As the end of the third quarter nears, bitcoin is standing tall some 44% higher, its best performance since the final three months of 2024.

Gold is up 8.7% while the S&P 500 has added just 2%. Meanwhile, Wall Street’s tech-heavy index, Nasdaq, has gained just 2%, according to data source TradingView.

This marks a complete change from early this year when bitcoin was the underperformer and stocks, gripped by the AI fervour, were on a tear.
The good news for BTC bulls doesn’t end there. The cryptocurrency is also outperforming names like NVDA, one of the world’s biggest companies, up 11%.

And yet, bitcoin doesn’t necessarily look expensive based purely on where it trades relative to its record price. Despite the solid rally, prices are still down 48% from the record price of $126,000 in October last year.

Multicoin Capital co-founder Kyle Samani predicts more crypto companies will choose to build on Solana over Ethereum due to its ease of use and greater functionality.

Solana will flip Ether during “this market cycle,” Samani told Cointelegraph during an episode of Trade Secrets, predicting that Ethereum may gradually lose its edge as the default smart contract network choice for crypto companies.

“They’ll all switch their default over to Solana because it’s the most functional network for all of them and it’s just easier to consolidate their operations around Solana to the extent that they can.” 

Samani and Multicoin amassed a sizable early position in Solana and he has been one of its strongest proponents for years. His prediction would require a five-fold increase in SOL’s $58 billion market capitalization to surpass Ether’s current market cap of $293 billion.

Samani argued that “today, no one really uses Ethereum” and that it only remains a leading blockchain network due to stablecoins, and stablecoins borrowed against Ether as collateral. 

SOL and ETH have largely been moving in lockstep in percentage terms during the recent upturn in markets. During the past month, Ether rose 30%, while SOL rose 34%. However, Solana’s rise comes off a smaller base and the token saw a larger decline in the bear market, falling 59% during the past year, in comparison to Ether’s 45% decline, according to TradingView.

ETH/USD, 1-year chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView

Did Samani ragequit crypto?

In February, Samani said he was stepping down as managing partner of the crypto investment firm Multicoin Capital after 10 years in the industry, in what he called a “bittersweet moment”.

At the time Samani seemed dispirited about the state of the industry. He reportedly quickly deleted an X post, in which he stated: “I once believed in the web3 vision. dapps. I don’t anymore…Crypto is just fundamentally not as interesting as many crypto enthusiasts wanted. Myself included.” 

If it was a crisis of confidence, it was only fleeting. In September, Samani joined the US board of directors at crypto trading platform Backpack.

Source: Evanss6

Ethereum has ‘questionable’ value accrual

Samani said he is “bearish” on Ethereum’s ability to accrue value despite being the largest smart contract network.

“It’s a $400 billion to $300 billion asset that has questionable value accrual, if any, and it’s not growing at all.” 

Samani added that he doesn’t understand why investors would want to own Ether at the current valuation, adding that he sees plenty of other investment opportunities at “more reasonable prices.” 

He argued that more crypto companies will be pivoting to Solana, which he called “the most functional network” that makes it easier for firms seeking to consolidate operations. 

While SOL accounts for less than one-fifth of Ether’s market capitalization, it has surpassed the Ethereum network in both weekly and monthly fees.

Top blockchain networks by 30-day fees. Source: DefiLlama

Solana generated $23 million in fees over the past 30 days and ranked fourth in monthly fees. Ethereum generated $12.6 million and ranked in sixth place, according to DefiLlama.

Related: Solana sees record 263K tokens issued in a single day

Solana became one of Multicoin Capital’s top bets

Samani first discovered permissionless finance and smart contracts through Ethereum in 2016 and has said it was his “entry into crypto.” However, he later lost faith in Ethereum after becoming dissatisfied with how Ethereum developers addressed scaling.

He came across Solana shortly after founding Multicoin in May 2017, and the firm went on to lead some of Solana’s earliest investment rounds in 2018.

It turned out to be one of the best ever bets for Multicoin, which reported managing $5.9 billion worth of assets in May 2025, making it one of the most prominent crypto investment firms.

Before joining the crypto industry, Samani co-founded and served as the CEO of healthcare IT company Pristine, which built software for Google Glass used by surgeons.

Magazine: Token buybacks are booming. But are they good for crypto projects?

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent leant on stablecoin adoption and dollar-denominated trade metrics to defend the strength of the U.S. economy, seeking to counter anxiety over surging government debt yields and shifting international payment rails.

Bessent pushed back against a recent report by the New York Times which outlined structural risks in the country’s financial position. He highlighted data amplified by conservative commentator Lawrence Kudlow, to emphasize the greenback’s enduring global dominance in a post on X, noting that the U.S. dollar remains on one side of 89.2% of FX transactions, while the overwhelming majority of stablecoins are pegged to USD.

Bessent also highlighted record median household income, a historically low official poverty rate, continued employment growth and the Atlanta Fed’s 5.1% annualised estimate for third-quarter GDP.

The pushback from Bessent comes at a time where U.S. Treasury yields reach multiyear highs, with the 10-year yield hitting 5%. The Treasury has been repurchasing longer term bonds, leading critics to accuse Bessent of attempting to suppress yields. Bessent rejects that interpretation, maintaining that the buybacks are intended to improve liquidity and manage the maturity structure, rather than control a Treasury market worth more than $30 trillion.

Bessent also cited Saudi Arabia’s departure from mBridge, the China-backed cross-border digital currency platform, according to the Financial Times, as supportive of dollar dominance. However, Saudi Arabia said its involvement ended after completing a planned proof of concept in May 2025. The platform continues to expand elsewhere, making the withdrawal a symbolic victory for Washington rather than evidence that the broader project is collapsing.

Michael Saylor’s Strategy resumed buying Bitcoin after a two-week pause while continuing to repurchase its STRC preferred stock.

Strategy acquired 950 Bitcoin (BTC) for $75.7 million at an average price of $79,670 per coin between Monday and Sunday, according to a Form 8-K filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday.

The purchase brought Strategy’s holdings to 846,000 BTC, acquired for about $63.8 billion at an average cost of $75,416 per Bitcoin, including fees and expenses. With Bitcoin trading at $84,925 at the time of publication, Strategy was sitting on an unrealized gain of about $8.05 billion on its holdings.

The purchase comes as Strategy balances its Bitcoin accumulation strategy with managing a growing collection of preferred securities and billions of dollars in cash reserves.

Shares of Strategy, the largest publicly traded Bitcoin treasury company in the world, rose 7.4% to $165.2 in pre-market trading on Monday, according to Yahoo Finance data. Strive, the world’s fifth-largest corporate Bitcoin holder, also announced Bitcoin buys on Monday. It added 1,355 BTC last week, bringing its total to 26,355 coins. Its shares rose 6.44% to $32.03.

Strategy spends $174 million buying back STRC

Strategy continued buying back its perpetual preferred stock, STRC, repurchasing about 1.77 million shares for $174 million during the same week.

STRC rose 0.35% to $98.85 during Monday’s pre-market trading.

Strategy said it still had $875.1 million available under its preferred-stock repurchase program and $1 billion remaining under its MSTR share repurchase program.

Related: REX launches 2x leveraged ETF tied to Bitcoin treasury firm Strive

The company also reported no sales under its at-the-market offering programs between Sept. 14 and Sept. 20, meaning it did not raise funds through those programs during the period.

Strategy’s deployable cash drops

Strategy’s ”USD Cash“ balance fell nearly 20% to $1.05 billion from $1.30 billion a week earlier, when the company reported its previous cash balance.

Its separate ”USD Reserve“ declined to $5.04 billion from $5.10 billion as Strategy used $57.4 million to pay preferred-stock dividends and interest on outstanding debt.

Strategy uses USD Cash for broader treasury purposes, including Bitcoin purchases and capital management, while its USD Reserve is intended primarily to support preferred-stock dividends and debt interest.

Magazine: Bitcoin treasury firms can outperform BTC… but is the risk worth taking?

Bitmine Immersion Technologies BMNR$27.56·Market Closed, the largest Ethereum treasury firm, bought another 27,562 ether last week, maintaining its steady buying as Chairman Tom Lee argued institutional investors remain underexposed to crypto.

The purchase was worth about $75.2 million at Monday’s ether price of $2,727, lifting Bitmine’s holdings to 5,983,940 ETH. That’s about 4.9% of the token’s 122.1 million supply, keeping the company close to its goal of owning 5%.

The firm has been buying at a similar pace in recent weeks and, at that rate, could reach its accumulation goal in the next couple of months. The company said it bought ether every week since June 2025, when it pivoted to a crypto treasury strategy.

Bitmine has staked about 5 million ETH, roughly 85% of its holdings, and projected a staking revenue of roughly $357 million annually at current yields.

Bitmine shares were 5.8% higher pre-market, extending Friday’s 8% rally as ETH surged overnight to a fresh high since late January.

Tom Lee sees year-end catch-up for crypto

Tom Lee, meanwhile, said institutional investors may be playing catch-up after favoring artificial intelligence-linked stocks earlier in the year.

Strategy MSTR$165.48·Market Closed made its first bitcoin purchase since late August, acquiring 950 BTC for $75.7 million last week at an average price of $79,670 per coin.

The purchase was funded through the USD reserve, according to a Monday morning regulatory filing. Strategy used $174 million of USD cash to fund repurchases of STRC and $75.7 million of USD cash to buy bitcoin. In addition, the company used $57.4 million of the USD reserve to fund the payment of dividends on its preferred stock. The USD reserve now sits at $5 billion and the USD cash sits at $1 billion.

Led by Executive Chairman Michael Saylor, Strategy now holds 846,000 BTC, acquired for a total of $63.81 billion at an average price of $74,417 per coin.

MSTR shares rose 7% in pre-market trading as bitcoin climbed to $84,500, gaining 4.5% over the past 24 hours.

Near Protocol’s native token surged nearly 80% over the past week, outpacing the wider crypto market as the network expanded its privacy-focused trading services.

On Monday, NEAR traded around $4.29, up about 78.2% over seven days and 22% over the past 24 hours, according to CoinGecko. Total cryptocurrency market capitalization rose about 6% over the same seven-day period.

On Thursday, Near Protocol said deposits and withdrawals for perpetual futures trading through near.com were now confidential by default. Near said the feature obscures the link between a trader’s funding wallet and a dedicated Hyperliquid trading account.

On the same day, Near said near.com’s confidential total value locked (TVL) had crossed $70 million, triggering the first snapshot under its NEAR@3.33 incentive program. The program allocated 333,333 milestone tokens for the first distribution. Under the program’s rules, those tokens unlock and convert to NEAR when its three-day volume-weighted average price reaches at least $3.33.

NEAR Intents reaches $29.3 billion in cumulative volume 

NEAR Intents lets users request cross-chain swaps, with market makers competing to execute them.

The NEAR Intents Explorer showed about $29.3 billion in cumulative volume and $842 million over the past seven days on Monday. Privacy-focused Zcash wallet ZODL was its third-largest referral source by volume over the preceding 24 hours, generating about $3.8 million across 458 transactions. 

A swap involving roughly $613,000 worth of ZEC was also among the largest transactions displayed by the explorer for the preceding 24 hours.

Related: Grayscale’s Zcash ETF files for 3-for-1 forward share split

Bitwise research analyst Camran Khosravi said Near and Zcash are “complements,” arguing that Near gives ZEC holders confidential cross-chain infrastructure and access to liquidity. 

He also cautioned that NEAR Intents’ TVL can rise when the price of ZEC already held within the system increases, even without new deposits.

Near has also extended its privacy focus beyond trading. In July, NEAR AI introduced staking-based payments that let users stake NEAR to receive credits for confidential AI inference and agent hosting while retaining ownership of the underlying tokens.

Magazine: Who needs CLARITY anyway? ARB could see 70X increase: Hodler’s Digest