ETFs Pull in $3.6B as BTC and ETH See Institutional Buying Surge
Weekly Market Update #78
In partnership with Elementus
Happy start to the week! Welcome back to the Reflexivity Weekly Market Update — your concise rundown of the biggest moves in crypto. If someone forwarded you this, you can Sign up here for free to get it straight to your inbox!
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Before jumping into last week’s action, check out some of the research published last week by the Reflexivity team:
-How NEAR Protocol Is Leading Blockchain-Based AI
-Memento Zk Chain: Creating the Future of Onchain Fund Management
Major Market Developments:
🔄 BitDigital swaps entire BTC stack into ETH
🏰 Sonnet Bio inks $888 M HYPE-treasury merger
🏗 Rumours swirl of a Stripe L1 in the works
🪙 Pump.fun completes ICO, raises $500M in ~10 minutes + acquires Kolscan
🛠 Lido rolls out Dual-Governance framework
💳 Circle × Bybit sign USDC revenue-share deal
⚖️ Robinhood adds ETH & SOL staking for US users
🏦 GameSquare & SharpLink bulk-buy ETH treasuries
🌞 BIT Mining & Upexi raise >$500 M for SOL reserves
⚡ Phantom to launch perps on Hyperliquid
🌱 Grasshopper app debuts for passive data yield
📝 TON clarifies UAE Golden-Visa initiative status
Fear & Greed Index:
Sentiment has swung decisively to 70, deep into the greed zone. Markets are leaning risk-on: corporate treasury allocations, bullish venture raises, and rumours of a Stripe layer-1 all stoke optimism. Historically, readings around 70 often precede short bursts of momentum, but also flag the first signs of froth, suggesting traders may soon start locking in gains if no fresh catalysts appear.
Note: The index ranges from 0 (extreme fear during capitulations and sell-offs) to 100 (extreme greed during euphoric, overbought conditions).
ETF Flows:
Bitcoin ETFs brought in about $2.72 billion. BlackRock’s IBIT accounted for the bulk at $1.76 billion, including a spectacular $954 million on Friday. Fidelity’s FBTC added $400 million and ARK/21Shares’ ARKB another $339 million, while Bitwise’s BITB collected $87 million. Smaller creations landed in Invesco’s BTC ($130 million) and VanEck’s HODL ($35 million). Grayscale’s GBTC continued to leak, but its $50 million of outflows were a rounding error against two blockbuster sessions: 10 July (+$1.18 billion) and 11 July (+$1.03 billion).
Ethereum ETFs gathered roughly $908 million. BlackRock’s ETHA led with $675 million, followed by Fidelity’s FETH at $87 million. Flows were broadly supportive across the complex: ETHW picked up $17 million, CETH $5 million, ETHV $9 million, EZET $5 million, while the Grayscale trust received $74 million. Bitwise’s ETHE added $37 million as well. The heaviest buying arrived mid-week: 10 July (+$383 million) and 11 July (+$205 million), mirroring the surge in Bitcoin demand but on a smaller dollar scale.
Overall, investors continued to favor the low-fee newcomers in both asset classes, with Bitcoin vehicles pulling in roughly three times the cash directed toward their Ethereum counterparts.
Spotlight 🔦
Solana’s meme-launchpad Pump.fun is evolving from a fee-collecting launcher into a full ecosystem play:
$PUMP token & ICO. The team unveiled tokenomics ahead of a 12 July ICO: 1 trillion total supply, with 150 billion tokens (15 %) earmarked for the public sale and a fully diluted valuation near $4 billion. Post-sale, platform fees will be redirected to buy-back-and-burns plus holder distributions, turning Pump.fun’s runaway retail volume into on-chain cash flow for token holders.
Kolscan acquisition. Days later, Pump.fun snapped up wallet analytics tool Kolscan, which tracks top on-chain traders in real time. The purchase gives the launchpad native data and leaderboards, features aimed at keeping degen users inside its app
Together the ICO funding, revenue-sharing model and new analytics arm set Pump.fun on a path from simple mint site to a vertically-integrated trading hub, one that could capture order-flow, data and liquidity under a single brand as Solana’s memecoin frenzy rolls into Q3.
Rapid Reflexivity: Quick Market Takes ⚡
Treasury trend goes multi-chain: GameSquare (ETH), BitDigital (ETH), Nano Labs (BNB), BIT Mining & Upexi (SOL) and Sonnet Bio (HYPE) collectively earmark over $2 B for protocol-native reserves: evidence corporates now treat diverse crypto assets as balance-sheet tools, not just Bitcoin.
On-chain fintech ambitions: Persistent chatter of a Stripe L1, Circle’s Bybit revenue-share, and Robinhood’s new staking products show consumer-facing giants racing to own settlement layers and yield flows rather than outsource them.
Exchange innovation boom: Phantom’s Hyperliquid perps, Binance’s bonding-curve TGEs, and Pump.fun’s ICO module signal a new wave of retail-friendly trading primitives, while Kolscan’s acquisition hints at analytics consolidation around meme markets.
DeFi governance & scaling upgrades: Lido’s Dual Governance aims to align stETH holders and node operators; MantleX, SonicCS 2.0, and Plasma Phase 2 push throughput and cross-chain UX forward, keeping Ethereum-aligned infra competitive.
Tokenized everything: Kraken/xStocks launch stock tokens on Solana and Robinhood plans the same on Arbitrum; Theo Network partners Standard Chartered’s Libeara for tokenized Treasury bills, moving real-world assets deeper on-chain.
Policy signals mixed: Senator Lummis’s miner-friendly tax bill contrasts with a judge allowing the $4 B Celsius-Tether suit to proceed; regulatory clarity remains piecemeal, but the pipeline of licence applications (Ripple, Circle) suggests incumbents expect workable rules soon.
Grass roots & data monetisation: Grasshopper’s Android release underscores a parallel trend, apps letting users monetise idle bandwidth or data, building bottoms-up crypto adoption that complements high-finance treasuries.
With Bitcoin having broken all time highs this week, the broader altcoin market experienced a large rally as traders felt more comfortable chasing higher beta plays further out the risk curve
Disclaimer: This research report is exactly that — a research report. It is not intended to serve as financial advice, nor should you blindly assume that any of the information is accurate without confirming through your own research. Bitcoin, cryptocurrencies, and other digital assets are incredibly risky, and nothing in this report should be considered an endorsement to buy or sell any asset. Never invest more than you are willing to lose, and understand the risk that you are taking. Do your own research. All information in this report is for educational purposes only and should not be the basis for any investment decisions that you make.