According to CNBC, options traders piled into tech names on Thursday as interest rates rose, the Nasdaq-100 posted its best day in six weeks and Cboe's volatility gauge fell more than two points to 15.4, its lowest in a week. The S&P 500 added more than 1% as 10 of 11 sectors advanced, while market-makers traded calls at a $2 premium to at-the-money puts, signaling stronger demand for upside exposure. Intel drew heavy bullish flow, with more than 1.3 million options changing hands, nearly three times the monthly average. About 270,000 calls were likely bought versus under 140,000 puts, and buyers initiated $320 million in premium, including $231 million tied to call contracts. AMD also saw bullish activity, with volume nearly double the average, while Crowdstrike and SpaceX both recorded elevated trading volume. SpaceX traded at its highest price since July 7, and more than $1.5 billion in premium changed hands, including $1.1 billion tied to puts.

According to CNBC, Evercore ISI raised its price target on Apple to $380 from $365 and kept an outperform rating on the stock, implying nearly 13% upside from Thursday's close. Analyst Amit Daryanani said the firm expects a better-than-expected iPhone refresh cycle led by the latest launches, with pricing potentially rising more than 20% because of higher average selling prices, pricier stock keeping units and a shift to higher memory configurations. Apple earlier this month said it would begin shipping its latest smartphones, the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max, on Friday, and both models are priced $100 above their prior-generation versions. Daryanani said Evercore's recent poll showed 53% of respondents plan to buy one of the new models, compared with a 51% average, while 32% expect to buy the Pro Max versus 29% last year. LSEG data showed 27 of the 45 analysts covering Apple rate the stock buy or strong buy, and shares are up 24% year to date.

Polymarket’s “Map 2 Winner” market for the Counter-Strike match between MOUZ and Natus Vincere in the StarLadder StarSeries playoffs saw MOUZ’s implied win probability surge from 61.5% an hour earlier to 78%, a 16.5 percentage point move. According to ChainCatcher, the sharp swing may reflect the impact of breaking news.

Binance Wallet announced on X that users can experience @arc in the app with memes, RWAs, LPs, and instant bridging. The announcement said Binance Wallet is where users will discover anything trending on Arc from the start. The update includes several functions tied to Arc activity, including trading Arc tokens with zero service fee for a limited time, discovering trending memes early through Meme Rush, earning yield through Uniswap V3 and V4 LPs and other trending DeFi protocols, and getting started on Arc through multiple funding and transfer options. Users can withdraw from Binance Exchange to Arc, bridge to Arc from any chain, or buy Arc tokens directly using their exchange balance. The announcement did not provide additional details on timing beyond the limited-time zero service fee for Arc token trading.

Air India Ltd.’s incoming Chief Executive Officer Tewolde Gebremariam is considering folding the no-frills Air India Express unit into the group as he seeks to cut costs and counter record losses, according to people familiar with the matter.

US spot ether ETFs recorded roughly $39 million of net outflows Thursday, a third consecutive session of withdrawals after about $224 million left Wednesday and $141 million Tuesday, per SoSoValue.Ether itself rose 2% to about $2,470 over the same stretch.XRP funds lost about $5 million, reversing a small inflow the day before. Bitcoin ETFs took in roughly $159 million. The single US Zcash fund added nearly $47 million, its strongest showing yet in a month that has brought it more than $230 million.Price Up, Flows Out Is the Detail Worth IsolatingEther rising while its funds shed money for three straight sessions describes two different buyer bases moving in opposite directions.ETF flows capture US institutional allocation decisions, which are slower and less price-reactive. Spot price reflects everyone. When they diverge across three sessions, the institutional cohort is reducing exposure while other buyers absorb it.That pattern has precedent this cycle. Bitcoin ETFs ran negative year-to-date through much of 2026 while price recovered, driven substantially by GBTC migration rather than exit.Over 30 days the ether funds remain more than $1.5 billion ahead and Bitcoin nearly $2.5 billion, so three sessions is a wobble rather than a reversal.$230 Million in a Month Is Substantial for a Single FundGrayscale's ZCSH, the first US spot ETF for a privacy coin, has now pulled in more than $230 million this month against roughly $414 million in total holdings reported earlier.That is a fund taking in over half its existing size in weeks.The scale matters against Zcash's derivatives market. Futures open interest peaked at a record $2.4 billion in early September before unwinding 20% to $1.4 billion. A $230 million monthly spot bid against a $1.4 billion futures position is a materially different composition from the leverage-driven move that carried ZEC past $1,000.Zcash led the majors again at 10% higher to about $1,488, having gained 130% over 30 days.Every Major GainedHyperliquid's HYPE was close behind Zcash at nearly 10% to just above $86. Solana gained 5% to nearly $105 and BNB nearly 4% to about $750.Dogecoin rose about 4%, ether and XRP 2% each, and Bitcoin more than 1% to about $77,216. Tron was the only major that barely moved.FxPro's Alex Kuptsikevich noted that none of the 40 most liquid coins fell over the period, with NEAR leading the broader group at 30%, UNI at 26% and APT at 18%.Bonds Rallied With Stocks Rather Than Against ThemThe cross-asset picture is the explanation for the crypto bid.The S&P 500 gained about 1% for its biggest advance in six weeks, the Nasdaq 100 rose nearly 2% and a gauge of chipmakers climbed 3%.The 10-year Treasury yield dropped, snapping an eight-day rising streak. The dollar was little changed, gold climbed and Brent settled under $105.Cheaper oil takes the top off the inflation problem the Fed raised rates to address, which is what let bonds rally alongside stocks rather than against them. Those two have moved in opposition for two weeks, with the energy shock feeding directly into yields.Crypto has traded on the same signal all week, and the majors moved with the equity tape rather than ahead of it.That is itself a change. CoinMarketCap data showed Bitcoin's short-window correlation with the S&P 500 falling to 0.43 from 0.75 in a single session on Tuesday, with head of research Alice Liu attributing the breakdown to regulatory focus after the Clarity vote. The relationship appears to be re-establishing.The Rate Decision Removed More Uncertainty Than It AddedThe moves came a day after the Fed raised rates for the first time since 2023, lifting the target range to 3.75%-4.00%.The dot plot did the work. Its median points to one more hike in 2026 — 50 basis points total — below the 75 Bank of America and RBC forecast and the roughly 87.5 markets had priced.Brookings senior fellow Robin Brooks had predicted Chair Kevin Warsh could not meet the tightening markets expected. He was right about the undershoot, and the risk-on response suggests markets took it as relief.The SEC's innovation exemption for tokenized securities venues, announced Thursday, added a second supportive input two days after the Clarity Act failed its Senate cloture vote 49-50.The Flow to Watch Next WeekThe Zcash fund is now pulling money in on days when the two largest crypto ETFs are losing it.Whether that holds is the question. A single fund outperforming during a three-session ether drawdown could reflect a durable rotation into privacy exposure, or it could reflect the novelty premium any first-of-category product carries in its opening months.The distinguishing evidence is what happens when ether flows turn positive again. Continued Zcash inflows alongside recovering ether inflows would indicate genuine additional demand rather than rotation.Bitcoin faces the upper edge of its range near $82,000, with Glassnode data showing nearly 8% of supply acquired between $80,000 and $82,000 and the 50-week moving average at $81,081.

A measure of French bond risk rose to one percentage point as investors grew more cautious over the country’s large budget deficit and ongoing political uncertainty, according to Bloomberg.

India’s push for cheaper Russian crude has complicated New Delhi’s position as the US keeps shifting its stance, according to Bloomberg. The source did not provide additional details.

Shapoorji Pallonji Group’s dollar bonds climbed to a record this week as investors bet a potential listing of Tata Sons Pvt. could help the Indian construction group unlock value from its stake in the holding company and repay costly debt, according to Bloomberg.

VanEck digital assets research head Matthew Sigel expects Bitcoin to reach $100,000 by next year. According to NS3.AI, Sigel linked the forecast to government debt burdens. Bitcoin traded near $77,400 on Friday.

The SEC's introduction of an innovation exemption opens a five-year experimental window for stock tokenization, but with strict limits on liquidity, a short-term surge is unlikely.

As artificial intelligence moves deeper into military systems, security experts from the United States and China are warning against how machines could one day independently take over the red button that is used to launch nuclear weapons.

He argued that if AI can prove complex mathematical theorems like Navier-Stokes and Fermat's Last Theorem, it can prove that a program is mathematically secure

Hyundai Card completed a $20,000 cross-border payment between Hyundai Motor’s US and Mexico units using USDT on Avalanche, settling it in about seven minutes instead of three to four hours. The company now plans to test the system at a larger scale and run a separate European pilot with Circle and Visa.

Germany is rapidly building one of Europe’s largest regulated crypto markets, with the number of companies authorized under the European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) framework jumping from 58 to 89 in just over two months.

Following Anthropic's adjustment of its data retention rules, major companies such as Nvidia have collectively shifted to open-source models, intensifying the battle for AI data sovereignty.

Since September 17th, UNI has once again become one of the best-performing mainstream tokens in the crypto market. As of press time, UNI is trading at $8.97, a nearly 30% increase in the last 24 hours. This article summarizes the reasons that have recently driven the price increase of UNI.

MoneyGram has launched a stablecoin-backed card in Colombia that lets customers hold a stable-dollar balance, spend through Visa and access cash through its network.

Anthropic plans to go public with a $2 trillion valuation, but its CEO is busy warning of the catastrophic risks of AI.

Beosin analyzes the pricing mechanisms and risks of three pre-IPO perpetual companies: Trade[XYZ], Ventures, and Aster.