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. And check out our daily news show 'FOMO HOUR' covering all of the top stories and market action.
GM!
Today’s top news:
Crypto majors mostly even, Hype leads; BTC at $83.9k
MetaMask exits Ethereum validators out of Lido after security incident
Open Standard launched OUSD stablecoin with major payments partners
Solana’s monthly app revenue leads all chains, hits 9-month high
Decrypt becomes The Information Exchange, leans into markets tied to media
🗳️ Crypto Gives Up on Congress and Goes After Senators
Two weeks after the Clarity Act died in the Senate, the crypto industry picked its targets. Stand With Crypto, the advocacy group Coinbase started in 2023, named its first Senate endorsements on Wednesday. Their new message: the fight has moved from the Capitol to the campaign trail.
The group is backing Republican Jon Husted against Sherrod Brown, who used to run the Senate Banking Committee and has spent years as one of crypto’s loudest critics. If Brown wins, he gets a powerful seat on the committee that writes the rules for this industry. That’s why Ohio matters more than the other two races combined.
It also endorsed Republican Ashley Hinson in Iowa and Democrat Chris Pappas in New Hampshire, who is running against former Republican senator John Sununu. On the House side, they’re backing Iowa Republican Mariannette Miller-Meeks and Alabama Democrat Shomari Figures, with more advertising planned in six races. The group says it picks candidates on their crypto positions regardless of party, and endorsed 32 House incumbents back in August.
The money behind all this is enormous, but Stand With Crypto doesn’t donate directly. It grades candidates and turns out voters, and its executive director says its three million supporters are now focused entirely on electing pro-crypto candidates. But candidates it rates well tend to attract money from crypto-aligned PACs, and the Fairshake PAC just launched a $30 million campaign against Brown. Total crypto political spending this cycle is approaching $200 million.
As a reminder, the Clarity Act failed 49 to 50 with every Democrat voting against it, over concerns about Trump’s own crypto businesses. And yet Stand With Crypto is backing two more Democrats in the midterms. It’s a slightly counter-intuitive bet, but maybe it will pay off. We will find out soon enough…
🌎 Macro Crypto and Markets
Crypto majors are mostly flat, Hype leads; BTC even at $83.9k; ETH +1% at $2,705; SOL -2% at $118; HYPE +4% at $90; ZEC -2% at $1,410
Top alt movers include STX (+18%), NIGHT (+16%) and FET (+6%)
Oil +2% at $93; Gold -0.2% at $4,202
Stock futures are slightly green; DOW +0.01%, Nasdaq +0.45%
Citi Bank raised its end-of-year Bitcoin target to $113,000 and ETH to $3,028, citing ETF flows, DAT buybacks and SEC rule changes
MetaMask Staking is pulling all its Ethereum validators out of Lido after someone broke into its infrastructure; exits finish by October 7, with the ETH taking up to 45 days to cycle back
The CFTC sent the White House two rules that would redefine “swap” around event contracts, locking in its authority over prediction markets as states sue platforms for running illegal gambling
The CFTC is investigating Adam Kinzinger over Kalshi trades on whether he’d get a presidential pardon, placed in late 2024 before Biden pardoned him
Open Standard launched OUSD, a stablecoin that gives away most of its own equity to the partners who help it grow, backed by more than 100 companies including Visa, Stripe, Mastercard, and Coinbase; it went live on Tempo with over $400 million in liquidity
Zcash holders approved $8.39 million in grants for work already done, funding 17 of 37 proposals, including $1.5 million to the researcher who found a bug that would have let someone counterfeit coins
Lloyds settled $750,000 with Visa using USDC in a seven-day test, marking Visa's first stablecoin settlement trial with a major UK bank
Corporate Treasuries & ETFs
The Bitcoin ETFs saw $149M in net outflows on Wednesday; the ETH ETFs saw $60M in outflows and Solana had $12.5M in outflows
Meme Coin Tracker
Meme leaders were red; DOGE even, SHIB -1%, PEPE +1%, PENGU -6%, TRUMP +1%, SPX +3%, BONK -6%
Robinhood chain leaders were mostly red with Orbio leading; Pons -4% to $370M; AI -11% at $160M; Cashcat -1% at $170M; Orbio +60% to $100M; Hookr +23%, Prism +20% and Priors +100% were top movers
Solana top movers were led by SI +500%, e/acc +60%, Micro +24x, OCT +60% and Backpack 50x; Ansem -1% to $138M
💰 Token, Airdrop & Protocol Tracker
Decrypt is becoming The Information Exchange, pairing its reporting with markets on Solana so readers can trade on a story without leaving it; the MYR token ties it together, with products rolling out over the coming weeks into Solana Breakpoint
Solana’s monthly app revenue hit a 9-month high of $180M in September leading all chains
Pump led onchain protocols in revenue again with $2.39M followed by Hyperliquid with $1.25M and Stonk with $1.17M
Monad teased a privacy update coming as a new potential protocol offering
🚚 What is happening in NFTs?
