Bitcoin surged to $85,000, driven by a massive short squeeze that pulled in nearly $1 billion in spot ETF inflows and triggered $750 million in liquidations. Zcash also hit a record high of $1,600 on demand for privacy assets, while Binance faces a federal probe into potential U.S. sanction violations regarding Iran alongside its strategic $100 million investment in Circle. Meanwhile, MoonPay acquired North Capital for $60 million to build out tokenized securities infrastructure, Kalshi sought CFTC approval for margin trading, and the XRP Ledger began a countdown for its latest permission upgrade.
01Market mover
Bitcoin Reaches $85,000 as Short Squeeze Triggers $648 Million Liquidations
pushed to an eight-month high of $85,000 on Monday, extending a that forced bearish traders out of their short positions and drove a surge in spot exchange-traded funds. U.S.-listed spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds drew a net $998.95 million on Monday, marking their largest daily inflow since Oct. 6, 2025. BlackRock's IBIT led the inflows with $381.37 million, followed by Ark's ARKB with $289.12 million and Fidelity's FBTC with $238.84 million. The single-session haul surpassed the previous 2026 high of $844 million recorded on Jan. 14. Monday's inflow was also the ninth-largest since the began trading on Jan. 11, 2024. The advance broke through a key technical hurdle at $82,000 that had capped prices since August, triggering roughly $750 million in bearish liquidations. Exchanges executed buy orders to close those short positions, adding fuel to the upward move. Bitcoin has risen 44% to $85,000 this quarter, outperforming every major . Strategy founder Michael Saylor announced on Saturday that the company made significant Bitcoin and repurchased perpetual preferred shares using cash. Despite the recent inflows, U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs remain down about $464 million on a year-to-date basis.
Binance Buys $100 Million Circle Stake in Five-Year USDC Deal
Binance purchased $100 million of Circle Class A common stock in a private placement and signed a five-year commercial agreement to promote the USDC . Binance acquired 1,237,011 shares at $80.84 each in a transaction that closed on September 17, 2026. The purchase price represented a five percent discount to the market price prior to closing. Under the terms of the private placement, Binance agreed not to sell, transfer, or pledge the shares for up to two years, while retaining full voting rights. The new commercial agreement supersedes prior arrangements from November 2024 and August 2025. Circle will pay Binance a monthly incentive fee calculated as a percentage of USDC held through Circle's Modular Smart Contract Wallet infrastructure service. Binance, in exchange, will accelerate the promotion, awareness, and integration of USDC across its platform, particularly in . Circle stock closed at $94.29 on Monday before the filing appeared. Tether's USDT remains the largest stablecoin with roughly $183.4 billion in circulation, compared to approximately $75 billion for USDC.
Binance Probed by US Prosecutors Over Potential Iran Sanctions Violations
Federal prosecutors are investigating whether Binance Holdings Ltd. violated United States sanctions on Iran by failing to halt certain trading activity on its platform. The Manhattan US attorney's office is leading the inquiry alongside the Justice Department's criminal division in Washington, with authorities scrutinizing whether the exchange knowingly allowed the transactions to proceed. Binance stated that it maintains a zero-tolerance policy for sanctions violations and cooperates fully with law enforcement. The current investigation follows a 2023 guilty plea in which Binance agreed to pay a $4.3 billion settlement for banking compliance violations and anti-money laundering infractions. In February, the company reported that more than 1,500 people, representing about 25% of its global headcount, worked on compliance. The platform previously faced scrutiny in February when U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal initiated a probe into alleged sanctions violations totaling $1.7 billion, an accusation Binance rejected after finding no supporting evidence.
Kalshi Requests CFTC Approval for Margin Trading on Platform
cnbc.com reports that prediction market platform Kalshi filed on Tuesday with the Trading Commission to seek approval to offer on event contracts through its internal clearing house, Kalshi Klear. The filing represents a push to attract institutional to event contract exchanges, mirroring a practice already common on Wall Street for and futures. All regulated U.S. event contracts are currently entirely collateralized. Kalshi already provides leverage on perpetual futures contracts, but lacks the same regulatory clearance for its prediction markets. Offering trading allows traders to borrow funds to purchase more of an than their cash . Institutional players accustomed to traditional view the feature as critical for larger participation. Kalshi plans to exclude sports event contracts, culture markets, and mention markets from the proposed margin offerings. The firm stated that leverage will make longer-dated prediction markets more attractive to institutional participants. Marginable contracts would initially be accessible only to self-clearing members with direct ties to Kalshi Klear who meet specific requirements. The company also intends to introduce a system where capital requirements for leverage increase as contracts near their expiration date.
MoonPay to Acquire North Capital in $60 Million All-Stock Deal
MoonPay agreed to acquire private-markets infrastructure provider North in an all-stock deal valued at more than $60 million. The transaction gives the payments company direct access to SEC-registered broker-dealers, an alternative trading system, a transfer agent, and an investment adviser. North Capital will operate as a wholly owned subsidiary of MoonPay after the close, extending its capabilities into the issuance, custody, and secondary trading of tokenized real-world . Both company boards approved the , which remains subject to regulatory approvals and customary closing conditions. North Capital has supported over $8.7 billion in primary and secondary transaction volume to date. The purchase follows earlier acquisitions by MoonPay this year, including key management company Sodot, trading platform DFlow, and finance platform Entendre.
XRP Ledger Retries Upgrade to Split Payment and Compliance Duties
The XRP Ledger entered a fourteen-day activation countdown on September 21 for its PermissionDelegationV1_1 upgrade, which could go live on October 5 at 11:18 UTC if at least 28 of its 35 trusted validators maintain support. The amendment allows accounts to assign up to ten specific duties, such as processing payments or approving customers, without transferring full control of their private keys. This separation lets issuers keep fully privileged master keys offline while delegating routine operational tasks to internet-connected compliance or payment accounts. The upgrade ships in xrpld 3.3.0 and replaces an earlier version that was abandoned after a community tester discovered a security flaw on September 15, 2025. That original iteration checked transaction permissions before verifying signatures, which allowed unauthorized submissions with high fees to drain victim balances before the invalid signature was caught. The revised software reverses the validation sequence so unauthorized transactions cannot trigger fees prior to signature verification.
Zcash Reaches All-Time High of $1,600 Driven by Privacy Investment Demand
Zcash reached a record high of $1,600 on Wednesday as surging demand for privacy-focused digital propelled the token into the top 10 cryptocurrencies by over the course of 2026. Fortune.com reports that the asset gained 88 percent over the past month and rose more than 28 percent in a single week. The coincided with moving above $87,000 for the first time since January, alongside gains for Solana, XRP, and Hyperliquid. Zcash uses zero-knowledge cryptography to conceal transaction details such as senders, recipients, and amounts. Anchorage Digital head of research David Lawant noted that the token retains a cypherpunk ethos appealing to investors seeking alternatives to public ledgers. Institutional adoption also expanded when 21Shares launched a Zcash exchange-traded product listed on Euronext Paris and Euronext Amsterdam on Tuesday. Multicoin disclosed a significant ZEC position earlier this year, while Cypherpunk Technologies has accumulated ZEC and invested in mining. Macroeconomic conditions further supported the sector in August after the Department announced plans to double purchases of long-term government .
Institutional adoption and capital inflows are expanding rapidly across derivatives, tokenized securities, and privacy assets. However, looming federal investigations into major exchanges and regulatory hurdles for margin trading leave legal compliance as the key variable for market stability.
This, every morning.
SuMarket writes Cryptocurrency and Blockchain every morning, along with every other section of the market and the companies and topics you follow. Free to read.