PA Daily | Apple CEO Tim Cook admits to holding Crypto Assets; Binance founder Zhao Changpeng calls himself an advisor to the Aster team.

Today's news highlights:

Apple CEO admits to holding cryptocurrencies, stating “This is a reasonable allocation strategy.”

Binance Alpha and Binance Futures will launch zkVerify (VFY)

Cathie Wood: Indirectly holding Solana through Breera Sports, the development of Hyperliquid is like Solana's early days.

Zhao Changpeng stated that he is an advisor to Aster, not a member of its team.

The number of new tokens on Solana dropped to 27,354 yesterday, hitting a new low since March.

The total position size of XPL contracts across the network has surpassed BNB, breaking through 1.8 billion USD, setting a new historical high.

Bitcoin spot ETFs saw a net outflow of $903 million this week, ending four consecutive weeks of net inflows.

opinion

Cathie Wood: Indirectly holding Solana through Breera Sports, the development of Hyperliquid is similar to that of early Solana.

ARK Invest CEO Cathie Wood stated in an interview on the Master Investor podcast that the Hyperliquid protocol reminds her of Solana's early potential, calling it a “rising star in the blockchain space.” She pointed out that Solana has proven its value and has made its way into the mainstream blockchain camp. Currently, ARK Invest primarily holds three cryptocurrency assets in its public funds: Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana. Wood revealed that the firm holds Solana assets indirectly through Breera Sports, a project associated with the Solana treasury and supported by Middle Eastern investors. Additionally, she mentioned that economist Art Laffer provides advisory support for the project. Although Wood did not confirm whether she holds Hyperliquid assets, she believes the protocol is worth watching. She also emphasized that Bitcoin remains the core of her crypto investments, asserting that Bitcoin dominates the pure cryptocurrency space, characterized by its fixed supply and risk resilience. She added that Ethereum plays a significant role in the DeFi ecosystem, while the influence of stablecoins is on the rise, but Bitcoin remains central to ARK's long-term investment thesis. Earlier today, Cathie Wood stated that Ethereum cannot surpass Bitcoin, disagreeing with Tom Lee's viewpoint.

Apple CEO admits to holding cryptocurrency, stating “this is a reasonable allocation strategy”

According to Blockware, Apple CEO Tim Cook gave an affirmative answer when asked in an interview whether he holds cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin or Ethereum. Cook believes that crypto assets are part of a diversified investment portfolio and stated that he has been paying attention to this field for some time, spending time researching it. He finds cryptocurrencies very interesting.

Cathie Wood: Ethereum cannot surpass Bitcoin, disagrees with Tom Lee's viewpoint.

Cathie Wood, the founder and CEO of Ark Invest, stated in an interview on The Master Investor podcast that she firmly believes Bitcoin will become the largest cryptocurrency to date. She also shared her friendly disagreement with Tom Lee from Fundstrat, explaining why she believes Ethereum cannot surpass Bitcoin, even though her interest in Ethereum is growing, and she has recently purchased BitMine stock. Wood indicated that she prefers Bitcoin over Ethereum because Bitcoin's scale will continue to expand; it is a rule-based global monetary system, as a Layer 1 that has never been hacked, and is the first.

Zhao Changpeng: Aster and Binance are in a competitive relationship, but they help in the development of BNB.

A user from a certain X platform claimed, “The only competitor Aster faces is Binance.” In response, Zhao Changpeng said, “Few people can understand this. Aster has a competitive relationship with Binance, but it also supports the development of BNB.” Previously, Zhao Changpeng stated that he is an advisor to the Aster team, not a member of their team; he confirmed that Aster has several former Binance employees, and YZi Labs holds a minority stake in Aster.

Zhao Changpeng stated that he is an advisor to Aster, not a member of its team.

A user on platform X claimed, “Zhao Changpeng confirmed today on X Spaces that he is a member of the Aster team.” In response, Zhao Changpeng stated, “I am not part of the team, just an advisor.” Earlier reports indicated that Zhao Changpeng confirmed Aster has several former Binance employees, and YZi Labs holds a minority stake in Aster.

Analyst: After a series of revised documents were submitted intensively, the Solana ETF may be listed within weeks.

According to The Block, on Friday, asset management firms Fidelity, Franklin Templeton, CoinShares, Bitwise, Grayscale, Canary Capital, and VanEck updated their respective proposed Solana ETF S-1 registration statement documents to clarify the details of their staking activities. This wave of document submissions follows a similar surge in late August, when several of the same issuers revised their documents to allow for cash and physical redemptions. Bloomberg ETF analyst James Seyffart noted at the time that these documents could indicate “active communication between these issuers and the SEC.”

Project Dynamics

The DoubleZero mainnet Beta will go live on October 2nd and begin deploying the 2Z token.

According to official news from DoubleZero, the DoubleZero mainnet Beta will be launched on October 2, and the 2Z token will begin deployment. Its early production network mainnet Alpha was launched on September 15 and is undergoing stress testing through batch verification of nodes. Since the test network started in March 2025, it has connected to over 386 verification nodes, accounting for about 16% of the Solana mainnet staking.

Binance Alpha and Binance Contracts will launch zkVerify (VFY)

According to the official announcement, Binance Alpha will launch and open trading for zkVerify (VFY) on September 30, 2025, at 19:30 (UTC+8). In addition, the Binance futures platform will launch the VFYUSDT perpetual contract on September 30, 2025, at 20:00 (UTC+8), with a maximum leverage of up to 50 times. All eligible Binance users will receive an exclusive token airdrop from Binance. Eligible users need to claim the airdrop using Binance Alpha points through the Binance Alpha event page from September 30, 2025, at 19:30 (UTC+8) to October 1, 2025, at 19:30 (UTC+8).

Important data

The number of new tokens on Solana dropped to 27,354 yesterday, hitting a new low since March.

According to SolanaFloor monitoring, the number of new tokens created on the Solana chain yesterday dropped to 27,354, the lowest daily average level since March of this year. Despite the recent decline in data, Solana still leads all blockchain networks in terms of daily, weekly, and monthly token creation volumes.

Ethereum spot ETFs saw a net outflow of $796 million this week, with all nine ETFs experiencing net outflows.

According to SoSoValue data, during the trading days this week (Eastern Time from September 22 to September 26), the Ethereum spot ETF experienced a net outflow of 796 million USD, with all nine ETFs showing net outflows. The Ethereum spot ETF with the highest weekly net outflow this week was Fidelity ETF FETH, which had a weekly net outflow of 362 million USD, bringing FETH's historical total net inflow to 2.51 billion USD. The second highest was Blackrock ETF ETHA, with a weekly net outflow of 241 million USD, and ETHA's historical total net inflow currently stands at 13.16 billion USD.

Bitcoin spot ETF saw a net outflow of $903 million this week, ending four weeks of net inflows.

According to SoSoValue data, during this week's trading days (Eastern Time from September 22 to September 26), the Bitcoin spot ETF experienced a net outflow of 903 million USD, with only Blackrock's Bitcoin ETF IBIT achieving a net inflow. The Bitcoin spot ETF with the highest net inflow this week was Blackrock's Bitcoin ETF IBIT, which had a weekly net inflow of 174 million USD, bringing its historical total net inflow to 60.82 billion USD. The Bitcoin spot ETF with the highest net outflow this week was Fidelity's ETF FBTC, which saw a net outflow of 738 million USD, while its historical total net inflow stands at 11.92 billion USD; followed by Ark Invest and 21Shares' ETF ARKB, which had a weekly net outflow of 123 million USD, with a historical total net inflow of 2.10 billion USD. As of the time of writing, the total net asset value of Bitcoin spot ETFs is 143.56 billion USD, with an ETF net asset ratio (percentage of market value relative to Bitcoin's total market value) of 6.59%, and the historical cumulative net inflow has reached 56.81 billion USD.

The total open positions of XPL contracts on the entire network have surpassed BNB, now exceeding 1.8 billion US dollars, setting a new historical record.

According to the latest data from Coinglass, with XPL experiencing a brief rise this morning, the total open interest for XPL contracts across the network has increased to 1.144 billion coins, with the open interest market value surpassing $1.8 billion, currently reported at $1.826 billion, setting a new historical high and exceeding the open interest scale of BNB contracts ($1.764 billion), with a growth rate of 16.56% over the past 24 hours; among them, Binance's XPL contract open interest reached 293 million coins, with an open interest market value of $469 million; Bybit's XPL contract open interest reached 111 million coins, with an open interest market value of $177 million.

A certain whale has once again made a profit of $41.38 million on XPL, earning a total of $80.15 million on XPL in the past month.

According to on-chain analyst Yu Jin's monitoring, @Techno_Revenant, who made a profit of $38.77 million through manipulating XPL liquidation a month ago, has now profited up to $41.38 million on XPL. In other words, in just one month, he has earned $80.15 million on XPL. On August 27, he first ambushed to go long with two wallets, then raised the price to trigger liquidations, thus achieving a profit of up to $38.77 million. He then diversified the profit funds across 20+ addresses through cross-chain and reopened a long position of about 45 million XPL with 1x leverage, with an average opening price of $0.77. At that time, the vast majority of XPL long positions on Hyperliquid were held by him alone. These XPL longs.

( Financing/Merger

Zoth acquires Soneium's ecosystem Neemo Finance, entering the Japanese blockchain market.

Zoth announced the acquisition of Neemo Finance, a liquidity staking and treasury infrastructure protocol within the Soneium ecosystem. This move strengthens its position as the first full-stack StableFi operating system and expands into the Japanese blockchain market. It is reported that Neemo is supported by Sony Block Solution, and this acquisition will help Zoth integrate liquidity staking and treasury functions, enhancing the yield strategies and capital efficiency of the ZeUSD stablecoin. The Neemo team will join Zoth to drive product and technology development, while opening doors for Zoth to collaborate with Asian institutions. Previously, Zoth reached a $75 million alliance with Haven1 to promote the institutional adoption of RWAs. On August 11, it was reported that Zoth received a $15 million strategic investment from Bolts Capital to promote RWA on-chain.

Institutional Holdings

Bitcoin treasury company POP Culture plans to raise $6 million through a share placement.

According to PRNewswire, Nasdaq-listed Bitcoin treasury company POP Culture announced plans to sell 5,000,000 shares of Class A common stock at a price of $1.20 per share, with expected fundraising amounting to $6 million. The share placement fundraising is expected to be completed around September 29, 2025, but must meet customary closing conditions. The company has previously purchased 300 bitcoins and plans to expand its bitcoin treasury to 1,000 bitcoins.