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October rate hike odds suddenly drop. According to the FedWatch Tool, the odds of a 25-basis-point rate hike in October plunged to just 24% within one day.
The shift may be linked to comments from New York Fed President John Williams, who suggested another rate hike could still happen this year, but there’s no need to rush into one in October.
🟡 Gold and Bitcoin both saw a slight rebound following the news early this morning. However, both are now moving lower again.
Here’s what we got for you today:
👀 Wallets & security: your safe place
⭐ The very first NEAR staking ETF
⭐ Altcoins hit 4X Bitcoin volume
🔥 Burning hot takes for the road
We kept meeting operators who spent half a day lining up sends and still couldn’t explain the trail. That’s why VaultNow exists: batch payments, clearer books, control that stays with you.
A lot of beginners think: “I already have Binance or OKX, isn’t that my crypto wallet?” That is not exactly true.
On a CEX, like Binance or Bybit, you will see a number on the screen like “0.05 BTC”, “2 ETH” or “500 USDT”. But that “wallet” you see is really an entry in the exchange’s database. The exchange holds the actual keys.
If they freeze withdrawals, get hacked, or go bankrupt, you’re in trouble. A real crypto wallet, the kind we’re talking about in this lesson, is completely different. It lets you hold your own private keys. That’s powerful… and also a responsibility 👇
🥊 BITWISE LAUNCHES FIRST NEAR STAKING ETF (NRR) ON NYSE ARCA
Bitwise officially launched the Bitwise NEAR ETF (ticker: $NRR) on NYSE Arca. This is the very first spot NEAR ETF in the U.S., and it directly stakes its underlying holdings to generate extra yield for investors.
1/ Spot Exposure Meets Staking Yield
Bitwise is are actively putting the tokens to work on-chain. The fund carries a 0.75% annual management fee and relies on Coinbase Custody to keep the assets safe.
As of September 25, NEAR's average staking yield hovered around ~5% per year. Bitwise will stake a majority of the fund's NEAR, but instead of paying out cash dividends, the net rewards are added directly back into the fund’s NAV.
Running validators isn't free. NRR takes 33% of the earned staking rewards to pay validator operators, Coinbase Custody, and Bitwise.
According to SEC filings, Bitwise plans to use Attestant as its primary validator operator. Since Attestant is a Bitwise-affiliated company, part of those operational fees flow right back into Bitwise's pocket.
2/ Liquidity Risks & Asset Safety
Unstaking NEAR on-chain takes roughly 48 hours. That is super close to Bitwise’s T+2 redemption cycle for ETF shares.
If the network gets congested or experiences unusual market stress, unstaking could take longer than 2 days, creating potential short-term liquidity bottlenecks.
→ Is the crypto safe? Yes. Even though Attestant runs the validators, they never hold the tokens. The NEAR remains inside isolated accounts at Coinbase Custody. Validator operators cannot control, leverage, or re-hypothecate the tokens.
3/ Why Bitwise is Bullish on NEAR?
Bitwise is pitching NEAR as the ultimate payment and execution layer for AI.
Bitwise CEO believes autonomous AI agents will soon handle transactions and economic activity. To do that, they need a fast, permissionless, cross-chain settlement layer without middleman friction.
Bitwise highlights NEAR Intents, a protocol allowing users to trade across multiple blockchains. Transaction volume on NEAR Intents just blew past $32 billion, up from less than $1 billion a year ago.
NEAR co-founder Illia Polosukhin was one of the co-authors of the Transformer paper at Google. Back in 2024, NEAR launched a dedicated AI research lab under Polosukhin and co-founder Alex Skidanov to push AI-crypto integration forward.
4/ NEAR's Price Bounce & Dunking on Grayscale
$NEAR ( ▲ 6.38% ) traded around $5.00 at launch. That's nearly a 3x recovery from its August low of $1.60 (though still ~75% down from its ATH above $20).
Bitwise successfully front-ran Grayscale in the U.S. NEAR ETF race. Grayscale filed to convert its Grayscale Near Trust into a spot ETF ($GSNR), but its SEC filings are still sitting in preliminary review.
These 7 Stocks Are Built to Outlast the Market
Some stocks are built for a quarter… others for a lifetime.
Our 7 Stocks to Buy and Hold Forever report reveals companies with the strength to deliver year after year - through recessions, rate hikes, and even the next crash.
One is a tech leader with a 15% payout ratio - leaving decades of room for dividend growth.
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And that’s not all - we’ve included 5 more companies that treat payouts as high priority.
These are the stocks that anchor portfolios and keep paying.
You can download this report for free as of today, but it won’t be free forever.
This is your chance to see all 7 names and tickers - from a consumer staples powerhouse with 20 years of outperformance to a healthcare leader with 61 years of payout hikes.
🚀 ALTS HIT 4X BITCOIN VOLUME: ALTCOIN SEASON OR LOCAL TOP?
According to fresh data from Glassnode, spot trading volume for altcoins is now sitting at nearly 4 times Bitcoin's volume, it’s the highest level we’ve seen since September 2025.
1/ Retail Is Profit-Taking
Money is spreading out across the entire crypto market.
72.5% of tracked altcoins are currently outperforming $BTC ( ▼ 0.39% ). Just compare that to August when only 39% were beating Bitcoin.
Crypto liquidity firm Wintermute reported net selling of BTC on their OTC desk last week. Why? Retail investors are taking profits on their BTC gains and using that money to buy higher-risk altcoins.
Futures open interest on altcoins barely grew over the last 30 days. That means this recent altcoin rally is being driven mostly by real spot buying.
Data from CryptoQuant shows that 87% of Binance-listed altcoins are now trading above their 200-day moving average (up from 20% in August). The altcoin market (excluding BTC) has added roughly $371 billion (+45%) since June.
2/ The ETF Inflow Drop & $2.4 Billion Buffer
While retail traders were moving into altcoins, institutional investors were still buying Bitcoin, though their pace slowed down significantly over 5 straight sessions.
Even with daily inflows dropping 86.5% from Monday to Friday, U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs still took in nearly $2.4 billion across those 5 sessions.
For context, Ethereum ETFs took in $602.8 million over the same period, meaning Bitcoin products captured about 80% of all ETF inflows.
3/ Why History Says Watch Out?
A massive shift into altcoins has historically happened right near local Bitcoin tops.
In over 80% of similar historical cases, when altcoin volume and breadth reached these levels, the market went flat or faced a correction over the following weeks.
Why? Because the market relies on Bitcoin holding up to create fresh wealth. If Bitcoin loses its footing, the buyers absorbing the coins being sold disappear, leaving lower-liquidity altcoins exposed to sharp drops.
Wintermute and Glassnode have laid out clear scenarios for where the market goes from here based on Bitcoin’s price and ETF flows like this:
┌─────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ NEXT MAJOR RESISTANCE │
│ $95,000 - $97,000 │
└────────────────────▲────────────────────┘
│
┌────────────────────┴────────────────────┐
│ BULLISH EXPANSION │
│ Above $87,000 │
│ (Creates new profits; powers alts) │
└────────────────────▲────────────────────┘
│
┌────────────────────┴────────────────────┐
│ IDEAL SWEET SPOT │
│ $82,500 - $87,000 │
│ (Best zone for ongoing BTC->Alt rotation│
└────────────────────▲────────────────────┘
│
┌────────────────────┴────────────────────┐
│ CRITICAL FLOOR │
│ $82,500 │
│ (If broken + ETF inflows drop to $0, │
│ thin-liquidity alts take big hits) │
└────────────────────▲────────────────────┘
│
┌────────────────────┴────────────────────┐
│ DANGER WARNING │
│ Below $77,000 (True Mean) │
│ (Threatens broader market recovery) │
└─────────────────────────────────────────┘
🔥 BURNING HOT TAKES FOR THE ROAD
ETHFI is walking away from EigenLayer as yields continue to slump. It is shifting strategy to protect sustainability. Read more
Strategy just added another 142.7M USD worth of Bitcoin to its balance sheet, doubling down on its aggressive strategy. Read more
Bitget has reopened withdrawals following a massive 388 million USD hack. You can now move funds as security recovers. Read more
Bitget asked THORChain to blacklist a 388 million USD hacker, and THORChain said no! This drama is blowing up. Read more
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⚠ This newsletter is for informational purposes only and should not be considered investment advice. Traders should conduct thorough research, understand the risks, and carefully evaluate their decisions before investing in cryptocurrency.
