Archive 2026

Bitcoin started September below 78000 dollars after a 25% rise in August, its best monthly performance since November 2024. Indeed, this entry into the month called "Rektember" revives an unfavorable seasonality. Bitcoin loses on average about 3% in September since 2013. In 2026, the main risk however does not come from the calendar but from the Federal Reserve. Markets now anticipate a possible rate increase starting September 16.

Privacy-focused cryptos widely outperformed the market in August. Zcash (ZEC) climbed 82%, driven by the launch of Grayscale's spot ZCSH ETF on NYSE Arca. Monero (XMR), on the other hand, rose 40%, thanks to the arrival of native swaps on THORChain v3.20. And the momentum does not stop there: several more discreet privacy coins are also benefiting, even though regulatory pressure remains strong.

Net inflows have been recorded in US XRP ETFs for eleven consecutive sessions. This streak, starting on August 18, brought them nearly 170 million dollars and raised their cumulative flows to 1.68 billion since their launch. Meanwhile, Q2 publications position Goldman Sachs as the leading known institutional investor. However, these two statistics do not cover the same period and do not allow linking recent flows to the American bank.

Hut 8 is transforming its Bitcoin-based infrastructures into machines for AI. Its Beacon Point campus in Texas now shows 704 MW of leased capacity for a base contract value of 19.6 billion dollars. Behind the setup are two giants: Nvidia would hold the site lease, while Anthropic has just signed a 35 billion contract with Lambda to use part of this power.

The GPU shortage succeeded where no manifesto had. It turned "decentralized AI", until recently just a slogan, into a real market. High-end accelerators have been out of stock for months, with lead times stretching past a year, and that scarcity pushed developers toward networks that pool idle hardware from around the world. Except the label "decentralized AI platform" now covers very different realities, and confusing them is the surest way to pick the wrong one. Renting a GPU is not the same as training a model. Scoring machine-learning outputs is not hosting an unrestricted LLM. This guide sorts the main players of 2026 by what they actually do, weighs the strengths and blind spots of each, and sets an outsider, Qubic, against the rest: the only network on this list where mining itself trains neural networks. No investment advice follows, only a map of the landscape.

Since August 7, the price of gold touched its lowest level before rebounding around 4331 dollars per ounce. The conflict between the United States and Iran could not support the safe haven. It caused oil prices to rise, consolidated inflation fears, and increased the likelihood of a US rate hike. The evolution of the dollar and bond yields thus weighs more on the precious metal than the search for security.

Grayscale, a16z and the Crypto Council for Innovation ask the SEC not to automatically tighten the rules for the new generation of ETFs. The crypto sector especially refuses that Bitcoin, Ethereum or other digital assets be placed in the same category as private asset funds, leveraged strategies or event contracts. The three organizations want faster reviews tailored to the real risk of each product.

The dismantling of Sality ends a long cryptocurrency hijacking operation. This botnet, active since 2003, spent its last eight years stealing bitcoins and Ethers. Its method relied on a simple technique: modifying wallet addresses copied on infected machines. CrowdStrike and the U.S. Department of Justice coordinated the operation. This globally conducted operation isolated more than 15,000 machines across several regions of the world. The crypto phenomenon was at the heart of this activity.