Weekly Editor's Picks (0905-0911)
- Core Viewpoint: The core contradiction in the crypto market this week lies in the coexistence of macroeconomic pressure and on-chain structural opportunities: rising U.S. Treasury yields are suppressing risk assets, while sectors such as the Meme coin ecosystem, Robinhood Chain, and Zcash are seeing the emergence of new valuation paradigms based on verifiable on-chain data.
- Key Elements:
- U.S. Treasury Secretary Bessent intervened in the yen and U.S. Treasury markets; a stronger yen hit carry trades, elevated U.S. Treasury yields weighed on valuations, and U.S. stocks fell for three consecutive days, with AI tech stocks bearing the brunt.
- Robinhood Chain is viewed as a brand-new ecosystem, still in the early stages before its main upward wave, with PUMP and PONS severely undervalued; PONS marks a paradigm shift in platform token issuance, namely launching a token simultaneously on the first day a product goes live.
- After clearing out ETH, the founder of Bankless allocated funds to VVV, NEAR, ZEC, HYPE, and LIT, covering four narrative tracks: privacy, on-chain derivatives, cross-chain infrastructure, and decentralized AI inference.
- Zcash surged 43% due to Grayscale Trust's upgrade to a spot ETF, institutional capital inflows, and token lock-up effects, but RSI has entered an extreme overbought zone, warranting short-term caution over high-leverage washout risks.
- Ethereum EIP-8141 proposes allowing stablecoins to pay for Gas, which could weaken retail demand for ETH from individual investors but concentrate demand among infrastructure operators, forming a wholesale procurement model.
- The Solana ecosystem collectively fell behind in this round of the Meme cycle, with official support for the StonkFun launchpad mounting a counteroffensive; BNB Chain formed a coin-stock Meme flywheel through 4Stock and bStock.
- Prediction market Trade.xyz entered the fray to challenge Polymarket; on the security front, the money laundering chain of scam parks in Southeast Asia was dismantled, and an attack on Liquid sparked controversy.
The information flow moves too fast, and in-depth analysis articles are easily drowned out by hot topics. The "Weekly Editor's Picks" column pulls content with judgment value out of the massive flood of information, helping you filter out the noise, retain insights, and spark inspiration.
Macro Landscape
Inflated the Yen but Failed to Defend Treasuries: Is Bessent the US Stock Market's "Bad Teammate"?
US Treasury Secretary Bessent made consecutive moves this week: first he publicly warned the market against shorting the yen, and the yen promptly strengthened; then he significantly expanded Treasury buybacks in an attempt to suppress long-end yields. The result: the yen rose, but Treasuries fell.
Viewed separately, each move has its own logic. Together, however, they constitute a dual threat to the US stock market's nearly four-year bull run — a stronger yen disrupts carry trades, while rising Treasury yields suppress valuations. US stocks fell for a third consecutive day. AI tech stocks bore the brunt.
Further reading: "Japan Is Dragging the Whole World Down" "USD/JPY Breaks 155 for the Third Time: Twilight of the Yen Carry Trade?".
Investment & Entrepreneurship
Robinhood places enormous importance on Robinhood Chain, with an extremely meticulous plan, fully embracing on-chain culture, and a thorough understanding of Meme token mechanics. Every step advances with military precision — no mistakes, no disgusting over-marketing (Triple shill), no strange deployment issues, and all the necessary resources and trump cards in hand to get it done.
Robinhood Chain is a brand-new ecosystem that has just sprung up, and what follows is likely to be a long and sustained upward main wave, by no means a short-lived pulse — what we're seeing now is probably just the foreplay. If you are firmly bullish on the broader crypto market over the next 6 to 12 months, you must heavily allocate to Robinhood Chain — it's the optimal way to capture this round of upside.
Both PUMP and PONS are severely undervalued and should be longed simultaneously. PONS marks a market paradigm shift: platforms must either launch a token on day one of product launch, or never issue one at all.
AJC also strongly advocates the paradigm of "pairing Meme tokens with their true value drivers at the underlying level." In the future, there will absolutely be some small-cap listed companies bold enough to embrace Meme token communities.
But traders must exercise extreme caution — never blindly buy into tokens paired with such stocks on weekends when US markets are closed, or when on-chain pool liquidity is extremely thin, otherwise you're simply handing market makers a windfall of exposure for nothing.
The broader market is in a healthy "Bullish Consolidation" phase. After previously experiencing a powerful upward pulse, Bitcoin and the entire crypto market have actually been heavily suppressed over the past year or so, with washout conditions brutal enough. With even the slightest catalyst, it is extremely eager to break out upward. Almost everyone off-exchange is sitting on the sidelines in cash.
The Bankless Founder Who Sold All His ETH Made a Killing in Three Months
After liquidating his ETH, Hoffman deployed the capital in two batches: The first batch, roughly 50%, was immediately allocated to four targets after selling ETH: VVV (Venice AI's governance token), NEAR, ZEC, and HYPE. He explicitly mentioned in a tweet that he bought NEAR at around $1.4. The second batch, roughly 50%, was reserved for DCA (dollar-cost averaging). His exact words were "keeping it to slowly buy something that hasn't pumped yet." This money ultimately all went into LIT (Lighter, a zkRollup-based on-chain perpetual futures exchange token).
His buying logic for LIT is exceptionally clear: exchanges are always the best business model in crypto; Lighter's buyback speed is roughly twice that of HYPE; zk circuits allow users to permissionlessly verify whether the exchange complies with its own rules; the product has lower latency, a better fee structure, and supports more assets including Pre-IPO markets.
This is a very clear investment framework: ZEC to bet on the privacy narrative, HYPE and LIT to bet on structural growth in the on-chain derivatives sector, NEAR to bet on cross-chain infrastructure and the AI Agent narrative, VVV to bet on decentralized AI inference.
Five targets covering four narrative tracks, none of which relate to Ethereum L1 valuation, and the common characteristic is: valuations derived from independently verifiable on-chain activity data, rather than narrative promises about the future.
Call It and It Moons: How Long Can the "Bonk Guy Effect" Last?
The "Bonk Guy Effect" stems from: his impressive track record and money-making ability, a "diamond hand trading style" different from previous on-chain leaders, long-term good communication with Meme coin communities and developers, and attention from various KOLs.
Revenue vs. Buybacks: Which Token-Stock Meme Platform Tokens Are Worth Positioning In?
10,000-Word Research Report Dissects PUMP: What Is a Fair Price?
PumpFun has built one of the most profitable and enduring infrastructure businesses in the crypto industry.
PUMP is one of the few highly liquid assets that provides direct exposure to Meme coins and the consumer business layer.
Although the risk of misalignment between token holder interests still exists, the market has overweighted this risk in the short term.
While the overall Meme coin market cap has declined, PumpFun's position has become more solid.
The author's valuation range for PUMP is $0.0108–$0.0205, equivalent to 2.3–4.4x the current price.
Mining Memecoins in 2026: How to Avoid Being the "Bag Holder"?
Trading Memecoins is the most volatile investment activity, requiring a fixed trading system, clarity on your focused niche trading mode, attention management, and continuous refinement of trading skills.
Beginners should identify which type of player they are (conviction trader, follow-the-trend trader, short-term quick-in-quick-out trader, single-chain deep-diver) and avoid strategy overload and frequent switching.
A trading journal is the best way to hone Memecoin trading skills.
The author also introduces the interfaces and usage details of two mainstream social trading apps (Pump.fun and Fomo App).
Robinhood Meme Major Pullback: Can You Buy the Dip Now?
Meme may just be the earliest traffic gateway on Robinhood Chain most easily ignited by attention, but in Tenev's plan, it may be far from the endgame.
Projects leaning toward infrastructure with clear buy-side support may currently offer a higher margin of safety. Pons still generates over $1 million in daily protocol revenue, and under a transparent buyback mechanism, a decline in PONS price actually means an acceleration of the buyback pace, which to some extent can offset selling pressure from profit-taking.
Why Zcash Price Surged 43%: Full Analysis of ZEC Spot ETF Inflows and Token Concentration
Institutional compliant channels activated traditional buying, with Grayscale driving its Zcash Trust to successfully upgrade to a spot trading product listed on mainstream exchanges, completely breaking down compliance barriers for traditional brokerage and wealth management capital allocating to privacy-sector assets.
Physical holdings rapidly locked up circulating supply. With institutional subscriptions and large-scale token swaps landing, the token reserves absorbed by ETF custodial entities reached 3% of total circulating supply, and the same 21 million hard-cap issuance mechanism as Bitcoin amplified marginal price elasticity under the spot passive lock-up effect.
Derivatives market open interest hit an all-time high. Anonymous address fund pool activity across the network increased substantially.
Short-term indicators overbought alongside macro interest rate volatility risk — the relative strength index entered extreme overbought territory, compounded by Bitcoin's choppy washout around $78,000, short-term chasers need to closely watch for technical pullback pressure from high-leverage liquidations.
Also recommended: "Bitcoin Hits $83,000 "Cost Wall": Selling Pressure at Yearly Lows, but Short Fuel Is Thickening" "Shorting HYPE Lost $40 Million: How Much Ammo Does Meme's Top Short loracle Have Left?".
Prediction Markets
Trade.xyz Officially Enters Prediction Markets: Whose Fees Are Cheaper, It or Polymarket?
Meme
This Meme Wave: Which Ones Are Worth Positioning In at Low Levels?
Robinhood Chain's CASHCAT, MEME, SHROOM; BNB Chain ecosystem's MarsCoin, Hakimi, Niu Lai, Stonks; Solana ecosystem's USELESS, STONK, ZCAT.
Ethereum & Scaling
Ethereum Proposes Allowing Stablecoin Gas Payments: Will ETH Demand Be Weakened?
EIP-8141 could reduce the retail demand for "every user must buy a little ETH," but at the same time concentrate that demand into professional infrastructure operators, forming larger-volume, higher-frequency wholesale purchases.
If EIP-8141 activates as planned in 2027, the Gas value chain on Ethereum will become a four-layer structure: users hold stablecoins or other ERC-20 assets → wallets or Paymaster service providers collect users' stablecoins and centrally purchase ETH → applications cover Gas costs with their own revenue or user fees → validators receive ETH and execute burns.
The beneficiaries are the application layer and stablecoin issuers.
ETH's volatility structure may change as a result, becoming more akin to commodity wholesale pricing models.
L2s Are Making a Killing, but What About Ethereum?
L2's commercial success cannot be equated with Ethereum's success; its essence is closer to regulatory arbitrage and brand borrowing. It is recommended that R&D focus shift toward CROPS (censorship resistance, privacy, security) and other Ethereum-native irreplaceable tracks.
Multi-Ecosystem
The Solana ecosystem collectively fell behind in this Meme cycle. Solana officially organized support for token-stock pairing Meme launchpad StonkFun, sounding the call to counterattack.
Companion reading: "Reviving the Solana Ecosystem: Pump.fun Enters Token-Stock Meme Pairing".
3 Hours to A7 on a Single Coin, BNC Up Over 50% Pre-Market: BSC Token-Stock Meme Flywheel Restarts
We can view 4Stock as a beneficial supplement to Binance bStock on BNB Chain. Some small-cap, penny stocks with traffic can list on 4Stock first, and after being deemed risk-free, can then list on bStock. The relationship between 4Stock and bStock can be compared to the relationship between Binance Alpha and Binance's main site.
Meme coins driving small-cap stock gains could potentially set the flywheel in motion.
Companion reading: "After YZi Labs Regains Power, BNB Treasury CEA Industries Is Undervalued".
Security
Weekly Hot Topics Crash Course
Hunter Biden recently frequently publicly supported cryptocurrency and hinted at possibly running in the 2028 US presidential election, then teased a Meme coin LAPTOP, which ultimately LAPTOP turned into a major flop;
Policy & Macro Markets
"Drawing K-lines" confirmed? Trump's accounts exposed for precisely buying bottoms and selling tops; Trump: Trading stocks is for America, not for myself;
Wall Street bets on a divided US Congress as the best market scenario, midterm election season entering its final stretch;
Trump: Pushing for Hyperliquid to enter the US market through compliant means;
People familiar with the matter: CLARITY may be split into multiple independent bills targeting different sub-sectors;
US Senate formally launches investigation into OpenAI: focusing on the Hugging Face AI agent intrusion incident;
