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Visa plans to block a payment-processing loophole that had allowed cardholders to earn rewards on memecoin purchases made with credit cards, Crypto In America reported, citing sources familiar with the matter. The issue stemmed from memecoin purchases processed through crypto payments infrastructure firm Crossmint being classified under a merchant category code for digital goods and media, such as e-books, movies, and music, rather than as cryptocurrency transactions. As a result, some purchases qualified for standard credit card rewards including points and cashback. Visa told payment processors the category code was not appropriate for memecoin transactions, and said the purchases will instead be processed as crypto transactions subject to its crypto-related rules and restrictions. Payment processors were given a grace period to end the existing method, with the change expected to take effect as early as next week.

CoinMarketCap’s Altcoin Season Index rose four points from yesterday to 46. The index is calculated by comparing the price performance of Bitcoin with that of the top 100 coins by market capitalization, excluding stablecoins and wrapped coins. A market is considered to be in altcoin season when 75% of the top 100 coins have outperformed Bitcoin over the past 90 days. The opposite is considered Bitcoin season. A reading closer to 100 indicates stronger altcoin season conditions.

An anonymous whale active on Hyperliquid, a decentralized perpetual futures exchange, closed a $24.43 million ZEC short position around an hour ago, realizing a loss of about $10.68 million, on-chain analyst EmberCN said. The wallet address starts with 0x362. According to EmberCN, the whale built the ZEC short position about 15 days ago, and with the forced liquidation price at $1,551, a voluntary exit had become unavoidable. EmberCN added the trader had made substantial profits through consistent trading, posting a 79% win rate and cumulative trading gains of $9.11 million since June, but took the wrong direction on ZEC and gave up all principal and profit in a single trade. On Binance's ZEC/USDT trading pair, ZEC was recently changing hands at $1,577, up 8.6%.

Layer-1 blockchain Linera said it is suspending operations after its LNRA community token sale failed to meet its fundraising target. Linera co-founder Mathieu Baudet said on Discord that the project would halt operations immediately for the time being after the fundraising effort fell short. Baudet said the token sale on Sonar drew about $900,000 in commitments but did not meet the minimum amount required to finalize the sale, and all committed funds were refunded to participants. He added that the company had tried to secure emergency funding to sustain operations until its mainnet launch but was unable to raise the necessary capital, leading to the decision to shut down the project.

The total cryptocurrency market capitalization surged by $148 billion over the past 24 hours, with about 70% of that increase occurring in the past hour, Cointelegraph reported. According to CoinGecko, the total crypto market cap was around $2.87 trillion, up 5.7% from yesterday.

Circle Chief Product and Technology Officer Nikhil Chandhok said in a recent Bankless interview he could not say specifically whether Arc would be rolled back even if hundreds of millions of dollars worth of USDC were stolen. Chandhok added he did not want to speculate on how Circle would respond if a major lending protocol such as AAVE were hacked and tens of millions to hundreds of millions of dollars in USDC were stolen on the Arc chain. He described Arc as a tamper-resistant public blockchain financial infrastructure backed by more than 20 validators and emphasized that breaking immutability could damage trust at a level that would be difficult for people to rebuild. Chandhok also said Circle has no interest in rolling back the chain for any reason, while adding he did not want to speculate on a response without knowing what conditions a specific security incident might involve.

CoinMarketCap’s in-house crypto fear and greed index rose nine points from yesterday to 73, indicating that greed persisted as market sentiment improved. The index signals extreme fear when it is closer to zero and extreme optimism when it is closer to 100. CoinMarketCap calculates the gauge based on price moves in the top 10 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization, market volatility, derivatives-market data including the put-to-call ratio, the stablecoin supply ratio, or SSR, and CoinMarketCap’s own search data.

Tokyo Stock Exchange-listed Bitcoin Japan, formerly Hotamaru Sho, has approved the launch of a Bitcoin treasury business as a new line of business and plans to buy up to $1 million worth of BTC as its first investment, CoinPost reported. Bitcoin Japan’s board approved the plan at meetings held on Sept. 17-18. The purchase will be carried out through Cayman Islands-based subsidiary BTC JPN Ltd., using part of the 1.5 billion yen raised through convertible bond-type bonds with stock acquisition rights issued in July. The company is also considering generating returns through BTC lending and derivatives under a risk management framework. Note: Bitcoin Japan Corporation is a separate legal entity from Bitcoin Japan Inc., a subsidiary of Metaplanet, the world’s third-largest corporate BTC holder.

On-chain tokenized real-world assets stood at $34.18 billion as of Sept. 15, up 85.2% from the start of the year, according to a Binance Research report. Bonds and money market funds accounted for the largest share at $18.29 billion, while tokenized stocks grew 390.4% over the same period. The two categories made up more than 75% of the new market value added to the RWA sector this year. The report said the current value of tokenized underlying assets amounts to only about 0.01% of the broader underlying asset market, and only around 12% of on-chain RWA is being used in DeFi, including liquidity pools, lending, and collateral markets. For further growth in the RWA market, it said, raising DeFi usage of tokenized assets will be as important as bringing assets on-chain.

Crypto asset manager 21Shares filed an amended S-1 registration statement for a spot Injective ETF with the U.S. SEC on Sept. 18, Crypto Briefing reported. If approved, the ETF will trade on Nasdaq under the ticker 'TINJ,' track the price of INJ based on the FTSE Injective Index, and include a strategy allowing the issuer to stake a portion of its INJ holdings at its discretion to reflect staking rewards. The filing does not mean the ETF has been approved for launch, and a final decision will be made after the SEC’s review. According to CoinMarketCap, INJ was trading at $6.59, up 14.98%.

ETH futures open interest across major cryptocurrency exchanges rose about 10% over the past 24 hours to roughly $34.24 billion, according to CoinGlass data. Binance accounted for the largest share, with about $9.57 billion in open positions. Based on CoinMarketCap data, ETH was trading at $2,617.48, up 6.97%.

ZEC has risen by 3.09% in the past five minutes on the COINNESS market. Currently, ZEC is trading at $1,567.1.

Ethereum rose above $2,630 on Sept. 18, its highest level since January, while whale activity has also been increasing, according to on-chain analytics firm Santiment. Santiment said the number of non-empty Ethereum wallets has reached a record 207 million, indicating Ethereum has built a broad holder base despite choppy market conditions in recent months. The firm added staking remains a key factor supporting long-term ETH holding, with more than 40 million ETH currently staked. DeFi is also boosting Ethereum’s utility, Santiment said, with around $50 billion in total value locked on the network. It added that markets spanning stablecoins, lending, decentralized exchanges and liquid staking give ETH holders ways to use their holdings beyond expectations of price gains.

The three major U.S. stock indices closed mixed today. - S&P 500: +0.17% - Nasdaq: +0.39% - Dow Jones: -0.18%

M has fallen by 4.78% in the past five minutes on the COINNESS market. Currently, M is trading at $1.27.

Crypto holders lost a total of 274.6 ETH, worth about $517,000, to a fake YouTube tutorial promising to build an AI-powered cryptocurrency arbitrage bot, CryptoSlate reported, citing a TRM Labs report. The tutorial appeared to show users how to create an AI trading bot using Anthropic’s AI model Claude, but instead guided them into deploying a malicious smart contract and transferring funds themselves. TRM Labs said at least 224 people are believed to have been affected. TRM Labs said a key feature of the scam was that victims approved every transaction themselves. Because users deployed the smart contract and sent the funds on their own, it was harder for existing security systems to detect the malicious activity.

The U.S. Senate Banking Committee is expected to hold a prediction market roundtable next week attended only by Republican senators, Punchbowl News reported. The meeting is scheduled for Sept. 22, and no formal agenda or participant list has been disclosed. In June, the House Financial Services Committee held a roundtable made up only of Republican lawmakers, with executives from Kalshi, Polymarket and Robinhood in attendance.

Bullish CEO Tom Farley, the former CEO of the New York Stock Exchange, is set to discuss cryptocurrency policy with Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand on Sept. 22 at CoinDesk’s policy and regulation conference in Washington, D.C., Crypto Briefing reported. The agenda for the discussion has not been disclosed. Gillibrand had earlier said, alongside six other Democratic senators, "클래리티 법안 통과를 위해 계속 노력하겠다. 이번 주 법안 통과에 차질이 있었지만, 중요한 작업이 끝난 것은 아니다."

Banks now account for 23% of cryptocurrency businesses registered under the European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets regulation, according to Cointelegraph. Between June 26 and Sept. 16, the number of banks on the MiCA crypto-asset service provider, or CASP, registry doubled to around 80 from about 40. Over the same period, the total number of registered CASPs rose to 349 from 243. The data showed non-bank firms’ share of the total fell to 77% in September from about 84% in late June, while banks’ share increased to 23% from 17%. Cointelegraph said European banks are entering the crypto market more quickly as the MiCA regulatory framework takes hold.

Alex Thorn, head of research at Galaxy Digital, said Bitcoin is showing strong upside momentum. In a post on X, Thorn said Bitcoin is currently trading above its 50-week moving average and added that, in past cases, a break above the 50-week moving average has served as an important signal confirming a bear-market bottom. Thorn added that if Bitcoin closes this week above the 50-week moving average and holds that level as of the weekly close on Sunday, it would further support that view, adding, "this rally is real."

Tom Lee, chairman of Ethereum treasury company Bitmine (BMNR) and DeFi Technologies (DAT), said the cryptocurrency market can continue to rise even if the Clarity Act does not pass. Lee said actual demand in the crypto market matters more than any single bill. He added that if the Clarity Act passes, it would create a clearer regulatory framework for the crypto industry and further clarify the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s role. Even if the bill does not pass, however, Lee said the CFTC and the SEC would continue to serve as the main federal regulators overseeing the industry. He also pointed to prediction markets and sports betting as examples of sectors that kept growing despite regulatory uncertainty.

Bitcoin is moving into a zone with concentrated liquidation pressure, according to Glassnode. The firm said liquidation interest is currently clustered in the $83,000-$86,000 range, and if Bitcoin reaches that area, forced liquidations of short positions, or short covering, could help drive the price quickly through the zone. Glassnode added the short positions appear to have built up over several weeks.

Pro-crypto Republican Sen. Cynthia Lummis criticized Senate Democrats for voting down a cryptocurrency bill that would have fully preserved the U.S. SEC’s authority to police fraud and market manipulation, Cointelegraph reported.

Matthew Sigel, head of digital assets research at asset manager VanEck, said quantum computing could pose a threat to Bitcoin, but the Bitcoin community recognizes the seriousness of the issue. In an interview with CNBC, Sigel added that progress on a solution could be slow because of the decentralized nature of cryptocurrency networks, while the community continues related research. Sigel said bigger advances could emerge within the next few years.

Some smaller hedge fund clients of crypto technology provider Haruko may have suffered asset losses in a cyberattack earlier this week, CoinDesk reported, citing industry sources. The report said the breach is believed to have exposed read-only exchange API credentials and trading data from 15 client firms. Haruko said it had fixed the vulnerability and rotated server-side secrets. CoinDesk added that some funds may also have been stolen from smaller hedge funds with relatively weaker security systems.