Morning Minute is a daily newsletter authored by Tyler Warner. The insights and views expressed are his own and do not necessarily represent those of Decrypt.
Good morning!
Here are the leading stories today:
- Major cryptocurrencies are slightly up, with BTC gaining 1% to $64.2k.
- Bond yields have reached their highest levels in decades, stalling the stock market rally.
- Researchers at the Ethereum Foundation are focusing on privacy enhancements for the upcoming Hegota upgrade.
- Robinhood has introduced agentic trading for select crypto users.
- Ansem has launched a new curated launchpad and the z500 index.
š PUMP Sees First Golden Cross as Revenue Hits Seven-Month Peak
Pump.fun's PUMP token has experienced a challenging ten months following its peak of $8 billion in September 2025. However, it seems that this downturn may be ending.
The 50-day Exponential Moving Average (EMA) of PUMP is now crossing above its 200-day EMA for the first time since the token's launch in mid-2025, a phenomenon known to technical analysts as a "golden cross." After reaching a low of $0.001491 in July, the token peaked at $0.003 intraday on Monday, settling around $0.002733.
The token's rise is attributed to improving fundamentals. According to DefiLlama, Pump.fun generated $11.52 million in revenue over the last week, ranking it fourth among all crypto protocols, trailing only Tether, Circle, and Canton, while outperforming Polymarket, GMGN, Tron, and Axiom Pro. This weekly revenue is twice that of Hyperliquid, which boasts a fully diluted valuation of $59 billion (over 20 times PUMP's valuation). The annualized revenue now stands at $458 million against a market cap of $1.09 billion, marking its highest revenue since February.
In the past week, @Pumpfun repurchased and burned $5,523,400 worth of $PUMP.
This brings their total buybacks and burns to $429,630,000, which accounts for 28.580% of the total circulating supply pic.twitter.com/w5Ok9Id7Ak
ā Pump.fun Ecosystem (@PumpfunEco) August 17, 2026
Revenue is crucial for Pump due to the team's buyback strategy. A portion of every dollar earned is allocated to buybacks and burns through smart contracts, leading to $5.33 million spent on PUMP purchases last week, which has now reduced the total supply by 15.9%. The team reported fees of $10.74 million from August 10 to 16, reflecting a 7% increase week-over-week and marking the highest week since late January, with Tuesday recording $1.73 millionāthe largest single-day revenue since January 30. To date, the team has repurchased and burned $429 million of its tokens (28.58% of the total supply).
Additionally, the team has been active with updates. On August 13, Pump introduced Callout Rewards, allowing users to earn daily rewards based on the volume generated by their token callouts. Yesterday, they also reduced app trading fees to 0% on Solana and 0.1% for cross-chain transactions. This strategy aims to leverage their revenue advantage to offer competitive pricing compared to Axiom, GMGN, and Fomo, while incentivizing users to drive trading activity. This approach has proven effective, with a 23% increase in weekly app traders and a record number of daily active traders last Thursday.
Despite uncertainties about the future popularity of memecoins during the bear market, recent trends on Robinhood Chain and other platforms suggest that they remain a significant part of the crypto landscape. Pump appears well-positioned to thrive in the memecoin sector as the market potentially gears up for a bullish phase.
š Macro Crypto and Markets
- Major cryptocurrencies are slightly up; BTC +1% at $64.2k; ETH stable at $1,900; SOL +1% at $76; HYPE stable at $59.50.
- Notable altcoin movers include VVV (+19%), POL (+4%), and SKY (+4%).
- Oil is up 3% to $84.9; Gold is down 0.1% at $4,450.
- Stock futures are in the red following a rise in bond yields, with the DOW unchanged and Nasdaq down 1%.
- Ethereum Foundation researchers are prioritizing privacy for the 2027 HegotĆ” upgrade, focusing on Frame Transactions and FOCIL to enable privacy pools to cover their fees directly.
- The SEC has paused its crypto fundraising framework in response to potential legal action from Wall Street trade group SIFMA and a request from the White House for the agency to halt its actions.
- The Treasury has proposed GENIUS Act regulations requiring stablecoin issuers to obtain federal or state licenses by January 18, 2027, and prohibiting platforms from selling unapproved stablecoins to U.S. customers by July 18, 2028.
- Kraken's parent company, Payward, has joined Anthropicās Project Glasswing, becoming the first crypto firm to gain access to Claude Mythos 5 for system vulnerability assessments.
- The Monad Foundation has concluded a $60 million buyback initiative offering to purchase locked MON from early investors at a discount, although most holders declined to take part.
- South Korea's media regulator has mandated ISPs to block Polymarket, determining that its winner-takes-all markets on various topics constitute illegal gambling under the Criminal Act.
- The Compound Foundation has initiated a $52 million development program, the largest in its history, with a new leadership team aimed at promoting institutional credit on-chain.
Corporate Treasuries & ETFs
- Bitcoin ETFs recorded $137 million in net inflows on Monday, while ETH ETFs saw $5 million in inflows.
- Strategy has paused its Bitcoin sales after three consecutive weeks, raising $333.7 million from MSTR stock sales to acquire STRC ($132 million) and increase cash reserves to $4.8 billion.
- Tom Leeās Bitmine has purchased an additional $19 million in ETH, raising its total holdings to 5.82 million tokens, which is 4.8% of the circulating supply.
- Jane Street has disclosed over $1 billion in Bitcoin ETF holdings as of June 30.
Meme Coin Tracker
- Meme leaders were mostly stable; DOGE -1%, SHIB unchanged, PEPE -1%, PENGU +1%, TRUMP unchanged, BONK -2%.
- Robinhood chain experienced significant pullbacks, with Stonkbroker dropping 30% and PONS down 15%; however, Motion (+40%) and Bull (+20%) were notable gainers.
- Solana leaders included EYE (+150x to $5 million), Z500 (+30x), and Qenis (+65%); Ansem briefly peaked at $320 million before retracting to $265 million.
š° Token, Airdrop & Protocol Tracker
- Robinhood has introduced agentic trading for select crypto users.
- Ansem has launched ansem.io and its z500 index, where teams can airdrop token supplies to $ANSEM holders and buy and burn $ANSEM to ascend a public leaderboard, functioning as a curation layer rather than a rival launchpad.
- Neynar is looking for a new team to manage operations for Farcaster and its launchpad Clanker, less than seven months after its acquisition.
š What is happening in NFTs?
- NFT leaders showed mixed results; Punks remained stable at 31.7 ETH, BAYC down 1% to 8 ETH, and Pudgy up 1% to 3.82 ETH; Stonkbrokers dropped 25% to 7.45 ETH.
- Bulls Runner (+200%) and Identity MD (+150%) were the top gainers.
- Robinhood NFT leaders experienced major declines, with Stonkbrokers down 25%, Mancers down 40%, and Quotrons down 28%.