fairshake having splashed out more than $10 million in failing to derail the Senate primary bid of Illinois Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton. Stratton is also expected to win her general election race.

Fairshake has been carefully bipartisan in its support or opposition of candidates, according to the roster of campaigns it’s been involved with. But the big-ticket spending has generally either gone toward supporting Republicans or opposing Democrats as the fate of the Senate is decided this year.

Strategy, the publicly traded Bitcoin treasury company led by Michael Saylor, resumed its Bitcoin purchases after a two-week pause, according to a Form 8-K filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday. The company acquired 950 BTC for $75.7 million during the week from Monday through Sunday, at an average price of $79,670 per coin.

The new buy lifts Strategy’s total Bitcoin holdings to 846,000 BTC, accumulated for roughly $63.8 billion at an average cost of $75,416 per Bitcoin (including fees and expenses). At the time of publication, Bitcoin was trading at $84,925, implying an unrealized gain of about $8.05 billion on the treasury’s position, based on figures referenced in the filing. The update also arrives as Strategy continues to balance Bitcoin accumulation with ongoing preferred stock management and a large cash position.

Key takeaways

• Strategy bought 950 BTC for $75.7 million at an average price of $79,670 per coin after a two-week buying pause.
• Total holdings now stand at 846,000 BTC, with Strategy reporting an average cost basis of $75,416 per Bitcoin.
• Bitcoin’s referenced market price of $84,925 implies an unrealized gain of about $8.05 billion on the treasury.
• Strategy continued repurchasing STRC preferred stock, spending $174 million on about 1.77 million shares.
• Strategy’s “USD Cash” fell nearly 20% to $1.05 billion week over week, reflecting dividend and debt-related payments.

Bitcoin buys restart after a brief pause

Strategy’s latest SEC filing describes a resumption of its steady accumulation approach. Between Monday and Sunday, the company purchased 950 Bitcoin for $75.7 million, averaging $79,670 per BTC. The filing also notes the company’s broader position—846,000 BTC in total—indicating the restart did not meaningfully change the scale of its treasury strategy, but it does show a deliberate pause followed by renewed buying activity.

For investors, the practical significance is less about the week’s number of coins and more about consistency: Strategy is still deploying capital into Bitcoin while maintaining liquidity and continuing to manage its preferred securities. That balance can matter in periods where capital allocation becomes more constrained or where financing needs shift.

Strategy’s treasury position and the gains at market price

With Bitcoin trading at $84,925 at the time of publication, Strategy’s holdings are positioned for substantial paper gains relative to its reported average cost of $75,416. The article’s referenced math suggests an unrealized gain of approximately $8.05 billion on the full 846,000 BTC balance.

While unrealized gains are not cash, they can influence market perception of treasury strength. In addition, the company’s ability to keep buying without disrupting preferred-stock obligations depends on its cash management framework—particularly the split between “USD Cash” and “USD Reserve,” which Strategy reports separately.

Preferred stock repurchases continue alongside Bitcoin accumulation

Strategy also used capital to reduce its exposure to preferred-stock obligations through ongoing buybacks of STRC. The company repurchased approximately 1.77 million shares for $174 million during the same week, and STRC was up slightly in pre-market trading on Monday, according to the information cited alongside Yahoo Finance data.

Strategy stated it still had $875.1 million available under its preferred-stock repurchase program and $1 billion remaining under its MSTR share repurchase program. That matters because it shows the company still has authorization headroom—meaning buybacks can continue even after deploying $174 million in the most recent repurchase window.

The filing period also included at-the-market offering programs, and Strategy reported no sales under those plans between Sept. 14 and Sept. 20. In other words, during that window, the company did not appear to raise funds through its at-the-market channels, relying instead on existing treasury resources for purchases and repurchases.

Cash reserves decline as dividends and interest payments land

In a sign of how treasury priorities are being sequenced, Strategy’s cash balances moved down. Its “USD Cash” balance fell nearly 20% to $1.05 billion from $1.30 billion a week earlier, when the company reported its prior cash figures. Separately, “USD Reserve” declined to $5.04 billion from $5.10 billion.

The filing attributed the change in part to cash used for preferred-stock dividends and interest on outstanding debt—amounting to $57.4 million. Strategy’s “USD Cash” is described as serving broader treasury purposes, including funding Bitcoin purchases and capital management, while “USD Reserve” is intended primarily to support preferred-stock dividends and debt interest.

For readers tracking these companies, the cash split is often as important as the Bitcoin buy totals. If “USD Cash” keeps compressing while buyback and dividend needs continue, investors may begin to focus more on whether additional financing is required or whether the company tightens other deployments. Conversely, if the “USD Reserve” remains stable while operational outflows are contained, it can suggest the preferred obligations are covered without forcing abrupt changes to accumulation pacing.

Rival treasury holder Strive also adds Bitcoin

Strategy’s update landed alongside another corporate treasury move: Strive, described as the world’s fifth-largest corporate Bitcoin holder, announced additional Bitcoin purchases on Monday. According to the SEC filing referenced in the article, Strive added 1,355 BTC last week, bringing its total to 26,355 BTC, and its shares rose in pre-market trading.

Taken together, the two updates reinforce that large-cap Bitcoin treasury operators are continuing to pursue accumulation and capital management in parallel—using equity markets and repurchase programs to structure shareholder returns while still building Bitcoin exposure through direct purchases.

Moving forward, the key question for Strategy is whether the renewed weekly Bitcoin buys continue at a similar pace while “USD Cash” remains under pressure from dividends, interest, and repurchases. Investors may want to watch the next SEC disclosures for how quickly cash balances stabilize and whether the company changes the cadence of Bitcoin acquisitions or preferred-stock buybacks.

The European Central Bank (ECB) plans to invest a small portion of its reserves in tokenized securities, giving the central bank direct exposure to blockchain-based financial markets.

The purchase would be settled through Pontes, the new Eurosystem platform, which allows wholesale transactions to settle in central bank money. The platform essentially bridges the ECB’s payment system to blockchain-based financial markets. The plan to invest in tokenized securities and Pontes reflects a more significant bid by central banks in the EU to adapt to the increasing use of blockchain in finance.

The ECB intends to test the technology as an investor, from buying tokenized bonds to settlement and portfolio management.

“Pontes brings the stability and trust of central bank money to the European tokenized finance ecosystem,” said Piero Cipollone, member of the ECB’s executive board. “It will give an important advantage to help it scale.”

The ECB’s initial investments would focus on euro-denominated securities issued by euro-area governments, regional authorities, agencies and European supranational institutions.

NEAR RSI, Source: CryptoWaves

NEAR Exchange Netflow, Source: CoinGlass

Strategy has resumed Bitcoin purchases after a two week pause, spending $75.7 million on 950 BTC while deploying another $174 million to repurchase its STRC preferred stock.

According to a Form 8-K filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Sept. 21, Strategy acquired the Bitcoin between Sept. 14 and Sept. 20 at an average price of $79,670 per coin, including fees and expenses.

The purchase increased the company’s holdings to 846,000 BTC, acquired for a total of $63.80 billion at an average cost of $75,416 per Bitcoin.

Bitcoin was trading near $84,925 at the time of publication, putting the market value of Strategy’s holdings at roughly $71.85 billion. Based on the company’s reported acquisition cost, the position carried an unrealized gain of approximately $8.05 billion.

Strategy shares gained 7.4% to $165.20 in Monday premarket trading as Bitcoin traded above the price paid for the latest acquisition.

Strategy returns to Bitcoin buying after two week pause

The latest purchase ended two consecutive reporting periods without any new Bitcoin acquisitions.

Strategy last returned to Bitcoin buying at the end of August, when it purchased 4,603 BTC for $369.7 million at an average price of $80,318. The transaction raised its holdings from 840,447 BTC to 845,050 BTC.

Unlike the latest transaction, that purchase was financed through Strategy’s at the market common stock program. The company sold 4.53 million MSTR shares for $602.8 million in net proceeds, allocating $369.7 million to Bitcoin and $151.8 million to STRC repurchases.

Buying activity then stopped for two weeks as Strategy directed more cash toward its preferred securities.

During the first week of the pause, the company spent $176.3 million repurchasing 1.81 million STRC shares while leaving its Bitcoin holdings unchanged. Its board simultaneously doubled the Digital Credit Securities Repurchase Program from $1 billion to $2 billion.

Another $139.3 million was spent on 1.42 million STRC shares during the following reporting period, while Strategy again bought no Bitcoin and made no sales through its at the market programs. As crypto.news previously reported, the company entered that period with 845,050 BTC and $1.30 billion in deployable USD Cash.

The latest 950 BTC purchase has returned Strategy’s holdings to 846,000 BTC, the same total it reported at the end of the second quarter before Bitcoin sales during July and August reduced the balance.

STRC buybacks remain larger than Bitcoin spending

Strategy continued repurchasing STRC even as Bitcoin accumulation restarted, spending $174 million on approximately 1.77 million shares between Sept. 14 and Sept. 20.

The amount was more than twice the $75.7 million allocated to Bitcoin during the same period.

STRC, formally known as Strategy’s Variable Rate Series A Perpetual Stretch Preferred Stock, has a stated amount of $100 per share. The company has used repurchases and its dividend policy in an effort to keep the security trading close to that level.

Strategy had spent roughly $950.8 million repurchasing nearly 9.96 million STRC shares between July 20 and Sept. 13. The security had recovered toward $100 after falling near $70, reaching above $99 during intraday trading earlier this month before pulling back.

Monday’s latest repurchases pushed Strategy’s spending on STRC further above $1 billion since the current sequence of buybacks began.

The company has said purchases below STRC’s $100 stated amount allow it to retire preferred securities for less than their stated value while reducing future dividend requirements.

STRC was trading at $98.85 during Monday’s premarket session, up 0.35%.

Strategy retained $875.1 million in authorization for further preferred stock repurchases after the latest transaction. Its separate MSTR common stock repurchase program remained untouched, leaving the full $1 billion authorization available.

Strategy uses existing cash without ATM sales

Funding for the latest transactions came directly from Strategy’s cash balance, as the company made no sales through its at the market offering programs between Sept. 14 and Sept. 20.

Strategy used $75.7 million of USD Cash for the Bitcoin acquisition and another $174 million for STRC repurchases, bringing combined spending on the two transactions to $249.7 million.

The absence of ATM sales meant Strategy did not issue common or preferred shares to replenish the cash used during the reporting period.

Deployable USD Cash fell to $1.05 billion as of Sept. 20, down nearly 20% from $1.30 billion a week earlier. The balance had stood at $1.44 billion on Sept. 7 and $1.61 billion at the end of August as repeated STRC repurchases drew down the account.

Strategy maintains USD Cash separately from its USD Reserve. The cash account can be used for Bitcoin purchases, capital management and other corporate purposes, while the reserve is primarily intended to cover preferred stock dividends and interest on outstanding debt.

Its USD Reserve declined to $5.04 billion from $5.10 billion during the latest reporting period after $57.4 million was used for preferred dividends and debt interest.

Combined, Strategy held approximately $6.09 billion in USD assets at the end of Sept. 20.

Strive expands Bitcoin treasury to 26,355 BTC

Another publicly traded Bitcoin holder disclosed a purchase on Monday as Strive acquired 1,355 BTC, increasing its treasury to 26,355 BTC.

The purchase followed a series of recent additions to Strive’s balance sheet. The company had reached 25,000 BTC earlier this month after acquiring 469 BTC for approximately $36.6 million at an average price of $77,954 per coin. That transaction was funded through proceeds from its SATA preferred stock.

Strive had previously purchased 1,800 BTC for roughly $143 million in late August, taking its holdings to 23,156 BTC before subsequent acquisitions pushed the treasury higher.

Its latest filing places the company’s holdings at 26,355 BTC, keeping Strive among the largest publicly traded corporate Bitcoin holders.

ASST shares gained 6.44% to $32.03 in Monday premarket trading following the disclosure.

For two years, writing “AI” in your whitepaper was enough to raise money. That era just ended. And most crypto projects have no idea what comes next.

The Line That Changes Everything

Alice Liu, Head of Research at CoinMarketCap, said it this week:

“More capital, fewer names. The AI tag is free; the market is finally charging for it.”

Eight words that describe the end of an era.

For the past two years, “AI” was the most valuable word in crypto. Stick it in your whitepaper, your pitch deck, your Twitter bio, your token name. Capital would follow. Questions wouldn’t.

That’s over.

Capital is now flowing into a handful of AI crypto projects with real traction while hundreds of AI-labeled tokens bleed out quietly. The market stopped being naive. And most projects built on a narrative instead of a product are about to find out what that means.

How The AI Tag Became A Free Pass

Cast your mind back to 2024.

The AI hype cycle was at its peak. ChatGPT had just crossed 100 million users. Every VC was looking for AI exposure. Every founder was rebranding. The word “AI” in a pitch deck added zeros to valuations without adding anything to the product.

Crypto was the perfect vehicle. No revenue requirements. No product-market fit standards. No profitability timeline. Just a whitepaper, a token, and the right vocabulary.

So the projects came. Hundreds of them. AI-powered trading. AI-enhanced oracles. AI-driven DAOs. AI-optimized yield. AI everything.

Most of them were one of three things:

• A real crypto project that added “AI” to its marketing
• A real AI tool that added a token to its business model
• Neither, held together entirely by narrative

All three raised money. Because the tag was free. Because nobody was asking hard questions yet.

What Changed

Two things happened simultaneously that broke the spell.

First: Real AI Companies Shipped Real Products.

When you can compare a project claiming to be “AI-powered” against actual AI infrastructure that demonstrably works, the gap becomes visible. Vague claims about “machine learning optimization” don’t survive contact with projects that actually deploy AI agents, actually process data at scale, actually generate verifiable outputs.

The reference point shifted. And suddenly, most “AI crypto” projects looked like what they were: marketing exercises.

Second: The Market Got Burned Enough Times To Learn.

Token after token launched with AI narratives, pumped on the label, and collapsed when the product didn’t materialize. Not once. Not twice. Hundreds of times.

At some point, even the most speculative retail investor starts to notice the pattern. Flashy AI claims plus a token launch plus a roadmap that never delivers equals a loss.

The market learned. Not because it became sophisticated. Because it became tired.

What “The Market Is Charging For It” Actually Means

When Liu says the market is now “charging” for the AI tag, here’s what that looks like in practice:

Capital is concentrating. Projects with actual users, actual transaction volume, actual revenue are capturing the majority of new investment. The long tail of AI-labeled projects is being starved of attention and capital simultaneously.

The filter is simple and brutal: show me what your AI actually does. Show me who’s using it. Show me the numbers.

“Our AI optimizes cross-chain liquidity through proprietary machine learning algorithms” used to be enough.

Now the response is: “How many users? What volume? What’s the retention?”

That’s not a sophisticated investor question. That’s the most basic product question. And the fact that crypto projects couldn’t answer it for two years tells you everything about how low the bar was.

The Marketing Implications Nobody’s Discussing

Here’s where this gets directly relevant to everyone building or marketing in crypto:

The entire playbook for crypto marketing was built around narrative.

Create a compelling story. Build hype before launch. Get influencer coverage. Drive FOMO. Launch token. Capture early buyers. Let the price chart do the rest of the marketing.

AI made this playbook even easier. You didn’t even need a compelling original story. You just needed to connect your existing project to the AI narrative convincingly enough to ride the wave.

That playbook is broken now.

Not because narrative stopped mattering. Narrative always matters. But because narrative without substance now actively signals risk to investors who’ve been burned before.

When a sophisticated investor sees an AI narrative without a product behind it, they don’t see opportunity. They see a warning sign.

The question is: what does marketing look like when the shortcut stops working?

What Actually Works Now

The projects capturing capital in September 2026 share specific characteristics. None of them are accidental.

They Lead With Metrics, Not Claims.

Not “AI-powered cross-chain optimization.” But “2.6 billion in cumulative tokenized-stock trading volume.” Not “revolutionary AI governance.” But “140,000 active wallets, 89% month-over-month retention.”

Numbers that don’t need interpretation. Numbers that speak before the narrative does.

They Show The AI Working, Not Just Claim It Exists.

Demos. Live products. Verifiable outputs. The difference between “our AI analyzes on-chain data” and “here’s what our AI produced last Tuesday, here’s the methodology, here’s the result.”

Proof of work in the literal sense: evidence that something is actually happening.

They Build Trust Through Transparency, Not Hype Through Mystery.

The era of the vague roadmap is over for anyone serious. The projects winning now publish what they’re building, show progress against it, and acknowledge what hasn’t worked yet.

Counterintuitively, honesty about limitations builds more trust than inflated claims. Because investors have seen inflated claims fail too many times.

They Connect To Real Economic Activity.

The AI projects with genuine traction in 2026 are processing real transactions, serving real users, generating real fees. Not simulated activity, not wash trading, not manufactured metrics.

If your AI project can’t point to economic activity it enabled, the market has already priced that in.

The Harder Truth For Projects That Rode The Wave

Here’s what nobody wants to say directly:

A significant portion of the AI crypto projects that raised money in 2024-2025 will not survive 2026-2027.

Not because the market is cruel. Because they were built on a condition that no longer exists: a market willing to fund narrative without substance.

That condition existed for specific reasons at a specific moment. AI hype was genuine and new. Crypto capital was abundant. The reference points for what “real AI” looked like were unclear enough that vague claims could pass.

All three conditions have changed.

AI hype is now calibrated against actual AI capabilities, which are extraordinary and well-documented. Crypto capital is more selective. And everyone has seen enough real AI products to know what genuine capability looks like versus what marketing copy looks like.

The projects that survive will be the ones that used the narrative window to actually build something. The ones that used it only to raise money are running out of runway.

What This Means For Crypto Marketing In 2026

The shift from “AI tag as free pass” to “market charging for substance” is the most important marketing change in crypto this year.

It means the audience has changed. Not just in what they believe, but in what they need to see before they believe anything.

Old audience: “AI crypto? Interesting. What’s the token?”

New audience: “AI crypto? Show me the product. Show me the users. Show me what problem it actually solves.”

Marketing to the old audience meant creating excitement. Marketing to the new audience means building credibility.

Those are different skills. Different channels. Different timelines. Different measurements of success.

The projects and marketers who figure out how to build credibility in public, demonstrate substance consistently, and earn trust through transparency rather than hype will define the next cycle.

The ones who keep trying to run the old playbook will fund the next round of “lessons learned” articles.

The Opportunity In The Shift

There’s an upside to all of this that’s easy to miss when you’re watching tokens bleed.

A market that charges for substance rewards substance. That sounds obvious. But for the past two years, it wasn’t true.

If you’re building something real in AI crypto, the current environment is actually better for you than 2024 was. Not because there’s more capital. Because the capital that exists is more likely to find its way to projects with genuine traction rather than being absorbed by narrative-first competitors with better marketing budgets.

The noise is clearing. The signal is becoming visible.

Projects with real products, real users, and real economic activity are now easier to find and fund than they were when the AI tag made everything look the same.

That’s not a consolation prize. That’s the market working correctly, finally.

The Question For Every AI Crypto Project

Strip away your narrative. Remove the whitepaper language. Take out the roadmap claims and the influencer endorsements.

What does your AI actually do? Who is actually using it? What would stop working tomorrow if you shut it down?

If you can answer those questions with specifics, you have a real project.

If you need the narrative to make the project sound meaningful, the market already knows.

And now it’s charging for that knowledge.

What’s the most credible AI crypto project you’ve seen in 2026 – and what makes it actually credible? Drop it in the comments.

The immediate outcome of the failure to pass the law is that crypto regulations in the United States will continue to be created outside Congress. The SEC moved quickly after the vote, issuing a temporary conditional exemption that allows eligible venues to trade tokenized U.S. stocks through permissioned liquidity pools on public blockchains.

Soon after, the CFTC sent crypto rules to the White House for review. The agency submitted a new proposal; the details were not disclosed. For now, which crypto assets it contemplates, what exchanges would need to do to qualify for licenses, what restrictions would apply and how far the agency believes its authority extends, remains unclear. All the meanwhile, the “Clarity Act is dead, at least for now,” Jesse Hamilton, CoinDesk’s deputy managing editor in charge of global policy and regulation, wrote in an analysis that explains what very few appear to know: what the Clarity Act actually is.

“While the U.S. continues debating the Clarity Act, in the UAE we actually have clarity,” Irina Heaver, a Dubai-based crypto lawyer and founder of NeosLegal, said via Telegram. More than 110 regulated virtual-asset businesses operate in the country, with about 20 more holding in-principle approvals, she added.