Hi all, happy Wednesday!

BTC is moving higher alongside a broader risk-on shift, with correlations to equities climbing back toward recent highs. But while price is responding, demand still isn’t. ETF flows remain soft, and conviction from new buyers is limited.

At the same time, Coinbase is making one of its most aggressive product pushes to date. Its “Everything Exchange” signals a shift toward unified liquidity, tokenized equities, and a deeper integration of trading, credit, and payments, raising the stakes for where crypto market structure goes next.

BTC is currently tracking higher in tandem with broader risk-on sentiment following a relative cooling of geopolitical friction. Correlations with risk assets (tech, small-cap stocks) are recording the highest prints in months. 

However, the demand side remains somewhat precarious. ETF outflows have been caught in a negative cycle, though outflows are no longer accelerating, which suggests the worst phase of the selloff may be behind us. We are still waiting for real evidence that new demand is returning to the market.

One such piece of evidence is a multifactor model determining whether BTC has bottomed. Below we show an in-house model that looks at 198 features across futures, options, volatility, onchain metrics, cross-exchange deltas, stablecoins, macro and more. The model implies that we are back in an expansion phase. However, in last week’s newsletter, I pointed out that BTC’s relationship with core metrics (global liquidity, ISM etc.) had broken down, so take this with a grain of salt.

A few more green candles would be encouraging, but a sustained improvement in demand is a prerequisite to a sustainable rally. Continue to monitor institutional demand (ETFs + DATCOs) to help assess this. Until this turns, a bottom call feels somewhat premature. For long-term investors who instead ask if the top is in, risk-reward in the low 60s looks attractive.

— Marc

Coinbase's Everything Exchange sprint

Coinbase used its third annual System Update on June 16 to move its "Everything Exchange" pitch from slogan to product sprint, with roughly two dozen launches under the concept. Among them: unified global liquidity, merging its US and international books across spot and derivatives into a single USDC-settled account, and routing crypto derivatives back to US users.

The rollout comes as Coinbase's share of global CEX spot volume has held in a 5–8% band for two years. The Everything Exchange is what you build when your core market is mature and your slice of it isn't moving.

The centerpiece is tokenized US equities, where Coinbase lays claim to the first genuinely 1:1-backed tokenized stocks, with pass-through dividends and full shareholder rights, notably to include lending and collateral use, settled on Base via the new B20 token standard.

The genuine ownership-framing could become a real differentiator, but we’ll have to see the full terms and details under the hood. Launch is slated for next month for non-US users, with US access pending regulatory clarity.

On derivatives: pre-IPO perps (SPCX live; Anthropic and OpenAI to follow), equity options for US users within weeks, and global crypto options later this year. More innovative are the thematic index perps — such as AI10, China10, Defense10, Tech100 — with up to 20x and 24/5 trading. Prediction markets add sub-15-minute binaries, plus a new “combos” parlay feature, bringing the exchange into parity with dedicated prediction market venues.

Potentially interesting is the AI layer — which includes Coinbase Advisor (SEC-registered AI-powered financial advice for US Coinbase One members). “Coinbase for Agents” promises x402 rails to let agents trade and pay within user-set limits.

The company heralded greater access and use of global stablecoins, though if the past is prologue, that line is aspirational: outside USDC and EURC, non-dollar stablecoin transfers barely register.

Meanwhile, the new staked-asset borrowing (cbETH, JitoSOL) routes through Morpho, which already dominates Base lending and captured most of early June's step-up.

That’s less a new market than a distribution deal with the rail that won Base, but the integration with Coinbase’s neobank-like offering may provide users with some welcome flexibility, such as being able to keep exposure to staked assets as collateral while spending borrowed dollars with a linked American Express card.

Clearly, ambition isn't the question, but success depends on execution and, to some extent, regulation.

— Macauley

1. Winner Takes All

   

Crypto is an increasingly winner-takes-all market. In most categories, the top two protocols already capture more than 80% of revenue, while stablecoin issuers are even more concentrated at 98.6%. That level of dominance suggests network effects, liquidity, and distribution are compounding hard in favor of the leaders, leaving very little economic share for the long tail.

2. InfoFi is Dead: What Now?

X has de facto banned "post-to-earn" InfoFi apps (Kaito, Cookie, Wallchain), crashing related tokens 15-20%. The author frames it as a Goodhart's Law correction — engagement gamed into spam — and a platform-sovereignty move.

Verdict: short-term pain, long-term win for former users. Try to pivot to genuine content, platform diversification, direct monetization, vetted agencies, and real relationships over rented-land incentives. That last item underscores the liability of the whole InfoFi economy which was effectively contingent on one company's API policy.

Going a step further, the claim is that X acted to reclaim control over engagement and ad revenue (not just spam), which stands as the most cynical-but-plausible read of motive.

DAS is back!

Crypto's premier institutional event returns this fall in Singapore + London. Grab your seat in the most important room in the industry today.