Equities update - October 2nd 2026

Week 40 was defined by sharp volatility in the bond market. The MOVE Index briefly reached around 110, a high not seen since April 2026 as US Treasury yields climbed to multi-decade highs, while the VIX remained near 16 and the S&P 500 and Nasdaq proved more resilient. Mega-cap technology companies helped support the headline indices, but that strength concealed weaker breadth: the equal-weight S&P 500 ETF (RSP) is on course for a seventh consecutive weekly decline. Higher yields put particular pressure on companies with substantial financing needs, including Bitcoin miners, while Bitcoin itself held up better than blockchain equities. By Friday, the macro picture had shifted. September payrolls rose by just 29,000, versus expectations of 90,000; July and August were revised down by a combined 60,000, and unemployment edged up to 4.2%. Alongside softer-than-expected core PCE, the report brought the market-implied probability of an October Fed hike down to around 20% from 75% on Monday and pulled yields back from their highs. However, corporate investment in blockchain infrastructure continued, with Citi and Coinbase expanding their payments collaboration, Circle and Volante targeting USDC integration within bank payment systems, and Robinhood broadening its trading roadmap.

Week 40 Key Developments in Blockchain Equities:

• Index Performance: The Index fell (4.6%) over the week, underperforming Bitcoin’s +3.2% gain, as surging bond yields weighed on blockchain equities despite softer US inflation and employment data. August core PCE rose 0.2% month on month and 3.0% year on year, while headline PCE increased 0.3% and 3.4%, respectively, with methodological revisions also contributing to the lower annual readings. September payrolls rose by just 29,000, below the 90,000 expected, while unemployment edged up to 4.2% and July–August payroll gains were revised down by a combined 60,000. Together, the inflation and jobs releases helped ease concerns over further near-term tightening, with the market-implied probability of an October rate hike falling from around 75% at the start of the week to 20%. The US 10-year Treasury yield fell towards 5.15% following payrolls, having reached approximately 5.34%, its highest level since 2002, earlier in the week. This offered some relief, although longer-term financing conditions remained challenging. Bitcoin’s resilience contrasted with weakness in listed blockchain equities, whose valuations and funding costs remain sensitive to elevated yields. 

• Block Index Key Movers: 7-day top performers: Metaplanet (+7.3%), ASML (+4.7%), Sony (+4.5%) 7-day worst performers: Riot Platforms (-16.5%), CoinShares (-15.6%), Hut-8 (-14.9%) 

• Index constituents Coinbase and Citi expanded their partnership across stablecoin funding and merchant acceptance - Coinbase selected Citi’s Virtual Account Wallet to power its Virtual Accounts, enabling incoming fiat to be automatically converted into stablecoins. Coinbase’s documentation outlines US dollar funding through ACH and Fedwire, with the option to convert deposits into USDC, giving fintechs a practical bridge between bank transfers and blockchain payments. Coinbase Payments will also enable stablecoin acceptance through Spring by Citi, allowing institutional merchants to accept stablecoin payments at checkout while Citi settles the proceeds in fiat. This removes the need for merchants to hold or custody digital assets directly, helping address one of the operational barriers to adoption. The news is particularly notable given Citi banks 15 of the world’s 20 largest fintechs, providing a potential distribution channel into established corporate payment relationships. For Coinbase, the partnership could generate additional payment and conversion activity alongside its crypto trading business, although the revenue contribution will depend on customer adoption and commercial terms. These initiatives, launching first in the US, reinforce the view that blockchain adoption is advancing through partnerships that combine regulated banking, stablecoin infrastructure and existing enterprise distribution.

• Index constituent Circle announced a partnership with Volante to bring USDC payments into banks’ existing infrastructure - Volante plans to add minting, redemption and payment workflows to the platform banks use to manage transactions across different rails. Its banking relationships include Citi, BNY, Goldman Sachs and Wells Fargo, while its wider customer base includes four of the five largest global corporate banks and seven of the ten largest US banks. This gives Circle a potential route into corporate payment flows through systems banks already operate, reducing the work needed to assess USDC as a settlement option. Cross-border payments and treasury transfers are the clearest use cases: a bank could accept fiat from a client, settle the transfer in USDC and arrange conversion back to fiat for the recipient. For Circle, the financial benefit would depend on whether banks move beyond testing and generate repeat flows, particularly if they or their clients hold USDC as operating liquidity. USDC minted and redeemed for each payment could produce substantial volume with little lasting increase in balances or reserve income. No bank has yet been named as adopting USDC through the Volante partnership, making live deployments and sustained balances the key measures of its success.

Other news - Index constituents:

• Hut 8 secured a US$1.07bn, four-year senior secured revolving credit facility at the parent-company level. The facility gives it committed funding to advance data-centre projects before arranging longer-term project financing, potentially reducing the need to issue equity during development. Its value will depend on how quickly Hut 8 converts its wider pipeline into contracted projects that can support their own financing. 

• Strategy purchased 1,665 BTC for US 151.7m of STRC. It funded USv48.1m from its existing cash, while its reserve for preferred dividends and debt interest stood at US$5.02bn. The buybacks support STRC’s trading price, but the use of common equity shows that Strategy has yet to demonstrate sustained preferred-share demand without MSTR dilution. 

• Robinhood announced plans for US crypto perpetual futures through Bitstamp, alongside weekend trading in selected US equities, subject to regulatory review. It also disclosed 4.4bn event contracts traded between 1 and 24 September, approaching August’s 4.7bn for the full month. The update points to a broader active-trading business across crypto, event contracts and equities; the key financial test is how that activity translates into revenue as new products launch. 

• Metaplanet’s independent directors published a detailed response to concerns over its Series 10 management warrants. They confirmed that the automatic increase in underlying shares following new equity issuance has been removed, the shares underlying the warrants have been reduced by approximately 41%, and the changes improve BTC per fully diluted share by around 8.8%. The revisions address a source of future dilution, although the directors said exercised and unexercised Series 10 warrants still account for approximately 12.5% of the company’s shares. 

• Galaxy-backed AllUnity launched USDAU, a fully reserved, MiCAR-compliant US dollar stablecoin, and added instant FX capabilities to its Business Mint Account. Businesses can now move between supported dollar, euro, Swiss franc and Swedish krona stablecoins through one platform, giving AllUnity a more practical cross-border payments and treasury offering than a single-currency token.

• Open Standard’s OUSD went live, with Coinbase, Mastercard, Shopify, Stripe and Visa among its founding companies. Issued by Stripe-owned Bridge, OUSD is available through several payment platforms and is becoming Stripe’s default stablecoin configuration on Tempo. Partners can earn rewards tied to the supply and activity they generate. Coinbase gains another asset for its payments network, while the launch also illustrates the competitive challenge for Circle: large distributors increasingly have an incentive to steer activity towards stablecoins in whose economics they participate.

• SBI Digital Trust agreed with South Korean payments provider NICE Information & Telecommunication and blockchain firm DSRV to test stablecoin-based payments between Japan and Korea. The initial use case envisages Japanese visitors paying by QR code at NICE merchants in Korea, with the joint assessment due by the end of 2026.

Other news – Non - Index constituents:

• Fiserv launched its digital-asset platform with financial-institution clients, using Bank of North Dakota’s Roughrider Coin as its first live application. The dollar-backed stablecoin, issued by VersaBank, is available through Fiserv’s existing commercial banking system to more than 90 participating banks and credit unions for interbank transfers. Its initial scope is regional, but a production deployment through familiar bank software is a more concrete adoption milestone than an announced integration alone.

• Lloyds Banking Group and Visa completed a seven-day pilot in which Lloyds settled US$750,000 of obligations to Visa using USDC, with funds arriving in under an hour, including over a weekend. The trial concerned settlement between institutions rather than customer payments. Its small scale limits the immediate commercial read-through, but it demonstrates how round-the-clock settlement could reduce the liquidity tied up while banks wait for conventional payment windows.

• Swift said most of the 17 banks pioneering its blockchain ledger have now used it for 24/7 payments in five currencies, including corporate treasury and interbank funding transfers. The progress shows that tokenised bank deposits are also moving into cross-border workflows. For private stablecoin issuers, this raises the importance of interoperability with bank infrastructure and of proving where an open, transferable token offers a clearer benefit.

• Cloudflare outlined its Monetization Gateway closed beta, allowing eligible US customers to charge AI agents for access to data, APIs and tools using the x402 payment protocol. Pricing can be set per request, query or token, with agents paying sellers directly. This is a practical development in machine-to-machine payments, creating a potential commercial use case as AI agents become paying users of digital services.

• Kakao Pay Securities signed separate agreements with Ondo Finance and Dinari to explore distributing Korean-listed equities to overseas investors through tokenised shares. The work includes sourcing and custody of the underlying stock, issuance and redemption, and the treatment of dividends and voting rights.

• Morgan Stanley established a Digital Asset Lab to test stablecoins, tokenisation and decentralised-finance applications in an environment separate from its core systems. The breadth of the work suggests the bank is evaluating blockchain infrastructure across payments and investment products, beyond giving clients access to crypto assets.