US Spot Crypto ETFs Attracted $2.6 Billion Last Week, the Most Since October 2025

In Today's Note

• US spot Bitcoin and Ether ETFs took in a combined $2.6B last week, with $1.9B into BTC funds and $697.2M into ETH, as combined trading volume more than tripled to $29B. The run cut the products' 2026 deficit from $5.7B to $3.1B, and BTC spent the weekend consolidating near $77K, a three-month high.
• The week ahead centres on two events: Bessent's promised fiscal consolidation initiative, due imminently, and Warsh's first Jackson Hole speech on Friday. Wednesday's July core PCE lands between them, with Kashkari saying he is not confident inflation is returning to target quickly.

Market Snapshot: Overnight Moves

Macro & Markets

• A volatile week on Wall Street ended with US stocks rising on Friday and BTC holding up around $77K, a three-month high, amid solid economic data and oscillations in the bond market.
• Equities extended their August rally after data showed that US business activity grew at its fastest pace since April 2022.
• The S&P Global US Composite Purchasing Managers’ Index rose to 56 in August, above the value of 50 which indicates an expansion.
• Chief business economist at S&P Global said that “US business is booming, with firms reporting the fastest output growth for over four years”.
• The services Purchasing Managers' Index rose to 56.8, the highest since December 2024 and up from 54.6 in the month prior.
• That helped halt a five-day decline in the Nasdaq-100 and pushed the S&P 500 to finish up 0.43% on the day.

• BTC rose to $77K on Friday and spent the weekend consolidating around that level. Last week’s almost vertical 20% move higher marks a stark departure from price-action over the last few months, where BTC had consistently grinded lower.
• The move higher coincided with an announcement from the US Treasury to double the size of its buybacks of longer-dated US treasuries.
• The announcement was enough to drive only a one-day drop in longer-tenor yields with US treasuries erasing most of their gains to trade back around pre-announcement levels.
• However, it resulted in a more significant rally in BTC and gold and a weakening in the US dollar that has mostly held up since.

• U.S. spot BTC and ETH ETFs attracted a combined $2.6B in net inflows last week, their strongest weekly result since October 2025.
• BTC ETFs recorded $1.9B in net inflows, while ETH ETFs brought in $697.2M.
• Combined ETF trading volume more than tripled to $29B as BTC and ETH prices rallied.
• BTC ETF trading volume rose to $22.1B from $6.9B in the previous week, while ETH ETF trading volume increased to $6.9B from $1.9B.
• BTC ETF net assets climbed 25.4% to $96.1B, while ETH ETF net assets rose 35.9% to $14.3B.
• Despite the strong week, BTC ETFs remain at roughly $2.9B in net outflows for 2026, while ETH ETFs are down about $191.8M year-to-date.
• The latest inflows reduced the combined 2026 deficit for both categories from $5.7B to $3.1B.

• XRP led major altcoins with a weekly gain of about 39% and traded above $1.40 for the first time in months.
• HYPE rose about 37% and reached a new all-time high near $78 after President Donald Trump said the CFTC is working to bring Hyperliquid to the U.S. in a fully compliant and legal framework.
• ZEC and LINK both gained more than 30% over the week, while SOL and ADA also posted strong advances.

• Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari tried to downplay concerns over the recent rise in US Treasury yields and mirrored recent comments from other Fed members that the surge is unlikely to affect monetary policy decisions.
• Speaking yesterday on CBS’s Face the Nation show he said, “There’s every indication that the US Treasury market is functioning as it should, that trades are taking place, that there’s liquidity in the market, and so that enables us to focus on the federal funds rate as our primary policy tool to get inflation back down”.
• He also added that while Treasury yields are high relative to recent history, they were meaningfully higher in the 1990s.
• Kashkari was one of three officials who dissented in the recent July FOMC meeting in favour of a 25bps rate hike. When asked on the show whether he would dissent again in September, he responded, “We need to see more data, but I don’t want to prejudge the next meeting. But I’m not feeling confident right now that inflation is heading back down to target in a short period of time.”

• Looking to the week ahead, investors are focused on two major events: a promised new fiscal initiative from Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent aimed at trying to stabilise the US treasury market and Kevin Warsh’s Friday speech at the Kansas City Fed’s annual Economic Policy Symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

• In geopolitics, Iran’s president Masoud Pezeshkian has urged for an end to the war with the US.
• According to the Iranian Students’ News Agency he said, “It would be better to end the war today, when we have power and dignity, and with the whole world acknowledging our victory”.
• Oil prices briefly dipped from session highs on Friday after Pezeshkian’s comments, though quickly recovered. Brent crude currently trades just below $93 a barrel.

• His comments come amidst plans from Scott Bessent to economically isolate Iran and its trading partners, of which China is one.
• China’s Vice Foreign Minister Miao Deyu said in a statement published on Sunday that “China is closely monitoring the situation in the Middle East and is actively committed to promoting peace talks”.
• The nation was Iran’s second-largest trading partner in 2025, behind the United Arab Emirates.

DeFi / Web3 / Altcoins / Crypto

• Solana reduced its mainnet target slot time from 400ms to 350ms on Aug. 21, allowing validators to produce blocks more frequently and reducing the time users wait for transaction confirmations.
• The change is the first stage of SIMD-0525, which aims to gradually reduce slot times to 200ms, with 300ms planned as the next step after developers assess network performance.
• The upgrade makes Solana produce blocks more frequently while reducing how much computation each block can contain by roughly the same proportion. Each block therefore processes less computational work, and potentially fewer transactions depending on their complexity, but more blocks are produced each second. This means transactions can be included and confirmed faster, while the network’s overall computational capacity per second remains roughly the same.

• ZEC rose more than 22% to around $819 on Saturday after briefly reaching about $855, its highest level since 2018.
• The rally came as Grayscale moved closer to launching the first U.S. spot ZEC ETF by filing its fifth amended registration statement with the SEC.
• The proposed product would convert Grayscale’s existing Zcash Trust into The Zcash ETF and list on NYSE Arca under the ticker ZCH.
• Grayscale set the annual sponsor fee at 2.5%, with Coinbase Custody expected to serve as custodian and BNY Mellon as transfer agent.
• If approved, the fund would become the first U.S. ETF to directly track ZEC.
• Grayscale’s existing Zcash Trust has operated since 2017 and held more than $260M in assets under management as of Friday.
• A Digital Currency Group subsidiary is also considering contributing about 200,000 ZEC, worth roughly $164M at current prices, although the discussions are nonbinding.
• ZEC futures trading volume reached about $9.5B over 24 hours, compared with roughly $1.06B in spot volume.

• Tether abandoned an estimated $120M BTC mining project in Uruguay following a contract dispute with state-owned power utility UTE.
• The disagreement centered on how much electricity Tether’s two mining sites were entitled to receive under their agreement.
• Tether viewed the agreed power level as a minimum that could potentially increase, while UTE treated it as a fixed maximum.
• Tether’s local entity later stopped paying electricity bills and told UTE it intended to terminate the contracts.
• UTE cut power to the mining sites in July 2025, and Tether later shut down the operation and laid off most of its local staff.
• The Uruguay project had been intended as a first step toward broader BTC mining expansion across South America.
• Despite the collapse, Tether has continued investing in mining and energy infrastructure elsewhere in the region.
• Tether’s USDT currently has around $183B in circulation, while the company values its broader investment portfolio at about $20B.

• Strategy shares rose to their highest level in two months as BTC briefly climbed to around $79,400.
• MSTR gained 7.5% to trade above $120 in early trading.
• Strategy’s STRC preferred stock also recovered above $96, moving back toward its $100 target after falling below $70 during the recent selloff.
• The company has not bought BTC for roughly two months as it focuses on strengthening its cash reserves.
• Strategy recently sold $333.7M of MSTR shares, using part of the proceeds for STRC dividends and share repurchases.
• Its USD reserve increased to $4.8B.
• Strategy continues to hold 840,447 BTC worth about $65.2B, putting the position back at an unrealized profit of roughly $1.6B.
• Separately, MicroCloud Hologram added exposure to Strategy by acquiring 140,268 MSTR shares worth around $15.8M.

This Week's Calendar

Charts of the Day

Figure 1. Block Scholes BTC Risk-Appetite Index (white, left-hand axis) and BTC spot price (orange, right-hand axis).

Figure 2. Block Scholes ETH Risk-Appetite Index (white, left-hand axis) and ETH spot price (purple, right-hand axis).

Figure 3. BTC at-the-money implied volatility across selected tenors. Source: Deribit, Block Scholes.

Figure 4. ETH at-the-money implied volatility across selected tenors. Source: Deribit, Block Scholes.

Figure 5. BTC 25-delta put-call skew ratio across selected tenors. Source: Deribit, Block Scholes.

Figure 6. ETH 25-delta put-call skew ratio across selected tenors. Source: Deribit, Block Scholes.

Block Scholes is an FCA-regulated institutional crypto derivatives analytics platform. Live data, IV surfaces, and backtesting available via blockscholes.com.

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