Crypto: CLARITY Act, Fed and AI — a week packed with risks

60 votes in the Senate on Tuesday. A rate decision on Wednesday. Bitcoin around $77,500 after a week-long 4% decline. Crypto is likely entering one of the busiest stretches of 2026. The CLARITY Act faces a pivotal test on September 15, before the Federal Reserve decides the following day whether to raise interest rates. At the same time, Dario Amodei is calling for a slowdown in artificial intelligence development, Blockstream is refusing to pay the holders of nearly 600 BTC, and Robinhood has seen crypto volumes surge 61%. The “biggest week in crypto history”? Perhaps not. But rarely have so many structural issues been concentrated into just a few days.

Crypto: the CLARITY Act finally reaches the Senate

It all begins on Tuesday, September 15, at 2:15 p.m. Washington time.

The U.S. Senate is due to vote on the cloture motion allowing the Digital Asset Market CLARITY Act to move forward. Bref Crypto recently noted that the CLARITY Act did not clearly have the 60 votes required. Tuesday’s vote does not mean the bill will be enacted: its initial purpose is to allow the Senate to continue debating the text.

The official U.S. Senate schedule confirms that the motion concerning H.R. 3633 will come up on Tuesday at 2:15 p.m.

Republicans used the weekend to publish a new 635-page version described as their final offer to Democrats. Ethics remained one of the main points of contention. The new text further limits the ability of federal officials and their close associates to profit from interests linked to digital assets. State attorneys general would also receive a greater role in enforcing certain provisions.

This is not a minor change.

The bill published in May 2025 has nearly doubled in size after more than a year of negotiations.

And yet Polymarket still assigned only around a 24% probability that the CLARITY Act will be enacted this year, according to Cointelegraph. The market therefore appears to draw a clear distinction between two things: securing 60 votes on Tuesday and then successfully completing the entire legislative process before the end of 2026.

The Fed takes over 24 hours later

The crypto sector will barely have time to digest the vote.

The Federal Reserve will hold its meeting on September 15 and 16, with a decision expected on Wednesday at 2 p.m. in Washington, followed by a press conference 30 minutes later. The Federal Reserve’s official calendar confirms the two-day meeting.

The market is entering the event in a particularly uncomfortable position.

U.S. August CPI came in at 3.4% year over year. The figure matched expectations, while annual core inflation fell back to 2.4%. That nevertheless failed to persuade traders to rule out another rate hike.

Quite the opposite.

On Friday, expectations compiled by CME FedWatch gave roughly an 85% probability of a 25-basis-point hike at the meeting, compared with around 60% a week earlier.

Bref Crypto had already explained why Bitcoin sometimes reacts more to inflation data than to the Fed’s final decision. A significant part of the move occurs when the market reassesses what the central bank will do next.

This time, the equation remains contradictory.

Core inflation is slowing year over year. Job creation nevertheless far exceeded expectations in August. Oil remains elevated, and some monthly inflation components are accelerating.

Bitcoin could therefore receive a more crypto-friendly law on Tuesday and tighter monetary policy on Wednesday.

Not exactly the one-way bullish scenario sometimes promoted on social media.

AI suddenly adds another risk

The weekend’s surprise nevertheless came from a sector not directly involved in crypto.

Dario Amodei wants to slow AI down.

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei published a lengthy piece on Saturday titled We Must Pace the Frontier, arguing that the development of the most powerful models is now advancing quickly enough to outpace companies’ and governments’ ability to understand certain risks. He proposes a multi-stage approach to temporarily slow the progress of the most advanced capabilities.

His most striking concern involves swarms of autonomous agents.

Amodei believes that within six to 12 months, sufficiently advanced systems could coordinate numerous agents and potentially compromise a very significant portion of the internet. His warning is based in particular on the July incident in which OpenAI agents allegedly left their testing environment before compromising external systems.

Elon Musk publicly said that Amodei was right, and Sam Altman also supported the idea of slowing certain advances, according to Axios.

Why does this matter for crypto?

First, because AI now represents a significant part of Wall Street’s risk appetite. A sharp correction in major technology stocks could weigh on markets as a whole.

Second, because the two industries directly overlap: data centers, energy, cybersecurity, autonomous trading agents and Bitcoin miners redirecting part of their infrastructure toward AI computing.

A serious slowdown in the race to develop models would therefore not remain confined to Silicon Valley.

Blockstream refuses to pay for the remaining 598 BTC

As Washington debates and AI executives discuss slowing down, Bitcoin is facing its own debate over security.

The Liquid Network hack moved nearly 4,000 BTC in early September after a vulnerability was exploited in Elements, the software underpinning Blockstream’s sidechain.

Bref Crypto documented from the first hours how Liquid Network suspended its network after nearly 4,000 BTC left it.

The people behind the operation presented themselves as “white hat” researchers. After the vulnerability was fixed, they did indeed return approximately 3,400 BTC.

598.5 BTC are still missing, worth several tens of millions of dollars.

The holders of those bitcoins are now demanding a 10% reward.

Blockstream refuses.

For the company, withdrawing funds without authorization and then imposing the conditions for their return is not security research: it is theft. Blockstream’s main concern is that accepting the demand would create a precedent in which any attacker could exploit open-source software, take hundreds of millions of dollars, and then set the amount of their own “bounty.”

The question is less theoretical than it might seem.

In crypto, several protocols have already agreed to let hackers keep part of the funds in exchange for returning the rest.

Blockstream is taking a different approach.

It could potentially cost nearly 600 BTC.

Robinhood records $17.5 billion in crypto volume

The week is not solely defensive, however.

Robinhood’s figures show that investor activity returned strongly in August.

The group recorded $17.5 billion in crypto notional volume, a 61% increase from July. Robinhood App accounted for $7.4 billion, while Bitstamp — acquired in 2025 — represented $10.1 billion.

That was still 38% below the August 2025 level.

This contrast says a great deal about the current market.

Activity rebounds quickly when Bitcoin recovers, without returning to the levels of the previous cycle. Robinhood also benefits from expanding beyond simple U.S. brokerage: Bitstamp, stock tokenization and the future Robinhood Chain are gradually broadening its exposure to digital assets.

Bernstein analysts cited by Cointelegraph estimate that Robinhood Chain could generate up to $160 million in annual fees by 2028. Tokenized stocks already account for approximately 27% of network volume, while memecoins have fallen from 100% of activity at launch to around 36%.

This shift is noteworthy.

Crypto continues to produce its memecoins, but capital is gradually moving toward services much closer to traditional finance: stocks, settlement, stablecoins and market infrastructure.

Nasdaq has also just invested $100 million in Kraken’s parent company.

Wall Street is no longer really waiting to find out whether blockchain will survive.

It is now choosing which infrastructures to use.

Bitcoin nevertheless ends the week in the red

All this activity did not prevent Bitcoin from falling.

By the end of the week, BTC was down around 4%, trading near $76,800 according to data cited by Cointelegraph. Ethereum was down 1.4% at around $2,478, while XRP fell 5.6% to approximately $1.34. Total crypto market capitalization stood at around $2.61 trillion.

U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs also lost some of their recent momentum.

After three exceptionally strong weeks that attracted approximately $3.8 billion, outflows accelerated. On Thursday alone, they reached $282.6 million. The week ended with around $462.7 million in net outflows, while Ethereum ETFs retained approximately $197 million in weekly inflows.

The episode is a reminder that BlackRock’s IBIT ETF has become a major financial product despite BTC’s volatility. A few days of outflows are not enough to erase that institutionalization.

They do show, however, that investors are not rushing in blindly ahead of the Fed.

Volatility remains asymmetric across the rest of the market.

Venice Token gained more than 26% over the week, Falcon Finance around 20% and Filecoin 17%. At the other end of the spectrum, PONS fell nearly 34%, Arbitrum around 30% and Dash 25%.

Bitcoin is down 4%.

Beneath the surface, some altcoins are losing seven times as much.

Security becomes the second major theme

Another series of events from the week deserves to be considered together.

Revolut acknowledged that it had shared sensitive data belonging to some customers with fraudsters using an address from a genuine government domain. According to notifications sent to the people affected, the information potentially exposed included identity documents, verification selfies, statements and transaction histories, including some Bitcoin transactions.

Revolut says that its own systems and customers’ funds were not compromised.

In another case, North Korea is expanding its fake IT-worker operations by recruiting foreign developers to interview with U.S. companies. Some intermediaries were reportedly offered $500 a month paid in crypto before North Korean operators subsequently took over the jobs obtained.

Viewed separately, these cases appear very different.

They nevertheless share one feature: the weakness is not necessarily cryptography.

Liquid was compromised through a software flaw surrounding Bitcoin. Revolut was deceived through social engineering. U.S. companies are being infiltrated through recruitment.

Amodei now fears that AI could automate precisely these kinds of operations on a scale that would be difficult to contain.

The convergence of crypto, cybersecurity and artificial intelligence is gradually ceasing to be a futuristic theme.

It is already present in this week’s incidents.

The “biggest week in crypto” still has to prove itself

The phrase came in particular from Altcoin Daily: the combination of the CLARITY Act vote, the Fed’s decision and several positive developments could make this the “biggest week in crypto of all time.”

That is obviously excessive at this stage.

The CLARITY Act could fail on Tuesday. Even if it secures 60 votes, it will not instantly become law. The Fed could raise rates on Wednesday and maintain a sufficiently hawkish tone to cool the market immediately.

The slowdown requested by AI executives could remain voluntary and limited.

Blockstream could recover its 598 BTC… or never see them again.

A historic week is not declared on Sunday.

It is recognized afterward.

What is already clear, however, is the exceptional density of the calendar. In less than 48 hours, Washington could change both the structural rules governing crypto and the price of money financing the markets.

Then comes the technological layer: the AI industry itself is beginning to question whether the speed of its progress has become a risk.

Bitcoin is entering the week around $77,000, far below its 2025 record and after several extremely volatile months.

Its next move may depend less on a chart than on two rooms in Washington.

The Senate on Tuesday.

The Fed on Wednesday.

For an industry long built in opposition to traditional finance and institutions, it is a fitting irony: the most important crypto week of the year could play out almost entirely in Washington.