ETH MACD Crossover Sparks Talk of 2021-Style Rally

The United States’ first memecoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) is set to debut on Thursday, marking the latest step in the expansion of regulated crypto products after the successful rollout of Bitcoin and Ether funds last year.

In a social media post on Tuesday, Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas said the Rex-Osprey Doge ETF (tDOJE) has been approved by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

“Pretty sure this is the first-ever US ETF to hold something that has no utility or purpose,” Balchunas said.

Two major global banks — BNP Paribas and HSBC — have joined the Canton Foundation, the development organization of the tokenization-focused Canton Network, underscoring continued institutional interest in real-world asset applications of blockchain technology.

The foundation announced Tuesday that BNP Paribas and HSBC are now members, alongside recent entrants Goldman Sachs, Hong Kong FMI Services and Moody’s Ratings. With more than 30 members, the Canton Foundation provides governance and strategic direction for the network while advancing blockchain-based financial use cases.

Canton Network is a blockchain designed for institutional finance, with a core focus on real-world asset (RWA) tokenization, regulatory compliance and interoperability.

BNP Paribas’ head of global markets, Hubert de Lambilly, said the move reflects the bank’s commitment to adopting distributed ledger technology “to serve our evolving client needs.”

BNP’s involvement builds on its prior backing of Digital Asset, the company behind the Canton Network. The French bank participated in Digital Asset’s $135 million funding round, which the firm said would accelerate institutional adoption and decentralized finance initiatives on Canton.

HSBC’s head of digital assets and currencies, John O’Neil, said joining the foundation would help foster the blockchain industry’s maturation and support the creation of real liquidity in digital asset markets.

HSBC has been active across blockchain initiatives, with reports indicating it is preparing to apply for a stablecoin license in Hong Kong under the city’s new regulatory regime. HSBC Hong Kong is also exploring blockchain applications in custody, tokenization and bond issuance, according to previous disclosures.

So far, no cryptocurrency service has reported losses as a result of clipper malware being injected into NPM packages, inevitable instruments for JavaScript developers. At the same time, cryptocurrency users should stay particularly vigilant these days.

Polygon, Ledger, Trezor break silence on yesterday's NPM hack

According to official statements by cryptocurrency teams, more and more services have confirmed that their tech architectures are unaffected by the Sept. 8 NPM attack, the biggest hack in the history of JavaScript.

Polygon (POL), the largest layer-2 blockchain on Ethereum Virtual Machine, assured readers that both Polygon Proof-of-Stake and Agglayer are unaffected by the collapse.

Most importantly, similar statements have been released by the cryptocurrency wallet's team. Hardware wallet producer Ledger, whose CTO Charles Guillemet informed the crypto space about the hack, stressed that all funds are safe.

Ledger devices are not and have not been at risk during an ecosystem-wide software supply chain attack that was discovered. Ledger devices are built specifically to protect users against attacks like these.

Trezor, another top-tier provider of hardware cryptocurrency wallets, outlined that at no stage were the gadgets exposed to the attackers.

Trezor Suite, an app necessary to connect Trezor wallets to computers, is also safe, the statement says.

Largest JavaScript NPM hack: What you should know

Yesterday, on Sept. 8, 2025, the account of a reputable JavaScript software developer was hacked. The malefactors uploaded tampered NPM packages — elements of JS code — infiltrated with the malware targeting crypto on all major blockchains.

Altered NPM packages might be downloaded billions of times as JS is one of the dominant programming languages right now.

Clipper malware replaces the address a victim sends crypto to with the address of the hacker. As a result, the user sends money to the attacker without knowing it.

All crypto users should be super cautious these days while sending funds on-chain and when signing approvals via Web3 wallets.

Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino issued an unconventional message this Tuesday, writing that "Bitcoin, Gold and Land are the hedge against incoming darker times." This grim remark carries weight not just because of who said it but because the backdrop for global markets is now what may be called bright.

Fresh U.S. data shows employment for March 2025 was revised down by 911,000 jobs, a huge miss that reshapes the outlook for monetary policy. 

At the same time, the Federal Reserve is forced to choose between a 0.25% or 0.5% rate cut next week on Wednesday, highlighting just how controversial the economy looks heading into the end of the year.

In that context, Ardoino's mention of "darker times" reflects the same pressure points policymakers are dealing with.

What about Tether?

Tether, though, is quite well prepared, judging by Ardoino's playbook. As of June 30, 2025, the company reported $162.57 billion in assets, dominated by $105.5 billion in U.S. Treasuries, but also holding $8.72 billion in precious metals and $8.93 billion in Bitcoin. 

So, Tether itself has shifted a share of its backing into assets seen as hedges rather than pure cash equivalents.

What is significant is that Ardoino is framing Bitcoin not as a speculative play but as part of the same safety basket that traditionally included gold and land. For a market searching for direction, it signals how crypto is becoming a defensive strategy.

Sam Altman's proof of humanity project World has seen its token's price surge over 80% in less than two days amid the launch of a WLD digital asset treasury.

On Monday, the Nasdaq-listed Eightco Holdings Inc. said it had launched a WLD digital asset treasury with a $250 million private placement. Hours before the announcement, WLD's price had already started rising.

WLD was changing hands at $1.87 as of 11:10 a.m. ET on early Tuesday, up over 20% on the day, according to The Block Price Page.

The token, however, has risen more than 80% since Sunday evening. WLD's all-time high of over $11 came in March 2024.

The World project has garnered significant press thanks largely to Altman, who is famously the CEO of OpenAI. The project, formerly known as Worldcoin, has been primarily developed by Tools for Humanity, a firm co-founded by Altman and Alex Blania. World gives people WLD tokens when they sign up for a World ID, which involves having a space-age looking silver orb scan individuals' eyeballs to verify they are human.

Providing a way to prove humanity and create digital identifications that people can use online is seen by many technology thought leaders as a necessary tool society will come to rely on as the number of artificial intelligence-powered actors populating the internet grows.

"When you think about these orbs, the iris scanning, in my opinion this is going to be the de facto standard when we think about separating from bots, identifying humans," Dan Ives said in a CNBC interview on Monday. Ives was announced as chairman of the board for the WLD treasury Eightco.

On Monday, Eightco, ticker symbol OCTO, said it signed a private placement for the purchase and sale of over 170 million shares of common stock for approximately $250 million, according to a statement. Eightco also issued shares to BitMine, the world's largest corporate holder of Ethereum, for another $20 million.

"The transaction was led by MOZAYYX with participation from a premier list of institutional investors including World Foundation, Discovery Capital Management, GAMA, FalconX, Kraken, Pantera, GSR, Coinfund, Occam Crest, Diametric and Brevan Howard," according to the statement.

Digital asset treasuries, or DATs, have become one of the biggest stories across crypto as token holders and investors seek to tap capital markets in order to accumulate certain digital assets.

After Eightco's shares rose over 3,000% on Monday, the company's shares were down about 18% as of 11:31 a.m. ET, according to Yahoo Finance.

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© 2025 The Block. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

Major crypto exchange Binance has issued an important security reminder for crypto projects, urging them to stay vigilant against fake listing agents and scams.

Binance, in an official blog post, stated that it has become aware of bad actors attempting to exploit the Binance brand by falsely claiming to be Binance Business Development (BD) employees, official "listing agents," or intermediaries who can guarantee a listing on the Binance platform for a fee.

These claims are a scam, Binance added, as such listings are never guaranteed. This is because Binance evaluates every project on its merits, taking into account factors such as community demand, market conditions, compliance, project viability and business model sustainability, among others.

Crypto projects should note that Binance does not accept or recognize any third-party individual or agency to apply for a listing or negotiate on their behalf.

Binance also does not charge a "listing fee" or any other fees for the platform itself as it seeks to list and support promising projects to meet user demand, not to collect application fees.

In this light, anyone claiming to represent or be affiliated with Binance and requesting payments in any form of fees or tokens before the conditions above are met might be a scam. In addition, Binance will never contact users by "official email" for listing matters or ask for "listing fees" in any channels.

Binance opens crypto payments for 31,000 merchants in South Africa

Through a new partnership with Zapper, one of South Africa’s leading payment providers, over 31,000 merchants will now be able to accept crypto.

From Sept. 9, 2025, Binance Pay will be accepted at over 31,000 South African merchants through Zapper, expanding the Binance Pay network to 63,000 merchants.

Binance Pay currently supports more than 100 cryptocurrencies, including 1INCH, ACH, ACT, ADA, APE, APT, ATOM, AXS, BNB, BONK, BTC, BCH, CAKE, CHZ, COTI, CTSI, DAI, DOGE, DOT, EGLD, EOS, ETC, ETH, EUR, FDUSD, FIL, FLOKI, FTM, GALA, HBAR, INJ, IOTX, LINK, LTC, MANA, NEO, NEIRO, NOT, OM, ONT, OSMO, PEPE, POL, QTUM, SHIB, SOL, TON, TRX, TUSD, UNI, USDC, USDP, USDT, VET, XLM, XRP, XTZ, ZEC and ZIL.