THE WEEKLY WRAP
Market sentiment dropped slightly this week towards fear; however, it remains in greed territory.
This week, the US bill, the Clarity Act, continued to stall, with regulators and the crypto community continuing to push for Congress's approval to improve and strengthen regulations.
Digital asset businesses relying on ASIC’s transitional arrangements had until 30 September to meet the relevant conditions, with those that failed to do so now facing potential enforcement.
ASIC is putting banks’ use of AI under the microscope. As part of its 2026–27 supervisory priorities, ASIC will now review how banks use AI in customer-facing services, alongside lending practices and support for customers experiencing financial difficulty.
BTC vs GOLD vs NASDAQ vs ETH vs VAS:
🟡 Gold: -4.73%
🟢 Nasdaq: +21.31%
🟣 Vanguard Australian Shares: -0.50%
🟠 Bitcoin: -2.27%
🔵 Ethereum: -8.45
Nasdaq is keeping its lead, now up 21.31% for the year, a 1.04% increase in the last seven days. Gold hasn't quite made a comeback from last week's -5.01%, moving to -4.73%. Vanguard Australian Shares have slipped to -0.50%, while crypto is also striving for its comeback. Bitcoin has narrowed its YTD loss to -2.27% and Ethereum to -8.45%, with both showing improvements on last week's figures.
Source: https://www.tradingview.com/
BITCOIN:
Another massive week for Bitcoin last week, closing near US$86,500, marking one of its strongest weekly closes in over 8 months, hovering close enough to its 2026 yearly opening of US$87,570 to keep the community's attention. In the last 3 months, BTC saw a significant overall increase in the last month, following a clear dip mid-August.
In other Bitcoin-related news, on October 2nd 2026, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) approved a Cboe BZX rule change allowing six new futures-based ETPs targeting three times the daily performance of Bitcoin, Ether, and four commodities.
The approved six funds won't physically hold the assets; they will instead use regulated futures contracts, with the Bitcoin and Ether ETPs tracking CME Group futures prices. These funds will aim to deliver 3 times the assets' daily price movements. Meaning if the asset rises 1%, the fund could rise approximately 3%, which in turn means if the asset falls 1%, the fund could also fall 3%.
ETHEREUM:
Ethereum’s liquidity drops below 50% of Bitcoin’s level. A CoinGeko analysis showed Ethereum’s median market depth sitting at 35-45% of Bitcoin's liquidity at US$13-$14 million, quite the fall from a year ago, when ETH was holding above 60% of BTC’s level. This is a result of Bitcoin's improvements over the year, as opposed to Ethereum holding flat.
Source: www.tradingview.com
The Ethereum Foundation posted a major announcement regarding the Gladsterdam Testnet last week via their blog. The announcement details that Ethereum’s next upgrade, Glamsterdam, is moving into the testing phase, with changes designed to help its main network handle more activity efficiently, along with a few other developments, including:
- More efficient block production: Separating block builders and proposers within Ethereum’s protocol reduces reliance on external intermediaries and gives validators more time to check transactions.
- Faster transaction checking: Block-level access lists let nodes process parts of their work in parallel, laying the foundation for greater network capacity.
- Updated gas pricing: Costs will better reflect the computing and storage resources used. Developers will need to test contracts against these changes.
- Testing timing: Sepolia activation was scheduled for 7 October at 12:53 am Melbourne time.
Full announcement: https://blog.ethereum.org/2026/09/17/glamsterdam-testnet-announcement
ALTCOINS:
It was a mixed week across some of the larger altcoins on Cointree.
This week’s moves:
🟢 Aave (AAVE): +24.65%
🟢 Quant (QNT): +18.75%
🟢 Sky (SKY): +12.70%
🟢 NEAR Protocol (NEAR): +11.21%
🔴 Hedera (HBAR): -16.07%
🔴 Chainlink (LINK): -11.14%
🔴 Stellar (XLM): -5.74%
Shiba Inu (SHIB) is officially live on Solana, a flip on previous years when its team pushed holders toward Shibarium, its in-house layer-2 network, instead of rival chains. Although SHIB saw an increase following the announcement, within 22 minutes, it had recorded 3,005 trades worth about US$300,000, and finished its best month of 2026; it still holds approximately 93% below its October 2021 all-time high.
Aave had a strong week, gaining 22.1% over the past seven days, bringing its pricing near US$184–187. Aave Labs reported that its latest version passed US$1 billion in deposits during the month of September as well as US$10 million in active loans. Aave lets users borrow against assets they provide as security, and its latest expansion allows eligible users to borrow against digital tokens linked to shares in companies including Apple, Microsoft, and Nvidia.
SECURITY ALERT:
4 Different Types of Scams You Should Know About: Part One
As security measures continue to evolve, so do scammers. With the introduction of AI, scammers are getting more advanced, sneaky, and creative. But it’s not just AI scams you need to watch out for; traditional scam methods are still active, and they’re not as easy to spot as you may think.
Stay alert, verify what you’re seeing and know the red flags before sending funds.
