Daily market key data review and trend analysis, produced by PANews.

1. Market Observation

The latest strong US economic data, with GDP growth exceeding expectations and initial unemployment claims declining, has heightened uncertainty about the Federal Reserve's future path of interest rate cuts, tempering market expectations for an October rate cut. As a result, the three major US stock indexes fell for three consecutive days, marking their longest losing streak in a month and completely reversing the gains made after the Fed's September meeting. Meanwhile, yields on major US Treasury maturities rose, with the interest-sensitive 2-year yield rising 4.5 basis points. The US dollar strengthened for two consecutive days, reaching a three-week high against the yen, approaching 150. Furthermore, the issue of the Federal Reserve's independence has drawn widespread attention, with the Supreme Court set to rule on President Trump's removal of Fed Governor Tim Cook. Wall Street Journal reporter Nick Timiraos has noted that this case could seriously erode the central bank's independence. Economist Kenneth Rogoff has called this scenario a "nightmare" and warned that a loss of Fed independence would lead to higher long-term interest rates.

The Bitcoin market has recently come under pressure, with prices falling below $109,000 and hitting a four-week low of $108,700, below the key support level of $112,000. On-chain analysis firm Glassnode noted that long-term holders have realized profits of 3.4 million Bitcoins, while ETF inflows have slowed, suggesting the market may be entering a period of "fatigue." Markus Thielen, head of 10x Research, stated that a further drop to $107,500 would trigger stop-loss selling. Furthermore, short-term holders' net unrealized profits are approaching zero, potentially leading to liquidation pressure. Crypto_Jobs cautioned investors to be cautious below $107,000, arguing that a break below would push Bitcoin towards the $98,000 to $100,000 range. Despite this, market sentiment is not entirely pessimistic. MicroStrategy Chairman Michael Saylor predicts Bitcoin will rise in the fourth quarter, while Chicken Genius believes the current price of $109,000 is a good point to add to positions, but also believes $104,000 is a good level for further increases. The market is closely watching the $4.656 billion worth of Bitcoin options contracts expiring this Friday. This is the first major expiration date after the Federal Reserve's September meeting and could trigger significant volatility. Furthermore, Hyblock data shows that leveraged long positions from $111,000 to $107,000 are at liquidation risk, suggesting further selling pressure. However, spot buyers are accumulating at an accelerated pace, with the order book showing that buy orders have exceeded sell orders, indicating increased demand.

Ethereum has also been weak recently, with prices plummeting to $3,813, a seven-week low. The current price has reached the cost line for Bitmine's holdings of 2.416 million ETH, and is only about $200 away from the cost price of SharpLink Gaming's holdings of 838,000 ETH at $3,603. Technically, Ethereum's daily chart has confirmed a break below a symmetrical triangle pattern, a bearish reversal signal after a strong upward move. The short-term target is the 0.382 Fibonacci retracement level at $3,595. If the sell-off intensifies, the price could fall further to the VPVR volume distribution range of $3,400 to $3,600, while also touching the 200-day EMA near $3,392. Analyst Ted noted that key support for Ethereum is $3,822; a break below this level would raise the next target to $3,700 to $3,750. Resistance lies between $3,960 and $4,000, and a break above this range would be the first bullish signal. Kamran Azghar predicts that prices could rebound to $4,900 or higher after hitting the key demand zone of $3,600, while Cold Blood Shiller emphasizes that prices are testing the critical horizontal support zone between $3,800 and $4,000. Ash Crypto believes that Ethereum could rebound after briefly touching the $3,500-3,600 range, reaching a new all-time high by the end of October. Meanwhile, Andrew Kang, partner at Mechanism Capital, has adopted a bearish strategy, having purchased a large number of short-term ETH put options, betting on a price drop to the $3,000 range.

While the overall altcoin market is sluggish, some projects still have some bright spots. Analyst Ted points out that Solana's key support level lies between $193 and $195. A break below this could push it down to the $185-$188 range. Resistance lies at the key $200 level and around $208-$210, potentially pushing it up to $216-$220. The newly launched project XPL has performed exceptionally well , with its price soaring from $0.1 to a high of $1.5 after Binance's opening, and currently hovering around $1.3. Binance and Plasma have distributed rewards from their joint deposit airdrop campaign. A single account depositing $100,000 will receive 11,489 XPL, equivalent to approximately $8,513 at the current price. Data shows that three addresses purchased over $22 million worth of XPL tokens this morning. Furthermore, the recently popular Aster cryptocurrency fell along with the broader market , dropping 17% in 24 hours to $1.80. James Wynn's long position in ASTER was liquidated, resulting in a loss of $4,023.73. A system vulnerability at the Aster exchange caused the XPL contract price to spike to $4. Affected users have been fully compensated and their funds are guaranteed to be safe.

2. Key Data (as of 13:00 HKT on September 26)

(Data sources: Coinglass, Upbit, Coingecko, SoSoValue, Tomars)

• Bitcoin: $109,181 (+16.57% YTD), daily spot trading volume $68.454 billion

• Ethereum: $3,928.99 (+17.33% YTD), with a daily spot trading volume of $55.767 billion

• Fear and Corruption Index: 32 (panic)

• Average gas: BTC: 1.11 sat/vB, ETH: 0.19 Gwei

• Market share: BTC 58.2%, ETH 12.7%

• Upbit 24-hour trading volume rankings: XPL, XRP, ETH, BTC, AVNT

• 24-hour BTC long-short ratio: 48.99%/51.01%

• Sector gains and losses: GameFi fell 4.89%, SocialFi fell 3.78%

• 24-hour liquidation data: A total of 227,621 people were liquidated worldwide, with a total liquidation amount of US$975 million, including US$247 million in BTC, US$312 million in ETH, and US$72.68 million in SOL.

• BTC medium- and long-term trend channel: upper channel line ($116,170.70), lower channel line ($113,870.29)

• ETH medium- and long-term trend channel: upper line of the channel ($4533.24), lower line ($4443.47)

*Note: When the price is higher than the upper and lower edges, it is a medium- to long-term bullish trend; otherwise, it is a bearish trend. When the price is within the range or repeatedly passes through the cost range in the short term, it is in a bottoming or topping state.

3. ETF flows (as of September 25)

• Bitcoin ETF: -$258 million, BlackRock IBIT bucks the trend with net inflows

• Ethereum ETF: -$251 million, 4 consecutive days of outflow

4. Today's Outlook

• Binance will delist the NEIROETH/USDT U-margined perpetual contract on September 26th

• OKX will delist MAJORUSDT, ARCUSDT and other perpetual contracts on September 26

• Binance to List Mira (MIRA) on September 26th

• Binance Alpha and Futures to List Hana Network (HANA)

• Binance Alpha to Launch LIGHT and GOATED Projects on September 27th

• Sahara AI (SAHARA) will unlock approximately 134 million tokens at 8:00 PM on September 26th, representing 6.08% of the current circulating supply and valued at approximately $11.4 million.

The biggest declines among the top 100 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization today: Story fell 26.4%, Aster fell 17.2%, Avalanche fell 11%, Ether.fi fell 9.6%, and Immutable fell 8.5%.

5. Hot News

• 3 addresses bought over $22 million worth of XPL tokens

• AlphaTON Capital completes $71 million in financing and acquires the first batch of TON

• Plasma confirms that all users participating in the IC0 pre-deposit plan will receive an XPL airdrop worth approximately $8,390

• Ethereum co-founder Jeffrey Wilcke deposited 1,000 ETH worth $4 million into Kraken

• The whale who bought 50 million USDC during the initial Plasma staking period received approximately $40.56 million worth of XPL.

• Hyperion DeFi, a listed company, increased its holdings by approximately 176,400 HYPE tokens, bringing its total holdings to over 1.71 million.

• Robinhood US to List WLFI

• ETHZilla, a listed company, plans to deploy approximately $47 million in Ethereum to Puffer to increase reserve income.

• Publicly listed company Caliber invested $4 million to increase its LINK token holdings, bringing its total holdings to $10.1 million.

• French investment firm Melanion plans to raise €50 million to buy Bitcoin

• ETH price hits BitMNR cost line, $400 away from SharpLink cost line of $3603

• M2 Capital invests $20 million in Ethena governance token ENA