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For the first time in three years, the United States Federal Reserve raised the benchmark interest rates by 25 bps.

In a unanimous decision, 12-0, the Committee decided to raise the target range for the federal funds rate by 1/4 percentage point to 3-3/4 to 4 percent, in support of its dual mandate.

This was quite expected given the recent developments, including the strong US labor report from a couple of weeks ago and the hawkish speech by Fed Chair Kevin Warsh. Moreover, the inflation data from last week gave the central bank even more reason to do so.

The price reaction from BTC was quite surprising, as the asset actually surged by a grand and a half to $76,500, where it was stopped for now.

The asset crashed hard yesterday after the Senate’s failure of the CLARITY Act, but today’s move shows that the Fed hike was priced in. All eyes are now on the next speech by Warsh.

The post Breaking: Fed Raises Interest Rates by 25 Bps, Bitcoin Price Reacts appeared first on CryptoPotato.

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The US Senate failed to advance the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act after the procedural vote fell short of the 60 needed to move forward. While this was “disappointing,” Coinbase co-founder Brian Armstrong said that bipartisan talks may continue and the bill could get another chance.

The exec, however, acknowledged that the industry “cannot wait” for Congress anymore.

Calls for a Post-Mortem

Armstrong said that the SEC and CFTC already have enough authority to establish clear rules and expects them to start working on that in earnest. According to the Coinbase chief, “clarity” is coming to crypto regardless of what happens with the bill. Armstrong also noted that some concessions made on CLARITY were difficult to accept. That could make its setback easier to take, while adding that the industry cannot be “uninvented.”

Meanwhile, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse said that “this one stings.” He asserted that the team gave everything it had to get the bill across the finish line.

“This was an opportunity bigger than Ripple or one company – we did this for the industry, for consumers and to cement the US’s position as the crypto capital of the world and as a leader in the future of finance. Ultimately, consumers and US competitiveness got left behind.”

Garlinghouse also called for a post-mortem on the failure while blaming Democratic politics for elevating the “anti-crypto army” over policy. Still, he sees reason for optimism. He expects the SEC under Chair Atkins and the CFTC under Chair Selig to keep working on rules that address the legislative gap.

Four Republicans Oppose Bill

Tuesday’s vote followed a series of last-minute talks between Republicans and crypto-friendly Democrats who were trying to reach a deal. Around a dozen Democrats were seen as possible supporters of the legislation. However, they ultimately held back their votes after negotiations over ethics rules failed to produce an agreement. Concerns also remained over President Trump and his family’s involvement in the crypto industry.

Three Republicans joined the opposition: Susan Collins of Maine, Josh Hawley of Missouri, and Jerry Moran of Kansas. Delaware Democrat Chris Coons did not vote. Thom Tillis of North Carolina also voted against the measure for procedural reasons so he could file a motion to reconsider and keep open the possibility of another vote.

The outcome drew reactions from lawmakers across Congress. Ruben Gallego said Republicans should have worked more closely with Democrats on a version that included stronger ethics provisions. Catherine Cortez Masto said she had negotiated until the final moments but added that important issues remained unresolved after Republican leadership ended talks.

The post After CLARITY Setback, Armstrong Says ‘We Can’t Wait on Congress Anymore’ appeared first on CryptoPotato.

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Euro-area online and mobile merchants can apply until Oct. 27 to test beta digital euro payments in a 12-month pilot.

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President Donald Trump demanded the Federal Reserve slash interest rates to 1% or lower on Wednesday. Fed Chair Kevin Warsh had just lifted rates to 3.75%-4% in the central bank’s first hike since 2023.

The Federal Open Market Committee’s decision was unanimous. Updated projections show 16 of 18 officials expect another increase before year-end, a shift from July’s outlook.

Fed Independence Fight Reignites

The committee also dropped language blaming part of inflation on supply shocks. It now argues the hike supports a quicker return to its 2% target.

Trump aired his frustration on Truth Social within hours of the announcement. He argued that the United States deserves near-zero borrowing costs because of its creditworthiness.

He also claimed that cutting trade with surplus countries could add at least $1.5 trillion a year to federal coffers. He has made similarly large investment claims before, and fact-checkers have called those figures overstated.

LOWER THE INTEREST RATES FOR THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, AND FAST!

Trump wrote in the post.

The post reopens a fight Trump had let simmer since Warsh took over as Fed chair from Powell. That switch has so far produced zero rate cuts.

Trump had already threatened to cut off trade with surplus countries if the Fed refused to ease policy. That threat touches most of the country’s largest trading partners.

He raised similar demands earlier in September as hike odds kept climbing, with the midterms adding pressure.

White House spokesman Kush Desai told Fox News that Trump still “absolutely” believes in the Fed’s independence. Yet he keeps pressuring it publicly.

Bitcoin and Gold React

Bitcoin’s price jumped in the minutes after Wednesday’s decision, even as it stayed down for the day. Gold spiked at the same time, then gave back its gains, according to BeInCrypto’s coverage of Wednesday.

With traders still pricing in another hike this year, Warsh’s next press conference may decide whether Trump’s pressure campaign escalates further.

The post Trump Demands 3% Rate Drop After Warsh Raised it and Threatens More Hikes appeared first on BeInCrypto.

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Apollo Global Management warned Wednesday that credit default swaps on hyperscaler debt are pricing in more risk. Chief economist Torsten Slok tied the shift to weakening credit fundamentals rather than routine bond-dealer hedging.

Hyperscalers are the cloud computing giants, including Amazon, Microsoft, Google, and Meta, that run the infrastructure behind the AI boom. They face a credit default swap (CDS) gap against bank debt, widened to about 60 basis points since October 2025.

Debt-Financed AI Buildout Draws 2008 Comparisons

Slok made the case in a Wednesday note reported by CNBC.

“What the market is repricing is hyperscaler credit fundamentals, namely a debt-financed AI capex cycle with rising leverage, negative free cash flow and uncertain payback on depreciating assets.”

Dan Alpert, founding managing partner of Westwood Capital, compared the setup to the run-up to the 2008 mortgage crisis. He said banks have since built far bigger equity buffers and are more diversified than they were then.

The comparison recalls “The Big Short,” the film chronicling investors who spotted mortgage bond mispricing years before the 2008 crash.

Slok’s note follows a weekend call from leading AI labs to slow model development over safety concerns. That shift could squeeze demand for the computing power hyperscalers are financing.

A Creaking Market

Analysts have separately flagged similar warning signs in the private credit market, where cracks are also drawing 2008 comparisons.

The pattern echoes how AI debt pushed yields toward multi-year highs earlier this year.

Not everyone agrees the risk has crystallized. Paul Meeks, head of technology research at Freedom Capital Markets, said hyperscaler margins are already improving as capacity additions slow.

Dean Baker, founder of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, said CDS investors are betting against the AI companies. He argued they doubt the companies can deliver on the commitments funding their debt.

Alphabet and Meta each carry negative forward free cash flow near $25 billion, while Amazon’s runs near $30 billion. Microsoft remains cash flow positive, according to FactSet data cited in Slok’s note.

Whether the widening CDS spreads mark an early warning or a temporary repricing remains unclear. The answer may hinge on how quickly AI revenue catches up to the spending it funds.

The post The Next Short? Economist Compares Hyperscaler AI Debt Stress to 2008 Housing Collapse appeared first on BeInCrypto.

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Federal prosecutors charged former Robinhood Crypto engineers Hefu Chai, 36, and Huaisong “Jerry” Xiang, 30, with one count of commodities fraud and one count of wire fraud each, alleging they used confidential information about upcoming Robinhood token listings to trade related perpetual futures on Hyperliquid before those listings went public.

Each defendant allegedly profited more than $50,000 between 2025 and 2026, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York.

The case matters beyond the dollar figures because it extends crypto insider-trading enforcement to decentralized derivatives markets, not just spot exchanges.

Prosecutors are applying commodities fraud and wire fraud theories to trading on a venue with no central listing desk or traditional KYC gatekeeper, signaling that jurisdiction over misappropriated information does not stop at a platform’s front door.

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How Did the Robinhood Engineers Use Hyperliquid to Conduct Insider Trading?

On September 15, 2026, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York announced charges against Chai from Menlo Park, California, and Xiang from Jersey City, New Jersey.

Both engineers at Robinhood allegedly accessed nonpublic information about upcoming cryptocurrency listings and profited by buying perpetual futures on Hyperliquid before public announcements.

The DOJ claims this violated their confidentiality obligations for personal gain. U.S. Attorney Jamie McDonald emphasized that corporate insiders cannot evade laws by trading derivatives.

The commodities fraud charge carries a maximum of 10 years, while the wire fraud charge could result in up to 20 years in prison if convicted. Robinhood said it is committed to market integrity and reported the matter to authorities, cooperating fully with the investigation.

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Why Perps and the Legal Theory Matter in the Insider Trading Case

Perpetual futures let traders take leveraged bets on an asset’s price without holding the token, and they never expire as long as funding payments keep them aligned with the spot price.

This makes them ideal for front-running listing announcements, since there’s no need to source the actual token and no custody risk.

The DOJ is pursuing this case under the Commodity Exchange Act and wire fraud statutes instead of securities fraud, allowing it to address derivatives trading on decentralized platforms without debating the status of underlying tokens.

This approach differs from the earlier Coinbase case involving Ishan Wahi, who was charged for sharing confidential token-listing information.

Hyperliquid, a major decentralized platform for perpetual futures, is already under regulatory scrutiny, and this case adds a criminal dimension.

The takeaway for traders is clear: pre-listing perp flow on decentralized venues now falls within the DOJ’s focus, and insiders trading through derivatives may face risks similar to those trading spot tokens directly.

The charges against Chai and Xiang are allegations only, and both defendants are presumed innocent unless proven guilty. No trial date or plea has been reported.

Discover: The Best Token Presales

The post Who are Hefu Chai and Jerry Xiang in the Robinhood Insider Case appeared first on Cryptonews.

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Bitcoin (BTC) demand is under pressure in the US as investors react to the failure of the CLARITY Act to advance in the Senate.

Key points:

• Bitcoin’s Coinbase Premium Index fell to -0.079 on Tuesday, its lowest level since Aug. 16.
• US sell-side pressure diverged from other major exchanges as the CLARITY Act failed to advance in the Senate.
• Short-term holders sent 34,000 BTC to exchanges in the last 24 hours, potentially for sale at a loss. This constitutes the largest inflow in a month.

Analyst sees “bullish” signal as Coinbase selling diverges from Binance

Senators failed to give CLARITY the necessary 60 votes on Tuesday, leaving only a handful of options for returning the key piece of crypto legislation to the debate stage before 2027. Bitcoin saw downside pressure on the back of the news, as US demand in particular suffered from the decision. Data from onchain analytics platform CryptoQuant shows the Coinbase Premium dropping to one-month lows of -0.079 on Tuesday.

The Coinbase Premium, which measures the difference in price between Coinbase’s and Binance’s BTC/USDT pairs, briefly turned positive at the start of the week, reaching 0.004, but fell deeper over the course of Monday. It currently sits at its lowest levels since Aug. 16, when BTC/USD traded at around $63,000.

Bitcoin Coinbase Premium Index. Source: CryptoQuant

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A negative Coinbase Premium implies a comparative lack of demand from Coinbase traders compared to Binance users. The premium has spent much of 2026 in the red, underscoring the exodus of investor capital as Bitcoin fell from its latest all-time highs of $126,200 seen in October 2025.

Responding, onchain analyst Willy Woo flagged that the divergence in seller behavior between Coinbase and non-US exchanges intensified around the vote. 

Woo produced a chart of cumulative volume delta (CVD) data by exchange, denominated in BTC since Sept. 6. CVD measures the difference between net buyer and seller volume over a single candle, adding each candle’s data to the total for a given period. Around Sept. 11, Binance CVD began to move higher, while Coinbase continued to fall as sellers there remained firmly in control.

“I see the US selling with the failed Clarity Act (on Coinbase) Meanwhile the more dominant global offshore continues accumulating (on Binance),” Woo wrote in a post on X, describing the scenario as “bullish.”

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BTC/USD chart with CVD data. Source: Willy Woo on X.com

Short-term holders send BTC to exchanges in unrealized loss

Continuing, CryptoQuant showed that the bulk of reactive selling from the CLARITY failure came from newer Bitcoin investors.

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

Short-term holders (STH), wallets holding an unspent transaction output (UTXO) for less than six months, sent up to 34,000 BTC to exchanges on a rolling 24-hour basis. The majority of these coins were transferred to exchanges at a lower price than when they last moved onchain.

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“With 23 200 BTC sent to exchanges at a loss, this STH capitulation event is the largest recorded over the past month,” CryptoQuant reported in a blog post.

Bitcoin STH cumulative 24-hour profit and loss to exchanges (screenshot). Source: CryptoQuant

Previously, Cointelegraph reported that STH unrealized profitability had reached a key milestone for 2026, potentially boosting the odds of a long-term bullish BTC price trend change.

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Trader Matthew Hyland says Bitcoin is sitting at a daily cycle low with a bullish divergence forming on the charts, and he’s calling for prices above $90,000 by early November.

He’s making that call even as BTC trades near $76,000, down sharply since the Senate failed to advance the CLARITY Act, and while most of the market’s loudest voices are still leaning bearish.

One Analyst Sees a Bottom, Bears See a Trap

Hyland posted on X that bears were getting excited right at what he considers a daily cycle low, with a bullish divergence setup forming underneath the price action.

“See ya at $90k+ by early November,” he wrote.

Swing trader Roman replied, “Yeah, part of me really thinks this was a low,” with Hyland acknowledging that the RSI could fall further, although he pointed to liquidity around $75,000.

“So far it was just a liquidity grab IMO,” he stated, adding that there was “not really much liquidity below” that level. Additionally, he said current prices look solid to him, even though most bears still aren’t buying it and are hoping for a much deeper decline.

That view runs against more pessimistic calls on X, including from analyst Ted Pillows, who pointed out that BTC has lost its 50-week EMA and wrote that “a drop to $70K-$72K zone is highly likely before any reversal.”

Fellow market watcher Crypto Patel has been calling the bearish move since Bitcoin fell from $82,500 to about $74,900 after being rejected near an $83,000 bearish order block on the daily chart, and he’s holding a $50,000 target unless Bitcoin closes above $83,000 on a higher timeframe.

Meanwhile, CryptoQuant contributor IT Tech took a different approach, focusing on Bitcoin holdings rather than price structure. They pointed out that the 6- to 12-month supply band has climbed to 30.8% of realized cap, up from 16.2% in December last year, a pattern that lined up with the last three Bitcoin bottoms.

The analyst called it a bullish setup but stopped short of calling it the cycle low outright, noting that the OG cryptocurrency is still down nearly 40% from its peak and that “this reads as mid-cycle floor building, not the cycle low.”

Bitcoin’s Price Action and the CLARITY Act Fallout

BTC was trading near $76,000 at the time of writing, down about 1.5% in 24 hours and nearly 5% over the past week, although it’s still up close to 19% across 30 days.

The drop follows Tuesday’s Senate vote, when cloture on the CLARITY Act failed to gather the 60 votes needed to move the bill forward. As CryptoPotato reported earlier, Bitcoin short-term holders sent more than 23,000 BTC to exchanges at a loss in the aftermath, worth close to $1.8 billion, marking the largest capitulation event in about a month.

The post Analyst Says This Setup Could Send Bitcoin Above $90K by November appeared first on CryptoPotato.

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