During the National Day holiday intertwined with the macro and crypto dual narrative, the market heat far exceeded previous years. From the Korea Blockchain Week (KBW) that started before the holiday to the Token2049 Singapore event held during the holiday, the two most influential crypto conferences in Asia have elevated global capital, institutions, and project teams' attention to a climax. At the same time, both coin prices and fund flows have surged simultaneously—Bitcoin and gold reaching new all-time highs together, BNB leading the BSC meme craze, and projects like Polymarket, Aster, Monad releasing significant news intensively. This series of events during the holiday outlines the restlessness and reshaping of the crypto market on the eve of a new cycle.

US Government Shutdown, Bitcoin and Gold Hit New Highs

Stimulated by the U.S. government shutdown, the market's concerns over the U.S. fiscal situation and dollar devaluation have intensified, with investors moving funds to assets like Bitcoin and gold to hedge against the risk of dollar devaluation, driving both gold and Bitcoin prices to repeatedly hit new highs. On October 5, Bitcoin touched a peak of $125,689, surpassing the previous record of $124,514 set on August 14. A day later, spot gold broke above the $3900 per ounce level, hitting another all-time high, less than 10 days after first breaking the $3800 level.

Market participants have referred to the U.S. government shutdown as a catalyst for the "devaluation trade," with investors expecting this to drive funds towards "safe-haven" assets. Geoff Kendrick, Head of Global Digital Assets Research at Standard Chartered Bank, stated, "This shutdown is significant." He pointed out that Bitcoin is now more correlated with traditional risk assets and is expected to continue to rise during this period.

Analysis indicates that Bitcoin's rise is also driven by institutional demand, technical factors, and seasonal factors. It is worth noting that the market will closely monitor the progress of Congress's negotiations on federal funding issues and the impact of the Federal Reserve's monetary policy on the "devaluation trade" logic. These factors will determine whether Bitcoin can sustain its current uptrend and achieve further breakthroughs.

Citibank analyst Alex Saunders stated that Bitcoin is now seen as a "digital gold," which helps explain the correlation in their price trends. Based on sustained investor demand, he has given a target price of $181,000 for Bitcoin within 12 months.

BNB Hits New All-Time High, BSC Meme Frenzy Begins

While Bitcoin broke through its all-time high during the National Day holiday, the entire crypto ecosystem's attention was evidently focused on the BSC ecosystem. On October 7, BNB surpassed $1300, reaching a new all-time high. According to 8market data, BNB's market cap reached $177.78 billion, surpassing Tether ($177.5 billion), rising to 124th place in the world's mainstream asset market cap rankings.

The main reason behind the recent all-time high was once again the BSC igniting a meme frenzy.

On October 6, CZ liked and replied to a tweet from crypto KOL "Lin Wanwan's Cat" on a social media platform, sparking the "Binance Life" meme trend. This then led to a Chinese meme craze, with a series of memes revolving around Binance, CZ, He Yi, and others. On October 7, Binance Alpha launched the "Binance Life" meme coin, and coupled with the ongoing ecosystem craze, the "Binance Life" meme coin's market cap surged past 500 million USD.

On October 8, YZi Labs announced the establishment of a 1 billion USD Builder Fund aimed at further supporting founders of BNB ecosystem projects. This particularly targets founders of projects on the BNB Chain, aiming to attract more long-term entrepreneurs focusing on BNB-based innovations. This includes areas such as trading, RWA (Real World Assets), AI (Artificial Intelligence), DeSci (Decentralized Science), DeFi, payments, and wallets, fully leveraging the high-performance, low-cost infrastructure of the BNB Chain, as well as enhanced tools, funding, integration capabilities, and an ecosystem of over 460 million users.

According to DeFillama data, the BSC network has seen a 24-hour fee volume of 5.57 million USD, ranking first among public chains. The Tron network (1.46 million USD) ranks second, with the Ethereum network (1.20 million USD) in third place. Furthermore, looking at the overall fund flow across networks, the BSC has exhibited a fund-siphoning effect.

Aster Launches "Dawn Phase," Second Season Met with Rug Pull?

On October 5, the Aster team announced that its Genesis Plan officially bid farewell to Phase 2, transitioning fully into a brand-new phase — Aster Dawn (Phase 3). The successful completion of this upgrade marks the project's shift from early-stage development to a new phase emphasizing ecosystem deepening and user incentives.

Simultaneously, Aster CEO Leonard stated that each epoch will distribute 1% of the total ASTER supply (4% of the ASTER total supply is allocated to Phase 2 as a reward). This means approximately a 4% token airdrop, which will be distributed over 4 epochs, with each epoch calculating and distributing a 1% reward separately. Previously, due to the majority of the market's community not believing the official team would make major interim rule changes, many eagerly joined the trading mining army in the middle and end stages of s2.

According to the announcement, Genesis Phase 2 ended on October 5 at 23:59 (UTC), and the airdrop claim function will open on October 10, with users able to receive token rewards starting from October 14. This round of rewards has no lock-up period, and funds can be freely claimed and used to increase asset liquidity and user engagement.

On the evening of October 6, Aster further announced the launch of a 1.2x trading reward bonus, covering popular spot pairs like ASTER/USDT, BTC/USDT, ETH/USDT, as well as perpetual contract trading pairs such as AIA, COAI, HYPE, LYN, with no set end time for the bonus.

Polymarket Re-enters the U.S. Market, Secures $2 Billion Investment from Intercontinental Exchange, Valuation Soars to $90 Billion

On October 2, foreign media reported that prediction market platform Polymarket announced its return to the U.S. market, four years after being banned from operating by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) due to regulatory issues. According to regulatory filings, the platform has acquired QCX LLC, which holds a CFTC license, and has self-certified multiple event contracts (covering sports events and election markets), and is expected to officially open to U.S. users in the coming days.

On October 7, The Wall Street Journal reported that Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), will invest $2 billion in Polymarket, with the platform's valuation expected to reach $80 billion to $100 billion after the transaction is completed.

The next day, Polymarket CEO Shayne Coplan disclosed details of two previous undisclosed funding rounds on X platform: the company raised $55 million last year with a valuation of $3.5 billion led by Blockchain Capital; earlier this year, it raised another $150 million with a valuation of $12 billion led by Founders Fund. With the latest entry of Intercontinental Exchange, Polymarket's valuation has now risen to around $90 billion, making it one of the most prominent platforms in the global prediction market sector.

Monad Hints at Upcoming Airdrop

On October 8, Monad posted an airdrop teaser tweet on its official X account: "Airdrop claim loading (98% completed)." In mid-August, Monad hinted at the upcoming mainnet launch later this year.

BitMine Continues Treasury Strategic Investment

On October 6, BitMine Immersion Technologies announced that its total holdings in cryptocurrency, cash, and "super potential investments" had reached $13.4 billion.

As of 1:00 PM Eastern Time on October 5, the company's cryptocurrency holdings include: 2,830,151 ETH, 192 BTC, equity in Eightco Holdings (NASDAQ: ORBS) worth $113 million (a "super potential investment"), and $456 million in unrestricted cash.

Tom Lee, Chairman of BitMine and member of the Fundstrat Global Advisory Council, stated: "Over the past week, we have met with many leaders in the cryptocurrency and blockchain industry at the Token2049 summit in Singapore. The team had in-depth discussions with Ethereum core developers and key ecosystem builders, and clearly felt the community is working together to drive Wall Street and AI to build the future on Ethereum. We firmly believe that the investment theme of the 'super cycle' is still in AI and the cryptocurrency field. With its high reliability and 100% operational stability, Ethereum is the natural choice of platform."

On October 8, according to monitoring by Lookonchain, a newly created address 0xedf1 (likely belonging to BitMine) purchased 20,020 ETH (approximately $89.7 million) through FalconX 2 hours ago.

Related reading: "Arthur Hayes and Tom Lee Discuss the Future of DATs, Stablecoins, and Prediction Markets"

Welcome to join the official BlockBeats community:

Telegram Subscription Group: https://t.me/theblockbeats

Telegram Discussion Group: https://t.me/BlockBeats_App

Official Twitter Account: https://twitter.com/BlockBeatsAsia