Macro Update

Crypto markets traded largely sideways this week as the total digital asset market cap once again failed to hold above the $4T level, with BTC hovering above $111k but struggling to benefit from the risk-on tone in equities. U.S. payrolls came in at just +22k vs +75k expected, with June revised negative and unemployment ticking up to 4.3%. The weak print cemented expectations of a September Fed cut, with three rate cuts now back on the table and odds of a 50bps move on 17 September at 10%. Dollar weakness continued, with the DXY sliding and driving a bid for hard assets. Gold surged +3.5% to a record $3,640/oz, while digital assets lagged, trading in range with relatively compressed volatility despite being the first week post-summer.

ETH slipped back toward $4.3k after failing to convincingly clear ATH and test the psychological $5k level. Funding rates cooled off through the week in what feels like a healthy reset, suggesting we may enter a period of consolidation as retail flows normalize while DAT buying continues in the background.

Options markets remain defensive, with 1M delta (put-call) skew still positive, reflecting more cautious positioning. Until ETH can break out decisively above $5k, the market is likely to remain headline-driven. Idiosyncratic stories were in focus this week, from SOL, WLD, AVAX and HYPE, the latter catching a strong bid after announcing plans to launch a native stablecoin ($USDH), pushing it to fresh ATHs on Monday. The broader macro backdrop remains choppy. Bond markets whipsawed on tariff headlines before retracing as global debt concerns resurfaced, with UK gilt yields climbing as U.S. Congress returned from Labor Day with focus turning to the 1 October budget deadline. Equities remained resilient, with the VIX pinned near 15, but the sequencing of PPI before CPI adds extra weight to Wednesday’s inflation release. The mix of weak jobs, sticky prices, and record gold underscores a stagflationary setup that typically lends support to hard assets, even as digital assets continue to trade in tight ranges.

On an index performance, the clear standout was Utilities & Tooling (+10.0%), driven by strength in Worldcoin following the WLD treasury announcement by Eightco today. Broader risk appetite was also visible across higher-beta cohorts, with AI (+7.4%), DeFi (+7.0%), Meme (+6.2%), and DePIN (+5.9%) all outperforming, pointing to a healthy bounce in the long-tail even as majors remain range-bound.

Our take:

“Macro still key driven but idiosyncratic headlines are starting to move the market”

HYPE’s stablecoin launch, Worldcoin’s treasury moves, and Solana’s institutional milestones underscore how alt L1s and niche ecosystems are starting to dictate flows, even as BTC and ETH consolidate after repeated but failed ATH attempts. 

While the macro backdrop remains choppy, markets are now firmly pricing in rate cuts post last week’s weak print, potentially setting the stage for project specific headlines and catalysts to be priced in more meaningfully as correlation between BTC and the broader digital assets continues to go lower, now bouncing off the lowest point in over 18-month, indicating the market to continue to be less beta-driven.

Notable Headlines

• Hyperliquid foundation announced that they will be releasing the $USDH ticker for purchase, with validators voting to allow the best proposal to win, pushing the likes of Paxos and FRAX into a “bidding war” for the mandate.

• Jito announced $1m buybacks, doubled DAO engine fees, and launched its Economic Hub, strengthening $JTO tokenomics and Solana’s ecosystem narrative.

• SOL Strategies (Canadian company) secured approval to have common shares listed on Nasdaq Global Select as the first Solana treasury listing.

• Monad’s intern hinted at mainnet launch after three years of development, a highly anticipated event as L1s seem to be back in fashion.

• The SEC and CFTC greenlit spot trading for select crypto assets on U.S. exchanges, broadening market access.

• Stripe and Paradigm unveiled Tempo, a payments-first blockchain with a built-in stablecoin AMM. The project aims to bridge scale and permissionless design for real-world finance. (more below).

Tempo And Permission

Tempo is a new payments-first L1 blockchain, incubated by Stripe and Paradigm, and built specifically for stablecoins and real-world payment flows. Backed by major partners including Visa, Deutsche Bank, Nubank, Revolut, Shopify, and OpenAI, it aims to support use cases like global payouts, payroll, remittances, embedded finance, tokenized deposits, microtransactions, and agentic/AI commerce.

Technically, Tempo is EVM-compatible (built on Reth) with 100K+ TPS, sub-second finality, and predictable low fees payable in any stablecoin. It features a dedicated payments lane, native stablecoin swaps, batch transfers, ISO 20022-compatible memos, account abstraction, and opt-in privacy with compliance hooks. Governance will begin with a permissioned validator set run by design partners, with a roadmap toward a diverse, permissionless model over time, underpinned by the principle of stablecoin neutrality.

Our take:

“An L1s' transition into permissionlessness is a reversible option that protects corporates, not the end-users”

Tempo and Arc are tackling real shortcomings by zeroing in on what payment use-cases demand: sub-second finality, predictable low fees, built-in FX, opt-in privacy, and more. Removing these bottlenecks (which still exist on the fast majority of L1/2s) will certainly accelerate stablecoin adoption. But in exchange for these features, users are trading away the one principle that truly differentiates blockchains from legacy infrastructure: permissionlessness.

Beyond the headlines, what makes Tempo interesting is the controversy it sparked. The pushback has been sharp, healthy, and, frankly, refreshing. For the past few years, the industry risked repeating the mistake of the early internet: sleepwalking into centralization. Tempo has, at minimum, reignited the core debate about what actually matters, and why. That debate has felt absent for too long.

Corporate blockchains are not new. They resurface every time Bitcoin makes new cycle highs . They promise interoperability, ship credible tech, and wield the distribution power to onboard “the next billion users.” But performance ≠ properties. Fast finality does not equal neutrality. Cheap fees do not equal censorship resistance. If not everyone can run a node and participate, the system is biased and inherently susceptible to control.

But let’s also be realistic. Ethos may inspire innovation, but markets decide adoption. If permissioned ledgers become the wedge that introduces millions to stablecoins, fair enough—that would serve as a wake-up call for permissionless ledgers to prove their worth in practice, not just in principle.

The problem is that no ledger has ever transitioned from permissioned to truly permissionless. Once corporates control validators and capture flows, the extraction engine follows and governance ossifies. If Tempo or ARC genuinely intend to decentralize, the path must be hard-coded from day one: validator caps, slashing for censorship, scheduled power hand-offs, etc. Absent this, “transition into permissionlessness" is a reversible option that protects incumbents, not users. And even if the intention were there, corporates face the plausible deniability problem. They cannot credibly claim neutrality while being legally accountable for which transactions get processed on the infrastructure they created.

If executed successfully, Tempo and ARC will likely drive meaningful stablecoin adoption. But the risks are also there: corporate rails are increasingly being dressed up in crypto language, optimizing the back-end for incumbents without fundamentally changing much about the front-end experience for users.

Permissioned systems will keep appearing. However, as we reach an inflection point in technology and regulation, this time feels more critical than before. 

Permissionless ecosystems need to evolve from ethos to execution, demonstrating to mainstream users why neutrality matters by embedding it directly into products that deliver tangible, superior outcomes.

Otherwise, we may gain efficiency but lose the very property that makes blockchains matter: sovereignty. And without it, crypto becomes just another backend upgrade for incumbents.