CMC Market Pulse: Oil and Inflation Back in Play

Market Overview 📉

*Data as of 6:45 AM UTC on September 11, 2026.

<a href="https://xpertsstudio.com/bitcoin-reserves-at-binance-hit-a-2-year-high/” title=”Bitcoin reserves at Binance hit a 2-year high”>Bitcoin (BTC) took a tumble this week, falling 4.36%, while Ethereum (ETH) held up surprisingly well amidst market weakness, falling only 1.58% in the same period. Total crypto market cap dipped slightly, falling 2.95% to $2.63T, from $2.71T the week before.
Weekly liquidations continued to lean to the long side as the markets weakened over fears of a rate hike and rising oil prices, with almost $600M in long positions taken out on Wednesday and Thursday. Funding rates show no clear signal across majors, with the majority still in the healthy ranges.
📌 Michael Saylor’s Strategy has bought back another $176M in STRC, and increased the size of its Digital Credit Securities Program to $2B. – Link
📌 Germany seeks to place a flat 25% tax on crypto gains, ending their tax exemption on crypto sold after more than a year. – Link
📌 U.S. Bank successfully executes a live pilot transaction using USBDC, their proprietary USD stablecoin. – Link

Why does it matter?

Risk markets took a hit with the escalation in the Strait of Hormuz as well as a weak reception to Bessent’s bond buybacks. Nevertheless, several altcoins continue to hold strong, despite weakness in Bitcoin price action. The S&P 500 is down 1.24% this week, while the Nasdaq actually held up well, falling only 0.45% in the same period.

Notable altcoin outperformers this week included Raydium (RAY), BUILDOn (B), Venice Token (VVV), Theta Fuel (TFUEL), and Falcon Finance (FF).
View CMC Gainers & Losers board

Narrative of the Week 📰

Tokenized stocks continue to see strong momentum as both institutional players and memecoin traders alike take interest in the space.

📌 Nasdaq invests $100M in Kraken parent company, Payward, in a push for further collaboration on tokenized equities and blockchain settlement infrastructure. – Link
📌 AMC’s CEO Adam Aron and Robinhood clash over the tokenization of the AMC stock on-chain, sparking debate over whether permission is required for a stock to be tokenized, among other concerns. – Link
📌 Ark Invest places a $10M bet on tokenization with a position in Securitize, the leading tokenization platform by TVL. – Link

Why does it matter?

Tokenization is having its mass market moment, with different angles of the same narrative appealing to the various players in the market.

Major Project Updates 🗓️

📌 The Ethereum Foundation releases their list of upgrades for the upcoming Hegotá upgrade, locking in censorship resistance and native account abstraction, with a priority for quantum-resistance by 2029. – Link
📌 Robinhood integrates Crypto​.​com’s prediction markets into their app, taking a minority stake in the platform as well. – Link
📌 Hardware wallet company, Trezor, experiences a third-party email provider breach, with an unauthorized email sent out to approximately 347,000 email addresses. – Link
📌 Harmony announces plans to shut down their L1, following a hack earlier this year, with the token to be migrated to Ethereum and a pivot to an AI video business model. – Link
📌 MetaMask splits off from parent company ConsenSys, to fully focus on the consumer platform, while ConsenSys will focus on the institutional businesses including Linea. – Link

Why does it matter?

DeFi Brief 🏦

Why does it matter?

Pump.fun letting any token pair against any other, including tokenized stocks, blurs the line between speculation and on-chain equities, opening up new possibilities in the memecoin space.

Fundraises 💰

📌 Stablecoin payout infrastructure, Latitude, raises $35M in a Series A funding round led by Oak HC/FT, with other investors including Coinbase Ventures, NEA, OpenFX, and Faction. – Link
📌 Tokenized deposit network, Cari Network, raises $32.5M in the first tranche of its external funding round, with all investors made up of banks, including their six partner banks. – Link
📌 Blockchain-native bank, OpenReserve, raises $25M in a seed round led by a16z crypto, with support from Coinbase Ventures, Jump Capital, Wintermute Ventures, and more. – Link
📌 High-speed perpetuals DEX, Antarctic, raises $7M in a private round co-led by Valisa Capital Markets and Lucidity Capital, among other investors. – Link

Tweet of the Week 📝

Average crypto KOL behavior.

Source: coinmarketcap.com