VanEck Crypto Monthly Recap For September 2025

Summary Most tokens finished September lower, with 23 of 35 major assets declining as late-month selloffs erased earlier ￰0￱ like Bitmine and MicroStrategy drive total DAT assets to approximately $135B, although sustainability depends on maintaining volatility-driven ￰1￱ and Hyperliquid captured nearly one-third (32%) of all blockchain fees as perpetual futures trading volumes jumped (+30%) MoM, powered by Aster’s token launch and incentive farming.. September brought familiar weakness across crypto markets with token declines, lower blockchain revenues from fading volatility, and renewed focus on Solana’s Alpenglow upgrade, Ethereum’s Fusaka milestone, and enterprise blockchain ￰2￱ note that VanEck may have a position(s) in the digital asset(s) described ￰3￱ Returns September (%) YTD (%) MarketVector Global Digital Assets Equity Index 21.77 50.04 Coinbase 10.82 35.92 Nasdaq Index 5.59 17.33 Bitcoin ( BTC-USD ) 5.18 21.70 S&P 500 Index 3.51 13.70 MarketVector Smart Contract Leaders Index -0.34 1.69 MarketVector Meme Coin Index -0.88 -47.85 MarketVector Infrastructure Application Leaders Index -1.09 -38.15 Ethereum ( ETH-USD ) -4.94 23.49 MarketVector Decentralized Finance Leaders Index -12.43 -40.34) — 1-Year Performance), ETH was down (-5%), and the performance of the alt-token complex was mixed, with the MarketVector Smart Contract Leaders Index (MVSCLE) flat (0%).

Thematically, stablecoins once again seized the narrative with Plasma’s ((XPL)) $10B chain launch that included a $1.25B+ airdrop to users of the platform as well as Binance’s BNB token stakers. This, alongside the emergence of Binance’s Perps exchange, called Aster ( ASTER-USD ), contributed to BNB’s (+16%) outperformance on the ￰4￱ seasoned crypto investor is not surprised by September’s weak ￰5￱ 2016, across the 35 tokens we track, September has delivered negative returns (62%) of the ￰6￱ both BTC and ETH recorded positive returns in September in each of the last two years, looking back further in history reveals a typical ￰7￱ posted negative results in six consecutive Septembers prior, while ETH was negative in five of the previous ￰8￱ average, since 2016, BTC has returned (–3%) in September, while ETH has lost (–7%).

Onchain, spot crypto decentralized exchange (DEX) volumes were roughly equal to those in August at approximately $365B. However, the trading volume of perpetual futures (perps) on DEXes was (+30%), and this surge was almost entirely due to the trading on BNB’s Aster, which we cover later in this ￰9￱ the explosion in “farming” volumes on Aster, perp volumes were actually down (-15%) ￰10￱ Revenues Decline due to Reduced Volatility One of the most notable onchain developments in September was the broad decline in blockchain revenues, which fell (-16%) ￰11￱ major networks, Ethereum’s revenue decreased by (-6%), Solana’s ( SOL-USD ) by (-11%), and Tron’s by a striking (-37%).

This contraction was largely driven by reduced crypto market volatility, evidenced by volatility declines of SOL (-16%), ETH (-40%), and BTC (-26%) ￰12￱ reduced volatility for digital assets, there are fewer arbitrage opportunities to compel traders to pay high priority fees. Tron’s sharp drop, however, was more related to the onchain governance Proposal #104, which more than halved transaction ￰13￱ Decreases Across Most Projects): (+53%) Avalanche ( AVAX-USD ): (+24%) Binance ( BNB-USD ): (+16%) Laggards Polygon (POL) ( MATIC-USD ): (-19%) Arbitrum (ARB): (-17%) Toncoin (TON) ( TONCOIN-USD ): (-14%) Digital Asset Treasury ((DAT)) Update Thematically, September 2025 was characterized by the continued growth of digital asset treasuries (DATs), which swelled to hold around ~$135B in assets (~53% in MSTR).

DATs are entities that utilize financialization to increase common share exposure to digital ￰14￱ DAT EVs currently trade at mNAV premiums to the value of their digital asset treasury ￰15￱ believe this is partly explained by the market assigning a premium to entities that have a credible long-term ability to increase per-share digital asset ￰16￱ purchase more digital assets, companies often sell securities whose valuations are linked to the underlying volatility of the company’s ￰17￱ order to “reap” the benefits of the volatility of their common shares (and the underlying digital assets), these entities must price the volatility they are selling well below the implied volatility of ￰18￱ allows sophisticated market participants to buy relatively cheap volatility (through common shares, convertible debt, or warrant sales) and hedge against relatively expensive options ￰19￱ savvy traders then expect the volatility of the two positions to converge over time, enabling a profit on the ￰20￱ Enjoys Almost Twice the Daily Turnover of Other DATs).

As a result, DATs without a developed options market must offer investors large discounts on volatility. Recently, Bitmine Immersion, the largest ETH DAT with >$11B in ETH holdings, sold common shares priced at $70 (when the stock was trading at $61.39). Alongside these common shares were two attached warrants to purchase additional shares at a higher price. Effectively, Bitmine sold investors common shares in BNMR with two free call options with a strike price of $87.50.

Using options math, each of these warrants is worth about $20 on its own. Combined, Bitmine sold a package worth $104.61 ($61.39 + $21.61 + $21.61) for $70. This means BNMR is underpricing volatility by selling warrants at a steep discount, which is quite a caper for the trader who can manage the options ￰21￱ back, BNMR is the most widely traded DAT by nearly a factor of two and still had to underprice its volatility by ~75% to provide enough juice for speculators to buy its ￰22￱ investors should take note that these “volatility reactors,” as Saylor calls DATs, necessitate continual volatility to enable further purchase of ￰23￱ almost a decade, cryptocurrency volatility has declined, and if this trend persists, it threatens the ability of DATs to finance more crypto ￰24￱ speculative zest fades at the same time and more digital asset products become available, mNAV should therefore fade because investors can no longer count on most DATs to expand their treasuries ￰25￱ 30-Day Trailing Volatility Trending Lower Due to Adoption) to generate ￰26￱ recently confirmed at a conference that Strategy would pursue this approach under circumstances where he could not issue shares due to MSTR mNAV Solana Update (+2%) SOL/ETH Below 1-Year Trendline).

In September, the two major DAT behemoths, Forward ($1.5B) and Helius ($500M), began operations, which translated into increased buying demand for ￰27￱ the time of writing, it is estimated that Solana DATs hold 2.5% of the total SOL supply, and there are rumors that more SOL DATs may be ￰28￱ the technical development standpoint, Solana opened the month with its validators voting to pass the Alpenglow upgrade by a (98%) ￰29￱ believe this is the largest upgrade to Solana’s consensus in its history, as it is the first step towards changing many core features of the Solana ￰30￱ of the most monumental impacts include: Faster finality time, dropping from 12s to 150ms Offchain voting on blocks Improved validator economics Simpler, faster network communication mechanisms Higher levels of consensus stability Improved efficiency As a consequence of the Alpenglow upgrade, there have been calls by some developers to increase the capacity of each block on ￰31￱ transaction on Solana is quantified by the computing power needed to process ￰32￱ measurement of computing power is called “compute units,” and there is a limit to how many compute units a transaction can demand.

Additionally, there is a limit on how many compute units an entire block of transactions can contain. Effectively, Solana’s transaction throughput is limited by the number of compute units that can be packed into each block. Already, Solana is on track to increase block capacity by 25% by the end of the year, while Jump’s Firedancer team recently proposed SIMD-0370 to remove Solana’s fixed compute unit block limit entirely. Another, deeper change to Solana’s architecture comes from creating the “P-token” which is intended to replace the current token format called “SPL token.” The SPL tokens are inefficient because they consume a substantial number of compute units when they are transferred or ￰33￱ 10% of all of Solana’s blockspace (a rough synonym for compute unit capacity of each block) is utilized by SPL token compute ￰34￱ “P-token” will reduce the compute needs of tokens by 95%.

As a result, Solana can increase its transaction throughput by nearly 10%. In terms of its offering for the current financial system, Solana has been winning market share for products like tokenized ￰35￱ the past few months, Solana has hosted 60% of the volume on its ￰36￱ the same time, Solana added $2B worth of stablecoins to its blockchain to bring its total to $14.3B. Enterprise Blockchains Re-Emerge Cryptocurrency is the nexus of cryptography, distributed systems, and economics to create a private money that competes with government-backed ￰37￱ Bitcoin proved that decentralized networks could coordinate and transfer value, others began to experiment with building blockchains with fewer technical ￰38￱ these actors were corporations and foundations dedicated to building chains that solved issues plaguing large ￰39￱ blockchains presented a range of potential applications, the majority of corporate endeavors were exploratory in nature, motivated by a desire to align with perceived trends rather than by serious strategic ￰40￱ example, in 2016, JP Morgan forked Ethereum to create Quorum, a permissioned chain for use by financial institutions, that incorporated smart contracts to speed up asset settlement, enforce repo transactions, and reduce compliance checks in cross-border ￰41￱ 2018, entities such as Walmart and Carrefour were utilizing blockchain to trace the origin of vegetables sold in their ￰42￱ interesting experiment was HSBC’s Voltron digitizing letters of credit and MineHub, which placed a BHP iron-ore trade on a private blockchain in ￰43￱ the shipping sector, Tradelens, a collaboration of IBM and Maersk, used IBM’s Fabric distributed ledger to document global shipping data and ￰44￱ majority of these early projects delivered little more than PR buzz and tax breaks from R&D ￰45￱ were proof-of-concepts that either lacked a real-world problem to solve or were blocked by regulatory ￰46￱ collapsed altogether when their values failed to exceed the necessary moment to launch beyond the gravitational pull of stakeholders wedded to legacy ￰47￱ the latest surge in token prices as well as the pending legislation on stablecoins and digital assets, corporations are once again exploring blockchain use.

However, this time appears to be different because there is both legal clarity and encouragement for utilizing blockchain coming from Washington, ￰48￱ appears that this is the “crypto moment” in the same way that 2009 was a “green energy moment” with the ascension of Barack Obama to the ￰49￱ of the most eye-catching “enterprise” blockchain projects include: Figure Technologies Provenance is a Cosmos ( ATOM-USD ) blockchain that is used as a ledger of record for HELOCs and, in the future, other asset-backed ￰50￱ SWIFT is collaborating with 30 financial institutions to create a shared digital ledger that will be interoperable with existing ￰51￱ Generale Forge is a fully regulated and compliant platform for tokenization and stablecoins, enabling connections to public blockchains and traditional market ￰52￱ Tempo is an Ethereum based network that will become a neutral stablecoin payments network which can be used by agentic ￰53￱ Asset Canton, a collaboration between DRW, Tradeweb, and GS, is a privacy-first, settlement network for securities trading and asset exchanges between financial ￰54￱ Arca, Circle’s USDC-focused payments ￰55￱ Worldchain is blockchain created to host the ID system that will distinguish human users from AI users on the ￰56￱ Base is Coinbase’s ( COIN ) home for DeFi and crypto payments including the likely home of Cloudflare’s AI agentic payment stablecoin ￰57￱ The Ripple ( XRP-USD ) network is creating a settlement system and payments financial entities like the major prime broker Hidden ￰58￱ Kinexys Digital Payments network to create programable, cross-chain payments 24/7.

Ethereum Update (-2%) ETH traded down slightly (-2%) in September, underperforming BTC’s (+7%) gain after two months of double-digit outperformance in July and ￰59￱ transactions fell (-8.7%) to 47.2M from the all-time high of 51.7M set in August but remained the second-highest month on record. Similarly, DEX trading volumes fell (-20.3%) to $111.9B from all-time highs of $140.5B set in August, the third-highest month on record behind the previous cycle highs of $118.1B set in June ￰60￱ $1.74T, stablecoin transfer volumes on Ethereum were also the second highest on record in September, down (-4%) from all-time highs of $1.80T in August, up (+105%) ￰61￱ Fusaka Upgrade Ethereum’s scaling roadmap is entering its next phase with the planned Fusaka upgrade in December 2025, which will introduce Peer Data Availability Sampling (PeerDAS).

PeerDAS helps improve Ethereum’s Layer-2 (L2) blockchain scalability by reducing the data requirements needed by Ethereum validators to verify the ￰62￱ a result, Fusaka is designed to relieve one of the network’s most pressing bottlenecks: data availability for ￰63￱ Count Reached New Target For The First Time Since The Dencun Upgrade) forks, with Fusaka providing the critical technical ￰64￱ said, PeerDAS introduces complexity, relying on erasure coding and statistical ￰65￱ are intentionally conservative in their approach, rolling out capacity in phases to minimize the risk of bandwidth spikes or validator ￰66￱ implications of Fusaka are ￰67￱ expanding blob capacity, the upgrade should lower costs for L2 rollups, translating into cheaper transactions for end ￰68￱ else equal, this should bring more onchain economic activity into Ethereum’s ￰69￱ Fusaka may not materially restore L1 fee burns, since L2 adoption has historically cannibalized Ethereum’s mainnet fee revenue, the upgrade reinforces ETH’s role at the center of Ethereum’s broader ￰70￱ chart below highlights this dynamic, showing how declining L1 fee revenues have coincided with rising ETH dilution for ￰71￱ L1 Fees Are Driving Net ETH Dilution for Non-Stakers) gained (+1.5%) this month, cooling off after being one of the Top 100 crypto’s best performers YTD (+88%).

Aster (ASTER), another decentralized exchange specializing in perpetual futures trading, stole the spotlight after launching its ASTER token in September, which is up (+1,667%) since it began trading on September ￰72￱ price action, both protocols are now among the top fee generators in the crypto space, together accounting for nearly one-third (32%) of all blockchain fee revenues as of late ￰73￱ futures (“perps”) are derivatives that let traders speculate on the price of an asset with leverage but without expiry dates, making them the dominant product on centralized exchanges like Binance and OKX. Hyperliquid’s success comes from transplanting this model onchain with a fully on-chain, high-performance order book deployed on its own ￰74￱ earlier perp decentralized exchanges (“DEXs”) that relied on automated market makers (e.

g., GMX’s GLP pools) or hybrid off-chain order books (e. g., dYdX v3), Hyperliquid handles matching and risk management natively at the chain ￰75￱ architecture enables it to provide instant user feedback on centralized exchanges while maintaining non-custodial ￰76￱ offers a superior user experience to legacy AMM-based DeFi applications that have been lauded by sophisticated and retail traders ￰77￱ result has been strong adoption in perp trading volume and fee generation, with Hyperliquid now ranking among the top protocols in DeFi revenues. Hyperliquid’s native HYPE token is a fee-sharing token, allowing holders to earn a share of the protocol’s fees when staking the ￰78￱ a circulating basis, HYPE’s $12.2B market cap against $976M in annualized revenues values the DEX at 12.5x P/S, roughly in line with centralized exchange (“CEX”) comps such as Coinbase (11.5x) or Robinhood (23.7x).

However, on a fully diluted basis, HYPE trades at 45.7x revenues, a valuation more akin to high-growth SaaS than ￰79￱ think this is a more appropriate ￰80￱ is ongoing uncertainty around how uncirculated HYPE tokens will be treated; a proposal to burn (45%) of HYPE’s 1 billion supply cap was rejected in late ￰81￱ is also important to note that Hyperliquid’s annualized revenues can be highly volatile and may not be sustainable in the long ￰82￱ is because substantial amounts of the application’s trading activity is driven by HYPE token ￰83￱ by CZ’s family office YZi Labs, Aster leapt into the perps DEX conversation since launching its ASTER token on Binance’s BNB Chain in ￰84￱ platform announced a points program that allocates (4%) of total supply, worth roughly $524M at a $13.1B FDV, to users based on their trading volumes, holding time, and other ￰85￱ these incentives have driven sufficient volumes to reach the #1 position in crypto-native fees in late September, open interest suggests that this hasn’t earned users’ long-term capital.

Rather, much of Aster’s fee generation appears to be wash trading by users “farming” the airdrop, as opposed to organic perp demand; at ~$1.6B, Aster’s open interest remains less than one-eighth that of Hyperliquid’s. Hyperliquid's Open Interest Is >8x Aster's 8x Aster's" contenteditable="false">)): A decentralized digital currency enabling peer-to-peer transactions without intermediaries or a central ￰86￱ ((ETH)): A decentralized smart-contract platform used to build and run applications and Layer-2 ￰87￱ Coin (BNB): The native asset of BNB Chain used for transaction fees, staking, and ecosystem ￰88￱ ((SOL)): A high-throughput Layer-1 blockchain; SOL is used for fees and staking to secure the ￰89￱ ((TRX)): A Layer-1 blockchain focused on high-volume payments and stablecoin transfers; TRX is used for fees and ￰90￱ (AVAX): A Layer-1 platform supporting custom subnets; AVAX is used for fees, staking, and ￰91￱ (POL): The ecosystem token for Polygon’s multi-chain/L2 stack, used for staking/validation and ￰92￱ ((ARB)): The governance token of the Arbitrum Layer-2 ecosystem; not required for gas on Arbitrum ￰93￱ (TON): The native asset of The Open Network (TON), used for fees, staking, and on-chain ￰94￱ (MNT): (spelled “Mantel” in draft) An Ethereum Layer-2 network; MNT is a governance/utility token within the Mantle ￰95￱ (WLD): The token of the Worldcoin identity/payments ecosystem (Worldchain), used for governance and ￰96￱ Coin ((USDC)): A fiat-backed U.

S.-dollar stablecoin issued by regulated partners, designed to maintain a 1:1 USD ￰97￱ ((ATOM)): The staking/governance token of the Cosmos Hub within the IBC interoperability ￰98￱ (HYPE): The native token of the Hyperliquid L1 + perps DEX, used for staking/fee-sharing and protocol ￰99￱ (ASTER): The token of the Aster perpetuals DEX on BNB Chain, used for incentives, fees, and ￰100￱ ((XPL)): The native token of the Plasma Layer-1 chain, used for transaction fees, network security, and governance (launched with an airdrop). dYdX (DYDX): A governance/utility token for the dYdX derivatives protocol, supporting staking and ecosystem ￰101￱ ((GLP)): GMX’s liquidity-provider index token representing a basket of collateral on GMX; entitles holders to a share of protocol ￰102￱ ((NET)): A proposed stablecoin for agentic/automated payments referenced in the draft; details and issuance are subject to ￰103￱ Considerations This is not an offer to buy or sell, or a recommendation to buy or sell any of the securities, financial instruments or digital assets mentioned ￰104￱ information presented does not involve the rendering of personalized investment, financial, legal, tax advice, or any call to ￰105￱ statements contained herein may constitute projections, forecasts and other forward-looking statements, which do not reflect actual results, are for illustrative purposes only, are valid as of the date of this communication, and are subject to change without ￰106￱ future performance of any assets or industries mentioned are ￰107￱ provided by third party sources are believed to be reliable and have not been independently verified for accuracy or completeness and cannot be ￰108￱ does not guarantee the accuracy of third party ￰109￱ information herein represents the opinion of the author(s), but not necessarily those of VanEck or its other ￰110￱ performance is not representative of fund ￰111￱ is not possible to invest directly in an ￰112￱ in digital assets and Web3 companies are highly speculative and involve a high degree of ￰113￱ risks include, but are not limited to: the technology is new and many of its uses may be untested; intense competition; slow adoption rates and the potential for product obsolescence; volatility and limited liquidity, including but not limited to, inability to liquidate a position; loss or destruction of key(s) to access accounts or the blockchain; reliance on digital wallets; reliance on unregulated markets and exchanges; reliance on the internet; cybersecurity risks; and the lack of regulation and the potential for new laws and regulation that may be difficult to predict.

Moreover, the extent to which Web3 companies or digital assets utilize blockchain technology may vary, and it is possible that even widespread adoption of blockchain technology may not result in a material increase in the value of such companies or digital ￰114￱ asset prices are highly volatile, and the value of digital assets, and Web3 companies, can rise or fall dramatically and ￰115￱ their value goes down, there’s no guarantee that it will rise ￰116￱ a result, there is a significant risk of loss of your entire principal ￰117￱ assets are not generally backed or supported by any government or central bank and are not covered by FDIC or SIPC ￰118￱ at digital asset custodians and exchanges are not protected by SPIC and are not FDIC insured.

Furthermore, markets and exchanges for digital assets are not regulated with the same controls or customer protections available in traditional equity, option, futures, or foreign exchange ￰119￱ assets include, but are not limited to, cryptocurrencies, tokens, NFTs, assets stored or created using blockchain technology, and other Web3 products. Web3 companies include but are not limited to, companies that involve the development, innovation, and/or utilization of blockchain, digital assets, or crypto ￰120￱ investing is subject to risk, including the possible loss of the money you ￰121￱ with any investment strategy, there is no guarantee that investment objectives will be met and investors may lose ￰122￱ does not ensure a profit or protect against a loss in a declining ￰123￱ performance is no guarantee of future performance. © Van Eck Associates ￰124￱ Post