Hemi Pulse - September 25th 2026

Spot bitcoin ETFs took in $2.25 billion from Monday through Thursday, and BTC briefly topped $87,000 before rising Treasury yields pulled it back under $84,000.

With the Clarity Act stalled, the agencies kept writing the rules: the Fed proposed GENIUS Act stablecoin standards, the CFTC opened the door to tokenized collateral and the SEC clarified token buybacks.

hemiStake paid its first epoch of rewards, and a retroactive distribution for veHEMI holders is scheduled for early October.

Markets

ETF buyers came back in force, and the bond market pushed back. Spot bitcoin ETFs drew $2.25 billion in net inflows from Monday through Thursday, including $999 million on September 21, after $746 million in outflows on September 15 and 16. Spot ether ETFs added $603 million over the same four days.

BTC briefly traded above $87,000 on Monday as short positions were squeezed out, then slipped below $84,000 by Thursday as the 10-year Treasury yield climbed above 5%. Friday brought Deribit's quarterly options expiry, with about $15.9 billion in BTC notional settling.

Regulatory Shifts

The Fed proposes its GENIUS Act stablecoin rules

On September 24, the Federal Reserve Board released two proposals for the stablecoin issuers it supervises. The first requires full backing by permitted reserves such as short-term Treasury bills and sets capital and risk-management standards. The second sets out how Fed-supervised banks apply to issue a stablecoin.

The CFTC opens the door to tokenized collateral

On September 24, CFTC staff updated their FAQs to let regulated firms invest customer funds in tokenized versions of permitted assets that carry equivalent legal and economic rights, and to keep official records on a blockchain. Two days earlier, Chairman Mike Selig told a New York Fed conference that markets should prepare for "mass tokenization" and 24/7 trading.

The SEC clarifies token buybacks and network upgrades

On September 25, the SEC's Division of Corporation Finance updated its crypto FAQ. Staff said a buyback on a functioning network does not by itself make a token a security, that work to maintain or improve a live network is not the kind of managerial effort that creates one, and that marketing a network's current uses generally does not create an expectation of profit.

Jurisdictional restrictions may apply.
APY/APR rates are subject to change with variable market conditions.

This Week in DeFi

Aave accepts tokenized stocks as collateral

Aave V4's Equities Hub on Base went live September 25, letting eligible non-US users borrow USDC against seven Coinbase-issued tokenized stocks, including Apple, Nvidia and Tesla. Launch caps hold total collateral to about $29 million, with collateral factors of 65% to 79% and Chainlink price feeds. It is the first live use of tokenized equities as collateral in a major DeFi lending market.

Coinbase adds fixed-rate bitcoin-backed loans

Coinbase on September 22 began offering fixed-rate USDC loans against BTC through Morpho Midnight on Base, alongside its existing variable-rate loans on Morpho Blue. Rates are set by an onchain order book, and loans mature at the end of the current or following month. Coinbase's variable-rate Morpho loans already carry about $1.4 billion outstanding against roughly $3 billion in BTC collateral.

Bitget loses $387.5 million in hot-wallet breach

Attackers drained $387.5 million from Bitget hot wallets across five chains on September 24. The company said no private keys were stolen; instead, attackers reached a backend system and spoofed transaction data so Bitget's own approval process signed off on the withdrawals. Bitget said its $464 million User Protection Fund will cover losses in full, and it has paused withdrawals while Mandiant and SlowMist investigate.

hemiStake's first epoch is live

The new hemiStake dashboard is a read-only view, still in alpha, and staking, extending and claiming all happen in the portal at app.hemi.xyz, where hemiStake is now its own top-level product. Rewards drip out every epoch, roughly every six days, or 60 epochs a year.

The dashboard shows rewards accruing in the current epoch, total HEMI staked, a roadmap of upcoming yield streams and action dates, and a lookup by address or veHEMI NFT with blended APY, claimable rewards and a decay chart for each position. A simulator models new positions before you commit, and a Streams tab breaks out live yield sources. Today those are baseline incentives and network transaction fees, paid partly in hemiBTC and partly in HEMI.

Retroactive distribution coming in October

veHEMI holders will receive a retroactive distribution calculated as if rewards had been paid each epoch from roughly September 2025 through this month, weighted by each position's share of stake weight. The amount will be finalized next week, with launch expected in the first or second full week of October. Burned positions will get a one-time claim for their unclaimed rewards from the old veHEMI rewards contract at the same time. PoP points holders will have the option to claim HEMI as a staked position that is included in the retroactive distribution as if staked since receipt.

ZK miner heads to public testing

More op-reth pieces for ZK provability are in and tested, Oxygen is in further testing and review, and work has started on the Bitcoin tunnel contracts for hBitVM and the EVM contracts for ZK settlement on Ethereum. Public testing of the ZK miner and ZK marketplace will start on testnet in the coming weeks, with Oxygen proving Bitcoin testnet4 state transitions. A limited incentive campaign will open first to the beta testers channel and reward feedback and bug reports.

Sacred Waste x Hemi

Hemi has partnered with Sacred Waste, where you burn worthless old tokens to climb the Waste leaderboard. HEMI holders can claim 10,000+ bonus Waste leaderboard points in the partner section at rewards.sacredwaste.io/great-burn. More points are available with the VIP code, found by clicking the button in the Hemi Discord, and quote-posting the announcement earns extra points too.

Claim your points.

HairGames Season VIII

The Season VIII snapshot lands this weekend, and Season IX follows right behind it. Season IX brings a first: its game was built by the community and submitted to the first Hemi Arcade contest.

Play HairGames.

Hemi Arcade Contest 2: Turbo Edition

Submissions for fully playable onchain games close October 27 at 09:00 ET, and the winners will be revealed on the livestream on October 29.

Read the official Contest rules.

Midweek with Max covers ongoing engineering, community, and marketing updates.

Catch the full recap.

Join Hemi’s Discord to send questions for Max ahead of next week’s AMA.

Protocol Engineering Office Hours are now streaming on X, YouTube, and LinkedIn, every other Wednesday at 8:00 AM PDT, 11:00 AM EDT, and 15:00 UTC. Join the next scheduled session on October 7th.

Watch this week's session.