Last week, the crypto market faced setbacks due to the obstruction of the "CLARITY Act" in the Senate and the Federal Reserve's first interest rate hike in three years. Bitcoin briefly fell back to around $75,000. However, the SEC later granted a five-year exemption for on-chain trading of tokenized stocks, and the CFTC submitted crypto market regulatory rules for White House review, easing concerns about legislative stagnation and allowing Bitcoin to rise back above $80,000. Huobi HTX platform data shows that from September 14 to 20, the L1 and DeFi sectors performed outstandingly, with ZAMA topping the list with a 72% weekly increase.
L1: Focus on Confidential Trading Products, Accelerating Institutional Asset On-Chain
ZAMA and NEAR launched new products aimed at confidential trading in the same week, while AVAX welcomed traditional asset management institutions' tokenized funds and regulatory infrastructure access.
- ZAMA: Increase of 72%. ZAMA, based on fully homomorphic encryption technology, allows smart contracts on existing public chains to directly process data in encrypted states. On September 15, ZAMA opened 16 confidential vaults on Morpho, allowing depositors to participate in on-chain yields without disclosing positions and strategies; concurrently, the Zama Swap protocol supports exchanges between confidential assets. The price of ZAMA rose continuously thereafter, reaching an all-time high last weekend.
- NEAR: Increase of 70%. On September 17, NEAR launched confidential perpetual contracts through integration with Hyperliquid, with traders' position information no longer publicly disclosed; at the same time, the volume of confidential funds on NEAR Intents surpassed $70 million. NEAR's price rose to a near one-year high on September 18.
- AVAX: Increase of 54%. On September 17, New York Life Investment Management, managing approximately $807 billion, deployed its first tokenized fund, HYB, to Avalanche through Centrifuge, investing in U.S. high-yield corporate bonds. On the same day, regulated blockchain infrastructure company Paxos announced that it would connect Avalanche to its platform, supporting AVAX and the native USDC of Avalanche, enabling over 650 institutions it serves to build products directly on Avalanche. Additionally, the Helicon mainnet upgrade is set to activate on September 22, reducing the staking lockup period from two weeks to 48 hours. The price of AVAX subsequently broke the $10 mark.
DeFi: SEC Tokenized Stock Exemption Realized, ARB and UNI Strengthen Together
On September 17, the SEC released an innovative exemption, allowing eligible platforms to trade tokenized U.S. stocks through licensed AMM liquidity pools, with related tokens granting holders the same rights as the underlying stocks. This arrangement is directly relevant to the business directions of Arbitrum and Uniswap, both of which saw significant increases.
- ARB: Increase of 46%. Arbitrum is one of the Ethereum Layer 2 networks where tokenized assets are relatively concentrated. On September 17, the market value of the tokenized funds on Arbitrum One reached a new high, including products covering government bonds, credit funds, and various yield strategies. With the SEC exemption materializing, the market expects Arbitrum to become one of the settlement networks for tokenized securities, and ARB's price rose to its highest level since January of this year.
- UNI: Increase of 39%. The licensed AMM model utilized by the SEC exemption aligns with Uniswap v4's licensed pool design, which can limit trading participants to verified wallet addresses. The SEC did not directly recognize any specific platform, but the market generally views this as an opportunity for Uniswap to expand tokenized securities trading.
Meme, Storage and Launch Platform Assets Rise Together
- Lobster: Increase of 65%. Lobster is a meme asset on the BNB Chain, its image derived from a Chinese official post by Binance featuring lobsters, the name also responding to topics in the AI field such as OpenClaw. This is Lobster's second consecutive week on the increase list, with its market value surpassing $240 million last week, setting a new record. The price of meme assets highly depends on community sentiment; pullbacks are often as swift as increases, and participants should fully assess related risks.
- AR: Increase of 60%. Arweave is a network that provides permanent on-chain data storage, and its AO network offers decentralized computing environments for applications like AI Agent.
- STONK: Increase of 40%. StonkFun is a token issuance platform on Solana where new tokens can choose tokenized stocks, ETFs, or other crypto assets as trading pairs; STONK itself is paired with the SPYx tracking the S&P 500 index. The platform repurchases and burns STONK from revenue; by mid-September, over 14% of the supply had been destroyed.
After Legislative Setbacks, Tokenization Becomes the Entry Point for Regulatory Advancement
The increases in AVAX, ARB, and UNI last week were all related to tokenized assets. New York Life chose to deploy funds on Avalanche, and the scale of tokenized funds on Arbitrum set a new record, coinciding with the SEC outlining a trading path for tokenized stocks in the same week. During the days of legislative stagnation, regulatory bodies provided more specific arrangements in this direction, and the market reacted accordingly.
How far the rebound can go remains uncertain. The Federal Reserve's interest rate forecasts indicate another possible hike within the year; Glassnode points out a slowdown in the market cap growth of stablecoins and a reduced pace of Bitcoin accumulation by listed companies, with insufficient new funds flowing in from off-exchange. Whether Bitcoin can continue to break through above $80,000 will impact whether this round of momentum can spread to more assets. Huobi HTX will continue to follow the progress across sectors and provide users with timely asset information and stable trading services.
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