Seagate rose more than 5% in after-hours trading, with Q4 revenue and adjusted earnings per share both beating expectations.

Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev commented on the SEC’s approval of limited trading for tokenized stocks on on-chain platforms, stating: “Tokenization is coming to the U.S. Thanks to the SEC’s leadership, Americans can finally start reaping the benefits of tokenization—including instant settlement, round-the-clock trading, and default support for fractional trading. This is a good day for U.S. innovation, as more users will gain access to crypto technology and the wide range of financial innovations it enables.”

According to market data from BIT (bit.com), the three major U.S. stock indexes opened higher across the board: the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.9%, the S&P 500 gained 1.2%, and the Nasdaq climbed 1.5%. Semiconductor stocks rallied broadly, with the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index surging nearly 3%, Qualcomm up around 3%, and Intel rising roughly 5%. Memory chip stocks posted widespread gains, with SK Hynix jumping about 5%. Optical communications stocks also saw broad advances, with Marvell Technology adding around 5%.

According to GMGN market data, following the SEC’s approval of limited trading for tokenized stocks on on-chain platforms, most popular Robinhood-linked stock meme coins have rallied, including: MEME rose 25% in the past hour, with its market cap topping $42 million, paired with tokenized AMC; BONER’s market cap exceeded $47 million, up over 27.5% in 24 hours, paired with tokenized HIMS; microduck’s market cap hit $6.2 million, up more than 35% in 24 hours, paired with tokenized NVDA; Artificial Inu (AI) has a market cap of over $330 million, rising more than 22% in 24 hours, paired with tokenized NVDA; CATGPT gained 43% in the past hour, with its market cap breaking $2 million, paired with tokenized OPENAIx1L; MOO’s market cap surpassed $23 million, up over 57% in 24 hours, paired with tokenized MU; GME’s market cap reached $1 million, up more than 52% in 24 hours, paired with tokenized GME; NUDES’ market cap exceeded $4.5 million, up over 53% in 24 hours, paired with tokenized SNAP; Meanwhile, PONS has a market cap of over $650 million, rising more than 17% in 24 hours. Stock Meme is an emerging trend that combines traditional meme coins with tokenized US stocks: instead of pairing with USDT or ETH, these meme coins are directly matched with on-chain US stock tokens (such as NVDA, TSLA, etc.), retaining the high volatility and community-driven speculative traits of meme coins while leveraging the popularity and narrative of real stocks. Often, a portion of transaction fees is returned to the community treasury to accumulate corresponding US stock tokens, forming a dual-driven model of "sentiment speculation + real asset anchoring". BlockBeats reminds users that prices of related tokens are highly volatile, so investors should exercise caution.

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.