🥱 Macro watch: BTC yawns at inflation print. US core inflation held steady at 2.9% in August, but Bitcoin barely batted an eye, hovering near $109K after the earlier liquidation drama. Normally, macro data like this would be market-moving, but crypto feels like it’s on its own script right now. Maybe it’s the resilience, maybe it’s apathy, but either way, traders didn’t seem in the mood for a big reaction. For anyone looking for clear signals between inflation prints and BTC moves, this week was more of a “meh.”(Decrypt)

🍏 Markets detox, then a cheeky bounce. This week kicked off with crypto’s favorite cardio workout: liquidations. Over $1B in leveraged bets across Bitcoin, Ether, and Solana got flushed as markets hit the red button. For the uninitiated, that’s what happens when traders borrow too much and the market calls their bluff…it gets messy, fast. But as always, when leverage gets flushed, the market finds fresh air to breathe. (CoinDesk)

🌊 Options overhang with $18B in BTC OPEX Options expiry weeks are when crypto’s inner Wall Street shows up, and this one came with a cool $18B in contracts rolling off. That means traders spent most of the week talking about “max pain” levels. The expiry often brings choppiness as players hedge or unwind positions, and this time was no different. Once the dust settles, the real question will be who’s left standing with conviction, and who just came for the volatility dopamine hit. (Decrypt)

🐙 Kraken closes $500M at $15B and IPO whispers get louder Crypto exchange Kraken closed a $500M round at a $15B valuation, proving that investors are still writing chunky checks in this market. The raise doesn’t just pad their balance sheet, it keeps the IPO rumor mill churning as 2026 gets closer. Exchanges live and die by trust and liquidity, so this could be a signal that Kraken is getting ready to play in the big leagues. (CoinDesk)

🌚 Tether shoots for the moon (and the Treasury desk) Meanwhile, Tether is allegedly shopping itself around at a $500B valuation. Half a trillion. Let that sink in! Beyond the headline number, what’s even wilder is how much US Treasuries Tether is hoovering up, they are practically a sovereign wealth fund at this point. Love or hate USDT, it’s sitting right where crypto collides with the global dollar system, and the implications are enormous. Stablecoin season continues. (Blockworks)

♟️ Stablecoin chess: PayPal x Spark eye $1B liquidity for PYUSD. More on stablecoins. PayPal is getting serious. Partnering with Spark, they’re targeting $1B in liquidity to supercharge PYUSD, their much-discussed dollar token. This means deeper books, fewer sketchy spreads, and hopefully less of that awkward “why is my stablecoin trading at 0.98?” drama. For PayPal, it’s a credibility play, they want PYUSD to compete with the big leagues, not just be a fintech side project. (Blockworks)

📊 What about DATs? The “Bitcoin on balance sheet” crowd evolves Finally, the corporates that first made headlines for holding BTC on their balance sheets, now dubbed DATs (digital asset treasuries), are getting more strategic. Instead of just stacking coins, they’re branching into M&A, SPACs, and actual cash-flow buys. It’s crypto’s version of growing up: less meme, more boardroom. For the market, that means we might see a new playbook emerge, where holding Bitcoin isn’t just an asset allocation flex but a springboard into broader growth strategies. (CoinDesk)

👛 Cloudflare’s “agentic web” money NET Dollar Yes, you read that right, Cloudflare is entering the stablecoin game. Their new NET Dollar is designed for instant payments and AI-native transactions, basically aiming to be the money bots pay bots with. It’s a fascinating move from a company that already runs a huge chunk of the internet’s plumbing. If the “agentic web” is real, Cloudflare wants to be essentially the tollbooth everyone passes through. (Blockworks)