NEAR has pushed toward the $5 level after NYSE Arca approved Bitwise’s NEAR ETF listing application under ticker NRR, extending a rally that has lifted the token more than 170% this year.

The SEC filing trail shows that Bitwise registered the ETF’s shares under Section 12(b) on September 24, with the Form 8-A stating that NYSE Arca had approved the listing application. The filing names common shares of beneficial interest in the Bitwise NEAR ETF for trading on the exchange.

The wording requires an important distinction. Bitwise’s prospectus states that neither the SEC nor any state securities regulator has “approved or disapproved” the securities themselves. The exchange has approved the listing application, while the SEC registration process governs the public offering disclosures.

What did NYSE Arca approve for the Bitwise NEAR ETF?

Bitwise plans to list the product under the ticker NRR, giving investors exposure to NEAR through a traditional brokerage account. Its primary objective is to track the value of NEAR held by the trust after fees and liabilities, while staking serves as a secondary source of additional tokens. The fund does not plan to use derivatives.

The SEC’s September 16 amended S-1 sets a 0.75% annual management fee. Coinbase Custody will safeguard the fund’s NEAR, while Bitwise will select staking agents to operate validators for tokens placed into staking. Creation and redemption baskets will contain 10,000 shares.

Bitwise’s September 24 prospectus goes further on the staking economics. The trust currently intends to stake 100% of its NEAR holdings, subject to liquidity requirements and operational exceptions. Staking-related expenses will absorb 33% of newly generated NEAR, leaving approximately 67% for the trust.

Bitwise Investment Manager is expected to buy the first 20,000 shares for $500,000 at $25 each. The proceeds are intended to purchase NEAR at or before the listing. Bitwise Asset Management had previously provided $200 in seed capital by purchasing eight shares at $25 each.

Why is NEAR struggling to hold $5 after the ETF catalyst?

NEAR’s price moved rapidly before the latest filing. CoinGecko data show the token closing near $2.62 on September 16 and$ 4.96 at press time. The same source showed a 43% seven-day gain and a roughly 176% year-to-date increase.

The rally briefly pushed NEAR into the 4.80-5.00 region before momentum cooled. That leaves $5 as the next obvious psychological barrier after one of NEAR’s strongest monthly advances of 2026.

As crypto.news reported in its September 23 NEAR market update, NEAR spot trading recently went live on Hyperliquid through a NEAR/USDC market. Hyperliquid perpetual open interest stood near $344 million at the time, while positive funding showed leveraged longs were paying shorts.

The ETF story adds another catalyst to a rally that had already been building. Crypto.news previously covered Bitwise adding staking to its NEAR filing in July, when NEAR traded near $2. The amended structure introduced staking rewards while confirming NYSE Arca, Coinbase Custody and BNY Mellon as key parts of the product’s infrastructure.

Could staking change how investors value the NRR product?

The staking feature separates NRR from a product that merely holds idle tokens. Under Bitwise’s structure, additional NEAR generated through validators can increase the trust’s token holdings after staking expenses, which then feed into its net asset value.

Investors will not receive every token generated by staking. Bitwise’s prospectus says the trust retains approximately 67% after 33% is allocated to the staking agents, custodian and sponsor as staking expenses. The 0.75% management fee applies separately.

Bitwise already operates a European NEAR staking product. Its Frankfurt-listed NEAR Staking ETP recently crossed $100 million in assets as NEAR’s price climbed. Reporting on the product found that much of the asset increase came from token appreciation, while outstanding units rose much more slowly.

The distinction between rising assets and fresh investor demand will matter once NRR begins trading. A higher NEAR price automatically raises the dollar value of tokens held by the trust, while share creations would provide clearer evidence that new investor capital is entering the product.

Is NEAR becoming overheated near the $5 resistance?

Momentum remains strong on the technical snapshot. The 14-period Money Flow Index stands near 77.01, signaling heavy buying pressure and placing the indicator close to the upper end of its normal range.

The Know Sure Thing indicator remains strongly positive near 912.24, well above its signal line around 626.11. Both readings continue rising, supporting the strength of the September trend even as the price struggles to establish itself above $5.

An MFI reading near 77, however, places NEAR close to conditions traders often consider stretched. The token has moved from roughly $2.30 in mid-September to nearly $5 within less than two weeks, leaving price far above several moving averages from the earlier consolidation.

Recent market history puts the first support area around 4.20-4.30, with the next deeper zone around 3.70-3.80. A clean move through 4.80-5.00 would remove the resistance that has capped the latest advance, while a failure to hold the low-$4 range would represent a larger reset after the September run.

Crypto.news noted a similar tension in its coverage of NEAR’s 2026 alternative-asset rally, where the token had emerged as one of the stronger smart-contract platform trades as capital moved beyond Bitcoin and Ethereum.

When could the Bitwise NEAR ETF begin trading?

Bitwise has completed several steps associated with bringing the product to market. The September 24 Form 8-A registers the shares for NYSE Arca, while the final prospectus filed the same day states that the sponsor first intended to use the document on September 24.

The prospectus says NRR shares are expected to list “subject to notice of issuance.” Bitwise’s filing materials did not specify a confirmed first trading date in the documents reviewed. The SEC prospectus further states that the shares are registered only for public sale in the United States.

Once trading begins, authorized participants can create or redeem shares in 10,000-share baskets using either NEAR or cash under the trust’s procedures. Bitwise expects the initial $500,000 seed basket proceeds to be used to acquire NEAR at or before the exchange listing.

Polygon has tested a new agent payment system that processed more than 11 million verified payment updates per second across 25 hubs while keeping final settlement anchored to Polygon Chain.

Polygon Labs said the benchmark used agent pay channels designed for software that pays for inference, data, API calls and other services as they are consumed, instead of sending every individual payment through an onchain transaction.

The system combines high frequency offchain payment updates with batched settlement on Polygon, allowing an agent to make repeated small payments while working through a task. Each update was confirmed by the payment engine in 20 microseconds, excluding network latency between the user and the hub.

Polygon payment channels separate payments from settlement

Agent pay channels begin with a payer depositing funds into a vendor agnostic channel contract on Polygon and binding a session key. The deposited amount determines how much the agent can spend during the session.

Once a service requests payment through x402, the agent sends signed cumulative vouchers through a hub as it consumes the service. The hub checks the signature, price, replay ID, authorization ceiling and remaining escrow before returning a receipt.

A valid receipt lets the provider release the next unit of work, which could be a token window, data result, API response or another service. Instead of putting each payment on Polygon individually, the hub batches the accumulated state and posts an epoch Merkle root to the chain. Providers can then prove what they earned against the root and claim the funds.

The design gives x402 and the payment channel separate roles. The x402 protocol lets an online service state a price and request payment over HTTP, while the channel processes repeated payment updates and later batches them for settlement.

Interest in x402 has grown as developers build payment infrastructure for autonomous software. The protocol uses HTTP’s 402 “Payment Required” status code to let software pay for online resources without relying on a conventional checkout process. As crypto.news previously reported, agents can use the system to buy compute, data and other services while carrying out tasks.

How Polygon reached 11 million payments per second

Polygon tested the architecture against an OpenRouter style inference API on a live devnet. A signed payment was triggered through the channel for every 100 token window, with Polygon saying the payment path was real while the inference provider itself was a stand in.

Performance differed depending on how much of the payment stack was included in the test. A full x402 path involving the agent, site, facilitator and hub processed roughly 40,000 payments per second. Polygon recorded 2.4 million payments in the test with a 100% success rate.

Testing the engine directly on one 24 core server produced between 533,000 and 536,000 fully verified payments per second. Polygon then distributed the workload across 25 independently scaling hubs with 16 vCPUs each, where the system passed 11 million payment updates per second.

The figure does not mean Polygon Chain itself processed 11 million onchain transactions per second. Individual payment updates moved through the offchain channels, while deposited funds remained secured through Polygon and accumulated payment states were settled onchain in batches.

Polygon said its hubs partition payers and do not need to coordinate with each other while payments are being processed. Capacity can therefore be added by running more hubs. Based on the 25 hub test, the company estimates that a larger fleet could process more than 100 million payment updates per second.

Participants can determine when those accumulated payments are settled. Settlement could take place after one payment, 50,000 updates or 100 million updates, depending on how the service is configured.

The benchmark configuration put the processing cost for one billion payment updates at approximately $0.15, according to Polygon.

x402 payment activity is spreading across blockchain networks

Polygon’s test arrives as x402 is being adopted across several blockchain ecosystems. Circle reported that USDC accounted for 99.3% of x402 payment volume measured during the second quarter, although the figure covered Circle’s x402 data and did not represent all AI agent payment systems.

Network support has continued to grow. Cardano added x402 to its software stack in September, allowing developers to build agents and applications capable of paying for services with ADA and Cardano native tokens. Its initial TypeScript release had been tested on Cardano’s preproduction environment but had not yet demonstrated commercial payments at scale on mainnet.

Block joined the x402 Foundation this week and contributed Lightning support to the protocol. The x402 Foundation reported 75.41 million transactions and $24.24 million in volume over a recent 30 day period, while the Lightning addition gives developers a Bitcoin based payment option alongside the stablecoins that have supplied much of the protocol’s activity.

Ripple has pursued a similar path around the XRP Ledger. AI agents had generated more than 1.4 million transactions on XRPL by July, while Ripple was working on developer infrastructure for autonomous payments involving XRP and RLUSD.

Agent payments fit Polygon’s Open Money Stack plans

The agent pay channel system is expected to connect with Polygon’s Open Money Stack, which brings together the infrastructure used to move funds into applications, hold them, apply spending rules and settle accumulated value.

Polygon has spent much of 2026 building its payments infrastructure around stablecoins and institutional settlement. PayPal USD became native on Polygon in July through the Open Money Stack, giving businesses access to PYUSD alongside wallets, fiat ramps and compliance tools. Polygon Labs said at the time that its network had settled more than $2.6 trillion in stablecoin transactions.

The network had already reduced its average block time to 1.75 seconds in May as part of its payments push, taking its estimated theoretical onchain throughput to roughly 3,260 transactions per second.

Agent pay channels use a different scaling model because millions of individual payment updates do not have to compete for that onchain transaction capacity. Funds are committed to the channel first, payment updates take place away from the chain, and Polygon records the resulting settlement in batches.

Polygon said the setup is intended for services that charge by individual API call, token, lookup or completed task, allowing an agent to move between providers without maintaining a separately funded prepaid account with each service.

Crypto’s boundary with traditional finance is getting harder to define—fast. This week’s Crypto Biz roundup highlights a shared push by crypto firms and legacy institutions toward the same battleground: stable value transfer, tokenized assets, and the plumbing that moves money and securities.

From Binance deepening its USDC relationship with Circle to Canada’s largest banks testing tokenized deposits, and the New York Stock Exchange pairing with Blockchain.com for tokenized US stocks, the common theme is clear: both sides want to capture distribution and control as financial rails increasingly run on-chain.

Key takeaways

• Binance is investing $100 million in Circle and expanding a USDC deal through a new multi-year commercial agreement tied to USDC balances on Binance infrastructure.
• Canada’s six biggest banks are jointly exploring tokenized Canadian dollar deposits, initially focusing on transfers between participating banks.
• Chainalysis data shows cross-border stablecoin flows rose nearly 78% year through June even as total crypto market cap fell 37%.
• The NYSE is moving toward on-chain distribution of tokenized US stocks and ETFs via a planned alternative trading system with Blockchain.com.

Binance expands USDC ties through Circle investment

Binance is strengthening its partnership with Circle via a combination of equity investment and expanded commercial terms around USDC. According to a report linked to a filing discussed by Cointelegraph, Binance will make a $100 million investment in Circle alongside a five-year agreement intended to expand USDC adoption across the exchange.

In a Tuesday filing referenced in that coverage, Circle reportedly issued Binance 1,237,011 shares of Class A common stock at $80.84 per share as part of a private placement dated Sept. 17. The purchase price was described as below Circle’s market price before the transaction closed, and Cointelegraph noted that Circle’s shares rose after the announcement.

The deal also includes incentives designed to tie Binance’s economics to USDC usage. As described, Circle will pay Binance a monthly incentive fee based on the amount of USDC held through the exchange’s Modular Smart Contract Wallet infrastructure.

Regulatory and governance constraints are part of the structure as well. Binance is reportedly restricted from selling or transferring the Circle shares for up to two years, though the lockup could end earlier under certain termination provisions. During the restriction period, Binance retains voting rights.

For investors and traders, the practical takeaway is that stablecoin distribution is increasingly being treated like strategic market infrastructure rather than a standalone product. Equity alignment plus volume-linked incentives suggest Binance is positioning itself not just as a marketplace for USDC, but as a long-term channel for stablecoin settlement and custody patterns that can follow users across the market.

Canadian banks test tokenized deposits—without changing the legal character

While stablecoins often dominate headlines, Canada’s largest banks are experimenting with a different on-chain narrative: tokenized representations of bank deposits. Cointelegraph reported that the country’s six largest banks are jointly exploring tokenized Canadian dollar deposits—a payment rail that could let digital representations of deposits move between financial institutions.

The banks involved—Bank of Montreal, CIBC, National Bank of Canada, Royal Bank of Canada, Scotiabank, and TD Bank Group—plan to start with a limited scope. The first phase, as described, focuses on transfers between participating banks, with the possibility of connecting to other digital asset networks later.

A key detail is regulatory treatment. Cointelegraph noted that Canada’s Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions clarified on Sept. 10 that tokenized deposits are “not legally distinct from traditional deposits.” In other words, blockchain or other technology would not change their underlying legal classification.

That distinction matters because it separates tokenized deposits from the way many fiat-backed stablecoins are typically structured. Tokenized deposits remain liabilities of the issuing banks, whereas stablecoins are not treated the same way under the same liability framework. The banks also argue the model could support faster and programmable payments, and that other deposit-taking institutions may join in the future.

This approach may be especially relevant for Canada’s evolving stablecoin rules. As mentioned in the coverage, the framework applies to non-financial institution issuers, while regulated banks and credit unions fall outside its scope—meaning tokenized deposit experiments can progress while still fitting into how regulators already categorize traditional banking liabilities.

Stablecoins keep moving as crypto market value contracts

Even as broader crypto market capitalization has weakened, stablecoins appear to be gaining momentum—particularly in cross-border usage. Cointelegraph cited Chainalysis data showing cross-border stablecoin flows climbed nearly 78% to $220.3 billion over the year through June, while total crypto market cap dropped 37% to $2.1 trillion.

According to the same Chainalysis-referenced analysis, cross-border stablecoin flows increased 77.5%, and Chainalysis identified 4,708 new cross-border corridors carrying $2.64 billion. Importantly, the largest corridors still dominated value, accounting for 96.1% of total transfer value.

Chainalysis also attributed much of the growth to transfer sizes and patterns that look less like speculation. The firm noted that transfers averaged around $3,000, aligning with use cases like trade, remittances, and savings rather than high-frequency speculative behavior.

Cointelegraph further reported commentary from Tether economist Philip Gradwell, who described the activity as a “steady rhythm” typical of business usage. StraitsX CEO Tianwei Liu pointed to the role of stablecoins in providing dollar access, offering inflation protection, and potentially offering routes around capital controls outside Asia.

There’s also a regulatory undertone to the data. The coverage referenced stablecoin oversight tightening in major jurisdictions, including the US’s GENIUS Act enacted in July 2025, along with the EU’s MiCA framework and Hong Kong’s licensing regime. The implication is that even during periods when overall crypto valuations fall, stablecoin rails may keep attracting demand where traditional settlement systems are slower, less flexible, or more constrained.

NYSE and Blockchain.com pursue tokenized US stocks via a new trading venue

For tokenized assets, the story is shifting from concept to market access. Cointelegraph reported that Blockchain.com and the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) are teaming up to bring tokenized US stocks and exchange-traded funds to crypto users through a planned alternative trading system (ATS).

The companies reportedly signed a memorandum of understanding covering this digital ATS, which remains subject to regulatory approval. The agreement also includes a market-data partnership between Blockchain.com and NYSE parent Intercontinental Exchange’s ICE Data Services.

In commentary highlighted by the report, TD Securities’ Reid Noch framed the initiative as a bid to capture retail trading activity—particularly as tokenized markets enable 24-hour and weekend trading. Talos’ Tanay Ved also argued that crypto venues are increasingly evolving into multi-asset platforms rather than staying isolated within purely digital-asset categories.

Demand signals cited in the coverage point to growing participation: RWA.xyz reported that tokenized stocks have reached $3.14 billion in value and that the number of holders rose 72% to 3.87 million.

The partnership also arrives alongside regulatory scaffolding for tokenized securities. Cointelegraph noted that the US Securities and Exchange Commission introduced a five-year Innovation Exemption for certain tokenized securities venues. The coverage described eligible tokenized stocks as representing actual shares that carry the same economic and governance rights as traditional counterparts.

For market participants, this development matters less as a “tokenization trend” and more as a distribution question: which platforms and venues will allow tokenized equities to reach everyday investors. If the ATS receives approval, it could accelerate how quickly tokenized products shift from niche issuance toward usable liquidity with established market-data infrastructure.

Across these stories, the next watch-item is the same: whether on-chain rails—stablecoins, tokenized deposits, and tokenized equities—can scale under real-world compliance constraints without fragmenting liquidity. Investors should track the practical rollout timelines, especially where regulatory approvals and lockups determine how quickly access expands.

Jumper has scheduled its JUMP token sale on Legion for Sep. 29 at 13:00 UTC, with the three-day offering set to close on Oct. 2 at the same time.

In its Sep. 25 announcement, Jumper said eligible participants will be able to review the sale terms on Legion, submit a pledge, and request a JUMP allocation during the sale window. Final allocations will depend on eligibility, the terms of the offering, demand, and Legion’s allocation process.

If requests exceed the available tokens by a substantial amount, allocations may be adjusted to let more eligible participants take part.

Jumper described the sale as its first time raising funds independently. The company said there is no equity in Jumper and presented JUMP as the route for users, contributors and investors to participate in its growth. The announcement did not turn a pledge into a confirmed purchase: participants must still receive an allocation under the final sale terms.

JUMP sale excludes US and UK participants

For American users, the immediate consequence is an access restriction. Legion lists the United States and the United Kingdom among the jurisdictions excluded from the sale. Its exclusion list also includes the United Arab Emirates, Russia, Iran, Syria, North Korea, Cuba, and sanctioned regions of Ukraine.

Within the European Union, access to the sale terms is restricted to fewer than 150 eligible people in each member state, according to Jumper. The company’s notice also says that completing eligibility or identity checks does not guarantee access to the offering or an allocation. Any offer to acquire JUMP will be made separately through Legion to selected eligible people.

The US restriction comes while domestic rules for crypto fundraising remain under review. In August, crypto.news covered an SEC proposal that would create exemptions for certain token offerings, including one allowing qualifying issuers to raise up to $75 million in a 12-month period without full registration. The proposed routes carry disclosure requirements and have been opened for public comment; Jumper has not said its Legion sale will use either route.

Legion has also supported other crypto fundraising campaigns. In December 2025, Superform reported $4.7 million in commitments for an UP token sale conducted on Cookie.fun, a platform powered by Legion. Superform said the commitments exceeded its initial target, a separate result that does not indicate how much demand Jumper’s sale will receive.

Jumper plans to add trading products to its app

Jumper currently offers swaps and transfers between blockchains through one interface. It says users can also access yield products and view assets that include cryptocurrencies, tokenized stocks, and other real-world assets. CEO Marko Jurina leads the team, according to the announcement.

The company claims more than $41 billion in lifetime transaction volume and over 100,000 monthly active users. Jumper calls itself the largest aggregator by bridging volume, while describing the $41 billion figure as lifetime activity across bridging and swapping. Its announcement uses both “more than $41 billion” in the main text and “more than $40 billion” in its company description.

Jumper is building out four product lines: Earn, Advanced, real-world assets, and perpetual futures. Earn, which offers access to on-chain yield opportunities across blockchains, recently reached $10 million in attributed total value locked, according to the company. Advanced is designed to add trading tools such as limit orders, time-weighted average price orders and recurring purchases.

For tokenized assets, Jumper points to an interface for trading tokenized stocks and other real-world assets. The company also says its Perps product will bring together perpetual futures venues and launch with JUMP token and USD incentives with Ondo. Those plans concern products beyond the existing swap and bridge functions; the announcement does not say that access to them depends on receiving an allocation in the token sale.

Other trading interfaces have been adding tokenized securities alongside crypto assets. In June, Bitget Wallet expanded its trading API to route orders from cryptocurrencies into tokenized stocks and other real-world assets. The company named Ondo Finance and xStocks among its early integrations. Jumper’s announcement describes its own real-world asset interface, without claiming that the Bitget product forms part of the JUMP sale.

Allocation requests remain subject to Legion’s process

A participant who can view Jumper’s terms may submit a pledge during the period beginning Sep. 29 at 13:00 UTC and ending Oct. 2 at 13:00 UTC. Jumper says the amount requested may differ from the final allocation, particularly if demand leads Legion to adjust individual allotments.

The company’s sale notice specifies that its announcement is for general information and is not itself an offer to acquire JUMP. It says tokens cannot be purchased, reserved, or pledged through the announcement; eligible participants must use the separate offering process on Legion.

Strategy is seeking shareholder approval to move its four preferred stocks, including STRC, to daily dividend payments without changing their dividend rates or the total amount paid.

The company’s board approved the proposal on Thursday, according to a Friday filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. Shareholders are scheduled to vote on the amendments at a virtual special meeting on Oct. 28.

If approved, each calendar day would become a dividend record date, with the corresponding payment made on the next business day. STRC would move to the new schedule first, with its initial daily dividend payment expected on Nov. 2.

STRF, STRK and STRD would follow in January, with their first payments under the daily schedule expected on Jan. 4. The amendments would take effect after Strategy files updated certificates governing the preferred stocks with the state of Delaware.

Related: Strategy buys 950 Bitcoin for $76M, repurchases $174M in STRC

Strategy follows Strive into daily dividends

Strategy’s proposal comes several months after fellow Bitcoin treasury company Strive moved its SATA preferred stock to daily dividend payments, becoming the first public company to adopt the model.

Strive announced in May that SATA would begin paying dividends every business day on June 16 at a 13% annual rate, and also reported that it eliminated its outstanding debt in the first quarter.

Unlike Strive’s business-day schedule, Strategy’s proposal would make every calendar day a record date, with the corresponding dividend payable on the following business day.

Strive holds 26,355 Bitcoin, compared with Strategy’s 846,000 BTC, according to BitcoinTreasuries.NET.

Top 10 Bitcoin treasury companies. Source: BitcoinTreasuries.NET

Strategy CEO says leverage drove STRC below $100

While Strive was the first public company to offer daily dividends, Strategy pioneered what it calls “digital credit,” preferred securities designed to generate income from a capital structure built around the company’s Bitcoin treasury.

STRC, a key part of Strategy’s digital credit strategy, has seen significant price swings this year. In June, the stock fell sharply below its $100 stated amount, hitting an intraday low of $71.25 on June 26, according to Yahoo Finance data.

STRC stock price year-to-date. Source: Yahoo Finance

Speaking on Natalie Brunell’s Coin Stories podcast earlier this week, Strategy CEO Phong Le attributed the decline to more leverage entering the market for STRC than the company had anticipated. He said some investors borrowed against Bitcoin at lower rates to buy STRC and capture the spread between their borrowing costs and STRC’s dividend yield.

When Bitcoin’s price fell, investors who had borrowed against their holdings faced pressure to either add more collateral or sell STRC, according to Le.

“We did not expect the amount of leverage that came into the system,” Le said. “And so that’s a lesson learned, next time around.”

Le said Strategy is seeking to prevent another such unwind by maintaining a strong US dollar reserve and having a policy that allows the company to repurchase STRC when it trades below its $100 stated amount. He also said the company wants to attract more long-term holders, particularly institutional investors.

STRC has since recovered to about $98.41, close to Strategy’s stated goal of keeping the security between $99 and $100. It currently carries a 12% variable annual dividend rate.

Magazine: Exchanges reporting crypto gains to IRS becomes tax nightmare

The line between crypto companies and traditional finance is blurring. Binance is buying a $100 million stake in Circle, Canada’s six largest banks are exploring tokenized deposits and the New York Stock Exchange is working with Blockchain.com to bring US stocks and ETFs onchain.

Crypto companies want a bigger role in payments and traditional assets, while banks and exchanges are bringing those markets onchain without giving up their place at the center of the financial system.

This week’s Crypto Biz highlights how stablecoins and tokenized assets put crypto companies and traditional finance on increasingly overlapping turf, with both sides vying for control over how money and assets move.

Binance bets $100 million on Circle in expanded USDC deal

Binance is deepening its ties to Circle with a $100 million investment in the stablecoin issuer and a five-year agreement to expand USDC adoption across the exchange.

According to a Tuesday filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, Circle issued Binance 1,237,011 shares of Class A common stock at $80.84 apiece in a Sept. 17 private placement. The purchase price was below Circle’s market price before the deal closed. CRCL shares rose following the announcement.

The investment comes with a broader commercial agreement around USDC. Circle will pay Binance a monthly incentive fee based on the amount of USDC held through the exchange’s Modular Smart Contract Wallet infrastructure.

Binance is restricted from selling, transferring, pledging or otherwise disposing of the Circle shares for up to two years, although the lockup can end earlier under certain termination provisions. Binance retains voting rights on the shares during that period.

Canada’s biggest banks test tokenized deposits

Canada’s six largest banks are jointly exploring tokenized Canadian dollar deposits, a potential new payment rail that would allow digital representations of bank deposits to move between financial institutions.

The initiative brings together Bank of Montreal, CIBC, National Bank of Canada, Royal Bank of Canada, Scotiabank and TD Bank Group. The first phase will focus on transfers between participating banks, with the system potentially connecting to other digital asset networks later.

The project comes after Canada’s Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions clarified on Sept. 10 that tokenized deposits are “not legally distinct from traditional deposits,” meaning the use of blockchain or other technology does not change their underlying legal treatment.

Unlike fiat-backed stablecoins, tokenized deposits remain liabilities of the banks that issue them. The participating banks say the model could enable faster, programmable payments, with other deposit-taking institutions potentially joining in the future.

The distinction is particularly relevant as Canada develops its stablecoin rules. The country’s framework applies to non-financial institution issuers, while regulated banks and credit unions fall outside its scope. 

Stablecoin payments surge as crypto market shrinks

Cross-border stablecoin flows surged nearly 78% to $220.3 billion in the year through June, even as the broader crypto market lost more than a third of its value.

According to Chainalysis, cross-border stablecoin flows increased 77.5% while total crypto market capitalization fell 37% to $2.1 trillion. The analytics firm identified 4,708 new cross-border corridors carrying $2.64 billion, although the largest corridors still accounted for 96.1% of total value.

Chainalysis said much of the growth came from transfers averaging about $3,000, a pattern more consistent with trade, remittances and savings than speculative activity. Tether economist Philip Gradwell described the activity as having a “steady rhythm” typical of business use, while StraitsX CEO Tianwei Liu pointed to demand for dollar access, inflation protection and ways around capital controls outside Asia.

Stablecoin adoption has also coincided with greater regulatory clarity. The US enacted the GENIUS Act in July 2025, while the European Union’s MiCA framework and Hong Kong’s licensing regime have brought stablecoins under more formal oversight.

NYSE, Blockchain.com team up on tokenized US stocks

Blockchain.com and the New York Stock Exchange are teaming up to bring tokenized US stocks and exchange-traded funds to crypto users through a planned alternative trading system.

The companies signed a memorandum of understanding covering the new digital ATS, which remains subject to regulatory approval. The agreement also includes a market-data partnership between Blockchain.com and NYSE parent Intercontinental Exchange’s ICE Data Services.

TD Securities’ Reid Noch described the partnership as a bid for retail trading activity, particularly as tokenized markets open the door to 24-hour and weekend trading. Talos’ Tanay Ved said crypto venues are increasingly evolving into multi-asset platforms.

Demand is also growing. The value of tokenized stocks has reached $3.14 billion, while the number of holders has climbed 72% to 3.87 million, according to RWA.xyz.

The partnership follows the US Securities and Exchange Commission’s introduction of a five-year Innovation Exemption for certain tokenized securities venues. Eligible tokenized stocks must represent actual shares carrying the same economic and governance rights as their traditional counterparts.

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Bitcoin price fell to about $83,450 on Sep. 25 after a rally above $87,000 earlier in the week gave way to a narrower trading range. The pullback comes as traders weigh a quarterly options expiry against higher U.S. Treasury yields.

According to the daily Bitcoin price chart, BTC traded near $83,476 after reaching $85,255 during the Sep. 25 session. The price was still above the chart’s 20-day Bollinger Band midpoint at $79,951, despite retreating from an upper band near $86,724.

The decline followed a sharp move earlier in the week that carried Bitcoin above $87,000. The daily chart showed the relative strength index at 62.03, down from the higher readings reached during the rally but still above the neutral level of 50.

Bitcoin holds above $83K as the 4-hour MACD weakens

Bitcoin’s 4-hour chart showed the price falling from the $86,000–$87,000 area and then trading mostly between $83,000 and $85,000. Its latest candle on the chart opened at $84,583, fell to $83,183, and traded near $83,454.

The 4-hour MACD line stood at 251.25, below its signal line at 551.84. Its histogram reading of minus 300.59 showed that short-term momentum had weakened after the earlier advance. The Awesome Oscillator remained positive at 154.98, although its bars had narrowed toward zero.

Trader Ardi described $83,000 as local range support and a former May high. In a Sep. 25 market post, Ardi said a loss of that level could put $81,000 back in view, while reclaiming $85,200 as support could open another test of the $87,000 highs. Trader Daan Crypto Trades separately identified $83,500 to $85,000 as the range Bitcoin had occupied over the previous two days.

The levels are close to concentrations on CoinGlass’s three-day Bitcoin liquidation heatmap. The chart showed a bright band near $83,300, with further liquidity around $82,500. Above the market, clusters appeared near $85,200–$85,500 and around $87,300. The heatmap shows where leveraged positions may face liquidation if price reaches those levels; it does not establish which direction Bitcoin will move next.

Options expiry meets a rise in U.S. Treasury yields

A large quarterly options expiry has added another event for derivatives traders to navigate. Options positions can affect hedging and trading around settlement, although the expiry alone does not establish what caused Bitcoin’s decline.

The U.S. bond market has also moved into focus. Dan Khus, chief analyst at LVRG Research, told crypto.news that Bitcoin and Ether were holding support as the Treasury sell-off eased slightly. His comments put the 10-year yield near 5.19% after a 30-basis-point rise.

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“Bitcoin and ether are maintaining in support as the Treasury sell-off cooled slightly with the 10-year easing back toward 5.19% after a 30-basis-point surge. Looking ahead, focus is on whether yields stay elevated, October Fed hike odds hold above 70%, and if spot ETF flows can absorb weekend options expiry, along with any further oil-driven inflation shock from developments in the US-Iran conflict.”

The Federal Reserve raised its target rate by a quarter percentage point to 3.75%–4.00% on Sep. 16. Khus’s October figure refers to market expectations for another increase, rather than a decision already made by the Fed. Oil prices and developments in the U.S.-Iran conflict could affect those expectations through their impact on inflation.

ETF demand and $83K support frame Bitcoin’s next test

U.S. spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund flows offer a separate measure of demand as the market absorbs the price reversal. Khus identified those flows, alongside yields and the options expiry, as factors to watch. Farside Investors’ ETF flow table tracks the funds’ daily net subscriptions and redemptions.

For the near-term chart setup, the first test is whether Bitcoin can hold the $83,000–$83,500 range cited by the traders and visible on the 4-hour chart. A move below it would bring the heatmap’s lower liquidity bands and Ardi’s $81,000 level into focus. On the upside, a sustained move back above $85,000–$85,200 would put the higher liquidation clusters and the recent $87,000 peak back in view.

Bitcoin’s daily RSI remained above 50, and its price remained above the Bollinger Band midpoint, while the 4-hour MACD showed weaker short-term momentum. Those readings leave the next move tied to the range boundaries as traders assess the expiry, U.S. yields, and ETF flows.

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Disclosure: This article does not represent investment advice. The content and materials featured on this page are for educational purposes only.

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A survey of US crypto investors has found that about one in five who filed or planned to file a tax extension received an incomplete 1099-DA or were unsure whether the form matched their trades.

Awaken Tax’s August survey found that another 21% of respondents who had filed, or planned to file, an extension were still waiting for information from an exchange or crypto platform. The findings concern a group of taxpayers trying to finish 2025 returns during the first filing season for Form 1099-DA, which brokers use to report certain digital asset transactions to the Internal Revenue Service.

The IRS says brokers generally had to report gross proceeds from covered 2025 transactions. Proceeds show what a customer received in a sale, but most forms for that tax year do not show what the customer originally paid. Taxpayers need both figures to calculate a gain or loss, and the agency says they must report digital asset income, gains, and losses even if no 1099-DA arrives.

Crypto tax forms can show a sale without its cost

For a taxpayer who bought Bitcoin for $9,000 and sold it for $10,000, the gain would be $1,000 before any applicable adjustments. A 2025 Form 1099-DA could report the $10,000 in proceeds without listing the $9,000 purchase price.

Chris Herbst, managing director of CountDeFi tax reporting, said gross proceeds can be many times an active trader’s actual gain because the form counts each sale at its full value without subtracting the asset’s cost. Taxpayers must then match the reported sales with their own purchase records.

According to the IRS, taxpayers should use Form 1099-DA together with their other records and calculate their basis before filing. Someone who bought an asset on one exchange, moved it through a private wallet and sold it on another may need records from all three places to establish what they paid.

Herbst said a complete exchange history should include trades, fees, deposits, withdrawals, and transaction identifiers. A missing record can affect a later calculation when an asset has moved between platforms or remained in a wallet for years.

In its earlier guide to 1099-DA, crypto.news reported that brokers had to send forms covering 2025 gross proceeds by Feb. 17, 2026, while reporting cost basis remained voluntary for that first year. The IRS had warned taxpayers that most of the statements would leave them to calculate basis themselves.

Exchange records are proving hard to reconcile

Sharon Yip, founder of Crypto Tax Advisors, said her firm has found differences between clients’ 1099-DAs and the tax reports it prepared from their transaction histories. Some exchange forms omitted trades made in 2025, while customer statements arrived in different formats. Exchanges also included cost basis for some trades but left it off others, she said.

One client’s exchange activity included more than $300,000 in stablecoin trades during 2025, according to Yip. The exchange’s 1099-DA listed less than $100,000 in total stablecoin proceeds. The discrepancy left her firm comparing the form against the client’s transaction records to work out what should appear on the return.

Andrew Duca, founder of Awaken Tax, said some customers received their forms late in the filing season. He cited Kraken as an example, saying the exchange sent forms to users roughly two weeks before the April 15 tax deadline. Duca also pointed to a Kraken 1099-DA from around that period that contained no reported transaction information.

Under IRS guidance for incorrect forms, recipients can request a corrected 1099-DA from the issuer and keep both the corrected form and their correspondence. The agency says taxpayers should not wait for a correction before filing and should use their records to report the transactions accurately.

Duca urged taxpayers to compare any 1099-DA with their complete transaction history rather than copy its figures into a return. “The IRS expects your return to reflect your actual gains and losses,” he said, “not necessarily what’s printed on a form that the exchange may have worked out incorrectly.”

Manual entries add work before the October deadline

Andrew Gordon, executive director of Digital Asset Tax Action, said taxpayers have repeatedly struggled to reconcile 1099-DAs with their own records this filing season. According to Gordon, most crypto tax software cannot import and reconcile the new form, while the tools that can still require manual input because brokers did not supply machine-readable 2025 forms.

For active traders, that can mean entering hundreds of transactions, Gordon said. He called for brokers to provide a machine-readable file with each 1099-DA and maintain histories that show acquisition dates, purchase amounts, fees and transfers.

The IRS extension guidance gives taxpayers who obtained an extension until Oct. 15 to file their 2025 federal return. The extension applies to filing; any balance due was generally payable by the original deadline.

Crypto tax recordkeeping has also drawn attention in Congress. In September, House crypto tax legislation included a proposed exemption for certain network transaction fees of up to $10.

During an earlier House Ways and Means hearing, Coinbase tax executive Lawrence Zlatkin told lawmakers that calculating gains and losses on routine stablecoin payments and blockchain fees creates substantial compliance work. The proposal has not changed the filing rules for 2025 returns.

Which crypto sales get basis reporting in 2026?

The next stage of Form 1099-DA reporting applies to transactions made in 2026. Under IRS instructions for brokers, basis reporting is mandatory for certain covered assets bought in a custodial broker account after 2025 and held there until sale. Reporting basis for noncovered assets remains voluntary.

The IRS classifies assets acquired before 2026 and assets transferred into a broker from elsewhere as noncovered for this purpose. Its instructions also allow certain stablecoin and NFT sales to be reported using optional methods that do not require basis. For those transactions, taxpayers may still need purchase and transfer records from outside the selling broker’s account to calculate their gains or losses.

The United States’ first crypto tax filing season under upgraded broker reporting requirements is bringing a familiar problem into sharp focus: more data for the IRS, but still a heavy lift for taxpayers. Under the newer Form 1099-DA rules applying to 2025 activity, brokers generally report the gross proceeds from certain digital asset sales—information that is new (or at least more visible) for the tax authority—yet cost basis is generally not included, leaving taxpayers to reconstruct their gains and losses from their own records.

That mismatch between what exchanges report and what returns require is showing up in real-world filing experiences. In an August survey of 1,000 US crypto investors conducted by Awaken Tax, 21% of respondents who had filed—or planned to file for an extension—said they were still waiting for information needed from an exchange or platform. A further 20% said their 1099-DA was incomplete or that they were unsure whether it accurately reflected their transactions.

Key takeaways

• For 2025, broker reporting generally covers gross sale proceeds, while cost basis is typically not provided—so taxpayers must compute gains and losses themselves.
• A survey by Awaken Tax found filing friction remains high: 21% of respondents reported waiting on exchange/platform information, and 20% questioned the completeness or accuracy of their 1099-DA.
• Professionals say reconciling 1099-DAs with full trade histories is difficult, especially when activity spans multiple platforms and years.
• Some exchanges have been reported to deliver 1099-DAs late in the filing season or with transaction details that appear inconsistent with customer records.
• Cost basis reporting is slated to expand in 2026 for covered assets, but transfers into broker accounts from outside sources may still create gaps.

More reporting visibility—without the full calculation

To understand why taxpayers still struggle, it helps to look at what 1099-DA is designed to tell the IRS. In a basic example, if an investor buys Bitcoin for $9,000 and sells it for $10,000, the taxable gain is $1,000. But a 2025 1099-DA can show the $10,000 in proceeds without providing the $9,000 cost basis needed to calculate that $1,000 outcome.

The IRS’s approach effectively increases how much sale information the tax authority receives, while taxpayers remain responsible for the arithmetic. That structure can turn record-keeping into a more complex, multi-step process—particularly for anyone who traded frequently, used several platforms, or moved assets between wallets and exchanges during the year.

According to Chris Herbst, managing director at CountDeFi tax reporting, the issue is amplified for active traders. Each sale is counted at full value while the basis-side math still needs to be assembled separately. “For an active trader, that number can be many times their real gain,” Herbst said, summarizing how gross proceeds visibility can mislead the intuitive sense of profit.

Reconciling forms with transaction histories is proving error-prone

While taxpayers are expected to keep their own records, the filing workflow becomes harder when the documents they receive don’t line up cleanly with the trading history they track. Tax professionals interviewed in the reporting describe discrepancies that can make reconciliation a time-consuming (and sometimes confusing) exercise.

Sharon Yip, founder of Crypto Tax Advisors, says her firm has seen differences between the 1099-DAs clients receive and the crypto tax reports her team prepares. In some cases, she says, forms omitted trades. She also points to format differences across exchanges, and notes that some exchanges included cost basis for certain trades but not others—despite basis reporting not being mandatory for 2025.

Yip also highlights a stablecoin-related example: one client conducted more than $300,000 worth of stablecoin trades on an exchange in 2025, yet the exchange’s 1099-DA showed less than $100,000 in total stablecoin proceeds. Even where the underlying activity is recorded correctly somewhere, mismatched reporting can force taxpayers to spend additional time validating what the form actually represents.

Timing has been another friction point. Andrew Duca, founder of Awaken Tax, said the firm has seen customers receiving 1099-DAs relatively late in the filing season. Duca pointed to exchanges such as Kraken as an example, citing an account that Kraken reportedly did not send forms to users until about two weeks before the April 15 tax deadline. He also referenced a Kraken 1099-DA from that period showing no reported transaction information.

Kraken did not respond to the publication’s request for comment.

Why taxpayers still can’t “just copy the numbers”

The core practical takeaway for investors is that 1099-DAs are not meant to replace a taxpayer’s own reporting work. Even when a form is complete, the IRS still expects returns to reflect actual gains and losses. Where cost basis is not included in broker reporting, taxpayers must fill in the missing elements using their records.

Herbst emphasized that what matters is the “full transaction history from the day the account opened,” including trades, fees, deposits, withdrawals, and transaction identifiers such as wallet information. He added that basis generally follows the asset across transfers. That means a missing piece of history can distort gain calculations later—possibly years after a trade occurred—if the asset was moved between platforms in the meantime.

Andrew Duca similarly argued that the updated visibility does not automatically create a finished calculation for taxpayers. As he framed it, “Visibility without basis produces the zero-basis problem.” The issue is straightforward: if a taxpayer relies on a form that shows proceeds but lacks acquisition-cost information, the return may fail to capture the true economic outcome.

Duca’s advice to taxpayers is to compare 1099-DA information against their complete transaction history rather than treating the form as authoritative on gain and loss. In his view, the IRS expects returns to show actual gains and losses—even if an exchange’s reporting may contain errors or omissions.

What changes in 2026—and what may remain unsolved

Looking ahead, broker reporting requirements are expected to expand. From 2026, brokers must generally report cost basis for covered digital assets, which should reduce—but not necessarily eliminate—the “proceeds without basis” problem. That would give taxpayers more of the inputs needed to compute taxable results without manually reconstructing acquisition costs for every covered transaction.

However, the reporting picture is not guaranteed to be seamless. The rules do not necessarily cover every scenario—for example, assets transferred into a broker from another exchange or wallet may fall outside certain requirements. That means gaps can still arise depending on where assets originated and how transactions are structured across custody providers.

In the near term, the broader lesson from the 2025 filing season is that increased IRS visibility doesn’t remove the need for strong internal records. As reporting improves, the key question for taxpayers and tax software providers will be whether transaction history can be reconciled accurately, quickly, and with enough detail to compute real gains and losses—not just gross sales totals.

As the industry transitions into 2026’s cost-basis phase, readers should watch how reliably brokers supply the additional fields and whether late or incomplete forms continue to create mismatches—especially for users who move assets between exchanges, wallets, and brokers.