Weekly Perp News ReviewWeeklyWeek of September 28 - October 4, 202612 items~17 min read
Perpetual Futures Weekly News Review - Week of September 28 - October 4, 2026
A repricing week, not a trend week. Two macro prints moved the hike path - October odds ran from about 66% to roughly 21% - a payrolls spike to $87,146 flushed $433.6m of late longs, and bitcoin still closed at $86,480, +2.4%. Every item below carries a named source and a stated date; every number resolves to the desk's verified dataset.
The week of September 28 - October 4 was the repricing week the prior issue's positioning data pointed at. Bitcoin opened near $84,478, absorbed a cooler PCE on Wednesday, spiked to $87,146 on Friday's payrolls miss, gave the whole spike back inside hours, and closed at $84,497 before a +2.0% Sunday recovery landed the weekly close at $86,480, +2.4% on the week. Total crypto market value sat at $2.92 trillion (+1.2%), bitcoin dominance at 59.3% (up from 58.7%), and the Fear & Greed index at 72 - Greed.
The twelve items below are ordered by when they landed, not by importance. Each carries who reported it and where; the desk's comment is separated from the reported fact. The snapshot table fixes the week's data in one place before the items begin.
Market snapshot, week of September 28 - October 4, 2026
Metric
Reading
Week on week
Bitcoin, weekly close
$86,480 (+2.4%)
range $82,571 - $87,146
Ethereum, weekly close
$2,732 (+1.7%)
from $2,686.93 the prior week
Hyperliquid HYPE
$90.51 (-1.3%)
ATH of $97.98 on 23 September 2026
Bitcoin futures basis
-0.048%
perpetual futures stayed in backwardation into Friday's high; flipped positive twice, on Friday and Sunday
Friday squeeze-and-flush
$433.6m
$433.6m of late longs; spike to $87,146
US spot Bitcoin ETFs, weekly
$241.1m
absorbed a -$148.7m outflow mid-week
US spot Ether ETFs, weekly
-$138m
a second straight weekly outflow
Stablecoins, total market
$308.2bn
$3bn added on the week
Fed October hike odds
roughly 21%
down from about 66% at the start of the week
A week of two prints and one flush
The macro sequence ran in three beats. Wednesday's PCE printed 3.4% headline and 3.0% core, both under consensus, and took October hike odds from about 66% to 37% inside a day. Friday's payrolls report did the rest: 29,000 jobs against 90,000 expected - about a third of the consensus of the consensus - with unemployment at 4.2% against 4.1% expected, wages at 3.0%, and a two-month net revision of 60,000 that cut August from 133,000. Odds fell from 26% to roughly 21% on the print, while December odds still sit near 60% - a delay, not a pivot. The decision has moved from October to December without changing its destination.
Price told the same story in fast-forward. The payrolls print spiked bitcoin to $87,146 - a second tracker printed $87,219 - and then spiked on the payrolls print, then crashed back through $85,000 within hours. The unwind flushed $433.6m of late longs; the peak hour alone took $32.51m, $27.53m of it shorts (84.7%), with $20.5m in bitcoin. More than more than 77,000 traders were closed out over 24 hours. Two weeks earlier the same machinery ran in reverse: the 21 September squeeze closed $750.5m of shorts. Same mechanism, opposite side of the book.
The Friday flush window, 2 October 2026
Window
Liquidations
Composition
Scale
Source
Session of Friday 2 October (late-long flush)
$433.6m
late longs of a liquidation wave that dragged price from the spike back toward $84,000 within hours
more than 77,000 traders over 24 hours
CoinGlass via BTC Republic / Coin Edition
Peak hour inside the session
$32.51m
$27.53m of shorts (84.7%)
against longs of $4.98m
CoinGlass via Crypto Daily Feed / Zhitong Finance
The ETF ledger held, at a slower pace
US spot bitcoin ETFs took $241.1m across five sessions - +$31.1m, +$66.2m, -$148.7m, +$102.7m, +$189.8m - a third straight positive week despite Wednesday's -$148.7m, which was the outflow that ended the streak after a nine-session run that built $3.08bn. IBIT absorbed about $450m of the week and ARKB $25.5m; FBTC shed $168m. The year-to-date ledger stands at about $1.18bn (our ledger: the $934m year-to-date flip plus this week's inflow), and the third consecutive positive week, at roughly a tenth of the prior week's pace. Ether ETFs bled $138m (the second negative week in three); ZEC funds saw $93.56m leave; XRP and SOL funds took $4.74m and $2.43m.
US spot bitcoin ETFs, daily net flow, week of 28 September - 2 October 2026
Session
Net flow
Note
28 September
+31.10m
the streak's eighth straight positive session
29 September
+66.20m
ninth straight positive session; the streak's final day
30 September
-148.70m
the outflow that ended the nine-session streak
1 October
+102.70m
buyers returned after the PCE print
2 October
+189.80m
the week's largest single-day take, post-payroll
Five-day total
+241.10m
a third consecutive positive week
Hyperliquid: positions up, volume down
The structural story of the week sat on the largest perp venue. Hyperliquid's book reached $12.5bn at the weekly close, $920m short of its 23 September record - while daily volume sat at $4.54bn, inside a $2-6bn band, against $12bn-$16bn August peaks: a 65% decline. The composition explains it: 435,564 positions against 202,943 in January (115%), 320,600 wallets against 155,000. The venue held 32.9% of the $616.2bn trailing-30-day perp DEX cohort, printed $87.5m of 30-day fees, and has settled $5.4tn of cumulative perp volume.
The basis agreed with the positioning read. Perpetual futures stayed in backwardation into Friday's high - -0.048% - and the Coinbase premium flipped positive twice, on Friday and Sunday, closing at +0.013%. A book that holds size through a spike without paying a leverage premium is a carry book, not a momentum book.
ZEC gave back the month
ZEC finished at $1,343, -18.4% from $1,647, inside a $1,271-$1,600 range. The flow that fed September's run flipped in the same week: Grayscale's ZCSH logged $93.56m - Grayscale's ZCSH, its first weekly outflow since the August launch. The structural items kept moving regardless: on-chain analysts traced 2,700 ZEC - about $3.8m - from a Bitget hacker address into Zcash's Ironwood shielded pool, and NU7 testnet activation targeted for 6 October, mainnet 5 November. September's gain still stands at +40.6%.
The plumbing week: restore, shutdown, pilot
Counterparty and infrastructure news ran on three clocks. Bitget restored withdrawals in stages between 28 and 30 September, closing out the 24 September wallet incident with its protection fund covering losses throughout. The Blast L2 announced its shutdown, the Blast L2 announced its shutdown, with users until 26 October to withdraw. And the bank rail kept widening: Chainlink and Swift ran a tokenized-asset-flow pilot across 17 institutions, while Strategy added 1,665 BTC to reach 847,666 BTC and BitMine disclosed 17,362 ETH.
The macro room around it: gold closed at $4,172.10, -2.7% (spiked to about $4,227 on the payrolls print before closing lower); the 10-year at 5.28% (the highest since 2002, up 11bp on the week) with the 2-year at 4.82%; the S&P 500 at 7,722.72 (-0.3%) and the Nasdaq at 27,190.86 (+0.5%, the Nasdaq-100 set a record close at 30,817.93); Brent at $102.25 (-2.0%) and WTI at $91.11 (-1.4%) on reports of a G7 reserve release of up to up to 100 million barrels over four months, with a third carrier strike group and roughly 10,000 troops keeping the geopolitical bid alive underneath.
Cross-reads: what the week connected
The items above are separate, but they share one thread: the market is repricing from velocity to structure. The ETF ledger absorbed a mid-week outflow and still finished green at $241.1m; that is a structure flow, not a momentum flow. Hyperliquid's positions grew to 435,564 while daily volume fell to $4.54bn; that is structure in the on-chain book. The basis stayed in backwardation through the $87,146 spike; that is structure in the funding clock. Even the counterparty plumbing - Bitget's restoration, Blast's scheduled shutdown, Chainlink and Swift's pilot - is about which venues and rails will still be open in six months.
The repricing did not change the long-term trend; it changed who can hold the positions. A carry market rewards the financed holder and punishes the levered chaser. The payrolls fake-out was a stress test of that shift: late longs were flushed, the spot bid held, and the week closed higher. The same sequence in a momentum regime would have closed lower.
The week, item by item
1. August PCE printed 3.4% with core at 3.0%, both cooler than expected, and October hike odds fell from about 66% to 37% inside a day Volatility
The BEA's August PCE report landed on 30 September: headline inflation at 3.4% against 3.7% expected, core at 3.0% against 3.3% expected. Market-implied odds of an October hike fell from about 66% at the week's start to 37% by the close, per CME FedWatch pricing cited by TechFlame.
The print did not change the direction of the hike debate - it changed its urgency. A softer inflation read buys the Fed time, and time is what a carry market prices.
2. September payrolls added 29,000 against 90,000 expected, and October hike odds collapsed to roughly 21% Volatility
Nonfarm payrolls rose 29,000 in September - about a third of the consensus of the 90,000 consensus - with private payrolls at 46,000, unemployment at 4.2% against 4.1% expected, and wages up 3.0% year on year. The two-month net revision subtracted 60,000, with August cut from 133,000. October hike odds fell from 26% before the print to roughly 21% after it, while December odds sit near 60% - a delay, not a pivot.
A print this soft, this close to a meeting, does one thing: it moves the decision from October to December without changing the destination. For perp traders the immediate consequence was not direction - it was the two-way violence around the print.
3. US spot bitcoin ETFs took $241.1m - a third straight positive week - even after the -$148.7m break on 30 September ETF Flows
The five sessions ran +$31.1m, +$66.2m, -$148.7m, +$102.7m and +$189.8m. Wednesday's -$148.7m was the outflow that ended the streak - a nine-session streak that had built $3.08bn over nine sessions. IBIT absorbed about $450m of the week's total and ARKB $25.5m, while FBTC shed $168m. Ether ETFs bled $138m (the second negative week in three); ZEC funds saw $93.56m leave (Grayscale's ZCSH, its first weekly outflow since the August launch); XRP funds took $4.74m and SOL funds $2.43m. The year-to-date ledger stands at about $1.18bn (our ledger: the $934m year-to-date flip plus this week's inflow).
the third consecutive positive week, at roughly a tenth of the prior week's pace - the demand is persistent but the pace is normalising. A ledger that can absorb a nine-figure outflow day and still finish green is a different animal from one that needs every session positive.
4. Bitcoin's payrolls spike to $87,146 unwound within hours, flushing $433.6m of late longs Liquidations
Price spiked to $87,146 on the payrolls print - a second tracker printed $87,219 - then spiked on the payrolls print, then crashed back through $85,000 within hours. The unwind took $433.6m of late longs in the session. The peak hour saw $32.51m liquidated, $27.53m of it shorts (84.7%), with $20.5m in bitcoin alone. More than more than 77,000 traders were closed out over 24 hours. Sunday then delivered the Sunday recovery that salvaged the week, recovering +2.0% to $86,480 by the weekly close.
Two squeezes in a fortnight, in opposite directions. A market that liquidates late longs at the high and closes the week higher has not changed direction - it has repriced who was levered and where the stops sat.
5. Hyperliquid's book reached $12.5bn while daily volume sat at $4.54bn - the rotation from flow to carry in one pairing Hyperliquid
Open interest stood at $12.5bn at the weekly close, $920m short of the 23 September record. The book's composition tells the story: 435,564 positions against 202,943 in January - 115% - and 320,600 wallets against 155,000. Volume went the other way: $4.54bn a day, inside a $2-6bn band, against $12bn-$16bn peaks around around 22 August - a 65% decline. The venue held 32.9% of the $616.2bn trailing-30-day perp DEX cohort, with 30-day fees of $87.5m and cumulative perp volume of $5.4tn.
Positions up, volume down is not decay - it is a carry market forming. Fewer, larger, older positions change the funding and liquidation dynamics more than any single price print does.
6. ZEC closed at $1,343, -18.4% on the week, as its flagship fund logged a first weekly outflow of $93.56m Volatility
ZEC finished at $1,343 from $1,647 a week earlier, inside a $1,271-$1,600 range. Grayscale's ZCSH recorded $93.56m - Grayscale's ZCSH, its first weekly outflow since the August launch. On 1 October, on-chain analysts traced 2,700 ZEC - about $3.8m - from a Bitget hacker address into Zcash's Ironwood shielded pool, sharpening the privacy-coin debate. NU7 progress continued: NU7 testnet activation targeted for 6 October, mainnet 5 November. For the month, ZEC gained +40.6%.
September's leader gave back most of its run, and the flow that fed it flipped the same week. The structural items - a shielded pool absorbing hack proceeds, an NU7 timeline - matter more for the theme than any single week of flows.
7. Reports of a G7 reserve release of up to up to 100 million barrels over four months knocked both oil benchmarks lower for the week Volatility
Brent settled at $102.25, -2.0% on the week, and WTI at $91.11, -1.4%; both benchmarks fell on the G7 reserve-release reports. The geopolitical overlay did not soften: a third carrier strike group and roughly 10,000 additional troops were reported in the region (a third carrier strike group and roughly 10,000 troops).
Energy is the collateral market's quiet input: fuel for the miners, inflation for the Fed, and the single biggest non-crypto perp complex. A supply-side headline moving both benchmarks is a volatility source the crypto tape cannot hedge.
8. Fed speakers split the path as October hike odds fell to roughly 21% and the street's bitcoin targets diverged Volatility
New York Fed's Williams said on 29 September there was no urgency on further hikes; Dallas Fed's Lorie Logan argued the target range needs to rise an additional 50 basis points or more. In the street, JPMorgan still expects another hike in December, while Citi lifted its bitcoin target to $113K. The odds chain across the week: about 66% at the start, 37% after PCE, 26% before payrolls, roughly 21% after.
A split speakers' table with odds this low is a market waiting on two dated prints - the 7 October minutes and the 14 October CPI - rather than on narrative.
9. Bitget restored withdrawals in stages between 28 and 30 September, closing out the wallet incident disclosed on 24 September Market Structure
Withdrawals resumed in stages between 28 and 30 September, completing the restoration after the unauthorised hot and warm wallet transfers disclosed on the evening of 24 September. The protection fund covered user losses throughout; the DPRK attribution remains probable but unconfirmed, and the investigation continues.
The follow-through is the story: an exchange that freezes, funds and restores inside a week is a different counterparty from one that does not - and the desk's prior-issue structural point stands: venue risk and chain risk are different exposures.
10. The Blast L2 announced its shutdown, giving users until 26 October to withdraw Market Structure
the Blast L2 announced its shutdown, with users until 26 October to withdraw. The exit window is fixed and finite, which makes it a scheduled counterparty event rather than an open-ended one: balances not moved by the deadline depend entirely on the shutdown mechanics the team publishes.
A sequencer going dark is a withdrawal-freeze by construction. For levered traders, collateral parked on an L2 with a shutdown clock is collateral with a deadline.
11. Chainlink and Swift ran a tokenized-asset-flow pilot across 17 banks Market Structure
The pilot connected 17 financial institutions through Swift's existing messaging rails to move tokenized-asset flows, testing how bank infrastructure and public-chain settlement interoperate. It follows the tokenized-deposits work at The Clearing House covered in prior issues.
Collateral mobility is the perp market's unsung constraint. Every bank rail that can carry tokenized value shortens the distance between a treasury and a margin account.
12. Strategy added 1,665 BTC to reach 847,666 BTC, and BitMine disclosed a purchase of 17,362 ETH Market Structure
Strategy's weekly disclosure added 1,665 BTC, taking the treasury to 847,666 BTC; BitMine's disclosed purchase was 17,362 ETH. Both are structured holders whose financing costs tie them to the same rates tape the Fed speakers were arguing about.
The largest structured bids buy on a weekly clock regardless of the tape. Their cost of carry, not their conviction, is the cyclical variable - which is why the hike-odds chain matters to them as much as to any perp book.
The week ahead
The 7 October FOMC minutes and the 14 October September CPI - the two dated prints that reprice the 27-28 October decision from roughly 21%.
Whether bitcoin holds the weekly close near $86,480 or retests the ETF-holder cost bands the desk tracks overhead.
Hyperliquid's volume band: whether $4.54bn marks a floor or the $2-6bn range keeps grinding lower while positions build.
ZEC's NU7 testnet activation and the Blast withdrawal deadline - two scheduled infrastructure events on fixed clocks.
The ETF ledger's resilience: whether the spot bid can absorb another mid-week outflow after the streak-ending -$148.7m print.
Sources
August PCE printed 3.4% with core at 3.0%, both cooler than expected, and October hike odds fell from about 66% to 37% inside a day — Bureau of Economic Analysis, 30 September 2026. Source
September payrolls added 29,000 against 90,000 expected, and October hike odds collapsed to roughly 21% — Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2 October 2026. Source
US spot bitcoin ETFs took $241.1m - a third straight positive week - even after the -$148.7m break on 30 September — SoSoValue, 2 October 2026. Source
Bitcoin's payrolls spike to $87,146 unwound within hours, flushing $433.6m of late longs — CoinGlass, 2 October 2026. Source
Hyperliquid's book reached $12.5bn while daily volume sat at $4.54bn - the rotation from flow to carry in one pairing — HyperTracker, 4 October 2026. Source
ZEC closed at $1,343, -18.4% on the week, as its flagship fund logged a first weekly outflow of $93.56m — COINOTAG and MarketBeat, 4 October 2026. Source
Reports of a G7 reserve release of up to up to 100 million barrels over four months knocked both oil benchmarks lower for the week — G7 governments, reported, 2 October 2026. Source
Fed speakers split the path as October hike odds fell to roughly 21% and the street's bitcoin targets diverged — Federal Reserve speakers, 2 October 2026. Source
Bitget restored withdrawals in stages between 28 and 30 September, closing out the wallet incident disclosed on 24 September — Bitget, 30 September 2026. Source
The Blast L2 announced its shutdown, giving users until 26 October to withdraw — Blast, 3 October 2026. Source
Chainlink and Swift ran a tokenized-asset-flow pilot across 17 banks — Chainlink and Swift, 2 October 2026. Source
Strategy added 1,665 BTC to reach 847,666 BTC, and BitMine disclosed a purchase of 17,362 ETH — Strategy and BitMine, 2 October 2026. Source
Bitcoin daily OHLC, weekly close and range — CoinMarketCap daily history, 28 September - 4 October 2026.
Friday squeeze-and-flush liquidations and trader counts — CoinGlass via BTC Republic, Coin Edition, Crypto Daily Feed and Zhitong Finance, 2 October 2026.
US spot bitcoin, ether, ZEC, XRP and SOL ETF weekly flows — SoSoValue daily ledger via ChainReport and HTX, 28 September - 2 October 2026.
Year-to-date ETF ledger and cost-basis readings — SoSoValue / Farside ledger compilation via ChainReport, HTX and Bitbo, 22 September - 2 October 2026.
Bitcoin futures basis, funding and Coinbase premium — BTCtiming weekly review (CryptoQuant indicators), 4 October 2026.
Hyperliquid open interest, positions, wallets and volume — HyperTracker via CoinMarketCap research desk and Crypto Coin Show; DefiLlama perps dashboard, 4 October 2026.
Perp DEX cohort volume and open interest — DefiLlama perps dashboard via Crypto Coin Show, 4 October 2026.
Fed pricing, odds chain and speaker remarks — CME FedWatch via BTC Republic; Reuters markets desk via LSEG; UOB Markets Overview, 28 September - 2 October 2026.
Treasury yields, equity closes, gold, crude and VIX — Yahoo Finance daily history; Vista Partners weekly summary; Reuters NY close; Cailianshe via Eastmoney, 2-4 October 2026.
Crypto market cap, dominance and Fear & Greed — AnalystMarkets weekly digest; CoinMarketCap market-cap history; TechFlame, 4 October 2026.
Regulatory and counterparty week: Bitget restoration, Blast shutdown, Chainlink-Swift pilot, corporate treasury — KuCoin weekly market review; Bitget notices via PANews and crypto.news, 28 September - 4 October 2026.
Frequently asked questions
What was the biggest perpetual-futures story of the week of September 28 - October 4, 2026?
The payrolls fake-out. September payprints of 29,000 against 90,000 expected spiked bitcoin to $87,146, flushed $433.6m of late longs inside hours, and then the market closed the week higher at $86,480 (+2.4%) on a +2.0% Sunday recovery. Direction did not change; the leverage that was sitting above the market did.
Did the soft payrolls print end the Fed hike story?
No - it moved the meeting. October hike odds fell to roughly 21% after the print, down a chain that ran about 66% to 37% to 26% across the week, but December odds still sit near 60% - a delay, not a pivot. The repricing now waits on the 7 October minutes and the 14 October CPI ahead of the 27-28 October decision.
What exactly broke on Friday, 2 October?
Late longs. The spike to $87,146 unwound through spiked on the payrolls print, then crashed back through $85,000 within hours, taking $433.6m of long positions with it. The peak hour saw $32.51m liquidated - $27.53m of it shorts (84.7%), $20.5m in bitcoin - across more than more than 77,000 traders over 24 hours. It was the mirror image of the $750.5m short squeeze of 21 September.
Are bitcoin ETF flows still growing?
Persistent, not accelerating: $241.1m for the week, a third straight positive week, but the third consecutive positive week, at roughly a tenth of the prior week's pace. Wednesday's -$148.7m outflow broke a nine-session streak that had built $3.08bn; the year-to-date ledger stands at about $1.18bn (our ledger: the $934m year-to-date flip plus this week's inflow).
Where can I read last week's news review?
The week of September 21 - 27, 2026 review remains published in the Weekly Perp News Review archive. Prior issues are frozen as published and never updated against later data.