The Crypto Basic

Market veteran Dan Gambardello has urged traders not to write off Cardano as ADA approaches a potentially important technical breakout.
Cardano started the week on a positive note as the broader cryptocurrency market staged a recovery. ADA climbed from an intraday low of $0.23 to around $0.25, strengthening its recent rebound despite the token’s significant decline over the past several months.
While some critics have questioned whether Cardano can regain its previous momentum, Gambardello has taken a different view. He warned traders against dismissing the cryptocurrency, pointing to a technical setup that could support a sharp upward move.
Gambardello Sees Potential Move to $0.40
Gambardello specifically cautioned traders against “writing off” Cardano as ADA approaches a possible breakout.
According to him, ADA could reach $0.40 “in an instant” if it escapes its current technical structure. His comment highlights the importance of the resistance levels ADA is currently testing and the possibility of a stronger rally if the token breaks above them.
The accompanying chart shows ADA trading around $0.241 while testing an ascending yellow trendline that has recently acted as resistance. Recent candles have moved above the trendline, suggesting that buyers are attempting to push the token into a stronger position above this level.
ADA Builds Recovery Structure
Meanwhile, ADA has recovered significantly from its recent low near $0.14 and has formed a series of higher lows. The blue moving average has also turned upward and remains below the current price, indicating that short-term momentum has improved.
Nonetheless, ADA still faces resistance from the longer-term red moving average, which continues to trend downward from higher levels. Therefore, a sustained break above these resistance areas could play an important role in determining whether ADA can extend its recovery.
At its current price of $0.24603, ADA requires a surge of 62.58% to reach the $0.40 target highlighted by Gambardello. Notably, ADA last traded around the $0.40 level in January 2026 before losing ground.
Gambardello Still Holds ADA
Gambardello’s latest comments also stand out because he previously reduced his Cardano exposure during the governance crisis that affected the ecosystem in June 2026.
At the time, he disclosed that he had moved part of his ADA holdings into Sui. Although he has since liquidated some of his Cardano position, Gambardello confirmed that he remains an ADA holder. However, the exact size of his current ADA holdings remains unknown.
Meanwhile, Cardano continues to retain much of the gain from yesterday’s broader market rally. ADA is currently up 5.63% over the past 24 hours, with its market cap rising by a similar percentage to $9.02 billion.
With this valuation, ADA ranks as the 14th-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization on CoinMarketCap. Whether it can sustain the current recovery will depend in part on its ability to overcome the resistance levels highlighted in Gambardello’s analysis.
#CryptoNewsFlash

Bitcoin commentator Quinten Francois recently argued that just a few strong trading days can make up most of BTC’s gains in a month.
Francois shared a chart showing Bitcoin’s monthly returns and what those returns would look like if the four best-performing days were removed. His point is that trying to perfectly time when to buy and sell Bitcoin can be risky.
Recent Examples
In August 2026, Bitcoin gained 24.9% for the month. But without its four best days, the gain would have been only 0.5%. In November 2024, Bitcoin gained 37.1%. Removing the four strongest days reduced the gain to 4%.
Earlier Examples
The difference was even bigger during some previous Bitcoin rallies:
March 2023: Bitcoin gained 23.2%, but fell 8.3% when the four best days were removed.February 2021: Bitcoin gained 36.8%, but returned -5.2% without those four days.April 2020: Bitcoin gained 34.5%, compared with -1.9% after removing the four strongest days.May 2019: Bitcoin gained 62.5%, while the return was 2.6% without the four best days.December 2017: Bitcoin gained 39.3%, but the return dropped to -22.6% after removing those days.
The examples show that a small number of very strong trading days can have a major impact on Bitcoin’s overall monthly performance.
X User Questions the Interpretation
The figures drew criticism from X user @b0tmkr, who said the analysis does not tell the full story because it only removes Bitcoin’s best-performing days. The user argued that removing only positive outliers can give a misleading picture of Bitcoin’s returns.
The criticism is mainly about the method used. The chart looks at what happens when investors miss Bitcoin’s four best days. It does not consider what would happen if they also missed the market’s worst days.
Francois responded that his main point was simply that a large share of Bitcoin’s gains can happen in just a few days. He said this is why investors who stay out of the market could miss some of its biggest moves.
Time in the Market vs. Timing the Market
This idea is similar to the common investment saying: “Time in the market beats timing the market.”
Investors who try to avoid market drops have to make two decisions correctly: when to sell and when to buy again. If they miss a strong recovery, their returns can suffer.
A Bank of Singapore analysis published in February 2025 also found that missing a small number of the market’s strongest periods can significantly reduce long-term returns. This shows how difficult it can be to predict short-term market moves.
Bitcoin’s August performance is a good example. Someone who was out of the market during Bitcoin’s four strongest days would have captured only a small part of the month’s total gain.
Bitcoin Reaches $87,300
Bitcoin rose to $87,300 on Tuesday, its highest level since January. The rally has renewed attention on the crypto market as many now believe the bull market is resuming.
Bitcoin was trading around $85,500 at the time of writing, up 4.4% over the past 24 hours and 11% over the past week. Now, its year-to-date loss has narrowed to about 2.3%, although it is still down around 23% over the past year.
The latest move also adds to Bitcoin’s recovery from its recent low. In particular, Bitcoin has gained about 51% from its low roughly two months earlier.
#CryptonewswithJack

Shiba Inu has rallied following positive developments surrounding Shibarium, but activity on the L2 blockchain remains significantly below its previous highs.
The past week has brought several positive developments to the Shiba Inu ecosystem, including an update on Shibarium’s ongoing reorganization and migration.
Mazrael, a Shiba Inu proponent, recently shared an update concerning the network’s migration. According to Mazrael, Kaal Dhairya, a major member of the ecosystem team, confirmed that the development team had resolved Shibarium’s reorganization issue.
However, one step remains. Mazrael said there is still a need for the DRPC to complete the transition.
Shibarium Resolves Reorganization Issue
The latest update comes months after Shibarium shut down its previous public RPC endpoints. For context, RPC endpoints connect users and applications to blockchain networks. Therefore, transitioning this infrastructure represents an important step toward improving Shibarium’s reliability as the network continues to evolve.
Although resolving the reorganization issue marks another positive development for Shibarium, network activity has yet to show a similar recovery.
SHIB Rallies Above $0.000006
Days after the Shibarium update emerged, Shiba Inu climbed above $0.000006 and reached a multi-week high of $0.000006254.
The broader market rally appears to have provided the primary catalyst for SHIB’s move. Nevertheless, the positive developments surrounding the Shiba Inu ecosystem have also added to the improving sentiment.
As a result, some market participants expected the renewed interest in SHIB and the progress on Shibarium to translate into higher Layer-2 activity. The latest data portrays a different picture.
Shibarium Activity Remains Near Multi-Year Lows
At press time, Shibarium was processing only around 1,680 daily transactions.
That figure represents a 99.96% decline from the 4.69 million daily transactions the network recorded on August 21, 2025. Consequently, current activity remains only a fraction of the levels Shibarium reached during its peak period.
The Layer-2 network also recorded significantly higher activity during its early months following its 2023 launch. At the time, Shibarium frequently processed around 4 million transactions per day.
That elevated activity helped drive the network’s cumulative transaction count above 1.56 billion.
Shibarium Explorer Continues Blockchain Indexing
However, the transaction figure displayed by Shibarium’s blockchain explorer requires some context.
The explorer currently shows 611.96 million total transactions, while Shibarium has processed more than 1.56 billion transactions since its launch.
This discrepancy results from the explorer’s ongoing indexing process. So far, only around 53% of Shibarium’s blocks have been indexed, meaning the displayed transaction count does not yet capture the network’s complete transaction history.
Therefore, the 611.96 million figure should not be interpreted as Shibarium’s lifetime transaction count.
#CryptoNewsCommunity

XRP approaches $1.56 resistance for a fifth attempt in 2026, with chart levels indicating $1.70, $1.90, and $2.28 if the resistance breaks.
XRP is approaching the $1.56 resistance area for the fifth time this year, with XRP currently trading around $1.54. The daily chart shows that the same region rejected four previous advances during 2026, making the latest test a continuation of a resistance structure that has persisted for several months.
The chart places the resistance at approximately $1.5611, corresponding to the displayed 0.786 Fibonacci level. XRP is now only about 1.4% below that threshold.
Four Previous Tests Stopped Near $1.56
The chart marks four earlier advances toward the $1.56 area between February and August. Each attempt was followed by a move back into the broader trading range rather than a sustained daily advance above the level.
The latest recovery began after XRP traded near $1.00 in August. Price subsequently jumped above $1.28 and returned toward $1.50. The current chart shows XRP around $1.5285, while the supplied current market price of $1.54 places it even closer to resistance.
The latest five daily candles show a recovery from roughly the $1.28–$1.30 region. Lower wicks during the pullback indicate intraday buying responses, followed by expanding bullish candles toward $1.50. The latest candles are again testing the upper boundary that stopped previous advances.
What Comes After $1.56?
If XRP records a sustained breakout above $1.5611, the chart identifies $1.7026 as the next major displayed Fibonacci level. From $1.56, that represents an additional increase of approximately 9.1%.
Above $1.70, the next major zone is around $1.90–$1.91. The chart specifically marks $1.9081, placing it roughly 22.3% above $1.56 and about 23.9% above the current $1.54 price.
The higher resistance band—the “red tape” referenced in the accompanying analysis—is positioned around $2.28, with the chart’s 0.236 Fibonacci level at $2.2832. A move from $1.54 to that level would equal approximately 48.3%.
Beyond that, the chart displays another major reference near $2.91, but that sits considerably above the immediate breakout structure.
The technical sequence displayed on the chart is therefore $1.56 → $1.70 → $1.90 → $2.28. These are chart-derived resistance levels rather than completed price moves. At the current $1.54 price, XRP is approaching the first level in that sequence after four previous tests of the same resistance area.
#CryptoNews🚀🔥V

Crypto in America host Eleanor Terrett has highlighted the growing social media hype surrounding projections that XRP could eventually reach $1,000.
Terrett noted that her X feed had become dominated by debates over the failed CLARITY Act and bullish posts promoting the $1,000 XRP price target. Meanwhile, the projection gained renewed attention across X over the weekend.
$1,000 XRP Prediction Gains Momentum
The latest wave of speculation intensified after EasyA co-founder Dom Kwok suggested that an XRP price of $1,000 is now more plausible than ever.
Although Kwok’s latest post did not explicitly mention XRP, he has previously promoted the $1,000 target, including in April. As a result, his latest comments reignited discussion among both XRP proponents and critics.
Jake Claver, Chairman of Digital Ascension Group, also reacted to Kwok’s comments. He said he would pay attention to the prediction because of Kwok’s professional background and experience.
Similarly, other XRP supporters pointed to Kwok’s résumé, including his reported experience at Goldman Sachs and Circle and his involvement with EasyA. They argued that his background gives greater weight to his latest comments about XRP potentially reaching $1,000.
XRP’s Long-Term Valuation Question
The $1,000 target is not new to the XRP community. Similar projections have resurfaced several times in recent years. For example, in 2024, crypto exchange Uphold asked the XRP community what they would do if the asset reached the milestone.
However, the prediction has also faced criticism. Crypto analyst ChartNerd dismissed the $1,000 target as hype and urged traders to exercise caution when considering aggressive XRP price projections.
Similarly, XRP Ledger dUNL validator Vet argued that investors should focus more on the network’s adoption and development than on specific price targets. He said that growing XRP Ledger adoption in traditional finance could matter more than speculative price projections.
XRP to $1,000 Growth Requirement
At press time, XRP traded at $1.4394, giving the coin a market capitalization of $89.8 billion.
At that price, XRP would need to surge by roughly 69,373% to reach $1,000. Moreover, assuming a circulating supply of approximately 63 billion XRP, the token would carry a market cap of around $63 trillion at the target price. The scale of that implied valuation has prompted questions about the feasibility of the projection.
Nevertheless, Kwok has previously pushed back against market-cap comparisons, arguing that such calculations do not necessarily capture an asset’s potential value. Meanwhile, some XRP proponents have pointed to the cryptocurrency’s potential role in cross-border settlement as a factor that could influence its long-term valuation.
Still, the $1,000 XRP target remains highly speculative and should not be interpreted as a guaranteed future price.
#CryptoNews🚀🔥V

IonQ Inc. (NYSE: IONQ) shares rose 2.32% to $40.04 in pre-market trading at 06:42 a.m. ET on Monday, after closing Friday at $39.13, down 3%.
The move came as U.S. technology futures were broadly higher, with Nasdaq-100 E-minis up 1.12% at 06:42 a.m. ET.
Earlier this month, the quantum computing company raised its 2026 revenue outlook after completing its acquisition of SkyWater Technology and launched its Superion 256 quantum computing platform, with customer deliveries planned for 2027. IonQ also issued two research updates last week.
IonQ Raises 2026 Revenue Outlook to $450 Million-$460 Million
IonQ on Sept. 8 raised its full-year 2026 revenue outlook to between $450 million and $460 million.
The forecast includes SkyWater revenue from July 31, when the acquisition closed, through Dec. 31. It also excludes estimated intercompany revenue related to the companies’ previous commercial relationship.
IonQ had previously forecast 2026 revenue of $280 million to $290 million, excluding SkyWater.
The company completed its acquisition of SkyWater Technology on July 31.
IonQ said in its second-quarter regulatory filing that the transaction was valued at about $1.8 billion and included roughly 24.1 million IonQ shares and $741.3 million in cash.
Superion 256 Deliveries Planned for 2027
IonQ also announced its Superion 256 quantum computing platform on Sept. 8.
The company said it had fabricated its first fully integrated 256-qubit quantum processing units at SkyWater and trapped the first ions in prototype systems.
IonQ is accepting orders for Superion 256 and said customer deliveries are planned for 2027.
IonQ said working closely with SkyWater’s quantum foundry compressed its design cycle from nine months to two months. The company also said the teams delivered 12 times more wafer lots over a six-month period than at a previous foundry.
IonQ is targeting fault-tolerant operation in a laboratory setting in 2027 and a manufacturable commercial implementation in 2028.
Synopsys Research Shows Up to 14.6% Simulation-Time Reduction
IonQ said on Sept. 17 that research with Synopsys showed reductions in total simulation time when a quantum algorithm was incorporated into the Ansys LS-DYNA engineering simulation workflow.
The companies tested digital models including an automobile, an industrial drill component, a fluid impeller, and a jet-engine assembly.
IonQ said the models included meshes with as many as 35 million data points.
Total simulation-time reductions ranged from 5.9% to 14.6% across the tested models, according to the company.
The numerical simulations used as many as 150 qubits. IonQ also said part of the work was validated on its 36-qubit Forte trapped-ion quantum computer.
The research paper received a first-place Best Paper Award at IEEE Quantum Week 2026.
ORNL, NVIDIA Research Tests AI-Based Quantum Optimization
IonQ on Sept. 16 announced separate research conducted with Oak Ridge National Laboratory, NVIDIA, and the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.
The study used a trained generative model to generate quantum optimization circuits instead of repeatedly adjusting circuit parameters through an iterative optimization process.
IonQ said the prior state-of-the-art quantum circuit-finding method took about 34 seconds for four-qubit subproblems and more than 11 minutes for 12-qubit subproblems in a benchmark involving 100 decision variables.
The generative approach took about 28 seconds across the tested problem sizes, according to the company.
Both approaches were quantum circuit-generation methods; the study did not compare a quantum solver against a classical solver. The circuits were simulated rather than executed on IonQ quantum hardware, with IonQ describing the results as benchmark-scale validation.
The experiments used NVIDIA cuQuantum software through CUDA-Q on a single NVIDIA H200 GPU at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
IONQon Tokenized Stock Trades Higher
Meanwhile, IonQ Tokenized Stock (IONQon) was trading at $40.03, up 3.12% over the previous 24 hours, according to CoinMarketCap data.
Twenty-four-hour trading volume was $263,028, up 7.07%.
About 9,410 IONQon tokens were listed as circulating, with a token market capitalization of about $376,820.
IONQon is an Ondo tokenized representation linked to IonQ stock and is separate from IonQ’s NYSE-listed common shares. The product is part of a broader market for tokenized public stocks, which has expanded across multiple blockchain networks and providers.
#CryptoNewsFlash

XRP Ledger validator Hussain Zangana, aka Vet, has joined the ongoing discussion about XRP reaching a four-digit price.
He says holders should focus less on XRP price predictions and more on how the XRP Ledger (XRPL) is being adopted by traditional finance.
In a recent post on X, Vet said he is more excited about XRPL’s growing use in traditional finance, or TradFi, than predictions that XRP could reach $1,000 or another specific price.
Vet Focuses on XRPL Adoption
Vet believes the long-term value of XRPL will depend on how widely it is used in the financial system. He said the progress is coming from ongoing efforts to bring blockchain technology into traditional financial infrastructure.
He described this as an attempt to improve the “rails of the financial system” and change how money moves around the world.
XRP Price to Benefit From Growth
Meanwhile, Vet also suggested that XRP’s price should be a result of the network’s growth, rather than the main goal.
“Let price be a knock-on effect of this hard work,” he wrote.
His comments stress that real-world adoption is more important than price speculation. This comes as “XRP $1,000” started trending on X following a tweet by EasyA co-founder Dom Kwok.
Dom Kwok Brings Back $1,000 XRP Prediction
On X, Kwok said that XRP reaching $1,000 is “more likely than ever”. The post came at a time when XRP was struggling, trading at $1.43, down more than 60% from its all-time high.
Given that the crypto market is just emerging from a harrowing bear market, such an ambitious prediction attracted enormous attention.
XRP analyst ChartNerd said it was embarrassing to see such a price outlook from such a prominent community figure. X user Tarkan Aslaner also challenged the prediction, asking for evidence to support expectations of a four-digit XRP price.
“We’re sick of bullshit predictions and sick of reading/hearing ‘next month, next 48 hours’ horse shit,” Aslaner wrote.
XRP Supporters Defend Long-Term Outlook
Meanwhile, some community members defended the $1,000 prediction, pointing to Dom Kwok’s background. One commenter said the prediction deserves attention because Kwok is the co-founder of EasyA and previously worked at Goldman Sachs.
XRP influencer John Squire said that Kwok’s continued comments about the $1,000 XRP outlook make the forecast seem more believable to some supporters.
Yet ChartNerd warned holders to be careful with accounts predicting four-figure prices. He argued that some of these predictions ignore XRP’s 70% decline in 2026.
Timeline for $1,000
With XRP at $1.43, the token would need to increase by approximately 69,830% to reach $1,000. At that price, its market capitalization would exceed $63 trillion. These extreme valuation and price requirements are part of the reason many people disagree with the $1,000 outlook.
Meanwhile, EasyA co-founder Dom Kwok argues that the potential market capitalization does not invalidate the possibility of the price target.
He argues that market capitalization alone should not determine how valuable an asset can become. He points to Bitcoin, which has reached a multitrillion-dollar market capitalization despite generating far less revenue than major companies such as Walmart.
Web3 Alert founder Nick has similarly questioned why XRP’s potential should be limited by market-cap arguments when Bitcoin has previously reached more than $2.2 trillion in market capitalization.
Interestingly, Kwok and his brother have said that XRP reaching $1,000 within four to five years is “definitely” possible.
Critics, however, argue that this would make XRP more valuable than some of the world’s largest companies and assets, making the $1,000 prediction extremely ambitious.
Meanwhile, for Vet, the focus should be on the network’s actual growth and adoption, not price predictions.
#CryptoNews

#XRP Tests $1.41 Fibonacci Level as $1.45–$1.51 Resistance Zone Comes Into Focus.
XRP is trading around $1.42 on the chart after advancing from the lower boundary of a descending parallel channel. Price has reached the 0.382 Fibonacci retracement at $1.4074, placing it directly around a key resistance area shown on the chart.
The Fibonacci structure is measured between $1.2522 and $1.7004. Above the 0.382 level, the next two retracement levels are $1.4592 at the 0.5 Fib and $1.5128 at the 0.618 Fib.
XRP Faces Resistance Between $1.45 and $1.51
The chart therefore places XRP’s next resistance pocket between approximately $1.459 and $1.513. The 50-week EMA is also reported near $1.51, putting it close to the 0.618 Fibonacci level.
XRP has spent roughly five weeks consolidating after rebounding from the lower portion of the descending channel. The latest move lifted price from around $1.29–$1.30 to $1.42, bringing it back to the channel’s descending upper boundary.
The broader Fibonacci range identifies $1.7004 as the upper reference level. From the chart price of $1.4206, XRP would need to rise approximately 2.7% to reach $1.4592, 6.5% to reach $1.5128, and 19.7% to revisit $1.7004.
On the downside, $1.4074 is the first displayed Fibonacci level below the current price, while $1.2522 marks the base of the measured Fibonacci range.
The chart therefore defines the immediate technical structure through four principal levels: $1.4074, $1.4592, $1.5128, and $1.7004.
To Reach $1.70
To reach $1.70, the chart shows two major resistance levels in between: $1.4592 (0.5 Fib) and $1.5128 (0.618 Fib). The $1.51 area is particularly significant because the 0.618 Fib coincides with the 50-week EMA cited in the setup.
A sustained move above $1.5128 would place XRP above the highlighted $1.45–$1.51 resistance pocket. From there, the next major level displayed by the Fibonacci structure is $1.7004, approximately 19.7% above $1.4206.
#Crypto

DraftKings shares sank 7.6% Thursday to $22.47, extending its losing streak to three sessions while new Needham data showed Kalshi with a commanding lead in NFL Week 1 prediction-market volume.
The weakness developed during regular trading, not before the open. DraftKings was little changed at $24.38 at 9:29:59 a.m. ET, versus Wednesday’s $24.33 close, before sliding through Thursday’s session; Flutter also fell 5.2%, while the Nasdaq rose 1.7%.
Kalshi’s NFL Lead Raises Competitive Pressure
Needham’s exchange-level analysis of NFL Week 1 showed $14.6 billion of sports-and-parlay prediction-market volume across eight exchanges, matching the first 14 weeks of last NFL season combined. Kalshi accounted for 76% of that volume, while DraftKings’ DKeX exchange accounted for around 3% of both total volume and Needham’s estimated consumer-equivalent handle.
That comparison comes with an important qualification. Needham said exchange data can overstate Kalshi and Polymarket because other operators route activity through their exchanges, while understating DraftKings because it distributes volume across multiple exchanges. The firm expects DraftKings to concentrate more activity on DKeX over time.
The exchange-share data also has a current counterpoint. Stifel’s Jeffrey Stantial reiterated a Buy rating Thursday while emphasizing DraftKings’ parlay capabilities. Stifel said CFTC-regulated single-wager sports volume fell 30% month over month in August to $18.6 billion, while “combo” volume—effectively sports parlays—rose 22% to $18.8 billion. The firm argued that DraftKings and Flutter can compete for market-making flow using their pricing and correlation models and balance-sheet capacity, while cautioning that notional exchange volume can exaggerate parlay activity relative to conventional handle.
Meanwhile, the regulatory environment for prediction markets continued to evolve Thursday. In a new no-action position for passive software providers, CFTC staff said it would not recommend enforcement over introducing-broker or associated-person registration solely for qualifying software that facilitates trading through registered intermediaries and designated contract markets.
The regulatory picture is not one-directional. A day earlier, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals blocked Kalshi from offering sports-event contracts on two California tribal lands, finding the tribes were likely to prevail on claims involving federal Indian gaming law and tribal ordinances. The case underscores that prediction markets are expanding while their regulatory boundaries remain contested.
DraftKings’ Prediction Push Meets a Profitability Test
DraftKings entered football season already committing substantial resources to Predictions. In its second-quarter results, the company said revenue fell 5% year over year to $1.443 billion, mainly because of customer-friendly sports outcomes and greater promotional reinvestment in Sportsbook and Predictions.
Management nevertheless maintained 2026 revenue guidance of $6.5 billion to $6.9 billion and adjusted EBITDA guidance of $700 million to $900 million, while saying the core business remained on track for roughly $1 billion of adjusted EBITDA.
The stock initially rallied after those results. DraftKings released them after the Aug. 6 close of $22.17, and shares jumped 8.4% to $24.03 on Aug. 7. DraftKings shares then climbed to $26.14 by Aug. 14.
That recovery then encountered another company-specific development. On Aug. 17, DraftKings launched a proposed $600 million term loan B and a new $750 million revolving credit facility, with term-loan proceeds intended partly to repurchase convertible notes due in 2028. Shares fell 2.2% in morning trading following the announcement and closed 3.2% lower at $25.30; they dropped another 5.0% the next session to $24.04. The company later closed an upsized $700 million term loan alongside the $750 million revolver.
The earnings-window analyst response was mixed. Benchmark raised its price target to $30 from $29 while maintaining a ‘Buy’ rating, while JPMorgan cut its target to $33 from $34, Guggenheim to $33 from $35, and Barclays to $34 from $35, with all three retaining their positive ratings.
Guggenheim said its reduction followed updated estimates incorporating DraftKings’ second-quarter results and reaffirmed its 2026 outlook. Citi subsequently moved in the other direction, raising its target to $32 from $30 while keeping ‘Buy’ and arguing that prediction markets could expand DraftKings’ addressable market.
Thursday’s $22.47 finish leaves DraftKings only about 1.4% above its Aug. 6 pre-earnings close, but about 14.0% below its Aug. 14 rebound close of $26.14, after three consecutive losing sessions.
DKNGx Extends DraftKings Exposure Beyond the Nasdaq Session
Kraken lists tokenized DraftKings as DKNGx for eligible clients in supported markets. Kraken says each DKNGx token is backed 1:1 by DraftKings shares held by a third-party custodian, but owning the token does not constitute direct ownership of the underlying DKNG share or provide shareholder rights.
Kraken’s broader xStocks service supports 24/5 trading, allowing tokenized exposure outside traditional U.S. equity hours. That token-market activity remains distinct from Nasdaq trading and should not be treated as a prediction of DraftKings’ next regular-session opening price.
DraftKings’ official investor calendar currently shows its Aug. 7 Q2 earnings call as the latest listed event, so the company has not posted a confirmed Q3 earnings date there.
Investor Takeaway
DraftKings’ Thursday slide puts the focus on whether its nationwide Predictions expansion can convert NFL-season demand into attractive economics while Kalshi holds a large exchange-volume lead.
The counterweight is DraftKings’ established sportsbook and parlay infrastructure, alongside management’s maintained 2026 profitability guidance. Upcoming NFL-week activity and regulatory developments should provide the next measurable tests.
#CryptoNewss

Micron Technology shares jumped 5.5% to $977.50 on Thursday, putting the stock back above its pre-Monday level as tight memory supply returned to the center of the semiconductor trade.
The rebound now meets a company-specific labor test in Taiwan, where Friday is one of two key mediation dates, and unions have warned they could move toward a strike vote if Micron fails to produce a concrete profit-sharing proposal.
Micron Erases Monday’s AI-Slowdown Selloff
Micron fell 5.25% to $924.03 on Monday as calls from several AI-industry leaders for slower AI development pressured chipmakers. By Thursday’s close, the stock had climbed back to $977.50, about 0.2% above its Sept. 11 close of $975.26, effectively erasing the net loss from the week’s initial AI-slowdown shock, according to Micron’s historical closing prices. Reuters reported that the Monday decline came as AI-slowdown warnings broadly hit semiconductor shares.
Thursday’s move was not isolated. Intel gained 7.7%, AMD rose about 6.5%, and SanDisk advanced 6.2% during a broad semiconductor rebound, while falling oil prices and Treasury yields also supported the wider market. Micron also had a memory-specific tailwind after Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan warned that memory capacity remained constrained and supply pressure could persist into next year.
That supply backdrop matters because Micron’s recent earnings have been built on unusually strong memory pricing and margins. Micron’s fiscal third-quarter results showed revenue of $41.46 billion and a non-GAAP gross margin of 84.9%, followed by guidance for roughly $50 billion of fourth-quarter revenue and an approximately 86% gross margin.
Wall Street is also focused on how long the memory shortage can last. Goldman Sachs maintained a “Neutral” rating and $1,100 target on Sept. 11, expecting another strong quarter because of tight DRAM and NAND conditions while flagging longer-term supply additions, particularly from China. TD Cowen’s Krish Sankar, by contrast, reiterated a “Buy” rating and $1,600 target this week, arguing that Micron appears further along in margin expansion than in the underlying demand cycle.
Taiwan Labor Dispute Puts Supply Risk Back in Focus
The same tight-supply story that helped Micron shares Thursday increases the significance of its Taiwan labor dispute. According to Reuters’ report on Micron’s Taiwan labor dispute, unions representing more than 80% of Micron’s roughly 15,000 Taiwan employees are seeking a permanent system allocating 15% of operating profit to employees. Union representatives said that if Micron does not present a concrete proposal during the Sept. 18 and Sept. 21 process, they could declare negotiations broken down and move toward a strike vote.
No strike had been called, and production had not been affected in Reuters’ latest confirmed report. Friday marks the Taichung union’s scheduled first mediation session, while further mediation involving the Taoyuan union is scheduled for Sept. 21. A Friday-morning status review found no confirmed strike announcement or production interruption.
Taiwan is nevertheless a critical Micron manufacturing center for DRAM and high-bandwidth memory, meaning an eventual work stoppage could matter more while memory supply is already constrained. Micron has said it remains committed to participating in mediation in good faith.
The dispute continued even after Micron announced fiscal-2026 rewards worth 35 to 68 months of pay for Taiwan direct labor employees. The union has argued that those awards are one-off compensation rather than the permanent, transparent profit-sharing structure it is seeking. Reuters detailed Micron’s Taiwan compensation package.
Tokenized Micron Market Remains Active
Separately, Micron’s tokenized counterpart remains active on Binance. Binance officially opened MUB/USDT Spot trading in June, establishing MUB as an active bStock linked to Micron.
At the latest check on Friday morning, Binance’s MUB/USDT Spot market showed MUB at $992.49.
MUB trades in a different market and measurement window from Micron’s Thursday 5.5% regular-session gain, so the figures should not be treated as directly equivalent. Binance states that MUB is a bStock issued by BTech Holdings representing an interest in underlying securities rather than direct ownership of Micron shares.
Micron’s next confirmed financial catalyst comes Sept. 30, when the company will hold its fiscal fourth-quarter earnings call at 2:30 p.m. Mountain time. Micron confirmed the Sept. 30 earnings date in August.
Investor Takeaway
Micron’s 5.5% Thursday rally restored the stock to roughly its pre-Monday level as attention swung back from AI-spending concerns toward memory scarcity. The Taiwan dispute now tests that supply narrative from another direction, with the Sept. 18 and Sept. 21 mediation process preceding any potential strike vote and Micron’s Sept. 30 earnings providing the next confirmed financial update.
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The #XRP perpetual and spot CVDs have recently recorded massive declines amid selling pressure, but there may be a silver lining.
XRP is showing an unusual level of calm as traders continue to cut their leveraged positions and spot-market selling remains high. The asset currently trades at $1.32, up 3.14% on the day, while holding key support. The broader crypto market also gained ground after Wednesday’s quarter-point Federal Reserve rate hike and Thursday’s SEC approval of a blockchain-based stock trading pilot.
Bitcoin (BTC) moved back above $78,000, while Ethereum (ETH) held above $2,500. XRP, meanwhile, stayed between $1.28 and $1.33, a range it has held for much of the past week after falling roughly 4% from a recent high around $1.42.
The price movement looks calm at press time, but data from the futures and spot markets shows that traders have made much larger moves beneath the surface.
XRP Leverage Drops Three Times Faster Than Price
Binance data shows that traders are reducing leverage. Notably, XRP open interest on the exchange fell from about $323 million on Aug. 22 to roughly $219 million by Sept. 17. That amounts to a 32% drop in less than four weeks.
XRP’s price declined by only about 11% over the same period, indicating that Open Interest fell almost three times faster than the price.
This suggests that traders have closed leveraged positions at a much faster rate than XRP has fallen, rather than the decline coming mainly from traders opening new short positions.
Data from the broader derivatives market shows the same trend. XRP’s total derivatives open interest dropped from roughly $1.13 billion in mid-August to about $871 million by Sept. 17, representing a decline of more than $250 million in less than a month.
Spot Selling Pushes XRP CVD to New Lows
The selling pressure has also spread into the spot market. Binance’s Perpetual CVD, which measures the difference between aggressive buying and selling in the futures market, fell from around -$361 million to -$1 billion over the same period, giving the indicator its weakest reading from July through September.
Spot markets recorded a larger change. Estimated Spot CVD across major centralized exchanges dropped from about -$111 million to -$2.1 billion, also reaching its lowest point during the July-to-September period. This represents a nearly $2 billion change toward stronger spot selling.
The move was more than three times larger than the roughly $639 million decline in perpetual CVD. This shows that selling has not come only from traders using leverage. Spot-market participants have also sold large amounts of XRP, either taking profits or reducing their losses.
Less Leverage Could Give XRP Room to Recover
Falling open interest and deeply negative CVD give XRP a mixed market trend. Traders have reduced their positions, but aggressive sellers still control much of the market flow.
Notably, the smaller derivatives market could limit the amount of leverage available to drive another sharp decline. Also, a lower open-interest base means fewer highly leveraged long positions remain vulnerable to forced liquidations if XRP falls again.
If short positions take up a larger share of the remaining open interest, funding rates could move toward neutral or even negative levels. This could create conditions for a short squeeze if buying demand returns.
XRP’s recent price action also shows some stability. The token has stayed above its 20-week EMA around $1.29 despite the large drop in leverage. A daily move above $1.40 could put the $1.60-$1.70 range in focus. However, a close below $1.29 could push attention back to the psychologically important $1.00 level.
#CryptoNewsFlash

Advanced Micro Devices shares were up 1.5% at $553.35 around 6:40 a.m. ET Friday after jumping 6.4% Thursday, extending a three-session rebound from Monday’s AI-led semiconductor selloff. Ondo’s AMDon token was meanwhile trading near $554 on MEXC.
The recovery has not been isolated to AMD. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index rose 3.1% Thursday, while Intel gained 7.7%, Arm 8.6% and Micron 5.5%, showing that much of the rebound has been sector-wide. Friday’s backdrop remained supportive, with Nasdaq 100 futures up 0.56% early in the session as falling oil prices eased inflation concerns.
Demand Commentary Strengthens AMD’s Recovery
AMD also has company-specific support behind the broader semiconductor rebound. Piper Sandler reiterated an “Overweight” rating and $600 price target this week after AMD’s third-quarter pre-quiet-period call, with analyst David O’Connor saying CPU and GPU ramps remained on plan and demand continued to exceed available supply. The firm said available supply was sufficient to support AMD’s existing guidance and potentially more. Piper’s post-call assessment focused on Helios, Venice CPUs, and supply conditions.
That commentary arrived immediately after a sharp change in sentiment toward AI hardware. AMD closed at $493.41 on Monday as calls by leading AI executives for slower model development triggered a global chip selloff. The stock then rose in each of the next three regular sessions, closing Tuesday at $504.20, Wednesday at $512.50 and Thursday at $545.09. Friday’s $553.35 premarket quote leaves AMD about 12.1% above Monday’s close.
There was no new AMD investor-relations press release Friday; the company’s latest IR release remains its Aug. 31 Cisco/HUMAIN update. However, reports published early Friday said AMD had notified customers of roughly 10% price increases in the fourth quarter for AI accelerators, consumer GPUs and motherboard chipsets, with higher TSMC costs cited as the driver. AMD had not publicly confirmed the report. Friday’s backdrop therefore includes both the broader semiconductor rebound and fresh, but unconfirmed, AMD-specific pricing news, alongside Piper Sandler’s demand commentary.
The Bigger Test Is Turning Demand Into Results
The rebound also changes the picture from AMD’s last earnings reset. AMD reported record second-quarter revenue of $11.54 billion, up 50% year over year, with Data Center revenue more than doubling to $6.7 billion. Management said EPYC demand was accelerating, Instinct deployments were scaling, and Helios was beginning to ramp.
AMD nevertheless fell 7.0% in the next regular session, from an Aug. 4 close of $518.58 to $482.05, as investors demanded a larger AI payoff despite better-than-expected guidance. Reuters reported at the time that elevated expectations and supply constraints were central concerns.
AMD’s $553.35 premarket price is about 6.7% above its Aug. 4 regular-session close before the earnings release, effectively recovering that post-report reset. The operating tension has not disappeared: AMD’s official third-quarter outlook calls for roughly $13 billion of revenue, up about 13% sequentially, so execution on the supply and product ramps highlighted by Piper remains important.
AMD currently has no future investor event formally scheduled on its IR calendar. The confirmed operating roadmap remains the Helios ramp: AMD said in July that Helios rack-scale systems were already in production for large AI deployments, keeping execution against that ramp and the $13 billion Q3 revenue outlook at the center of the next fundamental update.
AMDon Tracks the Rebound in a Separate Market
According to CoinGecko, Ondo’s AMDon token was trading around $553.69 on MEXC early Friday, with roughly $315,000 in 24-hour volume on the pair. Other active markets were also quoting AMDon around $553 to $554.
The token trades in a different market from Nasdaq-listed AMD, so its price action covers a separate trading window. Ondo says its tokenized stocks provide economic exposure to the underlying securities, including the economic effect of reinvested dividends, but the tokens are not themselves shares of the listed companies and do not give holders the right to receive the underlying stock.
Investor Takeaway
AMD has reversed Monday’s AI-driven selloff as both semiconductor sentiment and company-specific demand commentary improved. The central question is now whether AMD can convert demand that analysts say exceeds supply into the revenue and product ramps embedded in its Q3 outlook, while AMDon is reflecting the same equity story through a separate tokenized-market trading window.
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