Sep 26, 2025
By Proper Asset Management
Intro
In prior investor letters, we highlighted several points, including:
Formation of support in the 105–108,000 range for Bitcoin’s price.
An ETH correction from 4,000 to the 3,000 area followed by establishing support/base around 4,000.
SOL holding in the 140–169 range.
A potential peak in the AI-agents narrative.
It is still early for ETH price discovery mode and a full-fledged altseason.
As a result, August and September, in some ways, validated our expectations, at times forcing a repositioning and at times delivering a new meta. August brought a strong bull run in ether and Bitcoin with prints around 4,790 and 124,500. All of this unfolded alongside a significant move in the ETH/BTC cross that continued right up to Powell’s speech at Jackson Hole, where he clearly signaled a dovish tilt.
On the back of that speech, ETH set a new price record, while Bitcoin, after a weak attempt to rally, corrected. First, this was triggered by a large OG wallet that swapped roughly 10,000 Bitcoin into ether via open-market selling. Then Bitcoin attempted to recover to 118,000 on inflation data that clearly pointed to at least two rate cuts in 2025. When the expected cut occurred on September 17, the market took it in stride.
Let’s move from the recap to the current setup and try to look a bit ahead.
The correction that began on the morning of September 22 and continued on the 25th was not grounded in any fundamental factors. Some news outlets cite renewed fears of a U.S. government shutdown, yet if you look at the S&P 500, it fell only about 3% from its recently set ATH.
That is not what shutdown fears typically look like.
So what happened, and why did we see the largest Bitcoin liquidations since early summer and the largest ether liquidations since 2023?
Against the backdrop of a rally fueled by solid institutional buying, we can note a major spike in retail interest in futures speculation, with minimal collateral and outsized position sizes. Layer onto that a new meta — the emergence of large perp DEXs that allow trading futures without KYC and drastically simplify onboarding, up to the ability to trade futures directly from Trust Wallet, Phantom, SafePal, etc. And that’s not all.
The generous airdrop distributed by Hyperliquid, along with its token’s parabolic move, keeps pulling in traders who are “pumping volume” in anticipation of a second airdrop season. On top of that, the Aster exchange appeared, a powerful competitor launched with CZ’s involvement and heavily promoted by him. A huge wave of users went there to trade futures. Then came the Lighter exchange, offering zero fees and announcing an imminent token launch. A huge wave of users went there as well. This is not a fixed mass of users rotating between venues or slicing across them in some proportion tied to headlines.
No, this is an inflow of new users drawn by activity, community, news flow, and both new and well-known industry leaders.
A very large quantity of open futures positions allows leading exchanges and market makers to earn significant sums on trader liquidations.
If a $1 billion daily liquidation tally used to be rare, it no longer surprises anyone.
The market has become highly susceptible to manipulation, and $8,000–$10,000 Bitcoin price moves should be modeled in standard risk systems as entirely plausible over hours, not days as before.
Outside of that setup, crypto markets are fairly calm. Inflows into ETH are stable with a rising trend. Not only Strategy, but an increasing number of companies formed to structure crypto treasuries are successfully raising capital and scaling their positions.
At the same time, we do not see mass retail hysteria as in the 2021 peak. Rather, there is natural adoption and an organic, not hype-driven, increase in the number of crypto-asset holders. Previously, it was fashionable to buy DOGE; now people buy an ether ETF at their German or French bank.
This is precisely the maturation of the crypto segment we have long awaited.
Bitcoin:
Our expected October range is 108–120,000 with a possible brief dip to 105,000 (in the absolute worst case, to 98,000) and a very desirable, though for now doubtful, new ATH around 125–126,000. Our full-year view anticipated an ATH in September, yet it arrived a bit earlier than we expected. Still, we do not rule out a marginal new high before year-end 2025, though 135,000 already looks more like a 2026 figure.
Ethereum:
A Bitcoin flat in the 108–120,000 band is an ideal window for ETH to spread its wings and for us to see a hint of an altseason that, we remind, will differ materially from the last one. If previously everything rallied, in the new altseason the primary advance should accrue to sector tokens of leading projects in AI, RWA, and DEX, as well as older tokens like ADA or CAKE and classic memes a la DOGE, PEPE, et cetera.
Additional ETH factors — the withdrawal queue from staking, deliberately introduced by Vitalik, and the emergence of the first staking-yield ETFs. We believe.
Solana:
The key support level now is 169, and a break below could open a path to 140. The 200 level is a magnet, perceived by the public as a successful return to the old paradigm (note, this is already the third comeback) and supported by demand. SOL is also beginning to see institutional adoption.
The long-term target remains 500, whether in 2025 or 2026.
Practically speaking, the chain is the most vibrant right now across NFTs, memecoins, and even DeFi.
Macro:
Inflation, unemployment, and the unemployment revision all played a positive role in the back half of August and in September, despite the pullbacks. Moreover, there is a narrative that Strategy and BlackRock will buy any dip, and the repricing of Bitcoin to anchor 100,000 as a comfortable level has already occurred. While we can assume a brief break below, the paradigm has shifted markedly versus last year.
We hope to see ETH anchor above 5,000 in the near future.
We also consider that this year the policy rate will be cut by 25 basis points two more times.
Politics:
The reasons for the rate cut and for Jerome Powell’s less hawkish rhetoric do not necessarily track the inflation indicators and labor-market data.
There is a view that the FED Chair proceeded with the cut against his own preference in order to preserve the Federal Reserve’s independence as an institution.
Of course, decisions are taken by the majority of FOMC participants, and the chair’s vote carries special weight only in a status quo scenario, when 6 members (including the chair) vote one way and 6 the other.
That said, in more than 90% of votes the outcome aligns with the chair’s position, as he can set expectations with committee members in advance by virtue of his professionalism and authority.
The rate cut occurred amid the White House administration’s crusade — not only via the “Too Late Powell” rhetoric, but by the dismissal of one of the FED directors, an FOMC member, Lisa Cook.
A court challenged that dismissal, yet at the next meeting a Trump appointee appeared in her place and voted for an immediate 50-basis-point cut. Chair Powell is clearly trying to strike a balance so that the FED does not turn into just another U.S. government agency.
Tariffs ultimately imposed on India, China, and Europe did not have a notable impact on crypto markets or on the main U.S. indexes in August and September, and it is fair to say these factors have ceased to dominate the agenda.
We do not expect significant fundamental events in the fourth quarter of 2025.
// Past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results.