A 2.5-meter gold-covered statue of Donald Trump has appeared in the European Parliament. It shows Trump sitting on the shoulders of another man who is struggling under his weight.

The message is s those at the top make decisions, while someone else carries the weight.

Crypto traders probably understand this image better than most right now. Trump came into office promising a golden era for crypto, but his tariffs and the war with Iran have repeatedly hit risk appetite, pushed oil and yields higher and triggered brutal liquidations across BTC and alts.

So yeah, the statue is political art. But for traders watching positions get wiped after another geopolitical headline, the idea of someone else carrying the weight feels pretty familiar.

The New York Times published a deep dive into Binance founder Changpeng Zhao, who returned to the UAE after serving four months in a US prison.

Forbes estimates CZ’s wealth at around $114 billion, though he says its closer to $10–30 billion. He now lives in Abu Dhabi and reportedly owns a private jet, yacht and regularly meets politicians and royal families.

CZ can no longer manage Binance after pleading guilty in 2023 to Bank Secrecy Act violations. Binance paid $4.3 billion, while CZ served four months.

Still, his influence clearly didnt disappear. NYT says he now advises governments on crypto regulation and maintains close ties with UAE leadership.

In 2025, Abu Dhabi’s MGX invested $2 billion into Binance, with the deal settled using USD1, the stablecoin linked to the Trump family’s World Liberty Financial.

Trump pardoned CZ in October 2025. CZ denies any connection between the business deals and his pardon.

He may no longer run Binance, but he’s still very much inside the game.

Everyone looks pretty comfortable up here. Maybe a little too comfortable.

There’s a nasty mix building around Bitcoin right now: tighter Fed policy, sticky inflation, oil above $100, high bond yields and a market still loaded with leverage.

Higher rates mean less easy liquidity, and BTC has always been extremely sensitive to liquidity conditions. Add expensive energy keeping inflation pressure alive and yields making safer assets more attractive, and the setup gets uncomfortable.

The bigger issue is leverage. Every bounce keeps pulling more longs back in. If the first important support breaks, liquidations could turn a normal pullback into something much uglier pretty fast.

Monday could be interesting.

Arthur Hayes thinks the US will eventually have no choice but to turn the money printer back on, and crypto could be one of the biggest places where that liquidity ends up.

1. AI needs insane amounts of capital. Companies are spending trillions on data centers, chips and infrastructure, while the cost of AI services keeps going down.

2. At the same time, the US government still needs to finance a massive pile of debt. Hayes basically thinks the math doesnt leave many options besides creating more liquidity.

3. China could be another part of this. If Beijing moves from cautious policy into much bigger stimulus, some of that fresh money could eventually flow into scarce assets.

4. Europe is also on his radar, especially France and any signs of stress showing up in sovereign debt markets.

His whole thesis is pretty simple: AI spending + government debt + economic stimulus = more money creation.

And if the printers really start running again, crypto probably wont complain

Fresh data released today sent a positive signal for Bitcoin and the stock market. Core PCE held at 3.0% year over year, keeping underlying inflation at its previous level. Headline PCE slowed noticeably to 2.6% after revisions to prior data. Meanwhile, the final estimate for US Q2 GDP was revised up to 2.2% from 1.5%.

That's a fairly comfortable mix for markets: inflation is cooling, and the economy isn't sliding into recession.

For the Fed, this is an argument against rushing into another rate hike. For risk assets, including crypto, this kind of scenario is usually seen as positive.

Bitcoin and US stock futures moved higher in response.

A year ago there was crazy euphoria around gold, literally everyone was calling it the best safe haven asset.

Since then gold dropped more than 25-30% and it didnt protect from the war in Iran or from inflation speeding up because of oil.

And the most interesting thing is that globally it still looks like its setting up for one more leg down.

Why is this happening? Gold already went thru the phase of mass euphoria and buying climax.

Its hard to come up with bigger news than what we already had:

1. war

2. trade tariffs

3. inflation

4. oil problems

If even with all this gold isnt rising as a safe haven, then honestly I dont know what else could push it.

So now we entered the unloading cycle, gold started releasing liquidity and giving it to other assets.

Global target for the drop is around $3300 area.

Go check the replies, we called and tracked this whole move down from the highs there.

If we talk about 3-5-10 year horizon, I have no doubt gold will make new highs because of dollar losing value. But for the next year or so I just dont see what would take it to new highs.

Current priority is down.

This cycle (2022 to 2026) had the highest share of old coins being spent of any cycle so far. By old coins I mean BTC that sat untouched for years.

The usual explanation is a handoff from early holders to institutions. Some OGs took profits, and demand from the spot ETFs was big enough for the market to absorb that supply without falling apart.

But there might be more to it. Checkmate pointed out that some of these long-dormant coins may have moved for security reasons, not to be sold. After the Coldcard vulnerability came out, some holders probably just moved their BTC to new, safer addresses.

So I wouldn't read the record old coin movement as long-term holders dumping en masse. Part of it is likely just people migrating their own funds.

Open interest on crypto perpetual futures has climbed to $160B, the highest level in 11 months.

The market is loaded with leverage again, which means any sharp move could quickly trigger a cascade of liquidations. Buckle up.

Onchain analyst Wazz linked 53 memecoin launches on Robinhood Chain to what looks like the same scheme, which may have made at least $18.43M in around two months.

Most of the tokens were launched through Pons V2, the biggest launchpad on the chain.

According to Wazz, groups of related wallets were buying 70%+ of the supply right after launch.

Pons has anti-sniping protection where buys in the first seconds can get hit with up to 99% tax. But the token creators were adding their wallets to the exemption list before launch.

In 9 launches reviewed by Wazz, between 15 and 25 addresses were able to buy without the restriction. Seconds after launch, one transaction was basically buying out the whole bonding curve.

This left the creators and related wallets controlling around 82-86% of the token supply.

The biggest estimated profit came from CRUMBS at around $3.12M, followed by LEGS with $2.9M and PINK with $1.44M.

Wazz also linked the launches through wallet fund flows, where profits from one token were used to fund the next launches.

A big part of the money is now held in ETH, so it cant simply be frozen by a centralized entity.

SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce has resigned and will leave the regulator on October 2. She got her nickname in the crypto industry for pushing for clear rules on digital assets. Since February 2025 she has also headed the SEC's Crypto Task Force.

Her main positions:

1. Developers should not fall under securities law just for publishing open-source code.

2. The SEC should stop regulating through enforcement.

In November Peirce will join Regent University School of Law as an associate professor, teaching securities regulation, digital assets and federal litigation.

The SEC now has only two commissioners left, Chairman Paul Atkins and Mark Uyeda. Both are Republicans.

The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission has filed a lawsuit against Cash FX Group and three individuals, accusing them of running a large-scale pyramid scheme.

According to the regulator, the scheme raised over $950 million under the pretext of forex trading. Investors were told their money was managed by professional traders, special algorithms and AI, with promised returns of up to 15% per week.

The CFTC says there was almost no real trading. A large part of the funds was allegedly taken by the organizers, while older participants were paid with money from new ones, a classic Ponzi model. Clients were also reportedly shown fake statements with fictional trading profits.

The CFTC estimates actual investor losses at no less than $406 million.

White-hat hackers moved 52.37 BTC out of vulnerable wallets before attackers could take them.

The funds are now held by Crypto Recovery Trust in Wyoming and are intended to be returned to affected owners. Galaxy’s Alex Thorn said white hats rescued around 40% of the BTC at risk in the second wave.

The vulnerability was linked to insufficient randomness when generating some recovery phrases, potentially exposing private keys. Around 1,830 BTC across 9,162 addresses are reportedly linked to the issue.