‼️ $27M lost in Venus Protocol phishing attack

A Venus Protocol ($XVS) user fell victim to a phishing scam, approving a malicious transaction that drained around $27M in crypto.

This involves:
➡️ ~$19.8M $vUSDT
➡️ ~$7.1M $vUSDC
➡️ ~$147.1K $XRP
➡️ ~$22.5K $ETH

Attacker gained token approvals from the victim’s wallet

Phishing remains one of the most effective attack vectors in crypto, one wrong click can wipe out years of gains.

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📊 ETH options whipsaw

Last week showed how quickly sentiment can swing in derivatives.

➡️ Aug 22: upside bias as calls got bid, with 1w skew at -7%
➡️ Aug 25: shift into defense as puts gained demand, with 1w skew at +4%
➡️ Aug 28: back to neutral, with skews flattening across tenors

In plain terms, traders flipped ETH risk pricing from bullish to bearish and then to balanced in less than a week. That speed highlights how fragile conviction is right now.

In this kind of environment, option markets are a compass, they show you not where price is, but where traders are afraid it might go next.

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📈 Elevator Trading Pattern

Some of the sharpest moves in trading don’t come from clean breakouts, they come from failed aggression.

The Elevator setup is a classic example when the market punishes one side for pressing too hard.

Here’s the logic:
➡️ In low-liquidity conditions like month-end, expiries, or seasonal transitions, price becomes vulnerable to sudden flushes

➡️ A sharp drop into support triggers liquidations and attracts new shorts convinced a breakdown is starting

➡️ If price stalls instead of following through, that failure is the signal - sellers already fired their best shot

➡️ Once shorts realize they’re trapped, forced covering creates a violent reversal upward

Elevator down, elevator up. It’s more than a pattern - it’s a reminder that the market rewards patience and punishes those who rush into the obvious move.

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🚀 PumpFun launches Ascend

PumpFun unveiled Ascend — a major upgrade aimed at scaling its ecosystem 100x with a stronger model for coins and communities.

➡️ Dynamic Fees V1: tiered fee system where commissions drop as market cap grows, making launches up to 10x more profitable
➡️ Faster processing: CTO Creator Fee requests now handled 10x quicker
➡️ Goal: attract more projects, creators, and streamers to the platform

A move to turn PumpFun into a more efficient launchpad rather than just a meme machine.

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🐋 Dumb whale, smart market

In 2014 a whale dumped 30,000 BTC on Bitstamp at $300, well below the $330 spot price elsewhere. Panic hit, price briefly crashed to $275, but the market absorbed it and kept moving higher.

➡️ Back then $9M was huge relative to thin liquidity, a single order could move the whole market
➡️ The dump became known as the “bear whale,” a symbol of short-sighted selling
➡️ Buyers who stepped in at $275 captured one of the cleanest asymmetric trades in Bitcoin’s history
➡️ Those same coins would be worth more than $3B today

Now we’re watching a similar show. Another whale is offloading close to 100,000 BTC in the open, clumsily, even rotating part of it into ETH. Around half is already sold.

When supply like this clears, history suggests the market doesn’t follow the whale, it buries him.

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💠 Ethena prepares fee switch activation

Ethena’s $USDe supply surged 42% in the past month to an all-time high of $12.43B, with record August revenues of $61M.

➡️ Two of three conditions for the fee switch are already met:
➡️ $USDe supply above $6B
➡️ Protocol revenue above $250M
➡️ The last milestone is $USDe integration on 4 of the top 5 derivatives exchanges

Once triggered, the fee switch will allow $ENA holders to share protocol revenues for the first time. A key shift from growth mode to value accrual.

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💳 Bybit rolls out crypto debit card in Europe

Bybit has launched a Mastercard crypto debit card, letting users spend BTC, USDC and other tokens directly, with support for Apple Pay and Google Pay.

➡️ 20% cashback on top-ups from $100 in September
➡️ €5 bonus for the first purchase
➡️ Discounts on subscriptions and travel
➡️ No annual fee, already over 2M cards issued

Another step in making crypto look and feel like money you can actually use.

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⚡️Trust Wallet ($TWT) has added support for tokenized stocks and ETFs.

The integration was done in partnership with Ondo Finance ($ONDO) and 1inch ($1INCH), giving users direct access to real financial instruments through DeFi.

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🤑 AlphaTON Capital bets $100M on TON

AlphaTON Capital (Nasdaq: ATON) is launching a new digital asset treasury strategy built around Toncoin and Telegram’s billion-user ecosystem. The plan starts with acquiring about $100M in $TON and building a corporate treasury dedicated to staking, validation, and ecosystem development.

➡️ Formerly Portage Biotech, the company has rebranded as AlphaTON Capital
➡️ Brittany Kaiser appointed CEO, bringing experience in digital assets and governance
➡️ Strategic advisors include Anthony Scaramucci, Michael Terpin, and Jaime Rogozinski
➡️ Partnerships span BitGo, Animoca Brands, Kraken, SkyBridge, and others
➡️ The goal is to blend yield from TON staking with investments in Telegram mini apps, DeFi, and gaming

This move gives public market investors direct exposure to TON, positioning it as a bridge between Wall Street and Telegram’s fast-growing crypto ecosystem.

The bet is clear: if TON becomes a top-10 blockchain by 2026, AlphaTON wants to be the treasury at the center of that growth.

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📊 TPO inefficiencies: where price moves fast

Fast vertical moves leave thin auctions behind. On TPO these show up as single prints - rows with little to no overlap. Think of them as low-liquidity corridors that price can travel through quickly later.

➡️ Mark single print zones from recent sessions. They often act like air pockets until fully traded.

➡️ When price re-enters the zone, expect speed and low friction. Targets are usually the opposite edge of the zone.

➡️ Look for confluence with gaps, imbalance candles, or news. The more overlap, the cleaner the move.

➡️ Use VAH, VAL, and POC as anchors for entries and invalidation. Avoid taking fresh entries in the middle of the zone.

➡️ If the zone gets filled and value builds, the “inefficiency” is gone. Treat it as normal auction again.

TPO does not tell you direction. It tells you where movement can accelerate. Use these zones for context, plan the path of least resistance, and let the market do the heavy lifting.

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