Peter Brandt tips $8,600 ether as Coinbase opens IPO share trading
Bitcoin.com News rounds up a week in which Peter Brandt set an $8,600 ether target, Coinbase gave US retail investors IPO allocations and Polymarket faced a reported $10m fraud.
Key points
- Peter Brandt said ether could reach $8,600 once it clears $5,000, based on a long-term chart.
- Trump-linked accounts sold Strategy (MSTR) shares in early summer; the stock is up about 100% from June lows.
- Bitquery estimated Satoshi Nakamoto's holdings at 1.17 million BTC after 2010 block rewards moved.
- Coinbase began offering IPO allocations to eligible US retail investors, starting with Oura.
- Polymarket's US platform was hit by a reported $10 million fraud using stolen debit cards.
Bitcoin.com News published a week in review covering politics, markets, Bitcoin history and exchange expansion. The round-up led with Peter Brandt's ether target, Coinbase's move into IPO share trading and a reported fraud attack on Polymarket.
Veteran trader Peter Brandt said ether could eventually reach $8,600 if it first clears $5,000, according to a long-term chart he posted. Bitcoin.com News noted that chart reading can beat the noise of news and fundamentals, and that Brandt is among the best known in that field. The outlet added that prominent ether bull Tom Lee has also used technical analysis to argue the token sits in a large consolidation pattern, with $5,000 acting as increasingly weak resistance.
On bitcoin history, Bitquery estimated that Satoshi Nakamoto's stash now stands at 1.17 million BTC. The analysis followed a month of dormant coins waking up, including 12 distinct block rewards from 2010 that were moved on 5 September for the first time since they were mined. Bitcoin.com News described the Patoshi Cluster as a clue to Bitcoin's origin story and said Bitquery's analysis looks credible, with Satoshi's early mining activity appearing more elaborate than previously thought.
Brandt sets ether target
Coinbase began giving eligible US retail investors access to IPO allocations through its app, starting with the offering from Oura. Bitcoin.com News framed the step as part of the exchange's expansion into an everything exchange, and highlighted the sector's habit of inventing new use cases and revenue streams quickly. The outlet cited Bitwise chief investment officer Matt Hougan, who said "the market doesn't understand Coinbase", and noted the COIN share price stood at $198.
The review also covered Strategy, the largest publicly traded corporate holder of bitcoin. Trump-linked investment accounts spent the early summer selling shares of the company, which trades on Nasdaq under the ticker MSTR, before the stock rebounded roughly 100% from its June lows. Bitcoin.com News said the President and his affiliates appear to be opportunistic traders as well as long-term believers in bitcoin and digital assets, and pointed to his crypto-related income in 2025.
Polymarket drew scrutiny after bad actors targeted its US platform in a $10 million fraud scheme using stolen debit cards. Payment processor Checkout.com rejected more than 80% of deposits as fraudulent, according to the report. Bitcoin.com News said in an editor's comment that prediction markets have long offered many ways to be abused, including insider trading, money laundering and manipulation, and that such developments are likely to speed up regulatory reform.
Satoshi stash estimate grows
Taken together, the items show how quickly crypto's centre of gravity is shifting between trading, market structure and regulation. A technical target for ether, a new retail route into IPOs and a payments fraud case each touch on the same question of how far digital asset businesses can extend into mainstream finance.