HashKey Capital Monthly Insights Report: September 2025

Overall Market Performance

September marked a significant month for markets as the Federal Reserve cut its rate by 25bps for the first time since December 2024, reaffirming the weakening labour market reports and economic uncertainty. Moving forward, based on Fed dot plot projections, it is likely that the market will see 2 more 25bps rate cuts in October and December this year. Markets reacted positively to this news as the overall crypto market surged to a high of $4.13T post Fed rate cut, although subsequent performance of the market remained choppy as other economic metrics such as consumer spending and core PCE continued to paint a mixed outlook. Overall, despite September being a historically bearish month for equities and crypto market, it appeared to be different this time as crypto market ended the month up 3.72%. Other notable events in the digital asset landscape include the first launch of XRP and DOGE ETFs. REX-Osprey launched U.S. spot XRP (XRPR) and Dogecoin (DOJE) ETFs; the pair debuted with about $55 million in first-day trading volume. However, despite the highly anticipated launch of XRP and DOGE ETFs with more to come against the backdrop of smoother listing procedure, market appetite for these products has failed to sustain beyond initial rally, underscoring institutional preference for Bitcoin and Ethereum.

Regulatory Developments

South Korea’s FSC capped crypto‐lending rates at 20% and outlawed leveraged lending, tightening retail risk controls and restricting eligible collateral to large-cap tokens or those listed across multiple KRW venues. In the U.S., the SEC approved generic listing standards that let NYSE Arca, Nasdaq, and Cboe BZX list qualifying commodity- and crypto-based ETPs without product-by-product Commission orders — materially shortening time-to-market. Complementing that, Nasdaq filed to enable trading of tokenized securities and ETPs on its main market under a 19b-4 proposal emphasizing equivalence with existing shareholder protections. Beyond U.S. and Korea, EU pushes to tighten MiCA implementation and Bank of England work on stablecoin holding caps, underscoring a global tilt toward harmonized, risk-based oversight rather than outright prohibition.

Bitcoin

Bitcoin price appreciated by 5.39% MoM led by $3.5B in spot BTC ETFs inflows and a strengthening narrative as a store of value. Bitcoin dominance also gained slightly from ~57% to 58% as altcoin season failed to sustainably take off in September despite the launch of more altcoin ETFs. As the U.S. Government shuts down with no end in sight, this also further reinforced Bitcoin’s significance as a decentralized store of value, fuelling Bitcoin to end in the green as the price rallied in the last week of September. As Bitcoin yields remain limited, there is an increasing trend among institutions to introduce yields on Bitcoin. BlackRock has recently filed to launch the Bitcoin Premium Income ETF that seeks to attract income investors to yields generated through selling covered call options. Cantor Fitzgerald similarly introduced another innovative structured product that allows investors to participate in Bitcoin upside while mitigating downside risks through gold hedge. On the treasury side, although accumulation has noticeably weakened with September marking the lowest growth in Bitcoin accumulated this year, large players continue to attract funding. Bitcoin treasury firm, Metaplanet, made its largest purchase in September, purchasing 5268 BTC for $623M after announcing that it has raised $1.4B through an international share offering with participation from other DATs such as Nakamoto Holdings Inc. The firm has also announced expansion plans as it launched a US subsidiary to manage Bitcoin derivatives.

Ethereum

While Bitcoin benefited from heightened political instability and looser U.S. liquidity conditions to close the month higher, Ethereum lagged behind, posting a 5.55% month-on-month decline. ETFs brought in a meagre $285.6M inflows. Treasury companies continue their accumulation appetite, adding more than 1M in ETH in September, though more than 80% of this demand came from Bitmine Immersion which widened its gap to other Ethereum treasury peers. With treasury companies now absorbing close to 5% of ETH supply, yield generation potential has become an increasingly important consideration for these companies. SharpLink Gaming announced plans to deploy a portion of its Ethereum on Linea to earn staking yields. ETHZilla has also deployed $47M of its ETH into liquid staking protocol, Puffer.

On the technical side, Ethereum announced the dates for their testnets which will take place throughout October, with mainnet activation scheduled for 4 December. As the second hard fork this year, the Fusaka upgrade advances Ethereum’s scaling roadmap by improving data handling and validator efficiency, which in turn cuts rollup data costs, boosts blob throughput, and lowers node overhead. For L2s, that means cheaper, more predictable fees and higher throughput as data-availability constraints ease; for Ethereum, it strengthens the network’s role as the settlement and data layer for a growing rollup ecosystem.

Other notable developments:

• Ethereum saw a spike in validator exit in September after Kiln began an orderly exit of all its validators due to an exploited API that led to a $41M loss in its partner, Swissborg.

• Ethereum treasury firm, Bit Digital, proposed $100M of convertible note offering.

• Ethereum overtook Tron as the largest holder of USDT in September.

• SharpLink to tokenize SBET stock on Ethereum via Superstate’s Opening Bell.

• REX-Osprey launched ETH staking ETF.

• FalconX launched the first forward markets tied to Ethereum staking yields for institutions.

• PayPal to integrate Bitcoin and Ethereum into its new peer-to-peer payment system.

• Ethereum Foundation outlined their privacy roadmap.

L2

Arbitrum

The competition among L2s heat up in September as they vie for user adoption. Arbitrum announced the DeFi Renaissance Incentive Program (DRIP) which will distribute 80M ARB over 4 seasons to accelerate DeFi adoption on the network. The first season that is still ongoing, focused on driving usage on lending platforms. Participating platforms include Aave, Morpho, Fluid, Euler, Dolomite, and Silo with their respective performance listed below.

Other notable developments:

• Ostrich perp dex concluded its 8 week points program and now surpassed $1B in trading volume, allowing users to leverage trade on tokenized US, China, and Japan equities.

• Giza Pulse live on Arbitrum.

• Demand for RWA-backed yields continue to grow as USD.ai saw its circulating supply more than 4x, crossing $446M in September.

Linea

September was a breakout month for Linea: the network completed its Token Generation Event and kicked off claiming on Sep 10, alongside major exchange listings and Binance’s surprise HODLer Airdrop (720M+ LINEA) that opened trading pairs the same day. Activity and developer interest had been ramping since early September with DeFi TVL surging to $1.4B — helped by Linea’s Ignition long-term incentive program in collaboration with Brevis which aims to distribute 1B in LINEA tokens for participating in DeFi protocols. Key DeFi protocols that have seen increased contribution include Aave, Euler, and Etherex. On Aave, the number of daily active users more than doubled in September, pushing its TVL past $1B from just $472M in August. In parallel, MetaMask’s mUSD incentivized pool on Etherex has demonstrated strong user traction, with average weekly active users reaching approximately 2.6K, well above user engagement levels on Ethereum. As Metamask continues to maintain a close synergistic relationship with Linea, mUSD adoption is likely to continue, potentially overtaking Circle’s USDC as the leading stablecoin on the network.

Other notable developments:

• Myriad prediction markets now live on Linea.

L1 — Plasma

Marking the most significant L1 launch in September is Plasma, a stablecoin-focused blockchain that went live on 25 September. Since going live, it has garnered more than $5.5B in TVL supported by its Day 1 launch partners that include DeFi heavyweights Aave, Fluid, Euler, Pendle, among others. With zero-fee USDT transfers, Plasma Saving vaults that offer ~8.2% APY through various DeFi strategies, and an upcoming Card, Plasma demonstrated that diverse DeFi yields and real world usage can co-exist within a platform. With Arc and Tempo not yet live, competition in stablecoin L1s is set to intensify on various factors such as having an intuitive user experience, ecosystem integrations, card experience, and network effects.

Prediction Markets

September saw prediction markets gained mindshare and renewed interest as rivalry — and mainstream tie-ups — intensified: Kalshi posted record monthly turnover driven by U.S. sports contracts (crossing ~$1B mid-month and close to $3B in September, with Robinhood’s integration a key catalyst), while rate-decision markets also set new single-event records. The increased adoption has been a significant tailwind for Kalshi as it recorded $2.86B in monthly trading volume, surpassing Polymarket for the first time not just in volume but also open interest and active markets. Polymarket logged its strongest month of 2025 (~$1.4B volume) and deepened institutional traction heading into Q4, punctuated by Intercontinental Exchange’s (ICE) announcement to invest up to $2B and distribute its event data. The platform is also expected to relaunch in the US after its successful $112M acquisition of QCX LLC which confers it with a CFTC-licensed exchange. Myriad continued to scale its on-chain footprint, reporting a record $4.23M in September trading volume and outlining a push to embed prediction-market rails as a protocol primitive. Limitless set up its token generation roadmap with a Season 2 points program launched on Sep 22 leading to a strong late-September activity ahead of its early-October community sale that was ultimately 200× oversubscribed. After September’s big month for Kalshi, Polymarket, Myriad, and Limitless, the path forward looks split but complementary: regulated exchanges like Kalshi and Polymarket will keep growing under CFTC rules, while crypto-native platforms draw more institutional interest.

AI

Agentic payments emerged as a headline narrative around TOKEN2049, driven by rising adoption of x402 payment standard and a burst of agent-designed payment rails. Google unveiled its Agent Payments Protocol (AP2) and, with Coinbase and others, shipped an A2A x402 extension so AI agents can authorize payments without the need for subscriptions, accounts, or API keys. At the same time, Cloudflare and Coinbase launched the x402 Foundation to accelerate x402 adoption, while Coinbase rolled out a managed x402 gateway for API monetization. Payment providers piled in — Circle published x402 guides for autonomous USDC payments — signaling growing vendor support. The momentum was visible on the ground too: TOKEN2049 hackathon winner, the team behind MicroPay, showcased agent micropayments across chains via Hyperbridge, reinforcing that machine-to-machine crypto payments are moving from demo to deployment. Beyond x402, discussion is also rife surrounding ERC-8004, a decentralized, trustless AI Agent coordination standard that has been widely advocated by Ethereum Foundation and various AI ecosystem projects. Overall, September’s developments point to a near-term future where agents use standardized protocols (AP2 + x402) to pay per request, coordinate seamlessly with each other, and unlock new monetization models enabled by the intersection of AI and blockchain.

Other notable news:

• The team behind ERC-8004 held its first community call on 23 September.

• Ethereum Foundation launched an AI team, led by Davide Crapis, will work with Silicon Valley and the crypto community to make Ethereum the bedrock of the AI economy.

• Cloudfare launched NET dollar, a USD-backed stablecoin built for instant, secure microtransactions and agentic payments.

• Peaq dropped its robotics SDK.

• Vana launched its iOS and Android application as well as VanaXP, an incentive and reputation system for contributing users.

• Eigen Cloud launched Eigen AI and Eigen Compute.

• GAIB completed a $30M GPU tokenization deal with Siam.AI.

• Prime Intellect’s compute exchange now allows reserved instances, providing long term GPU deals across 50+ providers, accessible globally.

• Openledge launched Datanet contributions for whitelisted users.

• Coinbase rolled out x402 Bazaar, an open discovery layer for agents and developers to permissionlessly access AI services, data feeds, APIs among others.

• StableWatch launched a multi-agent Monte Carlo framework, StableSim, for stress testing stablecoins with real data on stability and resilience.

• SkyNet is live on Virtuals Protocol, enabling users to easily build ACP-native agents through a drag and drop approach. Another agent live on Virtuals is Veronica which runs end-to-end D2C commerce, from catalog and marketing to payments and logistics.

RWA

September’s RWA tokenization push accelerated on both scale and breadth: on-chain RWA value climbed roughly +14% MoM to ~$33.7B (per RWA.xyz), led by steady growth in tokenized Treasuries, which reached ~$7.9B in September. Institutional momentum remained visible — BlackRock’s BUIDL continued gaining market share from ~31% in August to ~33% in September. It also integrated Ripple’s RLUSD via Securitize to allow holders to instantly redeem their tokenized asset for RLUSD, bolstering liquidity. Other issuers such as Ondo broadened its footprint with Ondo Global Markets, offering access to 100+ tokenized stocks and ETFs following its acquisition of Oasis Pro, which supplied the licensing and infrastructure for issuing and managing tokenized equities trading. Since launch, Ondo Global Markets has captured more than $300M in TVL and generated more than $316M in trading volume. Maple Finance also saw its TVL rise in September contributed by its launch on Plasma as its $200M lending vault got quickly subscribed in under a minute. On the policy front, China’s CSRC reportedly asked some brokers to pause RWA tokenization activities in Hong Kong — a reminder that regulatory paths still diverge even as adoption quickens.

Other notable news:

• Ant Digital plans to tokenize up to $8.4B in renewable energy assets.

• XRP Ledger launched the Multi-Purpose Token (MPT) standard which aims to simplify the issuance and management of RWAs in a regulatory compliant way.

And that’s a wrap! As equities market hit all time highs in September, is Uptober going to maintain the streak, or will it succumb to heightened geopolitical risks and market corrections? Stay tune for the next edition~