Quick read. BTC put in a strong overnight session as ETF inflows hit an 8-week high. Equities are mixed into the open, the dollar is unchanged, and a key committee vote on US crypto market structure legislation cleared late yesterday by a larger margin than expected.
The 5 things to know this morning
- ETF inflows hit an 8-week high. Tuesday’s net was +$412M, the strongest day since late March. The composition matters: IBIT took the bulk, but FBTC and BITB also printed clean positive flows, suggesting it was not just a single-allocator rebalance.
- Memecoin volume is rotating onto Base. Solana memecoin DEX volume was -38% week-over-week while Base hit a fresh record — much of the rotation is driven by a single new launchpad. Whether that sticks past the airdrop campaign is the question; our base case is no.
- Market structure bill clears committee. The successor to FIT21 cleared the House Financial Services committee 35-18 with notably more Democratic support than the prior version. Floor vote could come within 3-4 weeks. This is the most material US crypto legislation since the ETF approvals.
- Miner sell pressure is structurally lower. Public miner monthly BTC sales were the lowest since 2023. The hashprice has stabilised and the largest miners are now financing operations through debt and stock issuance rather than spot BTC sales. That is a meaningful tailwind for cycle-position.
- ethena-usde/" title="Ethena USDe">Ethena USDe supply hit a new record. USDe outstanding crossed $7.2B yesterday as funding rates stayed positive across the major perps venues. The yield-on-USDe of 10%+ continues to pull stablecoin issuance from competing protocols.
By the numbers
| BTC overnight | $77,640 (+2.1%) |
| ETH overnight | $2,156 (+0.4%) |
| SOL overnight | $86.2 (-1.2%) |
| Fear & Greed | 31 (Fear) |
| BTC dominance | 53.5% |
| BTC ETF flows (Tue) | +$412M net |
| DXY / US 10Y | 99.0 / 4.48% |
Why miner sell pressure has gone missing
This is worth unpacking because it changes the cycle-position math. Public miners (MARA, RIOT, CLSK, WULF, IREN, and the rest) collectively sold ~3,200 BTC in April, down from ~7,400 BTC in the same month last year. The drivers: hashprice has stabilised since the hashrate growth slowdown post-halving, the largest miners refinanced operations into 2025 with senior debt and equity issuance, and a handful of them have explicit accumulation strategies as part of their treasury policy. The net effect is that the marginal sell pressure from miners — historically a meaningful overhang — has collapsed. If you back out the miner-sale flow from total exchange inflow, you get a much cleaner picture of structural demand. We will publish a longer note on this later in the week.
What we’re watching today
FOMC minutes drop at 2pm ET. The market is positioned for “softer than the headline statement” — anything hawkish reads as a risk-off catalyst. Crypto-specific: watch the IBIT creation/redemption print at end-of-day to see whether the Tuesday flow rolled through. We are also tracking the Ethena USDe supply print at end-of-day — if it crosses $7.5B that is a fresh record and a useful signal that funding-rate yield is still clearing.
For our framework on what 8-week ETF inflow highs typically mean for the next 30 days, see our analysis from this morning. The short version: inflow highs in this regime are more often continuation than reversal signals, but we will not overweight any single data point.
One pattern to watch in the next session: the divergence between BTC spot and CME futures basis. Basis has been positive and stable for weeks, which is the institutional-allocation regime hallmark. If basis breaks down (compresses toward zero or goes negative) while ETF flows stay positive, that is an interesting tell — it would mean retail-driven futures positioning is unwinding while institutional spot is still bidding. That kind of divergence rarely lasts more than 5-7 sessions.