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Hello, this is Seo Jin-hyuk, a macro strategist from Wall Street. On September 18, 2026, today's market is seeking a new turning point, with the cryptocurrency market demonstrating robust defense despite the Federal Reserve's (Fed) hawkish stance of interest rate hikes and regulatory uncertainty. In particular, two powerful narratives, Real World Asset (RWA) tokenization and Artificial Intelligence (AI), are shaping the market's next direction.
The Fed's hawkish stance is clearly a pressure factor for risk assets, yet Bitcoin has firmly held its $70,000 support level. This suggests that the market is beginning to focus on inherent bullish factors, beyond simply absorbing negative news. From now on, I will sharply analyze market trends through key indicators.
| Indicator | Current Value | 24h Change | 7d Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bitcoin (BTC) | $76407.0 | +0.34% | -0.50% |
| Ethereum (ETH) | $2447.12 | +1.29% | +0.10% |
| Ripple (XRP) | $1.3 | -0.16% | -3.50% |
| Solana (SOL) | $101.61 | +3.12% | +2.40% |
| Dogecoin (DOGE) | $0.081741 | +1.10% | -2.10% |
| Fear & Greed Index | 56 (Greed) | Prev. day 50 (Neutral) | - |
| NASDAQ 100 (QQQ) | $716.92 | +1.73% | - |
| S&P 500 (SPY) | $762.6 | +1.13% | - |
| VIX Fear Index | 16.98 | - | - |
| US 2-year Treasury Yield | 4.74% | - | - |
| Effective Federal Funds Rate | 3.63% | - | - |
| Dollar Index (DXY) | 118.2126 | - | - |
| BTC Funding Rate | 0.000078 | +0.01% | - |
| ETH Funding Rate | 0.000037 | +0.00% | - |
The U.S. Federal Reserve (Fed) reaffirmed its tightening stance by raising the benchmark interest rate for the first time in three years. With oil prices surpassing $100 and inflation pressures persisting, the Fed has left open the possibility of further rate hikes in October and December. This acts as a factor increasing caution regarding overall financial market liquidity.
However, it is noteworthy that despite this hawkish stance, the U.S. stock market closed higher. The S&P 500 rose +1.13% and the Nasdaq gained +1.73%, showing the market absorbing the Fed's tightening. The VIX Fear Index remained at a relatively stable level of 16.98, suggesting that the tightening was either anticipated by the market or already priced in.
The CLARITY Act, a bill aimed at structuring the U.S. cryptocurrency market, failed to pass the Senate, seemingly increasing regulatory uncertainty once again. However, simultaneously, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) approved a 'temporary conditional exemption' allowing limited trading of tokenized U.S. stocks in an on-chain environment, injecting new vitality into the market.
This is a very significant step forward as it provides a sandbox for traditional financial institutions and crypto platforms to test on-chain stock trading within a regulated framework. SEC Chairman Paul Atkins sent a positive signal, stating that tokenization technology could contribute to expanding 24-hour trading in the stock market.
Bitcoin firmly held the $75,000 level despite a 'triple shock' of the Fed's interest rate hike, the failure of the CLARITY Act, and an outflow of approximately $746.31 million (about 1 trillion KRW) from Bitcoin spot ETFs over two days.
However, corporate Bitcoin buying has amounted to only 5,900 BTC over the past three months, and with the current price below the average purchase price of $80,500, a collective unrealized loss is evident. On-chain analytics firm Swissblock warned that the risk index, indicating market selling pressure, has started to rise, analyzing that a break below $71,300 could accelerate the downtrend.
Meanwhile, a Bloomberg analyst presented an optimistic outlook, suggesting that Bitcoin ETF assets under management could grow to three times the size of gold ETFs in the long run. This analysis is based on the increasing preference for Bitcoin among younger investors.
Ethereum (ETH) also defended the $2,400 level despite the Fed's tightening and ETF outflows, showing an upward trend that outperformed the market average. The fact that BlackRock has purchased approximately $1.57 billion worth of ETH over the past 20 days, indicating consistent institutional capital inflow, is a positive sign.
Ripple (XRP) is struggling to rebound around $1.3 amidst the headwinds of interest rate hikes and the failure of the bill, but institutional investor interest remains strong, with $3.5 million flowing into the Franklin XRP ETF. It is also pursuing global expansion, including being listed as a perpetual futures product on the Moscow Stock Exchange.
Zcash (ZEC) showed strong performance, breaking above $1,400 as its value as a privacy asset complementing Bitcoin became prominent. The overwhelming support for a radical governance proposal to reduce block creation time from 75 seconds to 25 seconds is also a positive development.
Solana (SOL) continued its robust trend, rising by +3.12%, but there are analyses that the $110 sell wall and concerns about depleting ETF inflows could hinder a break above $120. Solana's scalability continues to attract attention, with ZetaChain (ZETA) proposing a migration to the Solana ecosystem.
The SEC's conditional approval of tokenized stocks has laid a crucial foundation for the popularization of the Real World Asset (RWA) tokenization market. The volume of on-chain tokenized traditional assets, excluding stablecoins, has surpassed $35 billion, tripling in a year, with U.S. Treasury bonds leading the growth.
The market capitalization of RWA within Securitize's (SECZ) Avalanche (AVAX) blockchain surged to $770 million, an increase of 628.4% compared to before. The entry of traditional financial institutions into the RWA market is accelerating, with New York Life's asset management subsidiary tokenizing its own funds on Avalanche.
The advancement of AI technology is significantly impacting the cryptocurrency market. AI-related companies are actively moving, such as Nvidia's projected increase in chip sales and Snap's AR glasses collaboration. The Avalanche CEO's remark that the spread of AI agents could lead to blockchain capacity shortages emphasizes the need for blockchain technology development.
Furthermore, the convergence of AI and blockchain technology is expected to accelerate, with Ripple expanding XRP and RLUSD payment support for AI agents, and AI interoperability Layer 1 blockchain ZetaChain proposing a migration to Solana.
Investor sentiment showed a positive shift, rising from 'Neutral (50)' to 'Greed (56)' from the previous day. This suggests that the market holds overall recovery expectations despite the short-term negative factor of the Fed's interest rate hike.
Bitcoin funding rates are +0.01% and Ethereum funding rates are +0.00%, reflecting slightly bullish sentiment. Particularly, the analysis that the structural stability of the market has significantly improved due to the sharp drop in the proportion of coin-margined futures in the Bitcoin futures market to 12% is a positive signal. This means the risk of cascading liquidations has decreased.
In the Binance USDT-M futures market, specific altcoins such as ONEUSDT (+81.88%), AVAUSDT (+69.67%), and COTIUSDT (+48.07%) recorded high gains, indicating continued rotational trading.
Despite the Fed's tightening and regulatory uncertainty, the cryptocurrency market is maintaining a bullish sentiment and moving to the next phase, driven by Bitcoin's robust defense and new growth engines like RWA and AI.