Flash News

TREE NEWS update: The SEC has issued guidance clarifying what crypto protocols may and may not do with their own tokens, including allowing token buybacks. The clarity marks a shift from the Gary Gensler era of the agency. No further details on the scope of the guidance were provided.

TREE NEWS reports: Senator Cynthia Lummis, who chairs the Senate Banking Committee’s digital assets subcommittee and led the CLARITY Act, will not seek another six-year term, while Senator Thom Tillis is leaving at year-end and SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce’s term expires Friday. The exits come as the market-structure bill’s cloture vote failed nearly two weeks ago, with banking, crypto and enforcement groups still fighting over who drafts the next version.

TREE NEWS update: Bitwise’s NEAR ETF has cleared listing and registration hurdles, clearing the way for the NRR product to come to market. The fund plans to stake its NEAR holdings, charging a 0.75% annual management fee plus a separate charge on staking rewards.

TREE NEWS update: Bitget has resumed Bitcoin withdrawals following last week’s $388 million hack, with Ether withdrawals scheduled to return Tuesday and USDt on Wednesday as the exchange restores services. The attacker swapped ETH via THORChain.

TREE NEWS update: Guotai Junan International has limited services for existing mainland Chinese investor accounts starting September 26, barring deposits and buy orders when accounts log in from mainland IP addresses while allowing withdrawals and sells. The Hong Kong-based Chinese brokerage follows Futu, Tiger Brokers, Longbridge and Valuable Capital in winding down mainland-facing business to comply with regulatory requirements. Accounts logging in from outside mainland China keep full trading and funding functions.

TREE NEWS reports: An address bought 8,017 ZEC for about $12.62 million as the token pulled back, lifting its long position to roughly 18,400 ZEC. The wallet has been building the position since September 27 at an average entry of about $1,659, and the new purchase lowered its average cost to about $1,622. The entire position is currently down about $1.31 million.

TREE NEWS reports: Wintermute holds $126 million in short positions on Hyperliquid, including $46.92 million in ETH shorts, $11.3 million in SOL shorts and $10.03 million in HYPE shorts. The positions are currently up about $963,600, bringing Wintermute’s cumulative profit to $197 million.

TREE NEWS reports: Coinkarma founder Benson Sun said the practical value of liquidation heatmaps is overstated, arguing that their dense clusters are inferred from historical trade data and assumed leverage multiples rather than representing actual positions still awaiting liquidation. Position changes, margin top-ups and shifts in average cost all move liquidation zones, with error growing over time, he said. Sun added that heatmaps are best used as short-term market-structure context covering roughly the past 24 hours to three days, and should not carry too much weight in a trading system.

TREE NEWS update: Bitget has reopened bitcoin withdrawals as it begins a phased restart of services, four days after attackers drained $388 million from its hot and warm wallets. The exchange said ETH, USDT and every other asset will follow on a set schedule running through Oct. 2.

TREE NEWS update: THORChain has refused a request from Bitget to block addresses linked to a $387.5 million theft last week, saying the protocol does not censor by design. The exchange asked the network to stop serving wallets connected to the hack, but THORChain said its emergency halts are not a tool for freezing specific funds.

TREE NEWS reports: Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin said in a new essay that Hegota, next year’s fork, will likely be the network’s last “normal” upgrade. Upgrades after it will turn Ethereum into a hybrid of blockchain and advanced cryptography, with 4- to 8-second slots targeted by 2030.

TREE NEWS update: California Governor Gavin Newsom signed legislation barring public officials from issuing meme coins and prohibiting exchanges from listing tokens tied to politicians. The new law targets tokens linked to officeholders, closing a gap that had allowed politically branded digital assets. It takes effect as states move to police crypto activity ahead of federal rules.

TREE NEWS reports: Bitcoin dropped from $84,500 to $82,800 on Monday as global markets opened under pressure and investors cut risk exposure. Nasdaq 100 futures fell from 744.45 to 737.76, gold slid from $4,260 to $4,147 and the dollar index also weakened, pointing to broad deleveraging rather than a safe-haven rotation. QCP attributed the pressure to the US rejecting a ceasefire proposal over the Strait of Hormuz, which revived energy-supply concerns and lifted Brent crude. PCE inflation and nonfarm payrolls data are due this week.

TREE NEWS update: OKX will launch an ETH-only Flash Earn Lite campaign from Sept. 29, 2026, 15:00 to Oct. 4, 2026, 15:00 (UTC+8), letting users subscribe ETH to share a 400,000 USDT airdrop. The minimum subscription is 0.01 ETH, with early subscription open from Sept. 28, 15:00 (UTC+8). Rewards are calculated hourly, funds can be redeemed at any time, and ETH not redeemed after the campaign ends stays in Simple Earn.

TREE NEWS reports: A whale opened a long position on 20,000 ETH at $1,936 at the start of the current market move and is now sitting on an unrealized profit of $14.06 million. This morning the same whale added a BTC short, opening 650 BTC at $84,057 — a position worth $53.68 million — now showing an unrealized gain of $950,000.

TREE NEWS update: Hong Kong’s Securities and Futures Commission and the Accounting and Financial Reporting Council signed a new memorandum of understanding extending financial reporting, audit and compliance cooperation to licensed virtual asset service providers. The agreement brings licensed crypto firms under the same reporting and audit oversight framework the two regulators already apply to traditional financial institutions.

TREE NEWS reports: GoPlus security researchers flagged a high-risk meme coin fraud factory on Robinhood Chain that generated roughly 3,589.14 ETH, about $9.49 million, in two-way volume over the past 30 days across hundreds of fraudulent tokens. Its fund-collection address held about 56.06 ETH, roughly $148,000, as of Sept. 28, 2026, with some 1,385 transactions. Tokens follow a path of approval or sale, ETH liquidation, then transfer into the same collection address.

TREE NEWS reports: A single address deposited 30 million USD1 into Binance minutes ago, bringing its four-day total to 130 million USD1 across three transfers. USD1 is the stablecoin backed by US President Donald Trump. The transfers were made over the past four days.

TREE NEWS update: California Governor Gavin Newsom signed legislation barring public officials from launching memecoins, his office said. Newsom also signed several other bills, including one intended to set clearer rules for restitution when investors lose money in crypto scams. The memecoin ban takes direct aim at President Trump’s crypto ventures.