Part of the friends probably still hasn’t figured it out: ETFs address the source of funds, while macro conditions determine the price of capital. Just because someone is willing to buy $BTC doesn’t mean they’re willing to endlessly chase at higher interest-rate environments. So when looking at the market, you need to separate three sets of data:
First group: allocation demand ETF inflows, long-term holdings, exchange inventory
Second group: financing conditions USD, yields, interest-rate futures, Fed guidance
Third group: leverage status OI, funding, liquidations, and long/short positioning
If the first group is strong, the second group loosens, and the third group is not crowded, then the trend is best; If the first group is strong, the second group tightens, and the third group is crowded again, the market will look like today: the big direction doesn’t change, but the short term gets pulled down first.
So going forward, don’t use ETF data to directly override macro risk. ETFs are the buyer, the Fed is the price tag, leverage is the amplifier—these three datasets must be viewed together
Fearful: In the past 7 days, Circle issued another ~11.2B USDC, redeemed ~10.2B, for a net increase of about $1B. USDC supply reached about $73.7B, with reserves of about $74B, mainly made up of U.S. Treasury bonds and deposits. Look—ETFs are exiting, yet the stablecoin supply is still expanding.
Although USDC net issuance doesn’t directly equate to buying pressure, if it isn’t entering trading, lending, or payment scenarios and only sits on exchanges and in custody accounts, the price transmission will be relatively weak. But it does represent an increase in available “on-chain” dollars within the financial system. Market trading demand, settlement demand, and on-exchange cash demand haven’t disappeared. Just remember to separate issuance volume, exchange balances, DeFi deposits, and real payments.
Avicii caused losses of about $1M for 1,685 users due to a security vulnerability. The company is currently planning full compensation. Another report, however, claims the losses were about $0.5M. But A-Jian believes the significance of this matter isn’t about the exact amount of the loss—it’s about whether compensation will be made, how it will be made, and who will pay.
For a payments product, security incidents aren’t the scary part. What’s scary is when the project doesn’t have a compensation plan and doesn’t provide a clear ledger of users’ liabilities. A well-run, resilient risk-mitigation framework must include an accident budget. And for ordinary users, when using crypto cards/neobanks like this, remember to read the compensation terms, the custodian, and withdrawal permissions carefully first.
Former White House teleprompter operator Gabriel Perez admitted to illegally profiting on the Kalshi prediction market by using nonpublic information obtained in advance of Trump’s teleprompter script, and agreed to pay a fine of about $172,500 and disgorge illegal proceeds. If I’m not mistaken, this should be the first instance in the history of prediction markets involving insider trading enforcement tied to top White House staff—signaling that the rulebook’s boundaries are being extended to political games.
This case shows us that the biggest risk in prediction markets has never been technology, but rather insider cheating. We can view prediction markets as leading indicators for macro events; however, the more a contract’s liquidity is concentrated in a small number of accounts—and the more those accounts have physical contact with the decision-making tier—the lower the contract’s reference value becomes#提词员付17万美元和解内幕交易案
As the U.S.-Iran war entered its sixth month and the average U.S. gas price broke $4, #特朗普称美达成委内瑞拉石油协议 secured majority control—through cooperation with private enterprises—over 17 oil fields in Venezuela, representing more than 65 billion barrels of proven reserves. In A-Jian’s view, this “largest oil deal in world history” may well be the deciding move for Trump to ease domestic inflation pressure.
65 billion barrels is one-fifth of Venezuela’s reserves. If this deal can be carried out, global oil pricing power will fully return to Washington—this is essentially the openly stated bargain of using resources to buy the next election’s votes. However, based on what I observed when passing through Venezuela, the infrastructure is no better than in Africa. From reaching the agreement to actually producing oil may still take several years, so in the short term it will have limited effect in materially suppressing oil prices.
Ordinary traders only need to understand that oil is not only energy, but also a political asset in an election year. Especially amid the current global energy turmoil, whoever controls proven reserves also has the final say on inflation. You may consider paying attention to energy stocks with deep involvement in Venezuela’s business, such as Chevron $CVX.US .
Damn! Everyone, be careful with this trending post #中国批准新增684亿美元QDII额度 . After checks by A Jian, the State Administration of Foreign Exchange updated its data on August 28. The new quota approved for 78 institutions this time is 6.84 billion USD—it's a whole order of magnitude difference. To know, the total approved quota is 183 billion USD.
That said, the FX regulator chose to release quotas during a period of market volatility—this is indeed a very strong signal, showing that regulators’ tolerance for capital outflows is increasing. With domestic asset returns heading downward, the continued issuance of QDII quotas is the only compliant channel for private capital to seek global allocation.
For ordinary traders, you can pay attention to QDII funds whose quotas are tight, such as those from Southern Fund or something from Dacheng. After the new quota is released, the premium on these funds should fall back—this is a good time to enter global assets. For experienced on-exchange traders, this quota also provides potential buy-side support for U.S. Treasuries. What to do next—A Jian doesn’t need to say more, right?
I can’t even remember how many times I’ve praised ETH in this market cycle. Yesterday, the $BTC ETF ended nine consecutive days of net inflows. Of course, this is only a short-term cooling signal—it’s not proof that long-term demand has disappeared. It could be repositioning between products, or a risk rebalancing after macro commentary. On the other hand, the $ETH ETF has continued to record inflows for the 10th consecutive trading day. Even though it dipped slightly over the past 24 hours, ETF buying orders can be temporarily decoupled from price performance.
Moreover, whales and institutions have recently bought over $1B worth of ETH. Exchange ETH reserves have fallen to about 14.93M ETH, which is a strong supply-side signal for ETH. It suggests that some supply may be entering long-term holding, staking, or custody. Next, I’ll watch whether there are continued inflows on the 11th and 12th trading days, and whether the price can hold around $2,400
The Charles Schwab planning to, within the next several months, open spot buy/sell trading for $SOL , $AVAX , and $LINK to its 39.9 million accounts. Schwab is a major backer of traditional retail capital, and A Jian believes this is the endgame of Layer 1 institutionalization—because Schwab’s entry means the liquidity depth of these few coins will enter the era of tens-of-millions of accounts, and their pricing logic will shift from community consensus to asset-portfolio allocation. A slow bull market is on the way.
Of course, on the other hand, Schwab’s trading commission is 75 basis points, far higher than on-chain or professional exchanges. Its entry is more about facilitating the allocation of holdings rather than serving as a trading venue. Its significance is not how much premium may appear before or after the formal launch, but rather the final confirmation of the asset characteristics of these few coins.
This damn blessed mouth of mine—Waller’s speech at the Jackson Hole conference yesterday clearly pointed out that inflation is still above the 2% target. The Fed’s top priority right now must be price stability. Such an extremely hawkish tone directly extinguished the market’s hopes of a September rate cut. Risk assets like $BTC and $XAU promptly fell; the implied probability of a 25-basis-point rate hike in September jumped sharply to about 57%. The yield on 2-year U.S. Treasuries rose by roughly 12.4 basis points
It looks like the phase where cash is king hasn’t ended yet. The market is shifting from bargaining for rate cuts to pricing in rate hikes. This kind of dramatic expectation reversal is also a trigger for liquidity stampedes. If Waller insists on not backing down until he sees 2% and won’t stop, then for the rest of 2026, the valuation repair for risk assets will be extremely painful. Regular traders shouldn’t go taking on higher leverage during such violent swings in expectations. Current market pricing is extremely unstable, and any data surprise can be a two-way harvest.
Finally, Waller mentioned how AI can improve productivity. That may be the only card he has to prevent a hard landing while keeping interest rates high. If productivity gains from AI can’t offset debt interest expense, then Waller’s rate hikes will amount to suicide#沃什称通胀是美联储首要关注 #比特币24小时跌3.4%至7.74万美元
Chainlink's strategic reserve added 92K $LINK , worth about $1.1M. The total reserve net position increased to 5.67M LINK, worth approximately $66.44M. However, LINK's price didn't immediately rise today in response to this news, because this kind of replenishment doesn't automatically equal token burn.
But these verifiable reserves are still a great window for observation. Ajan believes this is more worth tracking long-term than simply announcing a buyback, because it creates a continuous assets-and-liabilities statement. This allows the market to track how much native assets the protocol is actually accumulating, and whether protocol revenue will flow back.
Ethena has proposed multiple tokenomics adjustment plans, including buying back and locking tokens from investors, reducing VC bridge financing, and moving forward with fee conversion and buyback plans. The proposals received 100% community support. $ENA also set a new intra-year high directly.
This is not just a generic market-wide altcoin rally. A-Jian believes Ethena is strengthening both supply-side metrics and value capture at the same time, avoiding the common mistake where projects only focus on one side—for example, doing buybacks but not handling unlocks, or handling unlocks but not generating token revenue rights. That’s why $ENA ’s price response can be so strong. The market has already priced in the VC bridge financing relief and buyback expectations in advance.
Next, we suggest everyone watch for: when the changes will be implemented, how revenue will be split, where the buyback funds will come from, and how the locked tokens will ultimately be handled. Until the document is finalized and implemented, don’t equate the proposal with cash flow.
HYPE spot ETF saw consecutive net inflows from August 24–27, approximately $5.7M, $7.5M, $14.7M, and $24.4M respectively. The inflow amounts increased day by day. The OI of the perpetual contract $HYPE is now about $3.66B, with 24h trading volume of $5.35B. It’s clear that after Coinbase integrated Hyperliquid perpetuals into Base last week, the distribution logic has changed.
Hyperliquid is no longer relying solely on growth from native users who are familiar with the wallets and can use cross-chain. It has started moving into the product layer of a super app. The valuation of $HYPE is also shifting from on-chain perpetual protocols toward a global multi-asset trading network. However, although ETF inflows, app distribution, and OI growth are all strong, there remains uncertainty around team supply, market making, and regulatory access for $HYPE . We need to monitor in parallel the continuity of ETF inflows, the new markets for HIP-3, protocol revenue, and team-related addresses
SOL spot ETF yesterday net inflows under different data standards were about $56.1M–$60.9M, the highest since November 2025, and also the third-largest single-day inflow since the product launched. If we only look at Bitwise’s products, SOL inflows were about $40M, significantly exceeding BTC’s $22M. On the other hand, the OI of $SOL perps has risen to $7.54B, with 24h trading volume of about $16.5B, and the funding rate is close to neutral—nothing as crowded as BTC and ETH.
The data tells us that this time SOL isn’t simply rising along with BTC. Instead, it’s expanding on multiple fronts at the same time: ETFs, performance upgrades, and institutional product listings—helping SOL start to gain independent allocation demand.
Next, we need to watch whether the SOL ETF can maintain continuity. If in the future there are still inflows of $30M+ and funding remains moderate, then the structure is relatively healthy. If the ETF cools off quickly, but OI continues to rise, we need to be careful about sentiment chasing after price gains.
Although $ETH also sees a nine-day streak of inflows, the roughly $900M liquidation pressure buried around the $2,386 and $2,613 levels can’t be ignored. A JinJian also noted that a whale who previously profited $61.72M has recently rebuilt a long position of about 16K ETH via a new wallet—nominal value around $40M. When both slow money from the ETF and fast money from whales show up at the same time, the trend tends to be stronger, and the run can be longer. If you already hold ETH, there’s no need to add leverage just because the whale has reopened its long—just watch whether price action inside the $2,386–$2,613 range is driven by spot trading or by liquidation pressure.
$BTC In-stock ETF posts net inflows for the 9th consecutive trading day, but the price has reached a level that’s not easy to cross. On-chain weighted cost basis is around $79,600—near the $80K mark is both a psychological level and the average cost zone for new positions. Key overhead supply and resistance are pointed to $83K–$84.5K, while short-term support sits at $77K–$78K.
A-Jian believes the “quality” of this BTC upswing in the spot market is still good; nine consecutive inflow days can’t be explained by a single short squeeze. But the trading logic after $80K has changed: earlier buyers are in profit, newer buyers are just arriving at the breakeven line, and leveraged accounts are still adding.
So I’ll treat $77K–$78K as the first consolidation/acceptance zone, and $83K–$84.5K as the supply zone. Don’t overthink whether $80K can be broken—markets like round-number levels because they’re easy to spread. The on-chain costs and liquidation data are the numbers worth watching.
On August 28 during the Asian session, #台股TAIEX受芯片股带动重返46500点 , chip stocks saw a broad rebound. As a real-time barometer of global semiconductor market conditions, the Taiwan stock market’s strength confirms that the hardware bull market hasn’t ended—again proving that as long as AI infrastructure keeps going, this deep, supply-chain-embedded market is a safe haven. Even if there are threats of increased tariffs, as long as Nvidia still needs to turn to TSMC, the floor of this market remains in place. However, excessive reliance on a single industry also makes the Taiwan stock market extremely sensitive to global liquidity; once the U.S. dollar rebounds sharply, foreign capital can pull out very quickly
Finally, as a front-line gauge for the U.S. stock market’s semiconductor sector, the performance of the Taiwan market in the Asian session often determines the tone for the U.S. market’s late-session opening. A strong showing in U.S. stocks on Friday can be expected.
Spot gold has risen nearly 14% cumulatively over the past $XAU 8 months, at one point touching an all-time high of $4,630/oz. Keep in mind this was during a period when the probability of rate hikes was rising; gold was still pushing higher, which shows that the market’s pricing logic has shifted from interest-rate differentials to credit hedging. The 4600 figure reflects the collective anxiety over the global $40 trillion U.S. Treasury market. But A Jian does not recommend FOMO when a new record high is broken, because if today’s Jackson Hole meeting releases an unexpectedly hawkish signal, gold could see a sharp deleveraging pullback in the short term
In addition, during my research I found an interesting set of data: in Q2 2026, global central banks’ net gold purchases reached 289 tons, a significant year-over-year increase of 62%, with Poland, China, and Kazakhstan as the main buyers. Central banks are not short-term traders; their gold-buying behavior is a long-term structural move toward de-dollarizing reserve assets
This is the information gap: central banks are buying insurance for the monetary reconstruction of the next decade, and we should view central-bank gold purchases as a pressure gauge for global macro uncertainty. If you do not want to fuss over it, you can simply follow the big money. Diversification of reserve assets is a certain trend, and in personal allocations the gold share should not be less than 5%-10%#黄金8月上涨约14%
Both ETFs of $BTC and $ETH have seen continuous net inflows for 8 days. Although BTC has been repeatedly churning these two days—do you say it’s weak? There are still buyers. Do you say it’s strong? The price hasn’t just kept surging upward. The market is that real: bids and asks can coexist at the same time. Many people are still stuck in the debate over whether it’s a bull market or a bear market, but in reality, even a true bull market won’t make you comfortable every single day. It gives you opportunities and also tests you; it gives you floating profits and also tempts you to add leverage; it lets you see others making money and tests whether you can hold on to your own position
When the行情 really arrives, think: can you survive?
Since Aug 17, $BTC has risen by about 24%; the Bull Score has climbed to 80, with 8 out of 10 indicators leaning bullish. It’s true that the rally has been fast, but it’s also true that the confirmation of a new bull market isn’t complete yet. At present, to confirm a new bull market, we still need an effective breakout above $83,000. This is the sell-pressure zone the market needs to overcome—if it can break through and hold, the trend will be more complete; if repeated attempts fail, it indicates that the previously trapped positions have not been fully digested.
Tomorrow, Deribit will have 81,700 contracts of options (Series $BTC ) expiring, with a notional value of approximately $6.44 billion. The call/put quantity is 44,639/37,061, the put-call ratio is 0.83, max pain is around $68,000, and the concentrated strike prices are clustered near $75,000 and $80,000. Such a massive options expiry day will certainly bring hedging and roll-over demand, but you at least need to be clear about the following:
1. Prices sometimes bounce back and forth around strike prices—this is just a market phenomenon, not a hard rule. $75,000 and $80,000 are there to make you more alert; don’t draw a line and decide the up/down move.
2. In this expiry set, the number of calls is higher than puts, meaning the number of bullish participants is higher than the number of simply long positions. But calls may just be part of a market maker’s spot hedging, a spread strategy, or volatility trading, and the contract count doesn’t tell you who holds or sells. Don’t pretend you can clearly read the market direction.
3. The most dangerous aspect of max pain is that it looks particularly like an answer, but never take $68,000 as a short-term price target directly. Any indicator that compresses a complex market into a single number is worth paying attention to, but it must never be used alone—especially not for prediction.