FalconX to Buy ETF Provider 21Shares
FalconX considers IPO as cryptocurrency deals boom. Plus the top news, stats, and reports.
Issue Summary: Welcome back to Coinstack, the weekly newsletter for institutional crypto investors and industry insiders. We reviewed the top news, stats, and reports in the digital asset ecosystem for our 340k weekly subscribers. This week, FalconX announced plans to acquire ETF provider 21Shares, Gemini launched a Solana credit card offering SOL token rewards and staking, and 21Shares, Bitwise, and WisdomTree opened UK retail access to Bitcoin and Ethereum ETPs following new FCA approval. Solana DEX aggregator Jupiter unveiled its Ultra v3 platform featuring improved trade execution, MEV protections, and gasless support, while Uniswap’s web app added native support for Solana. On the fundraising front, Printr raised $4.5M in a round co-led by Axelar and LayerZero, Better Payment Network (BPN) secured $50M in seed financing led by YZi Labs, and Daylight raised $75M led by Framework Ventures. Rounding out the week, Zeta Network Group raised $231M through a Bitcoin-funded private placement and Tempo raised $500M in a Series A led by Thrive Capital and Greenoaks.
Published by Coinstack Partners
Coinstack Partners helps crypto/web3 companies raise funding from crypto venture capital firms and family offices for Series Seed/A/B/C rounds of $1M to $50M. The firm has relationships across many of the top 300 crypto venture capital firms across North America, Asia, and Europe. To discuss venture capital fundraising services for your company, please review our deck and schedule a free consultation.
Thanks to Our Coinstack Sponsors…
Tap into the $8.5T Generative AI Economy with CEEK, the AI-powered platform securing content as digital assets on the Blockchain. Trusted by Meta, Universal Music, and Microsoft, CEEK enables users with Agentic AI tools to create, monetize and scale content and expertise. CEEK is the Web3 Monetization OS for the new economy. 👉 Learn more at www.ceek.com
First Block’s vision is clear: a world where every stock, bond, fund, and real asset can be tokenized, traded, and settled in real time. By merging the discipline of Wall Street with the innovation of blockchain, First Block is creating the infrastructure for liquid, compliant, and borderless capital markets. Learn more at www.firstblock.ai
Become a Coinstack Sponsor
To reach our weekly audience of 340,000 crypto insiders, view our sponsor deck and schedule a call to discuss sponsoring Coinstack.
💵 Weekly Crypto Fundraises & Deals
Here are all the crypto fundraises we heard about this week, ranked by size…
🗞️ Crypto News Recap: The Top 5 Stories
Welcome back to This Week in Crypto… everything you need to know in one scannable format. Here are the top 5 stories of the week…
🏦 FalconX to Buy ETF Provider 21Shares: FalconX, a crypto-trading firm, agreed to acquire 21shares, one of the largest managers of exchange-traded funds that invest in digital assets.
🚀 Gemini launches Solana credit card with SOL token rewards and staking: Crypto exchange Gemini is launching a “Solana edition” of its popular crypto credit card, offering up to 4% back on token rewards on every purchase.
🏛️ 21Shares, Bitwise and WisdomTree open UK retail access to Bitcoin and Ethereum ETPs following FCA approval: Crypto asset managers 21Shares, Bitwise, and WisdomTree are opening up access to their Bitcoin exchange-traded products to UK retail investors for the first time
⛽️ Solana decentralized exchange aggregator Jupiter unveils Ultra v3 offering improved trade execution, MEV protections and ‘gasless support’: Solana decentralized exchange aggregator Jupiter has unveiled the third version of its Ultra protocol, calling it “the most advanced end-to-end trading engine ever created.”
📄 Uniswap’s web app starts support for Solana:Decentralized exchange Uniswap announced that its web application now supports Solana, allowing users to connect their Solana wallet and swap SOL tokens directly from the app.
💬 Tweet of the Week
📊 Key Stats of the Week
Here are the most important and interesting stats in crypto this week...
1. More than half of all SOL open interest (roughly $8.4B) has been wiped month-over-month.
While SOL has bounced from its monthly lows after a 20% price drawdown, open interest has yet to recover.
By comparison, BTC OI declined 14% while ETH OI dropped 27%.
Many shops were out of position here and packed up early. Conviction has yet to return, but that could be a mistake. Lots of momentum on the way: staking ETFs, Alpenglow, DAT pressure, and more.
2. 2x ETHER ETF emerged from the flames last week as the single-largest inflow recipient ($457M) among crypto investment products, even as the broader market bled.
3. Markets are down, but fiat continues to pour onchain to be transformed into programmable money. In the past 30 days alone, Tether.io (+7%), Circle (+4%), and PayPal (+111%) added another $10.6B to circulating supply.
Users are increasingly pursuing native DeFi yield, even in the most vanilla forms (e.g. borrow/lend, vaults), which vastly outperform traditional savings accounts.
One under-indexed angle is that stablecoins are expanding far beyond legacy rails and issuance. M^0 has surged 82% and is quickly approaching $1B in circulation.
While traditional liquidity tightens, onchain money markets are accelerating, finding novel ways to put otherwise idle fiat to work.
4. Another interesting takeaway about the sheer magnitude of the recent crash: Hyperliquid went from near all-time highs in open interest ($15.1B) to its lowest level since June ($6.34B). Over $8.7B wiped in a single day, 58% of all open interest on the protocol.
Perhaps even more telling: nearly half ($4.1B) of all liquidations came from assets outside BTC, ETH, and SOL. Traders are reaching further down the risk curve, and the fallout shows it.
Everyone “wins” in a bull market, but it’s LIGHTS OUT the moment the music stops.
5. 📈 Perpetual DeFi Protocols are Experiencing Exponential Growth, with Lighter Steadily Increasing Its Market Share
📝 Highlights from the Top Crypto Reports
Here are the top highlights from the best crypto research reports this week…
ON-374: Perp DEXs ♾️
About the Author: OurNetwork, aims to help you understand crypto like never before by harnessing the power of onchain data & analytics. This is an excerpt from the full article, which you can find here.
📝 Editor’s Note:
But first, a quick note that the AWS outage + an issue with our publishing platform delayed this edition’s publication until Oct. 21. Thank you for your patience and understanding.
With that, let’s get into Perp DEXs, a sector of crypto which Hyperliquid, a Layer 1, has ignited with its success over the past year.
That success has drawn competitors like Lighter and Pacifica, as well as resurfacing established names like GMX and gTrade.
Luckily, Reuben, Chaos Labs, Oğuz, Joseph, and Oluwole dug into the five protocols above this week. Let’s get into it.
– ON Editorial Team
📈 Hyperliquid Perps Lead the Perps Market, Posting Five Straight Months of Growth with a 33% Surge in Volume
Hyperliquid is a high-speed Layer-1 DEX for onchain perpetuals, combining CEX-grade performance with DeFi transparency. With its assets bridged to Arbitrum for broader access, it has processed over $2.39T in perpetual volume this year while sustaining a leading market share of at least 30%. Between May and September 2025, open interest surged by 154%, rising from $158B to $403B, signaling growing trader conviction and deep onchain liquidity.
Hyperliquid’s 2025 run saw five straight months of growth, peaking with +33% in May and a massive +47% rebound in July that led to August’s all-time high. Even after fall pullbacks, volumes remain nearly 6x higher year-over-year — proof of deep liquidity and sustained trader momentum.
BTC and ETH dominate with $1.5T+ volume (~60% share), while SOL cements its spot as traders’ altcoin favorite. HYPE leads in activity with 108M trades, driven by retail energy. Memecoins like FARTCOIN, TRUMP, kPEPE, PUMP, and kBONK add $100B+, fueling Hyperliquid’s speculative pulse.
📈 GMX Continues to Grow Onchain Perps Volume with Over $500M in Active TVL and Record-High Daily Fees Exceeding $1M
GMX’s ecosystem shows consistent liquidity depth and trader activity across the Arbitrum and Avalanche networks, with aggregate total value locked (TVL) exceeding $500M. The protocol’s largest daily fee spike reached $1M. On July 31, GMX v2 collected $1M in trading fees, its highest since launch. The Oct. 10 flash crash generated $70,000 in liquidation fees, with more than $115M in total liquidation volume handled without interruption. GMX liquidity providers continue to generate competitive returns.
Aside from Arbitrum, GMX is now live across Avalanche, Botanix, Base, and BNB Chain. Avalanche leads with $23M in TVL, followed by Botanix at $7.5M, showing steady growth across new deployments. This expansion diversifies liquidity and strengthens GMX’s execution network.
Chaos’ Risk Oracles powers GMX’s real-time monitoring of open-interest caps, funding rates, and price impact parameters, securing over $450M in TVL across 126 assets and three chains, with all key risk parameters continuously verified onchain.
🎧 Top Crypto Podcasts of The Week
Here are the crypto podcasts that are worth listening to this week...
The Defiant - How Avalanche is Tackling the Blockchain Trilemma
Coin Bureau - Bear Market Survival Guide: Crypto Tips for 2026
Forward Guidance: Global Liquidity Cycle & the Worldwide Rush Into Hard Assets | Weekly Roundup
Unchained: Mert vs The Maxis: Who Owns Crypto’s ‘Pure’ Ethos Now? – Ep 929
Additional Coinstack Sponsors
Hive Digital is a leader in providing SEO and PPC services for blockchain, DeFi, Web3, and crypto companies. If you want to expand your organic presence and paid leads from Google and Facebook, get a proposal from Hive Digital at www.hivedigital.com.
💬 Join The Coinstack Telegram Community
Join our Telegram Channel here to chat with our community, ask questions, and learn more about the future of money as we move to a decentralized internet and the creation of a new open global monetary system that works for everyone.
💬 The People We’re Following Closely on Twitter
📚 How To Get Started With Crypto Learning
Crypto: Explain It Like I’m 5 (Article)
Bankless - The DeFi community (Substack + Podcast + Discord)
Understanding Polkadot - The Next Generation Blockchain Tech (Website)
Blockgeeks Video Tutorials (Video)
The Coinstack Website (Website)
2008 Bitcoin Whitepaper (PDF)
2013 Ethereum Whitepaper (PDF)
📰 The Coinstack Newsletter:
Tracking the most important blockchain stories of the 2020s, including a decentralized internet and the creation of a new open global monetary system that works for everyone. As always, published for informational purposes only. Please do your own research. Just our opinions. Not intended as financial advice as we are not financial advisors. We may own some of the digital assets we write about as we believe strongly in the sector. Please do your own research. Published and written weekly by Ryan Allis and Mike Gavela.
Coinstack is a news and analysis newsletter for the digital asset industry. None of the information here is a recommendation to invest in any securities or other types of investments. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Any historical returns, expected returns, or probability projections may not reflect actual future performance. All investments involve risk and may result in loss.
Comments and thoughts are welcome on our Telegram channel:
Website at Coinstack.co
Substack at Coinstack.substack.com
Twitter at twitter.com/coinstackcrypto
Telegram channel at t.me/thecoinstack
Sponsors: See our Coinstack sponsor deck
Please share with your friends and colleagues.