TL;DR
Flows flipped: August saw ~$4B rush into U.S. ETH ETFs while BTC ETFs bled ~$751M, underscoring a widening rotation toward Ethereum exposure.
Policy clarity moves: The SEC and CFTC announced a joint initiative to coordinate crypto oversight, signaling a more explicit on-ramp for spot markets.
RWA-to-liquidity flywheel: Aave Horizon launched permissioned RWA borrowing; Ripple’s RLUSD is now live as a borrowable/suppliable stablecoin — an important datapoint for multi-issuer stablecoin markets.
DAO law in action: Uniswap opened a vote to adopt Wyoming’s DUNA framework (a legal wrapper for DAOs), a potential unlock for fee capture and vendor contracts.
Macro crosscurrents: Gold at record highs (~$3.5k) added pressure to “digital gold” narratives as some whales rotated from BTC into ETH.
Network Fees
The sum of total fees spent to use a particular blockchain. This tracks the willingness to spend and demand to use Bitcoin or Ether.
Bitcoin: $3.70M vs $2.41M last week
Ethereum: $11.93M vs $9.99M last week.
Exchanges Netflows
The net amount of inflows minus outflows of a specific crypto-asset going in/out of centralized exchanges.
BTC: BTC swung to –$7.04B from +$1.76B last week (≈ $8.80B reversal).
ETH: ETH outflows deepened to –$2.09B from –$3.02B.
Capital Rotation: ETH Takes the Baton
US Spot BTC ETF Weekly Net Flows (USD). Source: SoSoValue
US Spot ETH ETF Weekly Net Flows (USD). Source: SoSoValue
What happened
In August, U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs saw ~$751M in outflows while Ethereum funds attracted nearly $4B. The magnitude — and the fact that it persisted through month-end — suggests more than a one-off rebalance.
ETH/BTC Ratio with ETF-Flow Weeks. Source: CoinGecko
Why it matters.
Product-market fit: ETH is increasingly treated as “digital oil” — a productive base asset for L2s, DeFi, tokenization, and stablecoin settlement — versus BTC’s macro hedge framing. The rotation aligns with allocators seeking network beta (fees, activity, L2 throughput) in addition to price beta.
Q4 seasonality & flows: Historically strong year-end seasonality combined with ETF rails creates a durable channel for incremental ETH demand, particularly from mandates that cannot hold native assets but can buy 40-Act wrappers.
Aggregate L2 throughput (UOPS) vs Ethereum L1. Source: L2Beat
Watch next
Net flows versus price elasticity (are ETFs absorbing supply without blowing out basis), and whether ETH’s rally starts to pull DeFi majors (AAVE/UNI) via higher on-chain activity and fee accrual.
2) Regulatory Momentum: Coordination Over Fragmentation
What happened.
The SEC + CFTC issued a joint note to coordinate crypto market oversight, emphasizing that current law does not bar SEC- or CFTC-registered venues from facilitating trading in certain spot crypto assets. Guidance on leveraged/margined spot and market surveillance is forthcoming.
Why it matters.
Narrows the “who’s in charge?” gap that has hampered U.S. exchange listings and institutional onboarding.
Complements July’s GENIUS Act stablecoin framework and Treasury’s RFC (comments due Oct 17) — together pointing toward clearer stablecoin/payment rails and reduced policy tail risk for on-chain finance.
Watch next
How guidance treats staking, settlement, and margin on spot venues; whether banks and broker-dealers get explicit pathways to stablecoin usage under the GENIUS implementation.
3) Institutional DeFi: Horizon Widens
What happened.
Aave Labs launched Horizon, enabling qualified investors to borrow stablecoins against tokenized funds/treasuries. Supported borrow assets include USDC, RLUSD (Ripple), and GHO. Ripple’s RLUSD went live on Horizon last week, expanding the stablecoin set beyond USDC/USDT and testing multi-issuer liquidity in a permissioned market.
Why it matters.
Creates a 24/7 credit line against RWAs, unlocking basis trades and treasury-style liquidity management for funds — without redeeming the underlying.
Stablecoin competition: RLUSD’s institutional footprint now sits alongside USDC in a risk-managed, oracle-bound environment — useful signal for diversified stablecoin collateral and for the regulatory narrative that DeFi can run with clear identity and price-bound oracles.
Watch next.
Utilization/borrow cost across stablecoins (does demand concentrate in USDC or diversify?), pipeline of new RWA issuers, and potential cross-chain expansion, which could lift TVL and throughput.
4) DAO Law in Production: Uniswap’s Wyoming DUNA Vote
What happened.
Uniswap governance opened an on-chain vote to establish a Wyoming Decentralized Unincorporated Nonprofit Association (DUNA) — “DUNI” — giving the DAO legal standing to sign contracts, hire vendors, and handle taxes while keeping protocol control on-chain. A legal wrapper could also de-risk future moves like fee capture.
DUNI forum proposal. Source: Uniswap Forum
Why it matters.
A concrete bridge between code and contracts — and a template other DAOs could reuse as they transition from informal collectives to operational entities.
If passed, expect clearer vendor engagement, faster off-chain execution, and better liability protections for active contributors.
5) Macro: Shiny Rock, Risk Premia, and Crypto
What happened.
Gold printed all-time highs (~$3.5k) as risk premia repriced across rates and FX. Crypto-native flows showed whales paring BTC while adding ETH, consistent with the ETF rotation theme.
Implication.
If “hard asset” demand is macro-driven, ETH’s cash-flow optionality (L2 fees, MEV burn dynamics, staking receipts) may out-compete passive “store-of-value” allocations — at least while policy clarity and tokenization tailwinds build
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