Last week, the crypto market faced dual headwinds: the CLARITY Act stalled in the Senate, and the Federal Reserve raised interest rates for the first time in three years, pushing Bitcoin temporarily down toward near $75,000. However, market anxiety over the legislative stagnation subsequently eased after the SEC granted a five-year innovation exemption for the on-chain trading of tokenized stocks, and the CFTC submitted its crypto market regulatory framework to the White House for review. As a result, Bitcoin reclaimed the $80,000 level. According to HTX platform data, from September 14 to 20, the L1 and DeFi sectors stood out, with ZAMA leading the market with a 72% weekly gain.
L1: Confidential Transaction Products Roll Out Rapidly as Institutional Assets Move On-Chain Faster
ZAMA and NEAR launched new products tailored for confidential transactions in the same week, while AVAX saw the launch of a tokenized fund from a traditional asset manager alongside integration with regulated financial infrastructure.
● ZAMA: Surged 72%. Based on Fully Homomorphic Encryption (FHE) technology, Zama enables smart contracts on existing public chains to process data directly in an encrypted state. On September 15, Zama opened 16 confidential vaults on Morpho, allowing depositors to participate in on-chain yields without publicly disclosing their positions or strategies. Meanwhile, the newly launched Zama Swap protocol supports exchanges between confidential assets. The price of ZAMA continued to rise thereafter, setting a new all-time high over the weekend.
● NEAR: Advanced 70%. On September 17, NEAR launched confidential perpetual contracts via an integration with Hyperliquid, ensuring that traders’ position information is no longer publicly visible. During the same period, confidential capital under NEAR Intents surpassed $70 million. Subsequently, the price of NEAR climbed to its highest level in nearly a year on September 18.
● AVAX: Climbed 54%. On September 17, New York Life Investment Management—which manages approximately $807 billion in assets—deployed its first tokenized fund, HYB, onto Avalanche via Centrifuge. The fund invests in U.S. high-yield corporate bonds. On the same day, regulated blockchain infrastructure provider Paxos announced the integration of Avalanche into its platform, supporting AVAX and native Avalanche USDC, thereby enabling the over 650 institutional clients it serves to build products directly on Avalanche. Additionally, the Helicon mainnet upgrade is scheduled to activate on September 22, shortening the staking lockup period from two weeks to 48 hours. Following these developments, the AVAX price briefly broke above $10.
DeFi: SEC Exemption for Tokenized Stocks Delivered; ARB and UNI Strengthen in Tandem
The innovation exemption issued by the SEC on September 17 allows eligible platforms to trade tokenized U.S. equities via permissioned AMM liquidity pools, requiring such tokens to confer the same rights to holders as the underlying stocks. This development directly aligns with the business focus of Arbitrum and Uniswap, both of which saw concentrated price gains.
● ARB: Posted a 46% gain. Arbitrum is one of the Ethereum Layer 2 networks with a relatively high concentration of tokenized assets. On September 17, the market value of tokenized funds on Arbitrum One reached a new record high, covering products such as Treasuries, credit funds, and various yield strategies. Following the SEC exemption, market expectations grew that Arbitrum could serve as one of the settlement networks for tokenized securities, driving ARB’s price to its highest point since January this year.
● UNI: Increased 39%. The permissioned AMM model adopted in the SEC exemption aligns with the permissioned pool design of Uniswap v4, which can restrict trading participants to verified wallet addresses. While the SEC did not explicitly endorse any specific platform, the market broadly viewed this as an opportunity for Uniswap to expand into tokenized securities trading.
Meme, Storage, and Launchpad Assets Rise in Sync
● 龙虾 (Lobster): Rallied 65%. 龙虾 is a Meme asset on the BNB Chain, with an image originating from an official Chinese-language lobster graphic post by Binance,and a name that echoes the OpenClaw discussion in the AI field. This marks the second consecutive week that 龙虾 has entered the gainers list, with its market capitalization surpassing $240 million last week to hit an all-time high. The price of Meme assets relies heavily on community sentiment, and pullbacks can happen just as fast as rallies. Market participants should fully understand the associated risks.
● AR: Jumped 60%. Arweave is a network providing permanent on-chain data storage, and the AO network running atop it provides a decentralized computing environment for applications such as AI Agents.
● STONK: Gained 40%. StonkFun is a token launchpad on Solana where new tokens can choose tokenized stocks, ETFs, or other crypto assets as trading pairs. STONK itself is paired with SPYx, which tracks the S&P 500 Index. The platform uses revenue to buy back and burn STONK, having burned over 14% of the supply as of mid-September.
With Legislation Stalled, Tokenization Becomes the Regulatory Breakthrough
The price gains in AVAX, ARB, and UNI last week were all linked to tokenized assets. New York Life chose to deploy its fund on Avalanche, tokenized fund volumes on Arbitrum hit record highs, and these developments came in the same week that the SEC outlined a trading path for tokenized stocks. During the few days legislative progress stalled, regulators offered more concrete arrangements in this direction, and the market reacted accordingly.
Variables remain regarding how far the rebound can go. Federal Reserve interest rate projections indicate another rate hike remains possible within the year. Glassnode noted that stablecoin market cap growth has slowed and the pace of Bitcoin additions by public companies has weakened, showing that new off-market capital remains insufficient. Whether Bitcoin can continue its breakout above $80,000 will determine if this rally can spread to more assets. HTX will continue to track developments across major crypto sectors and provide users with timely asset information and reliable trading services.
The post first appeared on HTX Square.
