BTC, stocks surge on SpaceX-Tesla merger talk

Since the end of the summer, bitcoin prices have hung in a relatively tight range centered around $80,000 that mostly rises and falls alongside oil prices and the AI-trade dominated stock market. 

After dipping last week over oil prices and concerns about the vast amounts of capital being deployed in AI, both crypto and stocks bounced back this week as traders adopted a “renewed willingness … across financial markets to take on additional risk,” according to Bloomberg. 

By Wednesday AM, BTC was closing in on $85,000 on the news that the SpaceX and Tesla boards are considering a $3.5 trillion merger of the two Elon Musk-led giants, which boosted both firms’ shares. “There’s a lot of merit to combining the companies,” Musk said, following SpaceX’s announcement of blockbuster earnings that soundly beat estimates.  

Bitcoin ETFs also saw their biggest day of inflows in a month on Monday, with $526.6 million of new capital. Despite the big day, BTC ETFs remained down around $90 million for the month so far. 

“So, does this signal that the worst is over when it comes to the selloff across tech, and in particular chip stocks, seen since the beginning of this month? Maybe,” David Morrison at Trade Nation told Bloomberg. “Certainly, there has been yet another impressive start to the earnings season.”

Here’s more news you should know… 

Ethereum and Solana staking hit record levels in Q3

According to Bitwise's latest quarterly staking report, the percentage of circulating Ethereum and Solana that has been staked both hit new records in the third quarter of 2026.

Around 43.8 million ETH, almost 36% of the total supply, was staked as of September. For Solana, the percentage was even bigger: around 440.5 million SOL, making up 69% of the total supply.

For both blockchains, annualized staking yields fell slightly. "As more ETH is staked, rewards are distributed across a larger pool, reducing the yield earned on each ETH," the report noted. 

Staking is part of the process both Ethereum and Solana use to create new tokens, verify transactions, and secure their blockchains. 

Insto matic... Institutional holders are a big part of the growth in staked tokens — especially, as the Block reports, the ETH treasury giant Bitmine, whose staked ETH soared from 410,000 in December 2025 to 5.07 million on Sept. 27.