Zcash mining firm Fortitude has appointed former Hut 8 CEO as its chief executive officer, and plans to go public on Nasdaq via a merger.

Renowned crypto analyst PlanB released a chart comparing Bitcoin’s network mining difficulty and price, noting that investors should wait for Bitcoin’s mining difficulty to rebound. The chart shows that as of September 16, the network’s total mining difficulty stood at around 127T, with Bitcoin’s price clearly trading below its production cost band. Between 2024 and 2025, the two metrics rose largely in tandem; in 2026, mining difficulty shifted to sideways movement and even dipped briefly, while Bitcoin’s price led the decline. PlanB argues that mining difficulty is a more accurate reflection of Bitcoin’s market price at this stage than models like S2F (Stock-to-Flow) and the power law, as it closely correlates with miners’ computing power and BTC production costs. He also emphasized that this is not an immediate buy signal, but rather a key metric to monitor miners’ production cycles: if mining difficulty rises again, it may signal miners ramping up operations, further confirming a market bottom; if difficulty continues to decline, the market remains in a deleveraging phase.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has approved a temporary, conditional exemption allowing limited trading of tokenized stocks on on-chain platforms. Commissioner Mark T. Uyeda issued a statement on the "Innovation Exemption." This temporary, conditional exemption permits limited trading of tokenized regulated stocks on specific on-chain venues called "Tokenized Securities Venues (TSVs)", with the goal of helping the commission better understand how such venues operate to inform future policy development. Uyeda noted that technological innovation often precedes rulebooks, and the commission’s objective should be to focus on outcomes and implement technology-neutral regulation—adapting to on-chain environments while upholding investor protection and market integrity. The exemption allows TSVs to temporarily avoid being deemed "exchanges" under the Securities Exchange Act when offering licensed trading of tokenized regulated stocks via innovative automated market makers and liquidity pools, provided they meet requirements including public notice, trading transparency, halt coordination, record-keeping, and technical safeguards. Structured as a controlled model, the exemption includes trading code restrictions and volume caps based on price limit tiers. It also mandates regular public disclosure of USD-denominated trading data, such as price, size, time, pool address, end-of-day pool size, and daily trading volume, to reduce information asymmetry and support monitoring and research. Additionally, the exemption provides tailored relief for certain market makers that supply liquidity with their own funds, offering regulatory clarity when they meet disclosure and record-keeping obligations.

Crypto.com’s US-regulated derivatives platform Nadex has registered with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to trade securities futures products via OG.com. The registration took effect on September 14, and the SEC confirmed the filing on September 16. CEO Kris Marszalek said the authorization allows the firm to introduce single-stock futures to the US market, while it is also collaborating with the SEC and Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to launch single-stock perpetual contracts—futures contracts with no fixed expiration date—in the US. US trading platforms are racing to roll out stock perpetual futures. Earlier this month, Coinbase also submitted a similar registration notice seeking to list stock perpetual contracts in the US; its Chief Policy Officer Faryar Shirzad noted that CFTC approval is still required.

According to BIT (bit.com) market data, the U.S. pre-market semiconductor and chip sector is rallying, with the following individual stock gains: Nvidia rose 2.25%, and Jensen Huang just announced that Nvidia’s chip sales will double next year compared to this year. TSMC gained 1.77%, Broadcom climbed 2.50%, SK Hynix advanced 3.62%, Micron Technology rose 2.77%; Intel gained 3.47%, ASML rose 2.59%, Lam Research jumped 4.37%, Arm Holdings surged 4.93%; SanDisk rose 3.20%, Qualcomm gained 3.33%, Western Digital climbed 3.54%, Seagate Technology advanced 3.58%; Marvell Technology rose 4.52%, Lumentum gained 3.11%, and Coherent jumped 4.67%.

According to HTX market data, Bitcoin has broken through $77,000, posting a 1.77% gain in the last 24 hours.

Jensen Huang: Nvidia’s chip sales next year will double this year’s volume. AI security is critical; unsafe products must be curbed. According to BIT (bit.com) market data, Nvidia (NVDA.O) is up 2.2% in pre-market trading.