Bitcoin Faces Headwinds in September After Strong August Rally

Morning Minute is a daily newsletter written by Tyler Warner. The analysis and opinions expressed are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Decrypt.

GM!

Today’s top news:

Crypto majors are red down 2-4% as oil and bonds rise; BTC at $76.6k

ETH ETFs continue inflow streak with $8M despite BTC ETF outflows

SEC proposes modernizing transfer agent rules, letting blockchains serve as record

21 banks including Citi, Goldman and BofA will form a stablecoin company in 2026

Robinhood Chain smashes records in revenue, DEX volume, launchpad volume and more

📉 Bitcoin Enters ‘Rektember’ After Best August Since 2017

Bitcoin climbed 25% in August, its strongest month since November 2024 and the best August rally since 2017. But September is off to a rough start, with Bitcoin falling below $77k.

Since 2013, September has been Bitcoin’s worst month on average, delivering a loss near 3% and only five positive returns in thirteen years. Though notably, the last 3 years have all ended September green for Bitcoin.

But there are real headwinds afoot. Fed Chair Kevin Warsh used his Jackson Hole speech Friday to lean hard on elevated inflation, and the bond market reacted strongly. Sovereign yields pushed to new cycle highs and the US 10-year reached 4.784%. Markets now price a 66% chance of a 25-basis-point hike at the September 16 meeting, with another possible hike before year-end. Continued US strikes against Iran pushed WTI crude to $88 a barrel, up 2% on the day and the highest since late July.

Higher rates tighten financial conditions and lift the dollar, which is the standard headwind for anything on the risk end of the curve. Bad for Bitcoin and Gold (and traditional markets, which also average negative returns in September).

Overall, September will be a battle of forces. Will the tailwinds of ETF inflows, DAT inflows and a booming onchain crypto market be enough to take Bitcoin higher? Or will the headwinds of war, higher oil, inflation and potential rate hikes stop the rally?

We will find out soon enough. And set your calendars for September 16—the next FOMC meeting and rate decision. That meeting may very well set the macro tone for the rest of the year…

🌎 Macro Crypto and Markets

Crypto majors were red following the TradFi selloff; BTC -2% at $76.6; ETH -3% at $2,376; SOL -4% at $98; HYPE -2% at $81

Top alt movers include FIL (+10%), PYTH (+7%) and UNI (+6%)

Oil +3% at $90; Gold -1% at $4,360

Stock futures are red again as bond yields and oil rise; DOW -0.1%, Nasdaq -0.5%

Strategy CEO Phong Le defended selling Bitcoin near $60,000 and buying it back at $80,318, telling Bloomberg the calls turn on cost of capital rather than price after the company cut net debt to zero and built $7 billion in dollar reserves

Saylor and CEO Phong Le asked MSCI to withdraw a screen that would delete Strategy from its global indexes, calling it discriminatory and arbitrary, with feedback closing September 30

Twenty-one banks and asset managers including Citi, Goldman, BofA, and UBS will form a stablecoin company in the second half of 2026, starting with a dollar token due to market in the first half of 2027

The SEC proposed modernizing its transfer agent rules to let blockchains serve as official ownership records, and set a September 17 roundtable on 24-hour trading with NYSE, Nasdaq, DTCC, Citadel Securities, and Robinhood

Robinhood Chain’s fee revenue sent ARB up more than 30% as traders priced in the Orbit stack underpinning the network

Hyperliquid Strategies raised the cap on its Chardan equity facility to $2.5 billion from $1 billion, letting the Nasdaq-listed treasury company issue new shares to fund general corporate purposes including more HYPE purchases

Corporate Treasuries & ETFs

The Bitcoin ETFs saw $237M in net outflows on Tuesday; the ETH ETFs saw $8.6M in inflows and continued their green streak

DeFi Development Corp launched a preferred stock offering that could raise $19.8 million to buy more SOL, pricing 2.2 million shares at $9 under the proposed ticker CHAD

Meme Coin Tracker

Meme leaders were very red; DOGE -2%, SHIB even, PEPE -2%, PENGU -5%, TRUMP -7%, SPX -6%

Robinhood chain leaders were mixed; PONS -14%; Cashcat +22%; AI +10%; Boner -35%; Microduck +130%; Tendies, Moo, Orbio, Ubik and Optimus were other big runners

Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev was replying to memecoin posters on X as he continues to lean into the ecosystem

Solana didn’t see many sustained runners on Tuesday in a day of red; Ansem -17% at $240M

💰 Token, Airdrop & Protocol Tracker

Robinhood Chain set new records in revenue with $3.38M and DEX volume with $1.3B

Pumpfun’s terminal set a new ATH in volume with $162M while Pump continues to out-earn Hyperliquid ($2.14M in revenue vs $1.98M)

Ethena launched Ethena Pay on the App Store, a neobank app paying 6% on dollar savings and 5% card cashback with Avalanche as the exclusive settlement layer, sending ENA up 9%

There will be over $1.5B in token unlocks coming this month spanning XPL, Cards, H, ZRO, Ena and more

🚚 What is happening in NFTs?