Crypto Rundown: JP Morgan Chooses SOL & The Crypto China Supercycle

JP Morgan is helping develop an on-chain settlement system on Solana that could allow financial institutions to settle trades in seconds. Speakers saw the effort as evidence of traditional finance and crypto becoming more integrated. Samsung’s potential stablecoin distribution across its devices could also benefit Solana over the longer term: it has access to “80 some million” devices, and users may prioritize payments that are fast, inexpensive, and easy over knowing which blockchain runs them. They did not expect the Samsung news alone to cause an immediate 15% price jump.

The China “supercycle” remains conditional on China permitting crypto trading and broader use of the technology by companies and in cross-border trade. Under that scenario, greater economic support and liquidity could improve global risk appetite and flow into crypto and other risk assets, but the thesis depends on liquidity actually increasing and reaching those markets. The Fear and Greed Index stood at 56, neutral after an extended period in greed. Bitcoin was in the low-to-mid $80,000s, the market was up a couple of percent over 24 hours, and Ethereum was above $2,000. Brian said Ethereum and Solana had lagged over the week but remained relatively bullish going into fall.

Speakers linked market jitters to concerns over AI investment spending and whether it will produce the expected abundance. Brian said released financial information showed OpenAI about $20 billion short on revenue, spooking markets; he noted that OpenAI is not public and does not issue quarterly earnings. The host also pointed to rising 10-year Treasury yields, mortgage rates at their highest since 2022, and the likelihood of another Federal Reserve rate hike before year-end, which Brian said markets had largely accepted. The host expected cooling to continue for a couple of weeks, while Brian said the market had rebounded from the previous day’s shakier feel and he was not overly concerned. TD Callan raised its Bitcoin projections to $109,000 by year-end 2026 and $280,000 by 2029.

The Winklevoss twins filed for a Zcash ETF, 13 years after their spot Bitcoin ETF filing, when Bitcoin was about $100; Zcash was described as about $1,200. A speaker saw the filing as a sign of growing institutional interest in financial privacy, but noted Zcash had fallen about 10% over the prior week and said the news did not establish that its price would rise or reach new all-time highs. Zcash was called “private Bitcoin,” with Bitcoin-like tokenomics and the option of transparent or shielded transactions. It is not fully quantum safe, though developers are working toward quantum resistance. Speakers differed on its investment risks: one said the response to an exploit restored confidence, while another said the exploit made them wary of investing heavily.

Robinhood was reported to have added $25 million of Bitcoin to its balance sheet. A speaker called the purchase symbolically significant but small for the company and expected it might buy more during the year. Robinhood and Coinbase are both pursuing broader “everything app” ambitions, and speakers said they could compete while both continuing to thrive. Bitmine, meanwhile, said it would stop buying ETH after reaching its 5% accumulation target. That could remove a consistent buyer; supporters viewed the target as an endorsement of Ethereum and said stopping could limit share dilution from fundraising. One speaker expected Bitmine to keep supporting Ethereum but said how it would use revenue remained unclear, and expected the plan’s advantages and disadvantages to fall somewhere in the middle.

Ledger was reportedly investigating lost funds among Southeast Asian users who bought devices from reseller Crypto Billus. The hosts suspected phishing rather than a hack or exploit and advised affected buyers to contact Ledger Support and verify their funds. They recommended buying hardware wallets directly from manufacturers, warning that a reseller device could have been activated and its private keys captured before being repackaged.

The trailer for a limited series about the FTX scandal appeared to frame Sam Bankman-Fried and Caroline Ellison’s story as a love story, though the hosts said they did not know how the series would portray the fraud. Brian expected many crypto users to watch. A speaker distinguished crypto technology from FTX and its executives, whom they described as frauds who abused it, while worrying that viewers could mistake the industry’s biggest frauds for cryptocurrency itself. They said the industry emerged stronger after the collapse, while acknowledging the damage to people who were wiped out.