Standard Chartered says $100K may undershoot

August 21, 2026

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Solana speeds up while SOL squeezes higher

Key points:

  • Solana cut its target slot time from 400 milliseconds to 350 milliseconds, beginning a staged push toward 200 milliseconds.

  • SOL briefly hit $93.39 after a 25% weekly rally, but an RSI of 81.74 warns that momentum is stretched.

News - Solana just shortened its clock for the first time since the network launched. Its target slot time has dropped to 350 milliseconds, opening a four-stage rollout designed to eventually double block frequency without increasing the network’s total data load.

Meanwhile, SOL surged through its major moving averages as a wider crypto short squeeze erased more than $4 billion in bearish positions over 48 hours. The token briefly reached $93.39 on August 21 and returned to an area that sellers defended in May.

Four measured cuts - The upgrade will lower slot times in 50-millisecond steps, moving from 350 milliseconds to 300, 250, and finally 200. At the final stage, Solana could produce roughly 300 slots per minute. Each reduction activates separately through Anza’s Agave validator software, and the tentative rollout can pause if block-skip rates rise excessively.

Shorter slots are intended to reduce confirmation latency. They do not automatically deliver faster final settlement, which remains the focus of the separate Alpenglow consensus overhaul.

Speed meets resistance - SOL’s rally cleared the 200-day simple moving average near $81.18 and pushed toward a dense liquidation zone between $93 and $95. A sustained break could expose the May range high near $98, followed by the psychological $100 level.

Momentum has a catch - The daily RSI reached 81.74, placing SOL deep in overbought territory. That does not guarantee a reversal, but it raises the risk of consolidation after the near-vertical move. If buyers cannot defend $90, nearby liquidity around $88 and $86 could pull price lower.

Standard Chartered’s $100K rethink meets Bitcoin’s $80K wall

Key points:

  • Geoff Kendrick, Standard Chartered’s global head of digital asset research, said Bitcoin could revisit its $126,000 record before year-end, making his existing $100,000 forecast potentially too low.

  • BTC stopped at $79,500 despite recovering ETF demand and macro support, while overbought momentum and thinner weekend trading now test the rally.

News - Bitcoin’s rebound presents two tests: whether $80,000 can fall now and whether $100,000 will eventually look conservative. BTC gained more than 20% in five days, but its latest run at the threshold ended $500 short.

Forecasts pull apart - Kendrick said the recovery could accelerate after October 6 and carry Bitcoin toward its $126,000 all-time high before year-end. That marks a shift after he cut Standard Chartered’s 2026 target from $150,000 to $100,000 in February. Recovering spot ETF inflows and low open interest could leave room for investors to return, though the bank has not formally raised its target.

By contrast, Benjamin Cowen still sees a possible Q4 drop toward $44,000 if prior midterm-year patterns repeat, without abandoning his July accumulation thesis.

Three forces converged - Short liquidations powered much of the initial surge, with bearish traders losing $1.06 billion in one day. The U.S. Treasury’s plan to double long-end bond buybacks also supported risk appetite, while spot Bitcoin ETFs attracted $517.2 million on August 19 and $606.3 million on August 20.

The weekend handoff - Bitcoin still faces three overlapping barriers near $80,000: a former support trendline now acting as resistance, May’s $79,427 high, and the psychological threshold itself. Its daily RSI reached 84.64, the highest and most overbought reading of 2026.

Once U.S. markets close, Bitcoin also loses the ETF bid and enters thinner weekend trading. Clearing $80,000 without sustained spot demand remains the immediate proof point.

Coldcard hardens firmware. Old seeds stay exposed

Key points:

  • Coinkite released new Coldcard firmware after an exploit drained 1,778 BTC, but installing it does not secure seeds generated on vulnerable versions.

  • Mandatory physical randomness now strengthens new seeds, while an AI-assisted audit uncovered separate transaction, USB, and firmware-validation problems.

News - Coldcard’s security update comes with a critical limit: it can harden the wallet’s future behavior, but it cannot repair private keys already weakened by faulty randomness.

The exposure window - Seeds created on affected firmware between 2021 and July 2026 require users to generate replacements and migrate their Bitcoin, even after updating. Coinkite told Mk4 and Mk5 owners to install firmware 5.6.1 and Q users to install 1.5.1Q.

Confirmed losses reached 1,778 BTC, valued at about $112 million in an August 14 Galaxy Research report and ranked by DefiLlama as 2026’s third-largest crypto exploit.

Entropy becomes physical - Every new seed now requires at least 65 unpredictably timed key presses, 50 rolls of a six-sided die, or 128 coin flips. That user input is combined with randomness from the device’s secure elements and hardware generator, reducing reliance on any single entropy source.

AI widened the audit - Coinkite said Kimi and other frontier models assisted its three-week system review. The process uncovered separate weaknesses involving transaction approval, USB handling, and firmware validation.

Coldcard now rechecks transactions immediately before signing, restricts USB downloads, and requires encrypted sessions. Security firm Coinspect also launched Unlukey, a free tool designed to identify wallet addresses generated from known weak seed phrases.

MANTRA hit a record low before its chain froze

Key points:

  • MANTRA plunged 18.5% to a record $0.004126 minutes before block production stopped, then recovered to about $0.0044 as volume jumped nearly 600%.

  • The team said an attacker exploited an upstream dependency, but the incident’s full scope, any asset losses, and the restart timeline remain unconfirmed.

News - MANTRA’s latest crisis unfolded in a striking order: the token broke down first, the blockchain stopped next, and the exploit explanation followed. The timing does not prove that the attack caused the sell-off, and the project has not established any connection between them.

Three minutes apart - CoinGecko recorded the low around 11:10 p.m. UTC on Thursday. MANTRA Chain produced its final block roughly three minutes later, while the project publicly announced the precautionary halt at 11:44 p.m.

The token remained down about 10% over 24 hours even as Bitcoin topped $75,000 and the broader crypto market gained nearly 4%.

No restart without coordination - MANTRA said an attacker exploited a vulnerability in externally developed software used by the chain. Public endpoints and validators remain offline, while transactions, bridge operations, and MANTRA-managed cross-chain relays remain frozen.

Developers are preparing a patch, but resuming block production requires a coordinated validator restart after the fix is verified. Affected exchanges have also paused deposits and withdrawals.

Damage stays unconfirmed - The team is tracing fund movements and working with exchanges but has not disclosed how the exploit operated, which software was affected, or whether any assets were lost. It also warned holders to ignore unsolicited recovery offers.

The outage arrives 16 months after the former OM token plunged more than 90% in April 2025, erasing over $5 billion in market value.

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Crypto scams uncovered

  • Some crypto investment scams now send a courier with a matching dollar-bill serial number: In a June 2026 warning, the FBI said scammers were arranging in-person cash pickups from victims after fake investment platforms claimed transfers had been blocked or accounts flagged. Victims could be given a dollar-bill serial number or password to authenticate the courier, then see their fake platform balance rise after handing over the cash.

  • The remote crypto developer can be the infiltration scam itself: U.S. prosecutors charged four North Korean nationals in 2025 over a scheme involving fraudulent identities, remote IT jobs, and more than $900,000 in alleged virtual-currency thefts from two companies. Prosecutors say one defendant allegedly stole about $740,000 by modifying the source code of two smart contracts, and the FBI currently lists all four men as wanted.

  • The virtual crops were fake, but the wallet drain was real: The FBI has documented fraudulent play-to-earn games where victims watched supposed crypto rewards accumulate for activities such as growing crops on an animated farm. A malicious program was activated when they joined, and once they stopped adding funds, criminals could drain their wallets before demanding bogus taxes or fees to get the money back.

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Top 3 coins of the day

Artificial Superintelligence Alliance (FET)

Key points:

  • FET surged through its entire EMA cluster, including the descending 200-period EMA at $0.1418, as volume expanded sharply with the move.

  • Stochastic RSI reached 100.00 on both lines, showing exceptionally strong momentum but also an increasingly stretched short-term setup.

What you should know:

FET moved faster than its broader trend structure could reorganize. Price accelerated to $0.1628 and cleared all four EMAs, including the descending 200-period EMA at $0.1418, even though the slower averages are not yet fully bullishly stacked. Volume expanded materially through that reclaim, strengthening the case that buyers backed the move rather than merely chasing a thin spike. The caution comes from Stochastic RSI, where both lines are pinned at 100.00 and leave momentum extremely stretched. 0.1630-0.1650 is the immediate resistance zone, while 0.1500-0.1520 is the first support area to hold. A deeper pullback brings the 0.1410-0.1420 region, around the 200-period EMA, back into focus.

Pump.fun (PUMP)

Key points:

  • PUMP entered its labeled Elliott Wave 5 near $0.00417, yet MACD and volume continued strengthening rather than signaling clear exhaustion.

  • MACD widened to +0.000292 above the +0.000198 signal line, while the positive histogram expanded to +0.000094.

What you should know:

Wave 5 usually shifts attention toward how an impulse ends, but PUMP’s momentum had not started fading yet. Price reached $0.00416 as MACD widened bullishly and volume expanded sharply through the latest advance. That tension makes the current setup less about chasing another breakout and more about whether buyers can preserve momentum near the wave’s mature stage. Pump.fun’s fundamentals added support: 50% of net protocol revenue reportedly funds PUMP buybacks and burns, while the platform generated about $1.16 million in 24-hour revenue and $27 million over 30 days. 0.00418-0.00420 is the immediate resistance zone, while 0.00375-0.00380 is the first support area to monitor.

Ethena (ENA)

Key points:

  • ENA’s first visible seller response appeared near $0.1448 after a near-vertical rally, though price remained well above its fully bullish EMA stack.

  • AO expanded to +0.0302 as the live candle’s volume reached 241.77M, keeping momentum firmly positive despite the upper wick.

What you should know:

ENA finally met visible resistance after a near-vertical run, with the live candle wicking to $0.1448 before easing to $0.1381. That pullback did not yet break the broader structure: the 20/50/100/200 EMAs remained fully bullishly stacked at $0.1036, $0.0941, $0.0906, and $0.0882, while AO expanded to +0.0302. Volume also surged, with the live candle already reaching 241.77M. The rally followed Ethena’s newly unveiled $1 billion secured warehouse financing facility with FalconX, while Arthur Hayes’ public “easy 5-bagger” call added a separate sentiment catalyst. 0.1400-0.1450 is the immediate resistance zone, while 0.1300-0.1320 is the first support area to hold.

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