This case that has been grinding for two months appeared once 4 years ago I don't usually dig up old charts, but today I couldn't help but take a look. BTC has been hovering back and forth between 58,000 and 67,000 for almost two months now, matching candle by candle, almost overlapping with the shape from June to August 2022. The same narrow range, the same daily declining volume, and the same lack of buyers every time it tries to push up. Some people immediately think of what happened after 2022 when they see that year. Let me clarify first: similar shapes do not equal the same outcome. That drop back then was caused by a separate explosive event, not by the candlestick pattern itself. The old chart only offers one lesson: in this kind of pattern, money is generally not preparing to enter but is slowly moving out. The current liquidity level is exactly like this. USDT dropped from 190 billion to 183 billion, USDC from 79.5 billion to 72 billion, together the on-exchange stablecoins decreased by 14.5 billion. Stablecoins basically represent cash ready to become buy orders at any time; this number shrinking means there is less money to take the other side. Coinbase premium has been negative for over 80 days straight, currently at -0.0978, which reflects how aggressive the US buy-side is. Negative means no rush to buy. The 200-week moving average is at 63,657, which is the average cost line of all buyers over the past four years. The price just touched it, but volume did not follow. Standing above without volume is almost the same as not standing above. What is really missing? To put it bluntly, new money. These two months are not without stories: BlackRock’s BTC ETF had net inflows of 9,269 BTC over 4 consecutive trading days, and on-chain data shows whales accumulating 38,000 BTC. Each of these alone sounds impressive. But the price remains unmoved, which only means these buy orders are taking old coins from other holders, not new money coming in. This is how a stock market works: coins move from one pocket to another, total supply unchanged, so the candlestick naturally shows no growth. So the most costly thing these two months is not being wrong about direction, but being swept back and forth between two walls. Above at 67,300 there are billions of short orders pressing down, below at 61,456 there are billions of long orders stacked up. Chasing in the middle means paying fees, slippage, and funding costs every day. I personally treat this period as an observation phase, reducing my position, waiting for at least two of these three indicators to turn: stablecoin total stops falling and starts rising, ETF weekly cumulative net inflow turns positive, Coinbase premium flips positive. Until two of these happen, any bullish candle I see I treat as short covering, not new money entering. Looking longer term, sideways consolidation itself is not bad; chips move from weak hands to strong hands, and if it really drops, selling pressure will lessen. The frustrating part is there is no timetable for this process; it could grind for another two months or someone might make a move next week. That screenshot of your position, is it green or red these two months? With this kind of grinding, do you choose to stay out and wait, or hold half your position and endure?

The first institutional on-chain yield fund has landed with over 100 million already in place Institutions entering on-chain is a solid step forward. Sharplink and Galaxy Digital have jointly launched the Galaxy Sharplink Onchain Yield Fund, touted as the world's first institutional-grade fund dedicated to investing in on-chain yield strategies and related projects. The fund is managed by Galaxy, with an initial committed capital of $125 million. Where does the money come from? Sharplink contributed 100 million from its own staked ETH reserves, and Galaxy put in 25 million themselves. The significance of this is not the $125 million figure itself, but that institutional on-chain yield finally has a formal vehicle. Previously, so-called on-chain yield was either retail investors mining on Curve or Aave, or institutions privately structuring OTC products, with no reputable fund licenses or regular reports. Now, two publicly listed companies have packaged this into a compliant fund, effectively opening a channel for conservative capital like pension funds and family offices: if you want to access on-chain yield, you don’t need to manage wallets or understand contracts yourself, just buy shares. To be clear, these funds earn yield from low or medium-low risk on-chain spreads, such as staking for block rewards, basis arbitrage, running delta-neutral strategies—essentially scaling institutional TradFi strategies onto the blockchain. Galaxy itself is a major staker, managing massive amounts of ETH, a scale retail investors simply can’t match. Their entry sets an institutional benchmark price for on-chain yield, making it harder for retail investors to find bargains through manual mining. For retail investors like us, this is a double-edged sword. The good side is that institutions bringing capital and compliance frameworks will force greater transparency and security in on-chain yield strategies, making staking, restaking, and delta-neutral strategies no longer insider jargon. The downside is that when big money enters with lower costs to capture yield, the excess returns from manual mining for retail will be squeezed thinner and thinner; the small gains you work hard for may be exactly the profits compressed by their scale. Don’t forget, Sharplink itself holds over a hundred million in ETH reserves. Their 100 million contribution is less an investment and more a compliant yield outlet for their reserves. BTC is currently at 65044, ETH at 1922; this sideways market phase is exactly when this kind of on-chain yield infrastructure quietly builds its framework. When the next bull run comes, the entry channels for these funds may already be paved. Would you consider allocating part of your position to such on-chain yield funds, or stick to managing your own private keys and earning that yield yourself?

The person who was crushed by the market has now become the most sought-after in Silicon Valley. At the end of July, 25-year-old Leopold probably had a rough time. His fund, Situational Awareness, saw its portfolio value drop by 67% in one month, forcing him to sell his long-short portfolio worth over ten billion dollars to Citadel at a discount of more than 10%. A discount of over 10% means the other party knows you have to sell and you have no room to negotiate. Normally, after such an event, a person would disappear for a while. But the opposite happened. Within just a few days, a large number of Silicon Valley investors proactively contacted the fund, expressing interest in adding more money. Pat Grady from Sequoia publicly stated that Leopold will be an important figure in Silicon Valley for the long term. Veteran venture capitalist Elad Gil announced he was applying to invest in the fund for the first time. Logan Bartlett from Redpoint was even more straightforward, saying there is a hero archetype here—Leopold got punched but instead rallied everyone’s unity. Even more interestingly, the fund responded that it is not accepting new capital for now. Leopold himself wrote in a letter to investors that he has cleared all leverage and considers this a costly but invaluable lesson, at least for now no longer using prime brokerage from banks to amplify positions. For context, the fund still recorded about 80% positive returns this year, and the remaining asset portfolio is roughly $10 billion. So he didn’t lose all the money; he just used the wrong amount of leverage in the direction he believed in. The astonishing returns in the first half of the year were real, and the 67% loss in July alone was also real—both numbers came from the same set of positions. The heavily weighted storage and computing stocks dropped more than 30% in July, shorted software stocks rebounded, getting hit on both sides, with nearly four times leverage in the middle. Wall Street’s evaluation is completely different. The founder of S3 said this was a super concentrated, super crowded, and simultaneously super high-leverage position. Barclays had earlier refused to take him as a client due to overly concentrated industry exposure. A professor from New York University gave an explanation I find quite accurate: Silicon Valley rewards those who are right about transformative technology directions, while Wall Street rewards those who achieve risk-adjusted returns while preserving principal. The same person is put into two scoring systems—one as a hero, the other as a cautionary tale. We are actually very familiar with this script. On-chain liquidations never ask if you are right or wrong; once the price hits that line, it closes you out. Leverage doesn’t really take away your judgment; it takes away your right to wait. You might be right in the end, but you didn’t live to see that moment. So here’s the question. A person who once bet correctly on a direction, got knocked out once in the middle, and now says he no longer uses leverage. Would you give him your money?

Holding at 65,000 for a month still got smashed through Opened the app this morning, BTC reported at 64974.5, just slightly below 65000. OKX's price line shows a 24-hour increase of only 0.13%, meaning yesterday's rebound was completely given back. This number looks insignificant, but trend traders know well that 65000 is not an ordinary round number; it’s stuck between the short-term holders’ average buy price of 67523 and the 200-week moving average of 63657—above it are the people who entered in the last five months still underwater overall, below it is the average cost line of all buyers over the past four years. Both sides are close, yet it’s stuck grinding in the middle, which is the most frustrating position—neither able to rise nor fall sharply. Looking back at my own trading journal, BTC has basically been sweeping between 58,000 and 67,000 for over a month, with daily swings of a thousand points being common. Today’s breakdown looks more like a line that’s been horizontal for about thirty days being gently poked through, not a brutal smash by any particular capital. Look at the volume; several major exchanges still have daily volumes over tens of billions, this single trade can’t even make a splash, not even a ripple shape. If you want to say who smashed it, it’s better to say no one caught it; after a long horizontal period, it naturally slips down, the market losing direction moves toward the path of least resistance. What should be watched more is the big picture liquidity. In the past month, USDT dropped from 184.2 billion to 183.1 billion, USDC from 73.28 billion to 72.15 billion, together down 2.23 billion. The pipes are under repair, the pools are leaking, the cash in buyers’ hands is quietly decreasing. Also, Coinbase’s negative premium has lasted 82 days, latest at -0.0759, indicating that on the US side, there aren’t enough people willing to actively raise prices to buy. The ETF side has had five consecutive days of net inflows, with 98.84 million just yesterday, but this amount compared to daily volumes of over tens of billions can’t move the market, at best it supports a bottom, but can’t fill the hole left by stablecoin outflows. This kind of sideways market tests patience, not skill. The wall above is built by billions of dollars in short positions, the moving average below is the cost line of four years of buyers, sweeping back and forth between these two walls, fees and funding costs are collected daily, whoever loses patience first loses. I’ve seen too many people frequently entering and exiting in this range, paying more in fees than they earn from a single spike. So for today’s breakdown, my own approach is: neither treat it as a trend reversal nor as a crash. It’s just another reminder that the sideways market isn’t over yet, position management is more important than guessing direction, try to avoid placing orders during the few hours around midnight when liquidity is thinnest, don’t test the waters when no one is catching. For you guys today, were your stop losses swept, or did you just lie still playing dead?

A hacker who stole 1.5 billion was sued by an exchange An exchange has taken a nation-state level hacker group to court. Bybit filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia against North Korea, its intelligence agency Reconnaissance General Bureau, and the notorious Lazarus Group—the same group that stole 1.5 billion USD from Bybit last year. More importantly, the U.S. federal court has already approved a preliminary injunction freezing part of the stolen assets, prohibiting their transfer or disposal during the litigation. This is something many scam exchanges wanted to do but couldn’t, because their opponents are not normal companies that can be subpoenaed. This was unthinkable before. When an exchange is hacked, the usual outcome is that the exchange bears the loss, issues compensation, strengthens risk controls, and at most reports to the police. It’s rare to see a nation-state player dragged directly into court. Bybit is taking a civil claim approach; the freeze order means that part of the assets can’t be moved temporarily, effectively locking down a portion of the stolen funds. They can also seek further relief later, extending the chain of accountability and setting a precedent for other victims. But let’s be clear: this doesn’t mean the entire 1.5 billion will be recovered. On-chain tracking can locate some of the flow, but recovering the full amount is almost impossible. North Korea won’t willingly appear in court, and even if a judgment is made, enforcement is uncertain. This lawsuit is more about putting the accounts on the table, leaving a legal opening for future pressure and asset interception, and giving the industry a warning: even major exchanges can be targeted by nation-state hackers and lose 1.5 billion. Security protection has no endpoint; never think you’re too big to be safe. For ourselves, the lesson remains the same old advice: don’t put all your assets in one place. Withdrawal permissions, authorization revocation, carefully reviewing content before signing—these basic precautions are the real lifesavers. On the day something happens, having control of your private keys is more effective than any apology. When the platform says it’s upgrading or maintaining the system, it’s best to keep a copy of your coins elsewhere. Don’t wait until withdrawal channels close to regret it. Looking back, the greater value of this case may be deterrence. In the past, hacker groups operated at almost zero cost, with negligible chances of being held accountable. Once an exchange is willing to spend real money to pursue cross-border accountability and obtains a court freeze order, future attackers will have to think twice before acting. Slow, but the direction is right. Do you think this kind of cross-border lawsuit can really scare hackers?

South Korea clamps down on leveraged ETFs, but the money flows to Hong Kong South Korea's batch of single-stock leveraged and inverse ETFs cooled off faster than expected. Just one week after the new regulations took effect, the combined trading volume of 16 products dropped to 941.2 billion KRW, falling below 1 trillion KRW for two consecutive trading days, whereas the last day before regulation saw 12.45 trillion KRW. From 12 trillion to less than 1 trillion in just seven trading days, a drop of over 90%, almost a cliff-like shrinkage; the previous hustle and bustle has turned into quietness. The root cause is the threshold: starting July 31, individual retail investors wanting to trade single-stock leveraged ETFs must increase their margin from 10 million KRW to 30 million KRW in cash. If you don’t have enough money, half the door closes. The share of these products in South Korea’s ETF trading volume also fell from 30%-40% before regulation to 5.6%. The previous scene of daily trading volumes in the tens of trillions has basically exited, leaving only the old money and institutions still qualified to trade. But the money hasn’t disappeared; it just moved. South Korea’s securities side said that after regulation, trading in single-stock leveraged ETFs dropped, but trading in semiconductor leveraged ETFs actually rose, and some funds flowed to similar products listed in Hong Kong—for example, the CSOP SK Hynix 2x leveraged ETF, one of the largest single-stock leveraged ETFs by market cap globally. This phenomenon is called the balloon effect in the industry: you press down on one end, it bulges on the other. When regulation blocks the domestic channel, the bubble inflates overseas. You can regulate domestically but not abroad. What matters to us is not the trading volume in South Korea but the shadow effect: when high-leverage products are regulated and squeezed, the speculative funds spill over to find the next outlet. On the crypto side, meme tokens and futures have always been the receivers of this kind of sentiment. Wherever regulation is loose, hot money flows there. Regulators can control the on-exchange market but cannot control people’s instinct to leverage; money will always find a place, just under a different name. Ultimately, leverage itself is not bad; what’s bad is packaging high leverage as something ordinary people can casually play with. South Korea’s move is to reset the threshold, with the cost of temporarily collapsing trading volume and activity. For us, just remember one thing: the market never lacks channels for leverage; what’s lacking is people who can control their own hands. Regulate one end, hot money slips through the other—this is an old script. The real risk is not regulation but being driven by emotion into the next wilder arena. Do you know anyone who has been burned by these kinds of high-leverage products?

Robinhood says it wants both stocks and Meme coins Someone in the group shared an interview clip where Johann Kerbrat from Robinhood's crypto business spoke frankly: their Robinhood Chain is designed to balance legitimate financial products—tokenized stocks, derivatives—and Meme coins. Simply put, it's the CEO's previous illustration: two wolves, one RWAs and one Memes, both need to be fed, one handles serious business, the other handles traffic, neither can be neglected. The chain has indeed been impressive in its first month. TVL has reached nearly $800 million, processing over 200 million transactions. Kerbrat also revealed that choosing Ethereum Layer-2 was to leverage existing security and decentralization, saving effort to focus on product development. The ultimate goal isn't to compete for existing users on other chains but to reach those who have never touched crypto before—the gist being, if they can bring tens of millions of customers to try this chain, that would be a huge success; incremental users matter much more than existing ones, which other chains have already divided up. This approach is very Robinhood. They already have 28 million users, with nearly $400 million daily crypto trading volume and almost $16 billion daily stock trading volume. Treating RWAs as serious business and Memes as traffic hooks, new users are first attracted by the cat coin, then gradually migrate to tokenized stocks. The recently launched CashCat's market cap surpassed $200 million, serving as a model for this strategy, proving that brokers with built-in traffic playing meme coins can indeed disrupt the market, something traditional crypto projects envy in terms of distribution capability. But don't get carried away. Executive speeches are promises, not guarantees. Memes come fast and go fast; how much of that $800 million TVL is hot money chasing the cat coin will be clear in a couple of months. On-chain data also shows only 1.7% of new Robinhood Chain addresses have interacted with DeFi, indicating most newcomers are pure beginners who will exit quickly once sentiment cools, leaving behind just a mess of cat fur, with the last entrants taking the losses. Actually, this strategy isn't Robinhood's original idea; exchanges have done meme coins before, but none have tens of millions of real stock investors like them. The difference lies in distribution: others have to spend money to buy traffic to distribute tokens, but Robinhood just needs to pop a window to its own users. Traditional projects envy this; what they lack isn't technology but the channel to reach ordinary people. However, no matter how hot the cat coin gets, it's ultimately a traffic entry point, not a money printer. To truly retain users, meme coins alone aren't enough; the other wolf, tokenized stocks, must also be well fed, or the excitement will fade quickly with users coming and going, and TVL dropping faster than it rises. Do you think this broker-led Meme coin strategy will succeed?

Bitcoin holders get a free copy of a new chain There is a new chain called ECX, doing something quite bold: at a specified block height, it copies the entire Bitcoin transaction history over. Except for the Satoshi Nakamoto portion, almost all BTC holders will receive an equivalent amount of ECX. The Bitcoin network itself remains unchanged, effectively giving you an extra copy out of thin air. Holding BTC automatically grants you ECX without any action needed, not even claiming; it arrives automatically. Originally, the plan was a one-time hard fork on August 23, but now it’s split into three phases. Developer Paul Sztorc announced: the Alpha version activates on August 23 at block height 963648, the Beta version launches on September 20 at 967680, and the permanent full version releases on October 31 at 973728. Tokens accumulated during the Alpha and Beta phases can be burned or exchanged for official ECX once the permanent chain goes live, so early participation isn’t wasted, but you have to wait a few months to cash out. A key warning: replay protection is still optional. The official wallet will enable this protection and will prompt you before transactions. But Sztorc says if you ignore the warning, ECX will replay your Bitcoin transactions—that is, if you send BTC, the same transaction might be copied on ECX, transferring the corresponding Bitcoin to the new holder. October 31 coincides with the 18th anniversary of Satoshi’s whitepaper, a fitting date, but it also means the process will drag until year-end with many uncertainties. For ordinary holders, this free token giveaway sounds attractive, but replay issues can’t be taken lightly. Don’t carelessly sign identical transactions on both chains; wait for the official wallet’s prompt and confirm carefully. If you really want to participate, wait until the permanent version is out and the ecosystem is stable—there’s no rush for these couple of months. The most expensive part of free stuff is often hidden in the fine print you don’t understand; if you don’t get it, don’t touch it yet. By the way, this kind of history-copying fork isn’t the first time; Bitcoin Cash and Bitcoin SV have done similar things, all leveraging Bitcoin’s reputation to launch new chains. The difference is ECX is pacing it out over three phases spanning two months, giving the market ample time to digest and prepare. The benefit is fewer mishaps; the downside is enthusiasm may fade over time. For small holders like us, the safest move is to wait until the permanent version is live, wallets are mature, and replay protection is enabled by default before engaging. The free tokens won’t run away; rushing by a day or two is meaningless—security is far more important than early claiming. Will you claim this free copy for your BTC?

The person who had been selling for fourteen consecutive quarters quietly bought 10 billion in Google. Berkshire Hathaway's cash pile, held by Buffett, has started to decline for the first time. Berkshire announced its Q2 earnings last night, with cash reserves dropping from $397.4 billion in Q1 to $365.51 billion, a decrease of over 30 billion in one quarter. More importantly, the record of net selling for fourteen consecutive quarters has ended here. The last time Berkshire clearly bought stocks like this was in Q4 2022. Where was the money spent? In Q2, net stock purchases were close to $20 billion, with the most eye-catching being about $10 billion subscribed to Alphabet's private placement, intended to support Google's AI data center investments. The remaining $6.8 billion was spent acquiring homebuilder Taylor Morrison, $4.5 billion on share buybacks, and about $3 billion on unexplained open market purchases, which will only be clarified in the 13F filing on August 14. Alphabet has now officially entered Berkshire's top five holdings, alongside American Express, Apple, Bank of America, and Coca-Cola. These five companies together account for 66% of the stock portfolio. Here's the interesting part. For more than two years, Buffett's explanation was that market valuations were too high and there were no sufficiently attractive opportunities, so he held onto cash waiting. After fourteen quarters, the first big investment is in AI data centers, precisely the sector currently most controversial and questioned for its valuation. The timing is also delicate. Just a few days ago, Arthur Hayes wrote a long article saying this round of AI capital expenditure is essentially not tech investment but real estate investment. Borrowers think they are lending to Apple but are actually financing real estate for Lehman Brothers, judging this as a 2008-style credit bubble rather than a 2000-style profit bubble. The bond market has indeed already turned; a UK data center company abandoned a record €1 billion bond issuance in mid-July and switched to bank loans. Recently, two of three data center CMBS deals were forced to widen pricing spreads, and risk premiums for such assets have risen across the board over the past twelve months. Looking at Google itself: Jeff Dean left after 27 years to start a business, taking three core members with him; Hassabis stepped down as DeepMind CEO to become chairman; Alphabet's stock once dropped over 5% intraday, wiping out nearly $175 billion in market value. This is the fourth time in six weeks the market has punished AI-related news. There are also rumors that Hassabis originally planned to leave simultaneously with Jeff Dean, but management judged that a joint announcement would crash the stock price, so they persuaded him to transition to chairman first and retire more gracefully. In other words, this $10 billion went in at the time when sentiment was most fragile and the bond market most selective, and it was done through equity placement, not bond purchases. This position is completely different from Blackstone raising up to $36 billion in debt for Anthropic, SoftBank borrowing $10 billion against OpenAI shares, or Alphabet issuing $25 billion in bonds attracting $115 billion in subscriptions. Those were leveraging up; this one converted cash into equity. Those familiar might recall the preferred shares Buffett bought in Goldman Sachs in 2008, also when no one else dared to act. Of course, there's another explanation. Abel has already taken over as CEO, and the capital allocation style is changing. Berkshire is shifting from patient waiting to taking action, which may have little to do with optimism about AI, but simply a change in leadership. On our side, things are ridiculously quiet. Bitcoin is still hovering around 65,000, the whale who shorted $102 million faced partial liquidation, reduced the position to $60 million after margin calls, and moved the liquidation price to 65,310. No one is betting on either side; good news doesn't push prices up, bad news doesn't push them down, and this has lasted for over a month. So, this $10 billion—did Buffett finally see something worth buying after three and a half years of holding back, or did Berkshire's strategy change after the leadership switch? If the former, the valuation divergence in AI might need to be recalculated. If the latter, it really has little to do with being bullish or bearish. Which do you believe more?

The one who was kicked out of Europe back then might now be invited back In May 2023, when the EU passed MiCA, Europe earned a respectable title as the first region in the world to write comprehensive rules for the crypto industry. The rules detailed requirements for stablecoin issuers, specifying where reserve assets must be held, whether they can be redeemed at any time, and whether an entity must be established in Europe, listing each condition clearly. Those who didn’t meet the standards were excluded. What happened next is well known. USDT trading pairs in European user accounts gradually disappeared, and platforms one after another delisted them. Tether did not obtain EU approval and was left outside the door. Circle, on the other hand, obtained a license and became a model of compliance. Now this matter is about to turn a new page. According to Bitcoin.com News, the EU has decided to revise MiCA. The problem to be solved is stated plainly: non-EU stablecoin issuers like Tether are blocked from the EU market. An EU diplomat put it bluntly, saying that revisiting this document at this stage is inevitable. The reason is clear: many provisions approved in May 2023 are already out of step with industry realities. The real driver behind Europe’s change of mind is not Tether, but across the Atlantic. The US passed the GENIUS Act, and the Trump administration pushed stablecoins forward relentlessly. Europe looked down and saw it was still holding onto a set of rules from three years ago, shutting out the biggest player, while the distribution channels for USD stablecoins were growing thicker elsewhere every day. What’s most intriguing is who raised the concerns. Patrick Hansen, Circle’s head of EU policy, previously warned that the current MiCA has significant regulatory gaps, leaving European users either unprotected or cut off. Circle is one of the biggest beneficiaries of these rules, having obtained a license. Logically, the higher the threshold, the more it benefits them. Yet their policy head says the threshold is problematic, a statement that carries more weight than any industry lobbying letter. We all understand what "cut off" means here. Users won’t stop using USDT just because trading pairs are delisted; they will simply switch to places without licenses, disclosures, or guarantees. Those regulators want to protect are pushed into invisible corners. This is not just Europe’s problem; it’s a wall that all places trying to control liquidity through entry barriers will eventually hit. The ambition of this revision goes beyond stablecoins; tokenized payments and tokenized deposits are also being considered for inclusion. These two areas are the main battlegrounds where traditional banks are moving onto the blockchain. Wells Fargo is working on corporate tokenized deposits, and in Japan, JPYC has raised funds to pay truck drivers’ freight. Europe clearly doesn’t want to fall behind again in this round. So here’s the issue. Three years ago, Europe wrote rules to set a standard for the entire industry. Three years later, Europe is revising the rules, pushed by others’ pace. A set of rules has to be rewritten because it locked people out. Is this regulatory maturity or regulatory surrender? What do you think?

The USDC you hold is earning interest for someone else Circle just finished its Q2 earnings call, and two pieces of news came out. One is that the USDC cooperation agreement with Coinbase has been renewed with no changes in terms; USDC will continue to be deeply integrated into Coinbase's various product lines, but the specific revenue-sharing ratio was not disclosed. The other is that the CFO clearly stated there will be no quarterly dividends, basically saying that the returns invested back into the platform far exceed paying dividends to shareholders. Let's look at the numbers first. This quarter, Circle's total revenue plus reserve income was $701 million, a 7% year-over-year increase. At the end of the quarter, USDC circulation was $73.3 billion. Putting these two numbers together, the situation becomes clear. USDC is not printed out of thin air; it is exchanged by someone for real US dollars. You put in 1 dollar, Circle gives you 1 USDC, and that 1 dollar is used to buy short-term US Treasuries and reverse repos to earn interest. With a $73.3 billion pool, roughly calculated at current short-term interest rates, the annual interest alone is in the tens of billions of dollars. But the USDC you hold earns zero interest. This is not criticism; this is the business model of stablecoins itself. What you get in exchange is liquidity and instant usability, at the cost of giving up the interest. Whether you want to exchange or not is your own choice. There is an even more interesting layer. Circle itself cannot keep all this interest; a large portion must be shared with Coinbase according to the distribution agreement. So the renewal of this agreement is very important to Circle, and the unchanged terms mean this cost has neither improved nor worsened. The market was previously worried that Coinbase might use negotiations to raise prices, but this pending issue has been settled for now. Then there is no dividend. A company with $700 million in quarterly revenue, with plenty of cash on hand, clearly says it will not pay shareholders, because it wants to reinvest in the platform. Circle now has over 150 distribution agreements and is still expanding channels. Simply put, it wants to use this money to buy traffic, buy scenarios, buy partners, and put USDC into more places. It is betting on scale, not immediate cash returns. For us traders, there is a more practical signal hidden here. The stablecoin issuers are still aggressively spending money to expand channels, indicating they believe there is still incremental growth. And stablecoin supply is the fuel for on-chain buying; the fuel suppliers are expanding production, which conflicts with recent data showing stablecoin total supply shrinking over the past month. Who is right in this contradiction might be more worth watching than how much ETF inflows there were this week. In the short term, this news basically has no impact on the market; USDC will not lose its peg because of a single earnings call. Looking longer term, whoever controls the distribution channels for dollars on-chain holds the gate for the next round of capital inflows. Finally, a question: how much stablecoin do you hold in exchanges and wallets earning zero interest? Do you think this trade is worthwhile?