Crypto Market Research

While BTC previously traded in a tight range, the low level of realized volatility broke this week when the price briefly fell to $62K. The move coincided with a weakening in risk appetite across broader markets, and options pricing responded quickly with a strong increase in demand for downside protection. However, a sharp correction back to the $68K levels at the time of writing, after a brief stint at the $70k handle, lost in the sell-off has not seen the same response in volatility markets. 

With spot prices now in a consolidation phase following the sharp and violent selloff in early February, traders in options markets are showing a lack of interest. BTC has spent the past two weeks rangebound between $65K and $70K, while ETH trades around the $2,000 mark. ATM implied volatility levels have plunged off from their extreme 2022-esque highs, with traders anticipating far less volatility in the short-to-mid term, compared to only two weeks ago. The term structure of volatility for all three majors, BTC, ETH and SOL, is flat and compressed, while (as expected in a ~50% drawdown from all-time highs), volatility smiles are still skewed towards put options.

After last Thursday’s flash crash pushed BTC briefly to $60K, sentiment in derivatives markets has soured further. Short-dated BTC and ETH implied volatility surged to levels last seen during the collapse of the FTX exchange in November 2022, as the demand for downside protection against further drops in spot price rose to multi-year highs. The 50+% drawdown in BTC from its October 2025 all-time high dragged the rest of the crypto market down with it – with ETH falling below $2,000 and SOL returning to 2023-levels. Funding rates across the majority of large-cap altcoins turned negative, with the 7-day average funding rate for SOL falling to its lowest since the October 10, 2025 liquidation.

Risk appetite has deteriorated sharply over the last week, with nearly $500B wiped from total crypto market cap since late January, with BTC’s 40% drawdown from the $126K peak accompanied by a fall in perp open interest from ~$5B to ~$3.6B. The move has triggered the largest level of liquidations across crypto markets since the Oct 10, 2025 crash and sees BTC trade below the average purchase level across all spot ETF holders for the first time since before President Trump’s reelection.

Markets are aggressively repricing the Fed’s policy outlook, with the US dollar rebounding in anticipation of a less-dovish Fed under Kevin Warsh - President Trump’s confirmed pick for Fed Chair.‍ A sharp reversal in precious metals has seen crypto take another leg lower, with the broader market losing around 4.7% of total crypto market cap in 24 hours. The move leaves BTC and ETH down over 5% and 8% year-to-date respectively – BTC around $82K puts it more than 30% below the Oct 6, 2025 high of $126.1K.

An outsized shock in Japanese government bonds that coincided with a similarly extreme move in longer-dated US Treasuries has seen risk-on sentiment in US equities, and crypto alike, lower. However, the move in crypto has not been anywhere near as cataclysmic as sell-offs as recently as the Oct 10, 2025 liquidation cascade. While major altcoins have underperformed BTC despite idiosyncratic catalysts, derivatives markets do not show marked increase in bearish positioning nor a meaningful pick-up in implied volatility.

Sideways trading in the final stretch of 2025 was upended by a sharp and aggressive move higher this week in BTC spot price to a two-month high, nearly touching $98K. That move dragged the rest of the spot market up with it, and has had a strong effect on derivatives markets. Funding rates for select altcoins have shot higher, while open interest in perpetual futures contracts has increased, signalling new longs entering the market in hope of capturing any further upside moves in spot price. Volatility smiles have priced out their bearish put premium and now trade close to neutral for BTC and ETH. Additionally, spot ETFs for both majors show positive inflows year-to-date. ETH has also benefitted from idiosyncratic, on-chain tailwinds: demand for staking continues to soar, with 30% of the total ether circulating supply currently being staked. Despite the breakout from a month-long period of consolidation and various macro risks in the form of US-Iran tensions, December’s NFP release, December’s CPI report, a grand jury subpoena issued to the Federal Reserve, volatility has continued to trend lower.

“This time it’s different” — the four year cycle can no longer be used as the primary framework for spot price behavior in 2026. A new source of demand, supportive macro conditions and continued regulatory support encourages a constructive base case for 2026 — not the definitive bear market the traditional four-year cycle theory would suggest.

Bitget has unveiled its Universal Exchange (UEX) model, the platform’s vision of a unified trading hub that brings together the experience of centralized exchanges (CEXs), decentralized exchanges (DEXs), and traditional finance (TradFi). For users, that means the ability to trade a wide variety of asset types in one place, adding tokenized stocks of ETFs, gold, and equities to Bitgets’s crypto offering.Bitget will initially onboard tokenized stocks offered by Xstocks and Ondo Finance’s Global Markets. This will allow traders to trade a wide range of real-world assets, from equity tickers such as Tesla (TSLA) and Nvidia (NVDA), as well as ETF funds that track equity indices, for example SPYon or QQQon (which track the S&P 500 and Nasdaq-100, respectively). Tokenized stocks maintain their value because each digital token is backed one-to-one by the real asset, safeguarded by a regulated brokerage entity. This structure mirrors how regulated stablecoins such as USDC maintain value by holding equivalent reserves, where 1 USDC on-chain is backed by the equivalent of $1 off-chain held by Circle. 

Despite the Fed delivering their third consecutive cut to interest rates as was widely expected on Dec 10, 2025, and subsequent labor market data showing that US unemployment had ticked up to its highest level since September 2021 at 4.6%, sentiment in crypto remains at extreme lows. BTC and ETH remain 30% and 40% below their 2025 high water marks, and seem unable to sustain any meaningful recovery rally for longer than 24 hours. As a result, participation levels in derivatives markets remain low, with subdued levels of trade volumes and a drop in volatility expectations. What positioning does remain is bearish, with a skew of volatility smiles towards puts suggesting strong demand for put options at expiries well into the new year.

The week’s main event, the FOMC’s final meeting of the year, saw policymakers deliver a 25bps rate cut – an outcome largely expected by markets. Chair Powell delivered a moderately hawkish press conference, leaving the door both open to a rate cut or a pause in the January 2026 meeting. The outcome for crypto markets? Certainly no “firework” reactions. Open interest in perpetual swap contracts has mostly been sideways for the entire week, implied volatility in options markets had steadily fallen lower even ahead of the meeting and perpetual swap funding rates for BTC showed a lack of participation for leveraged position taking. Even after the Fed delivered its third cut of the year and provided a more optimistic outlook on the US economy via the Summary of Economic Projections, volatility smiles in options markets continue to point bearishly – skewed towards OTM puts.

After an early scare at the start of the month, crypto asset spot prices have enjoyed a modest recovery rally that’s seen BTC reach a two-week high above $94K and ETH reclaim the psychological $3,000 mark. To recap, during early Asian trading hours on Dec 1, 2025, BTC led other risk-on assets and sold off sharply amidst hawkish signs from the Bank of Japan and a spike in JGB bond yields, foreshadowing the move in US equities when trading in New York began. However, recent bullish developments (including Vanguard opening its platform up for trading crypto ETFs and mutual funds) have encouraged a sharp recovery rally. As such, sentiment in derivatives markets, particularly in options markets has picked up.

A slow-but-steady recovery in macro risk appetite has also seen crypto stage a modest recovery from its weekend lows. After revisiting spot prices not seen since April 2025, BTC and ETH now trade above $91K and $3K respectively.

The past week saw far fewer relief rallies in spot price than the week that preceded it. Instead, BTC plunged from $105K all the way down past $82K. Not only did that wipe out all of its year-to-date gains, but it also meant the average ETF investor is now firmly underwater, with the average entry price circa $89K. The move lower in spot price accelerated over the past 24 hours following a stronger-than-expected September jobs report and an announcement from the BLS that there will be no October report – both pieces of news the market has taken as a sign the Fed may not need to cut rates in December. Options markets reacted as expected: short-tenor volatility has exploded higher at the front end of the term structure following a move in realized volatility and traders priced in a significant premium for short-dated bearish put options.

U.S. equities continue to scrape against all-time highs, buoyed by signs that the government shut-down is nearing an end. However, crypto-assets have failed to enjoy the same positive sentiment, with every attempt by spot prices to re-rally back to the levels lost in successive October and November sell-offs met with resistance. The bearish slog in spot markets is marked by signs of bearish position-taking in derivatives markets, as implied volatility levels refuse to return to the lower levels that they traded at in September and volatility smiles price-in a relative premium for protective puts.

A revisit to $100K for BTC has further diminished sentiment in derivatives markets. Open interest in perpetual futures contracts remains low, with very few signs of traders showing any willingness to reenter positions that may have been closed out during the $19B liquidation unwind in October. However, the lack of a major drop in perp open interest suggests that the most recent spot market crash was driven by the selling of spot holdings, rather than a liquidation cascade, such as back in October. On the other hand, open interest in BTC and ETH options still remains resilient, suggesting an increased use of options contracts in order to gain spot exposure.

A record-breaking liquidation event in crypto’s history has certainly taken its toll on perpetual swap contract markets, with Bybit traders showing almost no willingness to re-enter lost leveraged positions. More than $6B in notional positions were wiped out on Oct 10, 2025, ignited by a re-escalation of trade tensions between the US and China. Those tensions eased earlier this week as US and Chinese negotiators agreed on a “very positive framework” for discussions between President Xi and President Trump — that then set the table for a much anticipated trade deal between the two nations that was signed on Oct 30, 2025.

Premia, a decentralized derivatives exchange, first launched in 2021 on the Ethereum mainnet with the goal to “bring options trading onchain”. In this report we will cover the design choices across the entire protocol and evaluate whether those choices achieve two overarching goals of Kyan.

BTC volatility awakens from a long period of dormancy. After steadily declining since April, BTC’s implied volatility broke sharply higher in mid-October, following a $19B liquidation cascade — the largest in crypto’s history.

The demand for decentralized perpetual swap contract exchanges (perp DEXs) has emerged as a key narrative in crypto markets, particularly since September 2025. In this report we aim to understand exactly why perp DEXs are experiencing unprecedented growth in volumes and fees, what advantages (and disadvantages) they have over traditional centralized venues (CEXs) and whether metrics such as fee generation can provide insight into the value of a perp DEX’s native token.

Despite the “debasement trade” dominating headlines this week as BTC and gold rallied concurrently with each other, beneath the surface, derivatives markets indicate the rally is a fragile one. Open interest in perpetual swap contracts has declined over the past few days, suggesting signs of profit-taking, and funding rates have remained between neutral and modestly positive levels — hardly a hallmark of an ATH rally. This is further supported by suppressed activity in BTC, ETH and SOL options markets, where volumes have remained low and skewed mostly toward puts, and volatility smiles have been skewed toward puts.

A recent major liquidation event beginning Sep 22, 2025 dropped the levels of open interest in Bybit perpetual swap contracts. That resulted in the notional value of outstanding contracts falling from the all-time highs reached in the run-up to the Federal Reserve’s September FOMC meeting. The decline coincided with a major slump in spot prices, in which BTC lost a key support level and dropped below $108K, while ETH plunged through the $4,000 level. Since those local lows, crypto asset spot prices have begun to recover, with BTC now trading back above $118K and ETH at $4,400. That’s also despite a US government shutdown, which has (as yet) had seemingly little impact on spot or derivatives markets.

Realized volatility levels have collapsed across crypto assets. The first two weeks of September have seen realized volatility fall to historic lows for BTC, ETH and SOL spot tokens, despite a slew of macroeconomic factors and the resumption of the Fed’s rate-cutting cycle.

This week saw markets grapple with a pivotal FOMC meeting — not for the on-the-day interest rate cut decision, which was a near lock-in for a 25 bps cut, but for the likely path of monetary policy at the remaining two meetings in 2025. The whipsawing reaction to the release of contradictory signals resulted in significant intraday volatility, but options markets have been quick to return to a slow slog lower in implied volatility levels since then. This shouldn’t come as a surprise, given that realized volatility levels for BTC and ETH have fallen to extreme lows (close to 20% and 40%, respectively). In fact, what’s truly surprising is that implied volatility hasn’t fallen with them, instead trading at elevated levels (10 and 20 points higher, respectively).

A sideways slog in spot prices over the past week means that the bearishness in options markets positionings for both BTC and ETH continues. Volatility smiles across the term structure for BTC continue to price OTM puts at a premium to call options, while short-dated ETH options are also maintaining their expectations for further downside price action. The main driver of spot prices this week has been macro-induced events, on both sides of the Fed’s dual mandate. An ever so slightly hotter than expected CPI print pushed BTC lower after it tapped $114K, though it quickly recovered. The inflation print came after a slew of data releases pointed to a marked weakening in the US jobs market: including JOLTs data and NFP. Markets are now bracing for three rate cuts by the Federal Reserve by the end of the year.

Risk-on sentiment in both US equities and bond markets has vanished over the past week. US equities fell lower after an extended holiday, amidst a global bond market rout that has seen long-dated bond yields across G7 nations soar to record highs. BTC’s spot price has mostly declined after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell’s Jackson Hole speech, reaching a local bottom of $107K earlier last week, while ETH’s spot price is down 5% over the past seven days. Some altcoins have, however, fared stronger, with SOL a particular case in point.

Chair Jerome Powell of the Federal Reserve delivered his highly anticipated Jackson Hole speech on Aug 22, 2025. In it, he caught markets offside with a more-dovish-than-expected signal that the Fed is preparing to cut interest rates as soon as September. The Fed’s shifting policy stance has become apparent in BTC’s reaction function to various macroeconomic data releases — and, in fact, slightly predates the pivot from Powell.

BTC’s volatility smile has flattened to cycle lows: Since 2022, BTC’s volatility smile steepness has become shallower, dropping close to its lowest levels in July 2025 — a sign that options markets appear to be assigning a lower probability of extreme BTC moves in either direction relative to moves close to the current spot price.

Cryptocurrency spot prices began their sell-off last Thursday on Aug 14, 2025 following a stronger-than-expected PPI inflation report that showed the largest increase in inflation (at the wholesale level) since June 2022. That sell-off has extended into this week at a slower pace as traders await Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s speech on Friday at the Jackson Hole Economic Policy Symposium, hoping for further clarity on the path of monetary policy in the US.

What if options never expired? Perpetual options are a new financial primitive that behave like traditional options that are continuously rolled forward. Instead of expiring, they maintain a fixed time-to-expiry horizon, say 30 days, by automatically rolling each day. The key benefit of this structure is efficiency: unlike manual rolling, perpetual options avoid repeated transaction fees and bid-ask spreads, making them significantly cheaper to maintain over time. They exhibit similar exposures to those of a traditional option, while smoothing volatile, market-dependent upfront costs into a continuous funding rate.

ETH stole the spotlight this past week, with a rally of over 20% that brought it within inches of its November 2021 (ATH). That’s not to say BTC has traded quietly, however — on Aug 14, 2025 it reached a new all-time high (ATH) of $124K, driving a sentiment shift in options markets toward OTM calls. ETH has been strongly supported by a wave of institutional buying from corporate digital asset treasuries, such as SharpLink Gaming and BitMine Immersion Technologies, Inc. as well as Spot ETH ETFs, which had their first $1B inflow day on Aug 11, 2025. This is significant because derivatives markets signal a strong bullishness for the rally to continue.

The month of August has started in a far more bearish manner than the month that came before it. Positioning in derivatives markets suggest that market participants were anticipating a bigger downside move than what has so far materialized and that, despite the pullback in spot prices abating, sentiment has yet to fully recover. The past week has not been short of narratives for crypto traders: President Trump extended his reciprocal tariff program as his self-imposed Aug 1, 2025 deadline was reached, weaker-than-expected US jobs data has reignited uncertainty over the Fed’s monetary policy path and the SEC’s “Project Crypto” provided some bullish news for the advancement of tokenization in the US and Layer 1 blockchains that stand to benefit from the regulatory positivity.

The previous time we evaluated the potential for a crypto altseason, we defined it as a period of significant and sustained outperformance by altcoins (cryptocurrencies other than Bitcoin). Such market regimes have historically begun when Bitcoin dominance reaches a local peak, leading to evidence of capital rotation from Bitcoin into Ethereum, and subsequently into smaller, riskier altcoin projects. This rotation results in rapid price appreciation across altcoins, with many surpassing their previous cycle highs. Altseason ends when the total market capitalization of all altcoins reaches a new all-time high (ATH), often just prior to the broader market peak.

A slowdown in spot prices this week has seen short-tenor BTC and ETH options assign a slight volatility premium to out-of-the-money (OTM) put options, a signal of bearish sentiment. This contrasts with the bullish outlook portrayed in perpetual futures markets, in which funding rates for BTC, ETH and a slew of other tokens have been persistently positive. BTC has traded range-bound between $115K and $120K, reaching that lower bound on Jul 25, 2025 — coinciding with a sale of 80,000 Bitcoins facilitated by Galaxy Digital from a “Satoshi-era investor.” BTC’s spot price quickly recovered from that low, but has since failed to break past $120K.

The beginning of “Crypto Week” saw a number of positive developments for the crypto industry. As the week began, BTC surged to a new all-time high of $123K. However, as the week’s end approached, the spotlight switched toward altcoins, which rallied significantly to bring the total market cap of crypto assets above $4T for the first time in history. ETH reached its highest levels all year, breaking past $3,800, while SOL, which for the past two weeks had underperformed other L1 blockchains, crossed the $200 threshold. Crypto Week also saw the signing of the GENIUS Act into law by US President Trump, and the passing of the CLARITY Act and the CBDC Anti-Surveillance State Act by the US House.

An aggressive rally in BTC’s spot price over the past week has seen the largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization surge to multiple new all-time highs, eventually touching a top of $123K. With that move higher, all measures of directional sentiment in derivatives markets supported the rally, as funding rates for BTC have been persistently positive and options skew is tilted toward calls. SOL has once more underperformed relative to a basket of Layer 1 (L1) blockchains this week, despite several bullish tailwind drivers in the form of positive inflows in the REX-Osprey SOL ETF and a number of corporations adopting or expanding a SOL-focused treasury strategy, including DeFi Development Corp. and Mercurity Fintech Holding Inc.

This week has seen an outperformance in altcoins relative to BTC, with ETH and XRP rallying more than 16% over the past seven days. BTC reached a new all-time high of $118K, extending past its previous high on May 22, 2025. Throughout the week, short-tenor BTC options have traded with a range-bound level of implied volatility, between 26% on July 4, 2025, and 35% following the new all-time high. Despite positive tailwinds for the Solana ecosystem, including another quarter of revenues that have outperformed all other L1 and L2 blockchains, the SOL token has rallied by a smaller 2% for the week.

BTC volatility has reached historically low levels against ETH and SOL: In June, BTC implied volatility fell to 28% and 7-day realised vol to 22–25 %, extending a multi-year down-trend despite sizable macro shocks (geopolitical strikes, policy feuds, first US stable-coin law).

For most of the past seven days, the majority of crypto assets had traded within a tight range, despite a rally in US equities which has seen the benchmark S&P 500 and Nasdaq-100 indices reaching new all-time highs. That changed on Jul 2, 2025 as spot prices broke out of their respective ranges, coinciding with the US reaching a trade deal with another trade partner, Vietnam. BTC broke out of the $105–108K region to trade upward of $110K and ETH cleared its own $2,500 ceiling. The result of the sideways spot price slog and subsequent rally saw implied volatility jump for both BTC and ETH options. For the former, the one-week tenor traded with an implied volatility as low as 26% earlier in the week, before bouncing to 35%. Volatility smiles for BTC however remain mostly unchanged from the rally.

The past week was packed with enough macro events to make even an asset class as volatile as crypto stand out with more volatility. Over the past seven days alone, the US Senate bilaterally passed the GENIUS Act, a landmark legislation to regulate stablecoins. Later in the week, Fed Chair Jerome Powell reiterated the Fed’s wait-and-see approach as the FOMC left interest rates unchanged. Then, the US militarily intervened in the Middle East and forced a retaliatory response from Iran, before negotiating a peace treaty and ceasefire. Understandably, spot markets plunged and then rallied, and implied volatility has gone through its own series of ups and downs.

Just over 151 days of President Trump’s administration have already delivered significant shifts in the US’s crypto policy: Active promotion of a comprehensive regulatory framework for digital assets includes appointing pro-crypto regulators, ending high-profile lawsuits against crypto companies, clarifying rules around staking and fostering ETF approvals. Stablecoin regulation via the GENIUS Act and the proposed BITCOIN Act indicates major institutional and governmental acceptance: These acts establish frameworks for the safe issuance of stablecoins, and may potentially lead to significant institutional demand for Bitcoin. Stablecoins could dramatically scale in adoption. More speculative bills, such as the BITCOIN Act, could position the US government among the largest holders of Bitcoin globally.

The conflict in the Middle East left its mark on the trading volume of perpetual swap contracts, as well as on funding rates, which have turned negative for a slew of tracked tokens. Market-wide de-risking over fears of a worsening Iran-Israel conflict has also resulted in a sea of red for crypto assets over the past week. BTC is down more than 4%, ETH more than 8% and SOL 10%. Nevertheless, ETH options markets are carrying a less bearish tilt toward OTM puts (relative to BTC short-tenor options), and for expirations beyond 30 days, the ETH put-call skew is positive.

A public feud at the end of last week between President Trump and Tesla CEO Elon Musk had a minimal impact in perpetual funding rate markets, although it resulted in a temporary sea of red in crypto spot markets. That didn’t last long — BTC is now trading only $2K shy of its ATH of $111K, though its options markets are neutral to slightly bullish. This contrasts significantly with ETH options markets, in which short-tenor volatility smiles skewed more than 10% toward OTM calls earlier today, as ETH’s spot price has outperformed over the past seven days as well.

ETH options traded at historically high volatility premiums relative to BTC in May 2025, driven by ETH’s significantly higher realized volatility amid a sharp spot price rally. The ETH-to-BTC implied volatility ratio reached a nearly five-year high (over 2x for short-dated tenors).

Unlike TradFi equivalents, cryptocurrency options markets are far smaller than the spot markets of their underlying assets, with sparse underlying offerings and illiquid markets. The difficulty in trading crypto-currency options is compounded by the disparate base currencies used – few venues offer direct exposure to BTC or ETH options denominated clearly in fiat currencies like the EUR or USD. Instead, options exposure is collateralised by and quoted in stablecoins or even the underlying itself, complicating calculations of greeks and understanding of market exposure.

As BTC’s spot price failed to hold at its all-time high (ATH) of $111K for a sustained period of time, the drop toward $105K has now brought a shift in the sentiment of options markets. The bullish skew that was apparent in volatility smiles across the term structure has abated, with short-tenor options skewing briefly toward OTM puts before returning to neutral. ETH’s term structure of volatility is no longer disinverted, with volatility expectations across tenors compressed. Short-tenor skew for ETH is pointed toward OTM puts, though ETH funding rates are exhibiting more bullish sentiment than indicated by options markets.

BTC’s march to a new all-time high on May 22, 2025 has been followed by a period notable largely for its lack of volatility. Realized volatility has fallen across cryptocurrencies, causing a corresponding drop in short-dated implied volatility. For ETH, that’s resulted in a flat term structure, while for BTC it’s caused a reasonably strong steepening as the 7-day tenor has fallen back below 40%. Options and futures markets have expressed bullish sentiment throughout the past week, with positive futures yields and funding rates and a skew toward OTM calls. However, a downturn in BTC’s spot price on May 28, 2025 has clouded the picture somewhat in funding rates.

While a large portion of the past two crypto bull runs (2015-18 and 2019-22) was dominated by Bitcoin outperformance, that did not last forever – both cycles eventually experienced a period of vicious capital rotation out of BTC and into altcoins. This eventually heated up into what is referred to in crypto folklore as ‘Altseason’: a time of significant and sustained outperformance of altcoins relative to Bitcoin. Ethereum, the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, has long stood as the bellwether for the wider altcoin market and, in extension, with altseason.

Front-end volatility for BTC has been reactive to the whipsaw in spot price over the past week, which has more recently resulted in BTC reaching a new all-time high (ATH) of $$111.97K – the first new ATH since January 20, 2025, four months ago. At-the-money implied volatility levels remain between 45% and 50%, as short-tenor volatility expectations have now picked up significantly from their lows of last week. Perpetual funding rates remain tempered despite a spot price that has reached new highs, although options skew temporarily steepened towards calls by as much as 7%, due to renewed demand for OTM calls.

This paper sets out to evaluate the changing relationships between macro fundamentals and crypto sentiment. Quant Insight’s unique quantitative macro framework firstly identifies and then measures the macro "DNA" of any asset. Block Scholes Senti-Meter provides a way to track the degree to which crypto derivative technicals are driving price action. As Bitcoin increasingly moves into the TradFi space, all crypto investors need to adopt an investment framework that covers macro, technical, positioning & sentiment factors.

Further sideways spot price activity has led both BTC and ETH to trade within their respective bounds of $94–97K and $1.7K–$1.8K. In response, their respective implied volatility levels continued dropping off for most of the past seven days before each bounced off its own 18-month floor after it was announced that the US and China would be having their first trade talk following a long game of cat and mouse, which saw neither side back down. In turn, we saw a near recovery of ETH skew from OTM puts and a bullish bounce toward calls from neutral levels for BTC.

After months of foreshadowing, on Apr 2, 2025, US President Donald Trump announced a series of steep “reciprocal” tariffs on most of the country’s trading partners — rewriting global trade policy in the US to extremes last seen in the 1930s. As a consequence, April was characterized by another wave of volatility across crypto, equities and fixed-income, not only in response to a deluge of changing tariff headlines and narratives, but in anticipation of further revisions and repeals.

This week's edition of our Crypto DeFi Analytics. Solana’s daily fees are now nearly triple Ethereum’s, while Beacon Chain activity remains flat with minimal deposits and withdrawals.

At the start of the week, Bitcoin began to show signs of decoupling from its relationship with US equities. However, following US president Donald Trump's positive comments regarding the US’s ongoing trade war with China (which saw tariffs of 145% imposed on Chinese goods entering the US), a relief rally has gripped markets across asset classes. In turn, BTC has once more been moving up alongside US equities. With that spot move, implied volatility at 7-day and 14-day tenors has jumped, and BTC’s put-call skew has recovered at short tenors, a sign that traders are indeed looking for upside exposure to the rally.

This week's edition of our Crypto DeFi Analytics. Ethereum's daily fee generation rebounded this week from a monthly low of approximately $280K to over $1.1M, while Aave users experienced liquidations amid the crypto resurgence.

This week's edition of our Crypto DeFi Analytics. The Beacon Chain continues to show a strong net outflow of validators while Solana widens its daily fee generation lead over Ethereum, with an over $1M difference.

Implied volatility continued to spike sharply in response to spot price moves, with repeated inversions in the term structure driven more by macro shocks than by pre-positioning ahead of known events. US president Donald Trump’s series of tariff announcements and walkbacks created whipsawing price action, with crypto volatility peaking after major policy moves — and collapsing just as quickly in periods of calm.

After initially holding firm following US president Donald Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs, crypto joined the global market sell-off as BTC dropped from $87K on Apr 2, 2025, down to a local bottom of $74K. Its term structure once again inverted before slightly abating, as we’ve often seen it do, and ETH’s term structure has remained at an already inverted state. Short-tenor BTC volatility smile skews reached a bias toward OTM puts, reflecting even more bearish sentiment than during the turmoil of the US banking crisis in Q1 2023. These levels of volatility have since dropped off, as Trump announced yet another pause on his tariff plan. This time, the reciprocal tariffs have been temporarily paused for 90 days (except for those on China), which has resulted in a dramatic spot price rally.

This week's edition of our Crypto DeFi Analytics. April 7th saw Ethereum's daily fee generation more than double Solana's, liquidations spike on Aave and Compound and Bitcoin plunge from $83K to below $76K.

On Feb 21, 2025, Bybit, the world's second-largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume, suffered a major security incident that involved an exploit of one of its Ethereum cold wallets. In this report, we’ll provide a guided explanation of the immediate market impact of the security incident and subsequent recovery.

As markets finally approach the day of tariffs that US president Donald Trump has dubbed America’s “Liberation Day,” crypto continues its macro-sensitive spot volatility. That volatility has seen BTC drop from its $88K local high to $82K, as President Trump showed signs that his reciprocal tariffs would not spare any country, though notably, the tariffs do not apply to Russia or North Korea. Implied volatility has exploded and since eased. Other derivatives markets metrics show BTC and ETH volatility smile skews remain significantly skewed towards puts, though slightly higher than the recent levels reached, which were last seen in March 2023.

This week's edition of our Crypto DeFi Analytics. Solana and Ethereum's daily fee generation shows an emerging cyclical trend, while Ethereum’s Beacon Chain has seen a steady rise in active validators since mid-March.

This week's edition of our Crypto DeFi Analytics. Solana maintains its lead over Ethereum in daily fee generation, while blob gas drawdowns hint at easing demand from Layer 2s.

Ethereum’s persistent underperformance relative to both BTC and competitor smart contract–enabled blockchains highlights the urgency behind the Pectra upgrade, which seeks to enhance network scalability, staking efficiency and user experience. Technical improvements in the form of Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs), such as validator consolidation (EIP-7251) and streamlined withdrawal mechanisms (EIP-7002), address current structural inefficiencies, potentially attracting more staking participation, while adjustments to blob space (EIP-7691) further the incentives for increased Layer 2 adoption initiated by March 2024’s Dencun upgrade.

The week began with a relief rally but the risk-on appetite has proven to be short-lived. SPX and NDX extended their losses into a third consecutive day following Trump's auto tariffs and and the major 4 crypto assets have all fallen 3-6% on the day so far. BTC's term structure of volatility briefly inverted whilst ETH's term structure is currently flat. Separately, Intercontinental Exchange Inc. is partnering with Circle to explore the integration of the USDC stablecoin into ICE’s derivatives exchanges and clearinghouses.

Fidelity Investments and the State of Wyoming join Trump-backed World Liberty Financial in the race towards stablecoin issuance whilst GameStop Corp. announce plans to raise $1.3B via 0% Convertible Senior Notes in order to acquire Bitcoin. Risk-on assets fell once again after a brief reprieve earlier in the week and President Trump has announced a 25% tariff on all auto imports, beginning April 2.

BTC is trading close to its two-week high, though the move up in spot hasn't quite been matched by the same bullish momentum in derivatives markets. BTC's funding rate is close to 0% and both the term structure of volatility for BTC and ETH has continued to steepen as front-end expectations decline. In DeFi, World Liberty Financial has announced plans to launch its own dollar-backed stablecoin and Cboe has filed on behalf of Fidelity for a Solana ETF.

Crypto and equities started the week with a rally, after a one-month long stretch of losses amidst signs that President Trump's "Liberation Day" tariffs may be narrower in focus than expected. BTC has benefitted from the boost in risk-sentiment, breaking past $88K briefly. While not turning strongly bullish, sentiment in derivatives markets has at least pulled away from the persistently bearish tilt it’s held over the last few weeks with futures yields rising particularly at short tenors and funding rates flipping positive.

The modest recovery of the crypto market continues as BTC currently trades at $87K amidst signs that President Trump's reciprocal tariff program may be more targeted and focused than previously expected. Front-end volatility for both BTC and ETH is close to their lowest levels of the month and BTC’s volatility smile looks to be shifting towards calls. ETH’s front-end skew levels have also ticked up, indicating some renewed demand for out-the-money call options relative to OTM puts.

This week's edition of our Crypto DeFi Analytics. The trend of Solana’s daily fee generation outperforming Ethereum’s has re-emerged, while ETH’s hourly average gas fees burned per block remain minimal with no noticeable spikes in demand.

The broad-based decline in global asset prices was arrested this week, with crypto assets continuing their high correlation to US equities during a recovery. BTC is trading higher, above $85K, while ETH has recovered a key psychological level at $2K. Despite this, activity in derivatives markets has remained low. Funding rates for major tokens BTC, ETH and SOL have been consistently negative over this period. However, the demand for short-dated options, which was particularly strong in protection against further downside moves, has fallen alongside an end to the high level of realized volatility that has dominated markets over the past month.

President Trump’s two-minute video presentation at the Blockworks Digital Assets Summit disappointed market participants, with BTC falling from $86K down to $83K. With that move in spot, BTC’s term structure of volatility has steepened and at-the-money implied volatility for 7-day tenors is currently at its lowest since late February. Short-dated optionality once again expresses appetite for downside protection with volatility smiles for tenors less than 30 days tilted towards OTM puts. Separately, Pump.fun, a memecoin launchpad protocol, has launched its own decentralised exchange, PumpSwap, on Solana.

The Federal Reserve, as expected, left the federal funds rate unchanged at 4.25%-4.50%. The FOMC's revised SEP shows higher inflation at the end of 2025 and lower GDP growth from 2.1% to 1.7%. Chair Powell also expressed the FOMC's "base case" for tariff-induced inflation as "transitory" and announced a slowdown in the pace of quantitative tightening. Markets took the dovish delivery positively with BTC volatility smiles skewing towards calls at all tenors at BTC spot price rallied through $87K.

The Bank of Japan has kept interest rates unchanged and the Fed is expected to follow suit—but uncertainty looms amid inflationary pressures and global trade risks. Institutional crypto adoption gains momentum as CME Group launches SOL futures. Meanwhile, MicroStrategy (MSTR) is offering 5 million shares of its 10% Series A Perpetual Strife Preferred stock to the public.

BTC appears to be in a sideways lull since Friday around 20% below its all-time high, as the wider crypto market consolidates without a lack of new news to drive price action. That muted sentiment is reflected in derivatives markets too – while both BTC and ETH’s volatility term structures have re-inverted, they remain considerably compressed since last week’s highs. Additionally, although they are no longer trading below spot price, short-dated futures currently do not trade close to the spread above spot that they did during the run to $109K in January.

This week's edition of our Crypto DeFi Analytics. Ethereum and Solana's daily fee generation are now more comparable, and overall down from last week. Aave liquidations surged on March 11, as ETH spot hit a new 2025 low.

While crypto volatility in February 2025 was bookended by two incredibly choppy periods, the middle of the month saw BTC trade with a realized volatility level of just 29%. This level has marked the floor of BTC’s realized volatility over the past 18 months, with reversions to the mean occurring shortly after. Despite a significant drop-off in volatility expectations when the market digested the details of US president Donald Trump’s plan for a strategic crypto-asset stockpile, volatility expectations have once again rallied for short-dated options. This has resulted in a return to the inverted term structure of volatility that BTC and ETH options had traded with at the end of February.

The increasing worries surrounding an ever-evolving program of tariffs by President Trump continues to weigh on risk-on sentiment for US equities. The latest episode involves a potential 200% tariff on EU wine and alcohol products. The S&P 500 has officially joined the NDX in entering a technical correction, though crypto-assets on the other hand have slowly moved up through yesterday evening into today.

US equities felt some reprieve yesterday with a softer-than-expected CPI print which also saw BTC slowly move upwards to $84K. Its term structure of implied volatility has compressed almost into a flat structure, however ETH’s term structure of volatility is still inverted. Skew levels for ETH at all tenors excluding the 7-day have lost some of their bias towards puts as its spot price continues to trade sideways since the beginning of the week, though only the 180-day tenor option assigns a call-premium. Canada announced some further "dollar for dollar" retaliatory tariffs.

President Trump walks back yet another tariff threat, this time on raising steel and aluminium levies on Canada to 50%. Additionally, the President has downplayed recession risks stating the US economy is "going to boom", with yesterday's JOLTS report adding some aid to that narrative. BTC is currently experiencing a relief rally, though derivatives markets remain less bullish -- volatility smile skews are still towards puts for all tenors below three months, futures prices trade below spot for the first time since the November election, and perpetual swap funding rates have turned negative.

The three-week long US equities sell-off deepened even further yesterday with the S&P 500 posting its largest single-day loss since December 2024 and the Nasdaq-100 entering a correction zone. That widespread de-risking saw BTC fall to $78K, whilst treasuries rallied. BTC and ETH’s term structures remain inverted, with skew for all tenors below 90 days significantly put-skewed.

This week's edition of our Crypto DeFi Analytics. Ethereum and Solana's daily fee generation remains low. Arbitrum's hourly volume spiked to nearly $450M after Trump's bullish post about a potential US crypto reserve triggered a market rally.

Crypto price action continues to be driven by US President Trump’s policies. Several SEC cases against crypto-native firms have been dropped over the past month, positive news for the industry that was followed up by Trump’s weekend announcement of the inclusion of BTC, ETH, XRP, SOL and ADA in a US strategic reserve.

The much anticipated Strategic Bitcoin Reserve was formally signed in an Executive Order by President Trump, though the overall market reaction has been one of disappointment, with BTC falling over 5% on the news, before paring some losses back. Derivatives markets reflect that disappoint too. Implied volatility at the front-end for BTC has dropped sharply by over 10 points and BTC perpetual futures funding rates have also dropped negative.

BTC continues its recovery amidst a wider breath of relief from risk-on assets as Trump exempts automakers from his recent tariffs for one month. The term structure of volatility for both BTC and ETH is still inverted, though skew for short tenor BTC options is now positioned closer to neutral. Euro-area bond yields have rallied significantly amidst increased EU fiscal spending.

BTC rebounded from $82K to $89K (+6%), coinciding with a 0.88% rise in SPX futures post-close, after Commerce Secretary Lutnick suggested Trump may reconsider tariffs on Canada & Mexico. Markets fell sharply - SPX dropped 1% to its lowest post-election level, while 2-year Treasury yields declined 11bps. Fed rate cut expectations have risen, with three cuts now priced in for 2025.

President Trump's 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico and doubled levies on China weighed heavily on risk-on sentiment across the board, with BTC down 9% on the day. ETH has completely erased its Sunday gains following the Strategic Reserve announcement and both majors' currently have an even steeper implied volatility term structure. ISM Manufacturing data disappointed and the Atlanta Fed's GDPNow forecast has fallen even lower.

President Trump's announcement for a Strategic Crypto Reserve containing BTC, ETH, XRP, SOL and ADA has partly reversed the price slump of February. BTC and ETH's implied volatility term structures once again inverted and BTC's short-tenor options are skewed towards puts. The Atlanta Fed's GDPNow model currently predicts a 1.5% annualised decline in GDP growth for Q1 2025.

This week's edition of our Crypto DeFi Analytics. Ethereum and Solana saw their lowest daily fee generations this month and aggregate liquidations across Aave & Compound remain surprisingly low.

Macro headwinds are once again in the driver’s seat for crypto, as a sell-off that began over the weekend has deepened throughout the early part of this week. Following a period of dismal sideways price action, BTC, ETH and almost all altcoins have followed the lower trajectory of equities, gold and treasury yields. Derivatives markets, however, only began to show signs of significant bearish sentiment and a material increase in volatility expectations on Wednesday afternoon as the selloff deepened.

Bitcoin's selloff intensified during the opening of Asian equity trading hours, reaching an intra-day low of $78.5K. The deepened correction has resulted in BTC and ETH's implied volatility term structures to invert more significantly, with BTC 7-day tenor ATM volatility almost matching levels during the early February inversion. President Trump gave the greenlight for Mexico, Canada and China tariffs from March 4. Separately, there are multiple new developments in DeFi.

BTC and ETH's implied volatility term structures have once again inverted as front-end vol lagged a limp rebound in spot prices during early Asian trading hours. Spot Bitcoin ETFs continue their onslaught of selling, recording the highest single day of outflows earlier in the week. President Trump further added to market uncertainty yesterday as he gave mixed messages regarding his tariff implementations on Mexico and Canada.

The Conference Board's recent survey showed consumer confidence in February saw the largest single-month fall since August 2021. The 10Y US yield dropped to its lowest level year-to-date following the release and markets are now fully pricing in two rate cuts over the course of 2025. ETH's implied volatility term structure has flattened from its inversion yesterday and is currently up 4% today. The SEC has officially acknowledged Greyscale's Cardano (ADA) ETF filing.

BTC and the wider crypto market has been steadily falling driven by a confluence of factors. That fall was amplified further by President Trump confirming his tariffs on Mexico and Canada “are going forward, on time”. ETH is down 10% on the day and its volatility term structure has notably inverted.

Bybit was hacked for $1.46 billion in Ethereum and staking derivatives, allegedly by the Lazarus Group. The attack involved a phishing-style manipulation of a routine multisig cold wallet transaction rather than a flaw in the Ethereum network itself. While some stolen funds were swapped into Bitcoin and Tether froze 181K USDT, the market impact on ETH was minimal given the asset’s large trading volume.

Driven by fewer macroeconomic releases than in the first month of 2025, crypto’s lower-volatility environment has resulted in a sideways slog in spot prices. This has in turn had the expected impact on derivatives markets: lower implied volatility pricing, a steepening term structure and nearly unchanged levels of open interest across all instruments. ETH options markets, however, continue to price in a continuation of its more volatile spot price moves. As we’ve seen in previous instances, this sideways spot price movement includes an underperformance in altcoins, expressed most obviously in derivatives markets as a disappointing funding rate.

This week's edition of our Crypto DeFi Analytics. Feb 17th saw Ethereum's fee generation outperform Solana's for the day with gas fees burnt per block spiking. Liquidations across Aave and Compound spike on the same date, coinciding with the brief ETH spot rally.

At-the-money volatility for BTC and ETH continue to drop across all tenors, with ETH 7-day tenor options maintaining a 50% volatility premium. Core inflation in Japan rose to its highest since June 2023, increasing the expectation for a BOJ rate hike, and growth in Europe remains sluggish. There are multiple new developments in DeFi including Franklin Templeton's new Bitcoin and Ethereum ETF.

BTC and ETH both move sideways at +0.7% and +1.5% (24hrs) respectively. Derivatives markets reflect this, with ETH’s volatility term structure flattening after a mild inversion, while BTC’s remains steep.

BTC and ETH both move sideways at +0.7% and +1.5% (24hrs) respectively. Derivatives markets reflect this, with ETH’s volatility term structure flattening after a mild inversion, while BTC’s remains steep.

BTC jumped from $65K to $70K but the move didn’t hold, and it’s now back near $67K as markets stay focused on geopolitical risk. The main spillover is through energy, with Brent around $80 and WTI near $75 after sharp gains, which has reignited inflation concerns. That’s pushed bond yields higher and moved expectations for the first Fed rate cut out to September. Crypto demand is still supportive in the background, with spot Bitcoin ETFs buying about $458M and Ethereum ETFs seeing about $39M of inflows.

This week's edition of our Crypto Altcoins Analytics.

Escalating US–Iran tensions triggered a brief risk-off move in crypto, with BTC dipping from about $65K to about $63K and ETH down to around $1.8K before both recovered into Monday. Options markets show only mild front-end inversion and puts remain bid, signalling ongoing demand for downside protection despite the bounce. TradFi is now repricing the shock, with global equities down roughly 1%, Brent up more than 10% above $80 on Strait of Hormuz risk, and precious metals higher, while Treasuries sold off and the 10-year yield rose about 3bps to roughly 3.97%. Morgan Stanley’s trust bank charter filing adds to the institutional build-out narrative, alongside scrutiny of prediction markets, Vitalik’s proposed execution-layer upgrades, and Paradigm’s planned $1.5B frontier tech fund.

This week's edition of our Crypto DeFi Analytics.

Crypto pulled back yesterday after BTC failed to hold $70K, trading below $68K while ETH stayed just above $2,000, even as both spot ETF products logged a third straight day of inflows. US equities closed lower and Treasury yields fell, keeping the broader tone cautious despite strong Nvidia results. In policy, lawmakers reopened the debate on stablecoin rewards and advanced a separate effort to clarify protections for non-custodial DeFi developers under Section 1960, while Japan’s SBI and Startale outlined a yen stablecoin targeting a Q2 launch.

Risk sentiment improved on Wednesday, lifting crypto: BTC jumped nearly 10% intraday but failed at $70k and is holding above $68k, while ETH rose 8.6% to above $2k and SOL gained 7.2% to $88. US spot BTC ETFs saw their strongest daily inflow in three weeks at $506.5M, though 2026 YTD flows remain negative at -$433.4M; ETH and SOL ETFs added $157.1M and $30.9M. US equities also rallied after Nvidia beat Q4 revenue expectations at $68.1B versus $65.7B and guided Q1 sales to around $78B versus $72.8B. Crypto headlines included Vitalik selling roughly 17.2k ETH worth about $35M, CoinShares launching a zero-fee Hyperliquid staking ETP, and Hut 8 posting higher revenue but a large net loss tied to unrealised crypto losses.

This week's edition of our Market Sentiment Report.

Bitcoin rebounded above $65,900 in early Wednesday trading, up around 3% from yesterday afternoon, with broad altcoin strength led by ETH up 4.8%, SOL up more than 7%, and XRP up around 3%. Asian equities pushed to record highs as AI-linked chipmakers rallied ahead of Nvidia’s earnings, while Andrew Bailey said a March BoE rate cut is still genuinely an open question. In policy, Trump’s new 10% global tariff took effect yesterday after the Supreme Court struck down his earlier package, and Hong Kong signalled first fiat-referenced stablecoin licences could be approved in March alongside new regimes for dealers and custodians. Coinbase rolled out tokenised stock and ETF trading to all US users and partnered with Yahoo Finance, Bitwise acquired staking provider Chorus One, and reports said Meta is exploring stablecoin payments in its apps, targeting early H2 2026.

Risk appetite keeps weakening as BTC briefly fell to $62K and spot BTC ETFs logged outflows in 6 of the last 8 sessions, including $203.8M sold yesterday, while derivatives also turned more defensive with ETH funding at -0.019% and 7D 25-delta skew dropping to -17% for BTC from -7% in 24 hours and to -15% for ETH from -8%. Despite the risk-off tone, selective buying persists with Strategy purchasing 592 BTC for $40M at an average $67,286, while Bitmine added 51,162 ETH and now reports 4,422,659 ETH valued at $1,958 per ETH, with 3,040,483 ETH staked and $171M in annualised staking revenue.

This week's edition of our Crypto Altcoins Analytics.

BTC broke below its three-week $65k–$70k range, briefly dropping to $64,300 and ending the session back above $66k after a 4.8% daily drawdown. The US Supreme Court struck down most of Trump’s IEEPA tariffs, leaving potential refunds up to $170bn, while Trump moved to raise the global baseline tariff from 10% to 15% under Section 122 for up to 150 days; US equities rose and long-end yields climbed to 4.75% on the 30-year. Separately, the SEC clarified broker-dealers may apply a 2% haircut to certain stablecoin proprietary positions, Tether will cease CNH₮ issuance immediately with redemptions open for one year, and Bitdeer liquidated its remaining bitcoin holdings as it raises capital to expand data centres and pivot toward AI.

After months of turbulent price action that followed the October 2025 liquidation event, and a brief capitulation below $60K, BTC’s spot price has been stuck in a narrow range of $65K and $70K over the past two weeks. That sideways consolidation around what appears to now be a key corridor for price reflects the current lack of catalysts and conviction in crypto markets.

This week's edition of our Crypto DeFi Analytics.

Crypto remains rangebound, with BTC near $68K and ETH below $2,000, while majors are slightly higher with SOL leading. Options markets are unchanged, with BTC implied vol below 50%, ETH around 62% to 68%, and a continued premium for puts. ETF flows are still a drag, with spot Bitcoin ETFs -$165.8M and Ether ETFs -$130.1M, leaving the average BTC ETF holder down about 20% versus an $84K cost basis. Geopolitical risk capped broader risk appetite as CME outlined 24/7 crypto derivatives trading from May 29 pending review.

This week's edition of our Market Sentiment Report.

BTC is still rangebound between $65k and $70k while ETH has broken below $2,000 and majors like XRP BNB SOL and DOGE are down roughly 3% to 5% as our Risk Appetite Index continues to drift lower toward its late 2025 bounce level. FOMC minutes from the January 27 to 28 meeting skewed hawkish with the vast majority emphasising sticky inflation and several noting rates could even be adjusted higher if inflation stays above target though a smaller group still supports easing if disinflation resumes. On the crypto development side EVMbench launched with 120 vulnerabilities from 40 audits Coinbase expanded Morpho powered onchain lending collateral to XRP Dogecoin Cardano and Litecoin for up to $100k USDC borrowing Hyper is allocating 1M HYPE to a DeFi policy centre and XRPL activated XLS 81 enabling permissioned DEX venues with controlled access.

BTC remains rangebound in the $65K to $70K range, while ETH has held near $2,000 since 6 February, as spot ETF flows diverged yesterday between $104.9M of BTC outflows and $48.6M of ETH inflows. Corporate accumulation continues despite softer prices, led by Strategy’s $168M BTC purchase and Bitmine’s $91.3M ETH add, taking its holdings to 4.371M ETH. Market structure developments remained active, with LMAX adding 24/7 margin-based Gold perps, BlackRock advancing its proposed staked ETH ETF, and Grayscale’s Sui staking ETF set to list on NYSE Arca.

BTC’s weekend push to around $71K has faded back below $68K, marking a fourth straight weekly decline and underscoring the lack of near-term catalysts. Since the October liquidation, total crypto market cap is down close to $2T, with volumes subdued amid US and China holidays. Macro conditions eased after a soft CPI print, with headline inflation up 0.2% month-on-month and 2.4% year-on-year, core at 2.5% year-on-year, driving the 2-year yield to about 3.4% and lifting OIS-implied cuts to roughly 64bps. Headlines were mixed across crypto, with Metaplanet reporting a $619M net loss on a $665.8M non-cash BTC valuation hit while expanding holdings to 35,102 BTC, as Wintermute launched institutional OTC execution for tokenised gold and ZeroLend announced a shutdown after TVL collapsed about 98% from its peak.

This week's edition of our Crypto Altcoins Analytics.

Sentiment coming out of Consensus Hong Kong was surprisingly constructive, even as BTC remains range-bound between $65,000 and $70,000 and the post-selloff narrative remains unclear. The sideways tape has coincided with Block Scholes’ Risk Appetite index reversing sharply lower after nearing the zero line that has historically aligned with broader crypto upside, making current price action a notable outlier. Derivatives positioning is defensive but unusually complacent, with BTC 30-day implied volatility at 45–46% versus realised near 50%, alongside a persistent put skew, while ETH implied volatility tracks realised more closely. ETF flows reinforce the cautious tone, with $360M in BTC outflows and $161.2M in ETH outflows last week.

This week's edition of our Crypto DeFi Analytics.

BTC remains rangebound at $65–68K after sliding from $70K this week, while options markets have rapidly de-risked with BTC and ETH implied vols around 50% and 65%, flat term structures, and persistent downside demand as puts trade 8–9 vol points over calls. Spot BTC ETFs saw $410.2M of outflows yesterday, taking the 20-day rolling total to -$3.8B, while ETH remains below $2,000 with ETH ETFs seeing $113.1M of outflows versus $2.7M of inflows into SOL ETFs. Risk sentiment remains pressured by the equity selloff, with the S&P 500 down 1.57% and the Nasdaq-100 down more than 2%, as macro attention turns to jobless claims at 227K following a stronger January NFP print of 130K ahead of today’s CPI.

This week's edition of our Market Sentiment Report.

Crypto markets remain rangebound, with BTC trading between $65K and $68K, ETH between $1,800 and $2,000, and SOL around $80, while spot ETF demand softened as Bitcoin ETFs recorded $276.30M of net outflows and Ethereum ETFs $129.18M, partially offset by modest inflows in Solana ETFs of $478.90K and Avalanche ETFs of $447.41K. A firmer US jobs report showing 130,000 payroll gains and unemployment easing to 4.3%, alongside sharp downward revisions to 2025 hiring, lifted the 2-year Treasury by nearly 10bps to around 3.54% and pushed the next expected Fed cut to July from June. Japan’s PPI eased to 2.3% year-on-year and the UK economy grew 0.1% month-on-month, while the UK Treasury selected HSBC Orion for its DIGIT tokenised gilt pilot and Coinbase launched Agentic Wallets for autonomous agents.

BTC broke below $70K yesterday, sliding to $66.5K as the broader crypto complex sold off, though Glassnode notes whales bought 53K BTC over the past week and spot BTC ETFs logged a third straight day of inflows ($166.5M). Macro signals were mixed: December retail sales stalled, but January payrolls beat (130K vs 70K) and unemployment dipped to 4.3%, pulling Treasury yields lower while equities still closed down amid mega-cap weakness. Fed officials Hammack and Logan leaned hawkish, stressing patience and persistent inflation risks, keeping rate-cut expectations constrained. On policy and plumbing, stablecoin-yield talks at the White House ended without resolution, while institutions accelerated onchain rails via Malaysia’s stablecoin pilots, Franklin–Binance collateral, Robinhood’s Arbitrum-based L2 testnet, Stripe’s x402 machine payments, and BUIDL trading on UniswapX via Securitize.

This week's edition of our Crypto Altcoins Analytics.

BTC is consolidating around $70K, while ETH briefly dipped below $2,000 before recovering, with modest institutional support emerging across both assets. Spot BTC ETFs saw $144.9M of net inflows yesterday after $371.1M on Friday, while Strategy added 1,142 BTC for $90M at an average $78,815, ahead of last week’s sharp sell-off. On ETH, spot ETF products flipped back to $57M of net buying and BitMine added 40,613 ETH last week, taking holdings to 4.325M ETH. Risk sentiment remains constructive with US equities higher as the S&P rose 0.47% into January NFP, with consensus at 68K payroll growth and a 4.4% unemployment rate, while market-structure headlines included CoinDesk BNB Futures launching on ICE Futures US, Ledger integrating OKX DEX for hardware-signed swaps, and Backpack detailing milestone-based token unlocks.

BTC steadied around $70K after a sharp sub-$60K flush and rebound, with spot BTC ETFs taking $330.7m of inflows on Friday as broader risk sentiment improved. Derivatives have cooled from panic levels but still lean defensive: BTC and ETH vol curves remain inverted and 7-day put-call skew sits near -13% for BTC and -11% for ETH versus roughly -30% at last week’s lows. Macro risk caught a bid with US equities up 1.97% and Japan’s Nikkei up 3.89%, even as $10Y US yields rose about 4bp and the dollar continued to soften. Policy and product headlines remain active, including tighter South Korea oversight, a White House meeting on stablecoin yield, Bitcoin difficulty down to $125.86T, and new crypto market plumbing via the 21Shares ONDO ETF filing and TON Pay for Telegram Mini Apps.

This week's edition of our Crypto DeFi Analytics.

The largest single-day drop since the collapse of FTX in November 2022 pushed BTC below $60K, with clear signs of panic in derivatives markets. Funding rates fell to their lowest since December 2024, while more than $2.6B in positions have been liquidated in the past 24 hours alone. ATM implied volatility for BTC and ETH has surged to levels last seen in November 2022, with 7-day skew briefly trading at -30%. In response to the near 50% drawdown from ATH, Strategy's CEO Phong Le responded that $8,000 per BTC is "the point at which our bitcoin reserve equals our net debt". US equities also traded lower following weaker-than-expected labour market data.

This week's edition of our Market Sentiment Report.

BTC continues to slump lower, falling to $70,000 yesterday, in line with a selloff in US risk-on equities. While derivatives markets paint a bearish picture, the same level of pessimism that defined previous bear market crashes is yet to appear in options markets, though both BTC and ETH's term structures of volatility remain inverted, with skew tilted towards put options. Mixed macro data for the US showed continued resilience in the services sector, while ADP jobs data came in below expectations. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent was asked in his testimony ahead of the House committee whether the US Treasury Department or the FOMC had the "authority to bailout BTC”.

Crypto markets extended their rout, with BTC briefly sliding to a 15-month low near $72,000 and dragging total crypto market cap down by roughly $500B since end-January, as ETF flows flipped back to $272M of outflows and derivatives stayed defensively positioned with strong demand for downside protection and muted futures positioning. Broader risk sentiment was also weak: US equities sold off, with the S&P 500 down 0.84% and the Nasdaq-100 down 1.55% amid fresh AI-automation concerns for software names, while gold and silver rebounded sharply, taking gold back above $5,000/oz. In Washington, President Trump signed a $1.2T spending bill to end the partial shutdown, but focus shifts to Homeland Security funding that expires on Feb 13, as Fed speakers signalled a still-divergent read on the “last mile” of inflation.

Crypto markets rebounded modestly after the weekend selloff, with BTC recovering from roughly 74k lows to as high as 79k and ETH holding around 2.3k, while options markets still show elevated, inverted volatility and a strong premium for put protection. Spot Bitcoin ETFs appeared to buy the dip with 561.8m of net inflows, while Ethereum ETFs saw a small 2.9m outflow and flows across XRP, SOL and DOGE products were mixed. Broader risk sentiment improved as US equities rose and a strong ISM manufacturing print helped lift precious metals, with gold and silver snapping back sharply. Elsewhere, Bostic reiterated a more patient stance with no cuts in his 2026 projection, the January payrolls release was delayed by the partial shutdown, and crypto headlines included ING Deutschland expanding crypto-linked access, Hyperliquid’s outcome-trading proposal, and fresh treasury accumulation from BitMine and Strategy.

This week's edition of our Crypto Altcoins Analytics.

Crypto’s selloff deepened over the weekend, with BTC briefly touching $74,000, nearly 40% below its October 2025 all-time high, and ETH sliding 19% over the past week as roughly $300B was wiped from total market capitalisation. Derivatives markets turned decisively risk-off, with ETH funding rates flipping negative, put skews falling to post–Liberation Day extremes, and both BTC and ETH volatility term structures inverting as short-dated implied volatility surged. ETF flows also deteriorated, with $1.5B of spot Bitcoin ETF outflows and more than $300M of spot Ethereum ETF selling, while altcoin flows remained mixed, led by XRP outflows of 52.3M and smaller losses in SOL alongside modest DOGE inflows. Broader macro volatility added pressure as the US dollar rallied sharply on Federal Reserve leadership developments, precious metals suffered heavy losses, and geopolitical tensions in the Middle East continued to weigh on risk sentiment.

This week's edition of our Crypto DeFi Analytics.

A broad risk-off move over the past 24 hours hit metals, equities, and crypto simultaneously, with sharp losses in gold and silver, US tech stocks sliding on AI profitability concerns, and Bitcoin falling to a two-month low near $81K amid heavy ETF outflows. The selloff lifted short-dated crypto volatility, coincided with a rebound in the US dollar, and unfolded alongside key policy and industry developments including Kevin Warsh’s nomination as Fed Chair.

The Fed held rates at 3.5%–3.75% despite two dissents, with Powell striking a slightly hawkish, patient tone and repeatedly stressing the Fed is “well-positioned” to wait for the data, alongside a more upbeat view on 2026 growth and easing downside-employment language. Markets were largely unmoved, leaving BTC rangebound around $87K–$90K and ETH below $3,000, while equities were mixed, bonds flat, and gold and silver pushed to fresh records as the dollar resumed its downtrend after Bessent’s “strong dollar” comments. In crypto policy and industry, the White House is set to host a banking-crypto meeting on stablecoin rewards, Bybit is planning a fiat-IBAN “MyBank” service for February, and Fidelity is preparing to launch an Ethereum stablecoin. Tokenisation and product headlines also accelerated, with WisdomTree bringing RWAs to Solana, Bitwise registering a Uniswap ETF trust, Coinbase adding Hyperliquid to its roadmap, WLFI’s USD1 hitting a $5B market cap, and Strive boosting holdings to 13,132 BTC.

This week's edition of our Market Sentiment Report.

US equities extended gains to new highs, with the S&P 500 up 0.41% to 6,978.60 and the Nasdaq-100 up 0.88%, even as US consumer confidence slumped in January to 84.5 and the Expectations Index fell to 65.1, well below the typical recession-warning threshold. Gold surged to fresh highs above $5,200/oz as the dollar slid toward a four-year low, a move President Trump publicly welcomed, while Japan signalled it is ready to coordinate with the US if FX moves become disorderly. In crypto, BTC continued to lag risk assets, briefly dipping to $86k before recovering toward $89k, while ETH reclaimed $3,000 as spot ETF flows flipped negative again with $147.4m of BTC and $63.6m of ETH net sold. Meanwhile, the regulatory and product backdrop stayed constructive, with Laser Digital seeking a US trust bank charter, OKX launching a European stablecoin-spend debit card, and Ethereum developers confirming ERC-8004 is heading to mainnet to enable trustless on-chain coordination between AI agents.

Crypto and US equities edged higher ahead of the Fed’s first FOMC meeting of the year, with BTC holding just under $88K and ETH above $2,900 on continued buying from digital asset treasury firms. Strategy added 2,932 BTC while BitMine bought 40,302 ETH and increased staking, as spot Ethereum ETFs snapped a four-day outflow streak with a $117M net inflow. In macro and policy, the S&P 500 rose 0.5% even as small caps lagged, the dollar fell to its weakest level since September 2025, and Trump said tariffs on South Korean goods would rise to 25%. Meanwhile, the Senate delayed a key crypto legislation session to January 29, BlackRock filed for a covered-call bitcoin income ETF, and product momentum continued with VanEck’s US-listed AVAX ETF and Bitwise’s new onchain USDC yield vault.

This week's edition of our Crypto Altcoins Analytics.

JPY volatility surged on intervention chatter as USDJPY hit 159.23 before reversing to 155.63 by Friday’s close and now trades at 153.61, alongside renewed focus on elevated JGB yields. US shutdown risk repriced sharply, with Polymarket showing the probability of a shutdown by month-end rising from 9% to 80% over the past 48 hours. Crypto moved risk-off with BTC falling just under 86K and ETH trading below 3K, while spot Bitcoin ETFs saw 1.33B of net outflows last week, the worst week since February 2025, and seven-day 25-delta skews remained put-heavy at minus 7% for BTC and minus 8% for ETH. Defensive assets outperformed as gold hit a record above 5,100 per ounce after rising 8% last week, while Japan and South Korea saw longer-dated crypto catalysts with Japan potentially approving its first crypto ETFs as early as 2028 and Coinone exploring a partial stake sale by its chairman.

In 2025, we predicted that stablecoin market, widely accepted as the first successful use case of real world asset (RWA) tokenisation, would grow significantly in both supply and volume. That prediction was due in part to their role in fulfilling a number of stated goals of the Trump 2.0 administration, as well as regulatory advancements in the US to establish guard rails for crypto assets and stablecoins (such as the GENIUS Act and CLARITY Act). As seen in Figure 1 below, growth in tokenised assets in crypto has begun to scale exponentially, particularly since 2024. That was driven by a combination of institutional and retail user interest.

This week's edition of our Crypto DeFi Analytics.

US equities strengthened as risk appetite improved, while crypto remained rangebound with BTC hovering near 90k and ETH still failing to clear 3k, alongside continued spot ETF outflows. Strong US macro data reinforced expectations of a Fed pause next week, with GDP revised higher and PCE inflation landing in line, while the BoJ held rates at 0.75 percent. Market structure headlines centred on Nasdaq asking the SEC to lift options position limits for major spot BTC and ETH ETFs, and a scheduled SEC–CFTC joint event on regulatory coordination. In crypto developments, Laser Digital launched a tokenised bitcoin yield fund targeting roughly 5 percent annualised over spot, Ledger is reportedly preparing a US IPO, and Bitmine added materially to its staked ETH position.

This week's edition of our Market Sentiment Report.

Risk assets rebounded after President Trump floated a “framework” Greenland deal that would drop a planned 10% tariff on NATO countries starting 1 Feb 2026. BTC is attempting to reclaim $90k and ETH is holding just above $3k, while short-dated options de-risked as the BTC 7D put–call premium compressed from roughly 10 vol points to about 4% and ETH 7D skew improved from -7% to -2.5%. US equities recovered with the S&P 500 up 1.16%, Nasdaq-100 up 1.36%, and Russell 2000 up 2.0%, alongside a 4 bp drop in the UST 10Y yield to 4.25%. Japan’s super-long JGBs also retraced as the 30Y fell 10 bps over 24 hours and the 40Y eased to around 4.0% from a 4.22% peak, while gold remained firm up 4.40% over five days above $4,800 and crypto headlines included Thailand’s ETF and futures push, US market-structure delays, TBIL tokenisation, Ondo’s 200 plus tokenised equities and ETFs on Solana, and BitGo’s IPO at $18 raising about $212.8m at roughly a $2b fully diluted valuation.

BTC sold off from $93K to just below $88K before stabilising around $90K, with broad weakness across majors and a sharp reversal in ETF flows: U.S. spot BTC and ETH ETFs saw ~$713M of net outflows on Tuesday. The risk-off move has been driven by macro and geopolitics—Trump’s Greenland tariff escalation and a violent selloff in ultra-long Japanese government bonds—though longer-dated JGBs rebounded today after record yield spikes. Despite the drawdown, corporate and product headlines remain active: Strategy disclosed a $2.13B BTC buy, Galaxy is seeding a $100M “digital finance” hedge fund, and regulators pushed forward on stablecoin and market structure (Hong Kong licensing; Kalshi restrictions). On the tokenisation/alt side, Chainlink’s equities data streams, Solana Mobile’s SKR airdrop, Trump Media’s token record date, Grayscale’s NEAR ETF filing, and BitMine’s growing staked ETH position highlight continued build-out even as macro conditions dominate price action.

At the start of the year we published our 2026 Outlook Report in collaboration with Bybit. In that report we highlighted one of the major risks to our macro outlook — “a potential risk-off period in 2026 triggered by violent moves in Japanese government bond yields”, arguing that “the spread between US and Japanese government bond yields is also worth watching in 2026.” The first month of the new year is already showing signs of that volatility in Japanese bond markets, impacting the yield-differential in US-Japan bond yields. How have crypto markets reacted thus far to the current global bond market selloff? Let’s see.

Macro and trade tensions pressured risk assets as BTC slid for a fifth straight session (down 2% to just above $90K), ETH fell 4% near $3K, altcoins also dropped and equity futures and European stocks sold off, while gold and silver hit fresh record highs. Focus remains on escalating US–Europe frictions over Trump’s Greenland push and tariff threats (despite Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent urging calm), alongside the NYSE’s announcement it’s building a blockchain-enabled platform for 24/7 trading and onchain settlement of tokenised US equities and ETFs, pending regulatory approval.

This week's edition of our Crypto Altcoins Analytics.

Bitcoin’s weekend rally to around $97k reversed sharply late Sunday as US equity futures sold off, dropping BTC about 3% in an hour to roughly $93k and pulling the broader crypto market lower. The move was amplified by a leverage washout, with roughly $874m liquidated overnight, predominantly long positions, and by a break in spot Bitcoin ETF inflow momentum, with around $395m of net selling on Friday, while spot Ethereum ETFs still recorded small net inflows. Macro risk sentiment also deteriorated as tariff threats tied to President Trump’s Greenland push raised the prospect of EU retaliation, supporting another surge in precious metals and lifting Treasury yields, with the 10-year near 4.22%. Meanwhile, Ethereum usage is near record highs but fees remain low due to recent capacity upgrades and a higher gas limit, with stablecoins driving a sizeable share of transactions.

This week's edition of our Crypto DeFi Analytics.

BTC stalled below $97k and is now range-bound around $95.5k as spot ETF inflows slowed materially after two outsized sessions; ETH is modestly off its recent peak near $3.4k but remains close to $3.3k, supported by continued spot ETF buying, strong DAT and staking demand, and an unprecedented validator entry queue of roughly 2.5m ETH, alongside fresh accumulation from BitMine. US equities rebounded on TSMC’s stronger-than-expected 2026 capex and revenue outlook plus a US–Taiwan trade pact, while small caps extended their run of outperformance, even as multiple Fed speakers signalled a preference to keep policy restrictive. Meanwhile, market structure headlines stayed active, with South Korea progressing STO legislation effective 2027, CME planning new ADA, LINK and XLM futures from 9 Feb 2026, IBKR enabling 24-7 USDC funding with additional stablecoins to follow, MetaMask rolling out native Tron support, and Galaxy completing the initial close of a $75m tokenised CLO on Avalanche.

This week's edition of our Market Sentiment Report.

Bitcoin extended its rally yesterday, pushing above $97k, while ETH held above $3,300 as spot BTC and ETH ETFs logged another outsized day of net inflows ($840.6m and $175.1m, respectively) alongside continued demand for XRP and SOL products. US equities saw a clear rotation away from Mag-7 into small caps: the S&P 500 fell 0.53% despite broad participation, the Nasdaq-100 slid further, and the Russell 2000 continued its strong relative outperformance. Macro and policy signals were mixed, with US producer prices and retail sales firming, the Supreme Court again not ruling on Trump’s tariffs, and precious metals cooling as tariff action on critical minerals was deferred. Fed independence remained in focus after Trump said he has no plans to fire Powell, while Fed officials pushed back against political pressure and the Beige Book flagged moderate growth with tariffs beginning to filter through to prices.

BTC broke out above 96K, up 3.01% in 24 hours and the highest since 16 Nov 2025, after a month range between 85K and 95K. The move was reinforced by 753.8M of spot BTC ETF inflows, around 600M of short liquidations including 260M in BTC, and a sharp derivatives repricing with 7-day futures implying roughly a 10% yield and put premia compressing from 3% to 0.3%. US equities slipped despite softer core CPI at 2.6% year on year and 0.2% month on month, with Fed funds still pricing a January pause at 97.2%.

BTC is still rangebound near $90K, briefly touching $92K in Asia before slipping back to about $90.7K, as markets weigh tariff uncertainty, a mixed December jobs report and tomorrow’s CPI. Despite the macro noise, US equities ended last week at record highs and Fed speakers signalled only incremental policy adjustments, with traders leaning toward no change at the end-of-January meeting. Crypto ETF flows were mixed with heavy BTC and ETH outflows, while XRP stayed net positive and set a weekly volume record, as SOL and DOGE cooled and LTC returned to inflows. Policy risk rose again with DOJ subpoenas targeting the Fed, Dubai tightening DIFC crypto rules including a privacy-token ban, and South Korea moving toward reopening corporate crypto trading under a 5% cap.

This week's edition of our Crypto Altcoins Analytics.

BTC is still rangebound near $90K, briefly touching $92K in Asia before slipping back to about $90.7K, as markets weigh tariff uncertainty, a mixed December jobs report and tomorrow’s CPI. Despite the macro noise, US equities ended last week at record highs and Fed speakers signalled only incremental policy adjustments, with traders leaning toward no change at the end-of-January meeting. Crypto ETF flows were mixed with heavy BTC and ETH outflows, while XRP stayed net positive and set a weekly volume record, as SOL and DOGE cooled and LTC returned to inflows. Policy risk rose again with DOJ subpoenas targeting the Fed, Dubai tightening DIFC crypto rules including a privacy-token ban, and South Korea moving toward reopening corporate crypto trading under a 5% cap.

This week's edition of our Crypto DeFi Analytics.

This week's edition of our Market Sentiment Report.

Markets were mixed as focus shifts to two near-term catalysts: a potential Supreme Court opinion on President Trump’s global tariffs and today’s BLS Nonfarm Payrolls report. BTC held a tight 89K to 91K range and traded around ninety thousand, despite US spot BTC ETFs seeing -398.9M of net outflows on Thursday, about -1.1B since Tuesday, alongside -159M from spot ETH ETFs, while XRP ETFs flipped to +8.72M after Wednesday’s -40.8M and SOL extended an eighth straight day of inflows with DOGE adding 333.83K. Derivatives signals remain two-sided, with short-tenor BTC and ETH implied yields near 6% and modestly positive perp funding, but seven-day volatility smiles still price downside risk with BTC puts at a 4% premium to calls and ETH skew just under 3%. In broader markets, defence stocks led after Trump floated a 1.5T military budget for 2027 versus the current record nine hundred and one billion, while Trump-aligned officials renewed calls for rate cuts, pointing to a 2.50 to 3.25 neutral range versus the current 3.5 to 3.75 target.

US equities logged their first decline of 2026 as investors digested a hawkish-leaning split in US data: ISM Services surprised to the upside, while JOLTS openings fell to a 14-month low, reinforcing a “low hiring, low firing” labour market. Crypto weakened alongside broader risk, with BTC sliding from ~$93K to below $90K and short-dated BTC and ETH skews flipping decisively toward puts as downside hedging demand repriced. Attention now turns to Friday’s nonfarm payrolls and the Supreme Court’s ruling on the legality of President Trump’s tariffs as the next key macro catalysts. In crypto/TradFi plumbing, World Liberty Financial moved toward formal oversight via a national trust bank charter application for USD1 issuance/custody, while Digital Asset and J.P. Morgan’s Kinexys announced plans to bring JPM Coin to Canton and Polymarket partnered with Dow Jones as Babylon secured $15M from a16z.

US risk assets extended the rally, with the S&P 500 up 0.62% and the Dow up 0.99% closing at record highs while the Nasdaq-100 rose 0.94%, alongside strength in metals as gold gained more than 1% and silver surged 6%. Crypto lagged, with BTC rejected at 94–95k and slipping below 92k, while ETF flows diverged as spot BTC ETFs saw 243.2m of net outflows versus 114.7m of net inflows into spot ETH ETFs for a third straight day. MSCI said it will not exclude digital asset treasury companies from its global indices in the February 2026 review, keeping Strategy included and helping its shares rally about 5% after-hours with mNAV at 1.03. Policy headlines leaned toward easier conditions over time but remained data-dependent, while adoption catalysts continued with Barclays investing in stablecoin settlement start-up Ubyx and Morgan Stanley filing S-1s for spot Bitcoin and spot Solana ETFs with staking in the Solana product.

Risk assets rallied despite heightened US–Venezuela tensions, with Trump signalling a longer stabilisation timeline and potential support for rebuilding Venezuela’s oil industry. Crypto outperformed as BTC climbed into the mid-$90Ks and ETH held above $3K, helped by strong spot BTC ETF inflows and a tentative rebound in spot ETH ETFs. US equities rose while gold and silver surged, as weak US manufacturing data pulled Treasury yields slightly lower and Kashkari suggested policy is near neutral. Grayscale began distributing ETH staking rewards via its ETF, and Jupiter launched JupUSD on Solana to gradually replace a large USDC balance in its liquidity pools.

This week's edition of our Crypto Altcoins Analytics.

BTC extended its grind higher, printing $93K in early Asia, its highest level since 11 December, while ETH held above $3,100 alongside a defensive bid in havens with gold up around 2% and silver up around 5%. Spot BTC ETF flows showed a clear inflection, with the 11 products recording about $471m of net inflows on Friday, the largest daily intake since mid-November 2025 after weeks of outflows post the 10 October liquidation event. Short-dated vol repriced higher over the weekend, with 7D ATM IV rising from 37% to 44% for BTC and from 50% to 59% for ETH, before consolidating, as BTC skew reverted towards neutral and ETH remained slightly negative. US equity futures are modestly firmer after Friday’s close, while the rates impulse remains central, with 10Y yields peaking at 4.19% on Friday and the 2s10s curve at its steepest level since January 2022.

This week's edition of our Crypto DeFi Analytics.

BTC remains rangebound between $85k and $95k and is trading around $89k, while ETH has broken back above the $3,000 psychological level and is holding near $3,035 after prior failed attempts. Derivatives positioning has turned more constructive, with short-dated volatility skews flipping from a put-premium through most of Q4 to a modest call-premium (BTC 7D 25-delta skew +0.74%, ETH +0.47%), alongside positive perpetual funding that indicates net-long bias. Cross-asset risk appetite is firmer to start 2026, with US equity futures higher and precious metals advancing on the day. Focus also turns to final December manufacturing PMIs across the US, UK, euro area and Canada, as December spot volumes across both CEX and DEX venues cooled materially.

BTC stayed pinned in its early-December range around $87K on a quiet New Year’s Day, with ETH flat near $2.9K and SOL just under $125. With major markets closed, low volatility has persisted and ETH options continue to price muted near-term moves with higher volatility further out. Trump’s tariff increase on wood-related products was delayed until January 1, 2027, while China plans to pay interest on digital yuan balances to boost adoption. Uniswap governance approved using trading fees to buy back and burn UNI, but the token price has remained broadly flat near $5.7.

This week's edition of our Crypto Altcoins Analytics.

FOMC minutes leaned neutral-to-slightly hawkish, with policymakers open to further cuts but favouring holding rates “for some time”; markets price just a 13.8% chance of a January cut. The dollar remains weighed by expected 2026 policy divergence, while gold and silver rebounded on renewed Fed-independence concerns. Crypto sentiment firmed as US spot bitcoin ETFs saw $355M of inflows, spot ETH ETFs added $67.84M, and XRP ETFs extended a 30-day inflow streak. Year-end product momentum continued with Bitwise filing 11 new crypto strategy ETFs and Grayscale seeking the first US spot Bittensor ETF.

Risk assets slipped as BTC failed again at $90K and traded around $87K, alongside a second day of US equity losses (S&P 500 -0.3%, Nasdaq-100 -0.5%). Spot Bitcoin ETFs logged a 7th straight outflow day (-$19.3M), reinforcing the drag on BTC momentum. Metals reversed hard after record highs (silver -8% after clearing $80/oz, gold -4%, palladium -17%), while Treasuries stayed calm with the 10Y ~4.1% and the MOVE at 58. In crypto-specific headlines, Metaplanet reported 4,279 BTC bought for $451.1M (treasury 35,102 BTC), Strategy added 1,229 BTC for $108.8M, and Bitmine lifted holdings to 4.11M ETH while Lighter launched LIT with a 50% ecosystem allocation.

BTC and US equities traded sideways over the festive weekend, with muted post-Christmas session activity across both markets. Early Monday in Asian hours, BTC briefly broke above $90K but again failed to hold that resistance, slipping back to around $89.4K. BTC remains roughly 29% below its October all-time high, while US equities stayed rangebound just below record highs. ETH followed BTC’s move, extending above $3K before similarly retreating back below the key level.

This week's edition of our Crypto DeFi Analytics.

With gold and US equities sitting at record highs over the holiday period, crypto has remained stuck in a late-November range—BTC and ETH trading around $88.6K and $2.9K—while larger altcoins drift lower. Derivatives markets echo the stasis: implied volatility has continued to bleed across liquid crypto options as desks thin out, with short-dated BTC IV slipping below 35% for the first time since the Oct 10, 2025 crash and 1-week ETH IV at multi-year lows, alongside broadly bearish ETH positioning but a notable normalization in BTC skew as the 7-day smile moves back toward neutral.

A shortened session on Christmas Eve still pushed US equities to fresh record highs, with a surprise dip in initial jobless claims (214k vs 224k expected) and earlier strong Q3 GDP adding to the soft-landing narrative. In contrast, BTC remains rangebound below the $90k resistance (roughly $85k–$90k), pressured by a fifth straight day of spot ETF outflows (about $826m over five sessions). Into year-end, volatility continues to compress across both TradFi and crypto—VIX hit its lowest level of the year, BTC/ETH ATM IV has fallen sharply since the weekend—while skew remains broadly unchanged.

This week's edition of our Crypto Altcoins Analytics.

US equities kept grinding higher after Q3 GDP printed 4.3% annualised vs 3.2% consensus, pushing the S&P 500 +0.46% to a new record (Dow +0.2%, Nasdaq +0.6%) despite consumer confidence falling 3.8 points to 89.1. BTC rejected $90k again and traded ~$86,000 while ETH failed at $3,000 and traded ~$2,900, alongside spot ETF outflows (BTC -$188.6M; ETH -$95.5M) and -$497.1M net BTC ETF flows last week (vs +$286.6M the prior week). In relative terms, SOL and XRP spot ETFs saw inflows on 23 Dec (+$4.2M and +$8.19M). Gold hit a new ATH above $4,500/oz, with YTD gains of +71% for gold and ~+150% for silver.

US equities started the holiday week on a constructive footing, with the S&P 500 and Nasdaq-100 advancing as breadth improved, while gold and silver pushed to fresh records amid expectations for further Fed easing in 2026 and rising geopolitical risk. Crypto lagged the broader risk tone: BTC briefly tested $90k but faded back to ~$87k as spot ETF flows stayed negative, though risk appetite gauges show early signs of stabilisation. On the corporate and product front, Coinbase is set to acquire prediction-markets startup The Clearing Company to scale its event-based trading push, while Kalshi expanded onchain access by adding BNB Smart Chain rails for BNB and stablecoin transfers. Treasury activity remained a focal point: BitMine continued stacking ETH at scale, ETHZilla sold ETH to repay debt and pivot toward tokenised real-world assets, and Strategy paused BTC purchases while topping up its dividend reserve.

BTC rallied about 4.8% from roughly 84K to 88K on Friday and held those gains over the weekend, briefly extending in early Asia before stalling at the 90K resistance level. ETH followed, rebounding back above 3,000 from below 2,800, with futures premia firming and ETH funding rates rising to their highest since late November. Macro risk tone improved as the S&P 500 rose 0.88% and the Nasdaq-100 gained 1.3% on Friday, while 2Y and 10Y Treasury yields still fell around 3 to 4bp on the week, leaving markets priced for a January 2026 Fed pause and roughly even odds of a March cut. Despite the spot rebound and early signs of a sentiment bottom, BTC and ETH options remain defensively positioned with persistent put-skew across tenors.

This week's edition of our Crypto DeFi Analytics.

A cooler-than-expected US inflation print helped arrest a four-day slide in the S&P 500 and briefly pushed BTC above $89K, although the release was clouded by missing month-on-month data and methodological “carry-forward” imputation during the shutdown. Risk assets still rallied, with equities holding gains on the day alongside a further boost from strong Micron results, while BTC retraced sharply to $84.5K before rebounding back above $88K. In rates, the Bank of Japan hiked to 0.75%—its highest policy rate since 1995—sending 10-year JGB yields above 2%. On the policy front, Washington signalled accelerating crypto oversight: Michael Selig advanced to lead the CFTC, Senate leaders confirmed a January markup for the Clarity Act, while Bybit returned to the UK via Archax and Bitwise filed to launch a spot SUI ETF.

Bitcoin returned to $86,600 early Thursday after briefly spiking near $90,000 at the US market open, while ETH weakened from the $3,000 area to around $2,800. BTC is consolidating in the $85–90k area following the pullback and our BTC RAI has stabilised and started to edge higher; ETH has broadly held around the $3.0–3.3k area recently and the ETH RAI has also improved modestly from recent lows. XRP spot ETFs have seen a continuous run of net positive daily inflows since launch (total net inflow $1.03B), with XRP up +0.78% to around $1.87. Market expectations remain towards the Fed holding rates next month (FedWatch 73.4% / Polymarket 76%), while the BoE is expected to cut 25bp this afternoon and the ECB to hold, alongside headlines including the Fed withdrawing its 2023 “novel activities” policy, Coinbase’s planned rollout of tokenised stocks and prediction markets, and Hut 8’s 15-year $7.0B River Bend lease with Fluidstack backed by Google.

Bitcoin’s recent pullback from $90,000 to $85,000 has coincided with ETF outflows of $634M from Bitcoin funds and $449M from Ethereum funds, even as XRP- and Solana-linked products saw net inflows. In spot, Bitcoin is around $86,200 and down 1.82% over 24 hours, while Ethereum is near $2,900 and down 1.64%, contrasting with XRP up about 1.0% to $1.89 and Solana slightly higher near $126.51. UK inflation eased to 3.2% in November 2025, undershooting both consensus and the Bank of England’s forecast, while US policy focus sharpened via a bipartisan Senate bill targeting crypto scam enforcement coordination. In crypto-specific developments, BitMine reportedly added 48,049 ETH for about $140.6M, Exodus announced plans for a fully reserve-backed dollar stablecoin for early 2026, and Aave outlined a 2026 roadmap centred on V4 scaling, RWAs, and a mobile product push.

Williams said tariffs have added ~0.5pp to inflation but should be a one-off price-level effect into 2026, while Miran warned that staying too tight for too long could trigger rapid labour-market deterioration. US Nov payrolls rose +64k (vs -105k Oct) but unemployment climbed to 4.6% (7.8M), and the UK jobless rate edged up to 5.1% (1.832M) as flash manufacturing PMI improved to 51.2. In crypto, Atkins warned SEC rules could create financial surveillance, the Senate delayed market-structure work into early 2026, and ETF flows rotated (BTC -$357.7M, ETH -$224.8M, SOL +$35.2M; XRP inflows >$1B cum) as BTC fell from ~$89k to ~$85.6k before recovering near ~$87k.

BTC and ETH were rangebound over the weekend (BTC briefly dipped to $88K; ETH to $3K), reflecting subdued ETF demand. Attention now turns to a busy US macro week (Retail Sales, jobs, CPI, PCE) plus multiple Fed speakers, with markets leaning toward a policy pause into early 2026. In tradfi-onchain news, JPMorgan is launching a tokenised money-market fund on Ethereum, while State Street/Galaxy plan a PYUSD-settled onchain liquidity fund and YouTube enabled PYUSD payouts. In parallel, the BoE is expected to cut on 18 December, the UK plans FCA-led crypto regulation by 2027, and Exor rejected Tether’s €1bn Juventus proposal.

This week's edition of our Crypto DeFi Analytics.

Bitcoin perked up to $93.5K late Thursday, moving with the “risk-on” tone in stocks as the S&P 500 hit a fresh record, even while tech and the Nasdaq slipped on weak Oracle earnings. Bitcoin ETFs are still struggling to attract steady demand, flipping back to a $77.5M outflow after only two days of inflows. Bonds have been jumpy too after a surprise spike in jobless claims pushed the 10-year yield down and then back up to around 4.17%. On the bigger picture, TradFi keeps leaning into crypto rails: the SEC cleared DTCC to run a tokenisation pilot, and JPMorgan helped issue tokenised commercial paper on Solana.

The Fed delivered a third 25 bp cut this year in a split decision, with Powell striking a moderately hawkish tone, stressing the Committee is “well-positioned to wait” and restarting $40B in Treasury bill purchases for reserve management. Equities initially rallied on the decision before futures reversed on weak Oracle earnings, while BTC spiked to an intraday high near $94.5K before retracing. Structurally, BitMine reportedly added $112M of ETH to its treasury, State Street and Galaxy unveiled the PYUSD-based SWEEP tokenised liquidity fund, Valora’s team agreed to join Stripe as the app returns to cLabs, Gemini secured CFTC approval for its Gemini Titan prediction market, and Solana’s ecosystem advanced with Coinbase’s direct DEX access and Ellipsis Labs’ launch of Phoenix Perpetuals.

Into tonight’s FOMC meeting a 25bp cut is widely assumed, while JOLTS openings printed 7.67M versus 7.12M expected, layoffs rose to 1.85M and hires slipped to 5.15M. Spot risk was muted with the S&P 500 flat and the Nasdaq-100 up 0.2%, but BTC jumped over 5% from 89K to 94.5K and ETH over 6% from 3.1K to 3.4K. Crypto flows were strong, with BTC spot ETFs seeing $151.9M of inflows and ETH ETFs $177.7M, the best day for both in several weeks. ETH perp funding and short-dated futures have turned positive while 7D BTC and ETH skew remains around -4.4% and -5.3%, and longer term the SEC, OCC and Tempo’s $5B stablecoin L1 point to a more supportive US framework.

BTC traded sideways in a tight $89–92K range while US equities slipped 0.35% and the US 10y yield rose 4bp to its highest since September ahead of tomorrow’s FOMC, where markets price a ~90% chance of a cut and two more in 2026. Strategy Inc accumulated $962.7M of BTC at an average $90,615, its largest buy since July, with shares up 2.6% even as its mNAV premium fell from ~3.0 to ~1.1 and it set up a $1.4B cash reserve. BitMine increased its crypto, cash and “moonshot” assets to $13.2B and lifted ETH holdings to 3.86M as it pushes toward a 5% supply target, while HYPE announced a $30M buyback to boost per-share exposure to its digital-asset treasury. Additional tailwinds came from crypto-market infrastructure, including BlackRock’s staked ETH ETF filing, Circle and Tether’s regulatory wins in Abu Dhabi, and the CFTC’s pilot allowing BTC, ETH and USDC as derivatives collateral.

Bitcoin has rebounded from a sideways range around $89K to $92K, while Ether has moved from $3K to just under $3.2K, despite weekly outflows of $87.7M from spot BTC ETFs and $65.4M from spot ETH ETFs. Implied volatility term structures are modestly inverted, with 7D BTC IV at 50% versus 47% for 180D, and 7D ETH IV at 73% versus 70% for longer tenors, while 30D skew sits at -6% for BTC and -4% for ETH, indicating a smaller downside premium for Ether. In traditional markets, the S&P 500 is up over 17% year to date and sits just below its October all-time high, while BTC is now -2% year to date after the October liquidation. Into Wednesday’s final FOMC meeting of the year, markets are pricing an 87% probability of a 25bp cut, with core PCE at 0.2% MoM and 2.8% YoY, and University of Michigan consumer sentiment ticking up to 53.3 in December from 51 in November.

This week's edition of our Crypto DeFi Analytics.

BTC stalled after an intraday spike to $94k and now trades just above $91k, with ETH slipping from $3,200 to $3,100 as short-dated OTM put premia compressed from 11 to 5 vols over calls in BTC and to ~2.5 vols in ETH, even as ETH is only +4% over five days despite BitMine nearing 5% of supply and the Fusaka upgrade going live. Spot flows remain a headwind: spot ETH ETFs have taken in just $9.8m net so far this week, while spot BTC ETFs have seen $142.5m of outflows including a $194.6m single-day bleed, the largest since 20 November. Structurally, 21Shares secured approval to list the first US Sui-linked leveraged product, the 2x SUI ETF (TXXS), taking the crypto ETF tally to 74 for 2025 and 128 overall, while Base launched a Chainlink-CCIP bridge to Solana to move SOL/SPL and Base-native assets cross-chain.

BTC has retraced its early-month drop, trading back around $93k after a brief move to $94k, while 7D ATM implied volatility has fallen from 56% on 1 Dec to 45% and short-dated skew has compressed from a 16 vol-point put premium in late November to about 3%. ETH is up over 4.5% in the past 24 hours, back in the $3,000–3,100 range and supported by $140.2m of spot ETF purchases, with 7D volatility smiles shifting from double-digit premia for out-of-the-money puts in November to briefly pricing a 1.5 vol-point call premium before reverting towards neutral. US 2Y Treasury yields have moved below 3.5% after ADP reported a 32k fall in November private payrolls versus expectations of a 10k gain, the fourth decline in six months and driven by a 120k drop in employment at firms with fewer than 50 employees. American Bitcoin added 502 BTC to take its treasury to 4,367 BTC, BitMine bought 48,623 ETH and now controls over 3% of supply, while Franklin launched a Solana spot ETF, Grayscale listed a Chainlink trust, and Ethereum’s Fusaka upgrade went live on 3 December, increasing blob capacity to help lower L2 data costs.

BTC rallied 7% to just above 93K and ETH 9% to reclaim 3,000, lifting total crypto market cap back above 3T even as BTC spot ETFs saw only 58.5M of inflows versus a 121.6M post-launch daily average, though this still marked a fifth consecutive day of positive flows. Rates markets now price an 87% probability of a 25bp Fed cut in December, while BTC short-tenor volatility smiles have compressed from an 11 vol put premium to 4 vols and ETH from 10 vols to 2, indicating reduced demand for downside hedges. Elsewhere, Bitmine purchased 18,345 ETH worth about 55M, Kraken agreed to acquire tokenised-equity issuer Backed Finance, and Hyperliquid and Sonnet completed their merger to form HYPE under the ticker PURR, alongside ongoing developments around the GENIUS stablecoin Act, the UK Property Digital Assets Act 2025 and Vanguard’s move to allow trading in funds with crypto exposure.

We looked at three different markets on Polymarket to analyse the claim that certain Polymarket traders exhibited patterns consistent with advanced knowledge regarding a potential US airstrike on Iran. Across the three markets, we focused on the 42 traders with the highest PnL from these three markets and the 8,142 trades they placed. One wallet of particular interest belongs to a trader pseudonymously named (pseudonyms are auto-assigned by polymarket) ‘Careless-Bug’. 

Stablecoins are digital assets that aim to maintain a constant value relative to another (pegged) asset. Traditionally, the reference asset has been an off-chain fiat currency, most commonly the US dollar. Stablecoins are becoming a buzzword in the traditional financial space and serve as an entry point for many into crypto. The global stablecoin market capitalisation stands at approximately $245B. Citi Group’s base case, however, estimates that this could grow to be a trillion-dollar industry in the next 10 years. This is expected to be motivated by big entrants – the likes of major governments and banks entering the space. In particular the European Central Bank is testing and developing a Digital Euro. Separately the likes of Bank of America, Santander and JPMorgan have all announced stablecoin plans.

Rho Protocol is the first crypto-native rate derivatives exchange. Rho rates futures are financial derivatives which allow users to trade fixed-to-floating rate swaps on BTC and ETH perpetual futures funding rates and on ETH staking rates. In this report, we uncover how exactly Rho Protocol works.