The outgoing week was rich in events that determined the direction of the market. Bitcoin demonstrated volatility, reacting to the rhetoric of the Fed Chair, while the industry took an important step in preparing for the post-quantum era, and the Solana ecosystem made a fateful decision on monetary policy.
Bitcoin: Correction After Verbal Intervention
The first cryptocurrency attempted to hold above $81,000 during the week, reaching a local high of $81,354 on Binance. However, on Friday, the market received a signal from Fed Chair Kevin Warsh, who confirmed commitment to the 2% inflation target, noting that the summer weakening of data is not a sustainable trend. This statement triggered a sharp drop in price below $76,000.
Market expectations instantly shifted: the probability of a rate hike at the September meeting rose from 35.4% to 57%. Nevertheless, by the time of writing this review, the asset had recovered to $79,000, gaining more than 1.5% over the day and maintaining a weekly gain of about 2%. Notably, inflows into spot Bitcoin ETFs slowed to $934.5 million compared to $1.92 billion a week earlier, and Friday saw an outflow of $202 million, breaking a nine-day streak of net inflows. Against this backdrop, the fear and greed index adjusted from a local high of 74 points to 69, remaining in the extreme greed zone.
Quantum Breakthrough: StarkWare and Ethereum Prepare the Ground
The key event for the technological development of the industry was the first-ever transaction on the Bitcoin mainnet resistant to attacks using a quantum computer. StarkWare developers implemented the Quantum Safe Bitcoin (QSB) scheme, which uses a signature grinding technique to create an additional layer of protection based on hash functions. This solution does not require changes to consensus rules, but it remains expensive and slow for now: preparing a single operation can take hours and cost hundreds of dollars. It is important to understand that this is an emergency mechanism for migrating individual coins, not full protection for the entire network.
In parallel, Ethereum developers proposed a new version of the deposit contract that makes the validator onboarding mechanism independent of a specific cryptographic scheme. This creates a foundation for a future transition to post-quantum algorithms without reworking infrastructure, introducing a flexible format with the Scheme 0 identifier for the current BLS standard.
Solana: A Decisive Step Toward Disinflation
The Solana community approved proposal SGP-0002, doubling the annual disinflation rate from 15% to 30%. The initiative received 176.29 million SOL in favor. This will accelerate the achievement of the 1.5% target inflation from 5.7 to 2.8 years and reduce issuance by approximately 18.9 million SOL over six years. However, it is worth noting that nominal staking yields will decline from the current 5.84% to 4.34% in the first year, which could affect the attractiveness of validation for some network participants.
My view: The market continues to be in a phase of high sensitivity to macroeconomic signals, and the recent correction is a healthy reaction to overheating. However, StarkWare's actions and Ethereum's initiatives are not just technological experiments but strategic preparation by the industry for future threats. This is a signal of market maturation, laying the foundation for sustainable growth in the long term, regardless of current price fluctuations.