Cointelegraph by Zoltan Vardai
The digital asset market staged a significant recovery over the past week following the end-of-September slump. Investor interest began to return, driven by a newfound appetite for safe-haven assets due to the uncertainty caused by the US government’s first shutdown in six years.
The growing demand for safe-haven assets may see Bitcoin (BTC) follow gold’s rally, potentially leading to a new all-time high of $150,000 before the end of the year, according to Capriole Investments founder Charles Edwards. Bitcoin recovered above the $120,000 mark on Thursday for the first time since Aug. 14 and continued to trade above $120,122 at the time of writing on Friday.
Elsewhere, the ballooning financial deficit of France’s central bank may provide another Bitcoin catalyst, as it may lead to “trillions of euros” of money printing by the European Central Bank (ECB), signaling fresh liquidity flowing into Bitcoin, according to Arthur Hayes, co-founder of cryptocurrency exchange BitMEX.
Bitcoin $120,000 breakout will lead to “very quick move” to $150,000: Charles Edwards
Bitcoin may surge to a new all-time high of $150,000 before the end of 2025 as investors pile into safe-haven assets alongside gold, according to Capriole Investments founder Charles Edwards.
Bitcoin’s recovery above the $120,000 psychological mark may lead to a “very quick” breakout to a $150,000 all-time high, Edwards told Cointelegraph during an interview at Token2049 in Singapore. “I wouldn’t be surprised if we went up to $150,000 in a pretty short time, like we have to break out of the $120,000 range. But that’s probably coming, potentially in the next days.”
Bitcoin rose over 6% in the past week, recovering above the $118,500 mark for the first time since Aug. 15, data shows.
Edwards’ outlook is more conservative than some other analysts, who project the current cycle could push Bitcoin above $200,000.
André Dragosch, head of European research at Bitwise Asset Management, told Cointelegraph that the inclusion of crypto in US 401(k) retirement plans could unlock $122 billion in new capital. Even a 1% allocation by retirement managers, he said, may be enough to lift Bitcoin above $200,000 before year-end.
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Cathie Wood: Hyperliquid “reminds me of Solana in the earlier days”
ARK Invest CEO Cathie Wood compared Hyperliquid with Solana’s early-stage promise, calling it “the new kid on the block.”
“It’s exciting. It reminds me of Solana in the earlier days, and Solana has proven its worth and is, you know, there with the big boys,” Wood said during a recent interview on the “Master Investor” podcast.
ARK Invest currently holds three main crypto assets in its public funds: Bitcoin, Ether (ETH) and Solana (SOL). The company’s exposure to Solana is through Breera Sports, which Wood clarified is tied to the Solana treasury and supported by Middle Eastern investors. She also noted advisory ties to the project through economist Art Laffer.
Wood did not confirm any position in Hyperliquid but described the protocol as one to watch. Her remarks come as competition between perpetual futures DEXs has been heating up after Aster launched a token earlier this month and saw its trading volume and open interest surge past Hyperliquid.
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Roman Storm seeks acquittal of Tornado Cash money transmission charge
Roman Storm, co-founder of Tornado Cash, asked a US federal judge to acquit him of his sole conviction for unlicensed money transmission and a hung jury’s counts for money laundering and sanctions violations, arguing that prosecutors failed to prove he intended to help bad actors misuse the crypto mixer.
According to legal documents filed on Sept. 30 to the US District Court for the Southern District of New York and reviewed by Cointelegraph, Storm’s defense argued prosecutors failed to prove he intended to help bad actors use Tornado Cash. This, according to the defense, would nullify the grounds for his conviction based on negligent inaction.
“Storm and bad actors was a claim that he knew they were using Tornado Cash and failed to take sufficient measures to stop them. This is a negligence theory,” the motion stated.
The defense further claimed that “lacking affirmative evidence that Mr. Storm acted with the intent to assist bad actors,” the government attempted to meet its willfulness burden by claiming that the defendant failed to prevent misuse. “It is a claim that is antithetical to the willfulness standard and unsupported by the law,” the motion stated.
A motion for acquittal asked the judge to throw out charges and the verdict because the prosecution’s evidence, even if taken as true, is legally insufficient.
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SEC’s tokenized stock push has unclear benefits for crypto: Dragonfly Exec
Tokenized equities will be a big benefit to traditional markets, but may not be a boon for the crypto industry that others have predicted, says Rob Hadick, general partner at crypto venture firm Dragonfly.
“There’s no doubt it has a big effect on TradFi,” Hadick told Cointelegraph at the TOKEN 2049 conference in Singapore. “They want 24/7 trading, it’s better for their economics.”
However, he saw unclear benefits for major crypto players in the real-world asset tokenization space, such as Ethereum.
The US Securities and Exchange Commission is reportedly developing a plan to allow blockchain versions of stocks to trade on crypto exchanges after many financial institutions pushed the regulator to allow for always-open markets.
Hadick said that the institutions “don’t want to be directly on these general-purpose chains,” giving Robinhood and Stripe as examples of those building their own blockchains.Â
“They don’t want to share the economics. They don’t want to share block space with memecoins. They want to be able to control things like privacy [and] who the validator set is, they want to be able to control what is happening in their execution environment.”
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Centralized exchanges will be DeFi front ends in 5–10 years: 1inch co-founder
Centralized crypto exchanges may disappear within the next decade as decentralized finance (DeFi) aggregators take over, according to 1inch co-founder Sergej Kunz.
In an interview with Cointelegraph at Token2049 in Singapore, Kunz predicted that exchanges will slowly transition into frontends for decentralized exchanges (DEXs). “I think it will take like five to 10 years,” he said.
Kunz argued that while centralized exchanges are isolated markets, 1inch and its aggregator act as a global liquidity hub. His comments came as 1inch announced a deal with major US crypto exchange Coinbase, integrating its service to provide DEX trading to its users.
Kunz said that investments into onchain systems by centralized exchanges show their understanding that the technology they rely on “will not stay forever because you have decentralized exchanges and digitalized finance.”
“They don’t want to miss the train and stay behind, and they adopt our technology, because it’s something which, from our point of view, will empower the whole financial industry,“ he said.
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DeFi market overview
According to data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView, most of the 100 largest cryptocurrencies by market capitalization ended the week in the green.
The privacy-preserving Zcash (ZEC) token rose over 157% as the week’s biggest gainer in the top 100, followed by the DeXe (DEXE) token up over 34% on the weekly chart.
Thanks for reading our summary of this week’s most impactful DeFi developments. Join us next Friday for more stories, insights and education regarding this dynamically advancing space.
