Good morning, everybody—Daily Crypto News for Wednesday, September 24, 2025. I’m Matt, and today we’re ripping through Aster’s insane breakout (Binance’s rebranded perp DEX muscling in on Hyperliquid), a DPRK-linked bridge exploit that nuked SFUND, Kraken tossing millions into pro-crypto politics, SBF’s mysterious “GM” from prison and the 32% FTT pop it triggered, plus the continuing comedy of errors that is Fartcoin. We’ll also hit a listener conspiracy about the U.S. using stablecoins/Bitcoin to soft-default its debt, a quick Dogecoin reality check, and the latest market read.
📉 Aster vs. Hyperliquid: Binance Chain DEX Perps Volume Falters
💻 North Korean Hackers Drain $1.2M From Seedify Bridge
🏛️ Kraken Donates $1M to Pro-Trump PAC for Crypto Privacy Rights
🔥 Sam Bankman-Fried’s X Account Awakens, FTT Token Soars
💨 Fartcoin Dives 28% in a Week Amid Bearish Sentiment
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Aster vs. Hyperliquid: The DEX Wars
Everyone has been hitting me up about Aster. Here’s the story. Aster is Binance’s decentralized perpetual derivatives exchange, rebranded from ApolloX and built on the BNB chain. Its token has absolutely exploded. Just seven days ago, Aster was trading at eight cents. Now it’s sitting around $2.30, up more than 2,600 percent in a week.
The 24-hour perpetual volume has jumped to $21.6 billion, double Hyperliquid’s $10.7 billion. Over 30 days, Hyperliquid is still way ahead with $327 billion in volume compared to Aster’s $60 billion, but the fact that they’re even in the same sentence shows how fast this thing is moving. CoinGecko now ranks Aster number 36 overall, with Hyperliquid back at number 11.
My take: this is classic FOMO stage. Could it 5x and break into the top ten? Maybe. Could it collapse just as quickly? Also maybe. I keep a little cash for experiments like this—five hundred bucks I don’t mind losing. If it goes to zero, I move on. If it turns into five thousand, winner winner chicken dinner.
North Korea’s $1.2 Million Bridge Heist
North Korean state-backed hackers pulled off another cross-chain bridge attack, this time targeting Web3 gaming incubator Cedify. They minted fake SFUND tokens across BNB Chain, Ethereum, Arbitrum, and Base, and drained $1.2 million in liquidity. SFUND’s price crashed 35 percent to twenty-eight cents, wiping out years of project momentum.
Investigators tied the exploit to DPRK’s “contagious interview campaign,” a social engineering tactic that has already hit more than 230 victims this year. Binance managed to freeze about $200,000 on HTX Exchange, but the majority of the stolen funds remain on-chain.
My take: North Korea has made crypto hacks a revenue stream. With more than $1.5 billion stolen in 2025 already, this is their most lucrative year on record. This is no longer a sideshow—it’s a state strategy.
Kraken’s $2 Million Push Into Politics
Kraken announced it will donate two million dollars to pro-crypto Trump groups, splitting the money between the Freedom Fund PAC and America’s First Digital, which is aligned with Senator Cynthia Lummis and the Bitcoin Act.
This move follows the Winklevoss twins, who dropped twenty-one million earlier this year into the Digital Freedom Fund. Fair Shake PAC, which remains bipartisan, still has a three hundred million dollar war chest.
My take: Crypto is no longer trying to just be heard in Washington. It is aligning directly with political movements, particularly on the Republican side. The framing is now bigger than “clear rules.” It’s about constitutional rights, sovereignty, and the narrative that Bitcoin equals freedom.
SBF Tweets from Prison
Sam Bankman-Fried’s verified account on X posted a simple “GM” yesterday. The problem is, inmates aren’t allowed direct access to social media. His team later clarified that a friend posted it on his behalf, but by then the damage was done. FTT, the dead token of FTX, pumped thirty-two percent to about a dollar ten, and trading volumes shot up nearly sixfold to fifty-nine million dollars.
My take: this is pure clown world. A single “GM” from a convicted fraudster behind bars still moves markets. If his “friend” decided to scalp this move, they could repeat the trick anytime. It shows how much froth remains in zombie tokens and how irrational the market still is.
Fartcoin’s Collapse
Fartcoin, once the darling of Solana’s meme coin wave, is tanking hard. The token dropped twenty-eight percent this week to just above sixty cents, extending its monthly decline to thirty-seven percent. It now sits more than seventy-five percent below its January high of two dollars and five cents.
My take: if you’re still holding, it might be time to light a candle. Fartcoin is running on fumes.
Listener Questions
Kirangi wrote in asking about a conspiracy theory that the U.S. government wants to “pump and rug” crypto in order to deal with its thirty-seven trillion dollar debt. At Russia’s Eastern Economic Forum, one of Putin’s advisors claimed the U.S. could weaponize stablecoins, pushing liabilities globally and letting inflation do the dirty work. Michael Saylor once pitched something similar to President Trump: sell the U.S. gold, buy Bitcoin, and make America the world’s Bitcoin reserve.
My take: it’s possible in theory, but the coordination required would be massive and the fallout would be global. Still, the fact that serious policy voices are even floating these ideas shows how much crypto has penetrated debt and reserve discussions.
Jeremy asked about Dogecoin hitting “all-time lows.” Just to clear this up, Doge’s all-time low was ten years ago at a fraction of a fraction of a cent. At twenty-four cents today, it is still up hundreds of thousands of percent from where it started.
My take: don’t let short-term dips confuse the big picture. Doge remains one of the strongest memes in crypto history.
Crypto Prices
As of 9:38 a.m. Eastern, fear and greed is at 39, putting us squarely in the fearful zone.
Bitcoin: $113,000, flat on the day
Ethereum: $4,186, down 0.7%
XRP: $2.87, up slightly
BNB: $1,015, down 0.6%
Solana: $212, down 3.5%
Dogecoin: $0.243, up 1%
Tron: $0.338, up 0.8%
Cardano: $0.82, down 0.5%
The real drama is with Hyperliquid, which is down five percent today under pressure from Aster’s breakout. CRO token is also sliding, down nearly seven percent. Aster itself is holding strong at around $2.30 and continues to push into the mid-thirties of the market cap rankings. The total crypto market cap sits at $3.9 trillion, with Bitcoin making up $2.25 trillion and Ethereum $508 billion.
Final Thoughts
Aster’s explosive rise is the big headline, but today’s stories also underline the bigger shifts. North Korea is treating crypto hacks as national revenue. Kraken and the Winklevoss twins are turning Bitcoin into a political football. Sam Bankman-Fried can still move markets with a two-letter tweet from prison. And meme coins like Fartcoin are proving that not every token is built to last.
That’s it for today. I’ll be back tomorrow with more.
Until then, happy hodling everyone.
