Bank of England follows FTAV advice
The Bank of England followed advice from FTAV, although correlation may not amount to causation.
The Bank of England followed advice from FTAV, although correlation may not amount to causation.
JPMorgan analysts say bitcoin could receive stronger support than gold if investors reduce their hedging of ETFs.

New US applications for unemployment benefits fell unexpectedly last week, although the Labor Day holiday may have overstated the decline. The underlying trend still suggests a stable labor market, while rising mortgage rates are weighing on the housing sector.
The House Ways and Means Committee advanced the Digital Asset Tax Certainty Act by 38-5, sending a package covering crypto payments, stablecoins, trading, lending, staking and mining toward the full House. Industry groups welcomed the move but want broader relief for everyday transactions and delayed income recognition for staking and mining rewards.

Dragonfly’s Haseeb Qureshi said the surge in real-world asset trading on Hyperliquid reflects crypto’s broader maturation toward tokenized stocks, bonds and other real-world assets, while making the case for a multichain future.

Russia’s stock market ended lower on Thursday, with the MOEX Index down 1.57% at 2,248.87 points and the RTS Index off 1.97% at 838.3. An analyst said profit-taking continued, while Lenta fell 5.6% ahead of its removal from the MOEX basket.
Airlines are reducing more flights this year as high fuel prices put pressure on their operations, including cheaper flight options.
A union is urging Stellantis not to close or sell its plant in Brampton, Ont., after the automaker signalled that a sale may be considered.
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission has adopted a developer-friendly no-action stance on crypto, giving software developers who build crypto trading tools some breathing room.

A wave of mega-IPOs sparked by the AI boom is pushing venture capital’s feast-or-famine dynamic to an extreme.
With the midterm elections approaching, President Trump quickly pushed back against the Federal Reserve’s rate hike. The discussion asks what may happen next.

The Federal Reserve raised rates by 0.25% on Wednesday, its first increase since 2023, to help slow inflation. NBC’s Brian Cheung explains the potential effects on credit cards, mortgages, food and gasoline prices.
Higher capital costs should theoretically reduce a company’s value, but share prices are telling a different story, complicating the spreadsheets used by investment bankers.
The Senate’s 49-50 procedural rejection of the CLARITY Act on Sept. 15 blocked its immediate path to floor consideration but was not a final vote. Soon afterward, Aave founder Stani Kulechov urged DeFi to build products millions want and become “too important to ignore.” Aave’s consumer accounts and institutional services could broaden its base while creating identifiable points for policymakers to reach.

Freddie Mac says the average 30-year fixed mortgage rate rose to 6.95% this week from 6.76% last week. Rates have increased for four consecutive weeks, marking the biggest one-week jump in 16 months.
The Bank of England has announced a multiyear plan to unwind its quantitative-easing-era purchases of UK government bonds by 2034, setting an endpoint for quantitative tightening.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission unveiled a long-awaited five-year exemption allowing companies to offer blockchain-based, or “tokenized,” stocks and other securities for trading. The move could bring digital assets more deeply into traditional markets.

The SEC has opened a route for tokenized stock trading, moving markets closer to round-the-clock operations. The long-awaited Innovation Exemption came two days after the Senate voted to stop the CLARITY Act crypto market structure bill from advancing.
Crude prices are surging again, but retail traders need to be extremely cautious when navigating the shifting market landscape.
Record diesel prices are already battering the transportation sector. If energy costs remain high, the economic fallout will spread beyond trucking and rail, which are only the beginning of the impact.

Ukraine’s economy loses 1 billion to 2 billion hryvnias—about $22.25 million to $44.5 million—each hour that air-raid alerts halt activity, Economy and Environment Minister Alexander Kravchenko said. Some alerts last more than 20 hours, and warnings totaled over 58 hours in the final week of August. He also cited export blockades and disrupted logistics and transport routes as added pressure.
The enormous wealth generated by Anthropic and OpenAI is overshadowing layoffs and an uncertain job market in San Francisco, leaving jobless tech workers outside the city’s AI boom.
The Bank of Russia set the official dollar exchange rate at 84.5093 rubles for September 18, up 33.61 kopecks from the previous figure. The euro rate rose to 97.4984 rubles and the yuan rate to 12.5788 rubles.
The Bank of Russia bought yuan on the domestic market in a transaction worth 2 billion rubles ($23.6 million), settled on September 16, according to regulator data. It made another 2-billion-ruble yuan purchase settled on September 15. The operations use the yuan-ruble instrument on the Moscow Exchange.
Chinese Vice Premier Ding Xuexiang urged the creation of a higher-level China-ASEAN Free Trade Area at the opening of the 23rd China-ASEAN Expo in Nanning. He said implementing the CAFTA 3.0 Upgrade Protocol would boost regional economic development and called for expanded trade, investment, digital economy, AI and connectivity cooperation.

Major central banks are moving toward tighter policy as energy prices surge. The Federal Reserve recalibrated its stance to be more restrictive on Wednesday, while traders continued to price in a stronger response than indicated by the Fed’s dot plot.
A multi-agency raid on peer-to-peer crypto hubs signals that the UK’s “light-touch” regulatory era is ending. The enforcement action comes alongside detailed guidance for crypto firms, ahead of a full framework due to take effect in late 2027.

Anatoly Aksakov, chairman of the Russian State Duma’s Financial Market Committee, expects up to 3% of Russians with bank accounts to use the digital ruble in daily life by early next year. He said some iPhone users can already use it despite connection problems, which he expects to be resolved by then. The mass rollout began on September 1.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission examined plans for around-the-clock trading at an event held the same morning it approved tokenized securities.

When Miles Schwartz co-founded Montreal payment company Zūm Rails in 2019, he approached nearly every Canadian venture capitalist for funding, but they all rejected him. Canada is trying to keep technology startups from relocating to the United States.
Demand for supertankers has surged amid the US-Iran war. A file image shows the Chinese-flagged VLCC Cosnew Lake.

A crypto-focused item for advisors looks beyond Bitcoin and Ether.

Over the past two decades, BRICS has offered the Global South alternative financing, support for industrial and technological innovation, and a stronger voice in global governance. Ethiopian officials and analysts say the platform can attract investment, expand export markets and fund infrastructure, while China’s five initiatives, including AI cooperation, could support industrial transformation and locally tailored development.

The failure of the Clarity Act could put the United States behind foreign markets in the short term as the crypto industry looks elsewhere for legal certainty. Rules from the SEC and CFTC are still expected to help underpin the sector.

Officials from 29 countries completed the fifth round of consultations in Hangzhou on creating a Shanghai Cooperation Organization Development Bank. The participants discussed the institution’s operating parameters, while the 2026 Bishkek Declaration welcomed progress and urged continued momentum.
China is drawing on large reserves and seeking alternative crude as disruptions to Middle Eastern exports intensify. The closure of a key Saudi pipeline, restrictions around the Strait of Hormuz and complications affecting Russian and Iranian oil are forcing Chinese refiners to look farther afield, adding pressure to oil prices in China and globally.

Large, gas-guzzling pickup models continue to sell well because they can tow and haul heavy loads. Against lackluster electric-vehicle sales, GM is promoting new V-8 engines as competition with Ford and Ram heats up again.

China is speeding up manufacturing transformation through smart technologies, greener production and closer industrial integration. By the end of 2025, numerical control covered 68.6% of key processes in major industries. China had also built more than 35,000 basic-level, 8,200 advanced-level and 500 excellent-level intelligent factories, while expanding industrial robots, electric vehicles, lithium batteries, photovoltaics and industrial internet platforms.

The House Financial Services Committee voted 28–21 to advance the American Reserve Modernization Act, which would establish a federal Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and require qualifying Bitcoin to remain there for at least 20 years. The bill also calls for annual independent audits and further legislative action before taking effect.

The Federal Reserve has raised interest rates for the first time since 2023, pointing to persistent inflation despite President Donald Trump’s pressure for lower borrowing costs. Trump immediately rebuked the move, while Fed Chair Kevin Warsh defended the central bank’s independence and said inflation remains the priority.

U.S. stock index futures surged on Thursday after the Federal Reserve raised interest rates and reaffirmed its focus on taming inflation, easing a long-standing source of market anxiety.
Russia’s electricity exports edged lower in January–August 2026 compared with the same period last year, Inter RAO board member Alexandra Panina said. In the first half, Inter RAO raised exports 4% to 3.2 billion kWh and cut imports 5.3% to 1.2 billion kWh. Exports to Kazakhstan rose 20.3%, while deliveries to Mongolia fell 6%.
Pakistan has announced austerity measures as fuel prices rise amid energy-supply disruptions linked to the war in the Middle East.

Pakistan said on Thursday it will cut fuel allocations for official vehicles and bar state vehicle purchases, officials’ foreign trips and official dinners. The measures aim to conserve energy as the Gulf conflict drives fuel prices higher.
Growing demand among Chinese customers for personal expression and cultural experiences is raising standards in the country’s hospitality sector and creating opportunities for leading lifestyle hotel brands, according to a senior director at Hong Kong developer Hang Lung Properties. He said an ideal hotel should redefine hospitality through personal touches.

Shipowners have ordered more than twice as many supertankers this year as during all of 2025, in a buying spree worth over $20 billion and the largest in at least 25 years. The US-Iran war is reshaping trade routes and increasing demand for long-haul crude shipments.
U.S. stock indexes climbed sharply Thursday morning after the Federal Reserve raised interest rates to curb rising inflation. Falling oil prices also helped lift stocks and bonds.

U.S. stock futures are rising as Wall Street seeks to recover from a lower close after the Federal Reserve delivered its first interest-rate increase in three years and adopted a tougher stance on inflation.
Russia’s international reserves reached $758.2 billion as of September 11, rising $4.7 billion, or 0.6%, in a week, according to the Bank of Russia. The regulator said the increase was driven mainly by positive revaluation. Reserves stood at $753.5 billion on September 4.
S&P Global has agreed to acquire OpenZeppelin as it expands its onchain security efforts. OpenZeppelin will continue operating as a standalone business unit under S&P Global, while the financial terms were not disclosed.


Ratings company S&P Global is acquiring OpenZeppelin in a move focused on the technological risks banks and asset managers face onchain. The deal follows S&P Global’s recent investment in market-data firm Kaiko.
A BIS working paper found that estimates of Bitcoin transfer value varied by as much as sixfold across tested methods. It attributes the gap to choices involving transaction aggregation, smart contracts and cross-chain comparisons, arguing that on-chain metrics are noisy approximations of economic activity rather than direct measures.

Germany’s finance minister called for tougher EU tariffs on Chinese carmakers while visiting Volkswagen’s crisis-hit headquarters. Chinese brands are on course to sell more than one million cars across Europe in 2026.
Oil prices fell sharply as concerns over supply eased. Gold rose 1.1% to $4,308.80 an ounce at 0950GMT, recovering from losses in the previous session, while silver also rebounded.

A dusty dairy town’s enthusiasm for options trading captures the story of a multibillion-dollar retail wipeout and the regulatory crackdown that followed.
At Astana Finance Days 2026, speakers examined how Kazakhstan could move beyond its traditional role as a transit country and develop into a regional centre for production, trade and investment.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission issued a blanket five-year exemption allowing venues to list and trade tokenized securities without registering as exchanges.


The SEC has released its long-awaited “innovation exemption,” presenting it as a response to the Senate’s failure to move forward with cryptocurrency legislation.
Applications for unemployment benefits fell sharply to 196,000 last week, another indication that layoffs remain uncommon and most Americans continue to have job security.

The Bank of England kept interest rates unchanged while raising an alarm over inflation.
Crypto.com has registered with the SEC for single-stock futures. CEO Kris Marszalek said the company is also working with the SEC and CFTC to offer single-stock perpetual futures in the United States.

Foreign buyers returned to U.S. Treasury bills in July, but private investors sold $29.1 billion of Treasury notes and bonds. Elevated long-term yields could raise the opportunity cost of holding Bitcoin and tighten financing for risk assets, though the data do not establish that July’s flows drove Bitcoin’s September performance.

November Brent crude futures fell below $102 per barrel on London’s ICE for the first time since September 10. At 3:09 p.m. Moscow time, the contract was down 3.7% at $101.91, before trimming its loss to 3.31% and reaching $102.33 by 3:17 p.m. WTI October futures fell 2.59% to $99.78.
November 2026 Brent crude futures on London’s ICE fell below $103 per barrel for the first time since September 10. The contract was down 2.78% at $102.89 before narrowing its loss to 2.54% at $103.14, while October WTI futures fell 1.86% to $100.52.
Chinese automakers are stepping up their search for European production sites as the EU is expected to introduce local-content rules. A BYD adviser for Europe says he repeatedly encounters rival executives in airport lounges pursuing the same goal.
Bitcoin held near $76,500 on Sept. 17 as realized cap contracted for the first time after 27 straight days of growth, while U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs posted a second day of net outflows. Glassnode said two closes above $76,700 with renewed realized-cap growth would restore the prior range; otherwise, attention could shift to $71,300 and the $62,000–$65,000 support zone.

Zcash miner Fortitude has appointed former Hut 8 chief Jaime Leverton as CEO. The DCG-owned company is pursuing a public listing through its proposed merger with HeartSciences.

Regulators are moving to restore calm after a stock-market scandal, freezing or liquidating funds and referring 38 people to prosecutors.
Grayscale’s Zach Pandl continues to maintain that bitcoin bottomed near $58,000, while the firm has given clients a “green light” to allocate to the cryptocurrency.

The report examines how Middle Eastern wealth hubs, including Saudi Arabia and the UAE, are coping with the Iran war.
Eurasian Economic Commission Board Chairman Bakytzhan Sagintayev says ratification of the Eurasian Economic Union’s free trade agreement with Indonesia is under way and the deal is expected to take effect by the end of the year. Signed in December 2025, it is expected to reduce tariffs on about $3 billion in bilateral trade.
Revolut chief executive Storonsky says the fintech is planning a dual listing in New York and London, citing the US market’s greater liquidity and larger pool of institutional investors.
The Bank of England kept interest rates unchanged while signalling that policy tightening could lie ahead. It also announced a multiyear plan to fully unwind its asset purchase facility.
The Bank of England kept its main interest rate at 3.75% in a 6-3 vote. Three of its nine policymakers backed a rate increase, revealing a split committee as the Iran war’s energy shock lifted inflation to a five-month high of 3.1%.
The Bank of England has left the U.K.’s main interest rate at 3.75% even as inflation reached a five-month high. The continuing fallout from the Iran war is driving fuel prices higher. Isolated economic decision with national significance.
Three German states that host the country’s largest carmakers urged the government and European Union leaders on Thursday to accelerate support measures as the industry confronts what they called “historic disruptions.”
Optimism is beginning to return to crypto markets, but they still face an unresolved test reminiscent of 2022.

India will impose a 0.4 percent Merchant Discount Rate from October 15 on UPI payments to businesses above 2,000 rupees, capped at 300 rupees. Person-to-person transfers will remain free, while some services will cost five rupees per transaction. Experts warn the charges could drive businesses away, as opposition parties accuse Narendra Modi’s government of shifting costs to merchants.

The World Bank says it mobilized $112 billion in private capital in the year through June, up from $69 billion a year earlier and more than triple the fiscal 2022 amount. Combined with $123 billion from its own resources, the total reached $235 billion. It aims to exceed $200 billion in private capital within two to three years.

Thailand is using the oil shock caused by the Iran war to speed its move toward electrification and energy sourced domestically, seeking to turn a supply crisis into a drive for greater security.
A report acknowledges that advanced and developing countries hold different perspectives on the energy transition, suggesting that no single solution can suit them all.
Higher energy prices are pushing inflation up again and prompting major central banks to raise interest rates. Oil passed $100 a barrel last week, while the Iran war has disrupted the Strait of Hormuz for six months and Houthi advances threaten Saudi supplies. Rising energy costs are reaching household and business bills, forcing policymakers to rethink the usual response to oil shocks.

Crypto traders faced $345 million in forced liquidations as Zcash surged 17%. Short sellers absorbed most of the damage, with Zcash alone accounting for $56 million in forced closures.

Cryptocurrencies rose after the central bank’s first rate increase since 2023. Bitcoin gained 0.88% in 24 hours to $76,621, while projections suggested just one more hike. Zcash surged 23% to a record after Paradigm disclosed a stake.

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