A Cautious Relief Rally
BTC back >$60K, Robinhood Chain launch, LIT Outperformance, Perp Positioning and More
The Flow Brief is a mid-week, charts-first scan of where crypto capital moved across ETF flows, sector baskets, derivatives, and prediction markets.
Our flagship weekly newsletter, Pulse, covers the full picture. Read the latest Pulse
The Weekly Tape
Crypto finally caught a relief bounce this week to $64K after testing 21-month lows at $58K. HYPE and LIT remained strong amidst overall market downturns, with LIT continuing to lead the way off the back of Robinhood’s announcement, up 10% this week, and 56.9% in the last 30-days.
Crypto total market cap regained $200B in the past week.
US spot Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs finally saw some relief this week with inflows slowly trickling back.
HYPE ETFs continue to see positive net inflows, albeit at a much lower rate than prior months, ~$12M last week.
Saylor has been the core focus these couple of weeks as investors wondered how Strategy is going to meet dividend payments. This week, Strategy sold $216M which covers the whole Q2 dividends for STRF, STRE, STRK, STRD and the full monthly dividend for June on STRC.
This was seemingly viewed as a bullish move despite a 32BTC sell nuking the markets a few weeks back.
An alternative bearish take regarding the situation from Light’s post.
Lighter Robinhood Revival
The single best-performing perp DEX token this week was Lighter (LIT) after Robinhood announced support for perp DEX trading on Lighter directly from Robinhood Wallet.
LIT is still below its TGE price of around $3, but has demonstrated strength over the last 2 months.
Robinhood Chain Surge
Robinhood chain is the main talking point this week as bridge volumes soared on the back of Vlad Tenev’s post about memecoins which appears to be contributing bulk of the chain’s volumes right now.
Robinhood chain transactions and DEX volumes have also surged on the back of this announcement to over 2.7M and $313M today respectively.
Robinhood chain has hit $100M in TVL within a week, with >$50M of inflows just today on the back of Vlad’s post.
The Solana revival last week seems to be cooling off as capital rotates to chase the next shiny coin.
Derivatives Positioning
The derivatives metrics shifted with the bounce, and it is evidence of whether this holds. Aggregate perp DEX open interest sits near the ~$17B-$18B base built off the February lows.
But the more telling move is in options positioning where BTC 25-delta skew softened across the curve this week but stayed positive at every tenor (+7.5pts 1W to +5.6pts 1Y). The belly (2mth-3mth) came off hardest while the front held, leaving 1mth as the peak. Traders unwound medium-term downside protection as the bounce played out but kept immediate-term hedges on. Puts are still being bid everywhere, so this seems to be more cautious participation in the relief rally, not a conviction risk-on turn.
World Cup Rakes in Record Numbers
The World Cup contract on prediction markets keeps compounding, now past ~$4B cumulative volume on Polymarket's Winner market, with the platform printing a record $11M revenue last week on $1.2B in volume.
However, this week, yet another dispute arose on Polymarket regarding whether Cristiano Ronaldo cried at the World Cup.
Summary
Crypto caught its first summer bounce, but the flows say hold it lightly. BTC clawed off a 21-month low and ETF outflows broke their streak with two inflow days, though June still closed as the worst ETF month on record.
Robinhood’s week-old chain crossed $100M TVL on meme activity which Tenev first dismissed then embraced, and LIT ran >50% in 30-days as Robinhood made Lighter its default perp venue. Options flow indicates cautious positioning despite the relief bounce. Our weekly Pulse goes deeper on the macro on Saturday.
Become a Premium member and get the full Alea platform.
Join thousands of sharp crypto investors & traders using Alea to evaluate opportunities and deploy with conviction. For just $149/month, Premium unlocks:
Full report suite: Deep Dives, Perspectives, Blueprints, Theses, Benchmarks, Memos & Pulse.
Protocol Data Rooms: Standardized due diligence portals with live analytics, risk matrices, and governance tracking across 24+ protocols.
Podcast Digest & Summit Digest: Key takeaways from the conversations shaping markets, so you don’t have to listen to every pod.
Governance Tracker: Live proposal feeds and voting activity across major protocols.
Full access to the historical research archive.
The Flow Brief is a mid-week, charts-first scan of where crypto capital moved across ETF flows, sector baskets, derivatives, and prediction markets.
Our flagship weekly newsletter, Pulse, covers the full picture. Read the latest Pulse
The Weekly Tape
Revenue Sectors Held, Token Sectors Sold Off (diff focus)
Derivatives Positioning
Prediction Markets
Summary
Become a Premium member and get the full Alea platform.
Join thousands of sharp crypto investors & traders using Alea to evaluate opportunities and deploy with conviction. For just $149/month, Premium unlocks:
Full report suite: Deep Dives, Perspectives, Blueprints, Theses, Benchmarks, Memos & Pulse.
Protocol Data Rooms: Standardized due diligence portals with live analytics, risk matrices, and governance tracking across 24+ protocols.
Podcast Digest & Summit Digest: Key takeaways from the conversations shaping markets, so you don’t have to listen to every pod.
Governance Tracker: Live proposal feeds and voting activity across major protocols.
Full access to the historical research archive.
Important Links
X
App
Docs
Website
Become a Premium member and get the full Alea platform.
Join thousands of sharp crypto investors & traders using Alea to evaluate opportunities and deploy with conviction. For just $149/month, Premium unlocks:
Full report suite: Deep Dives, Perspectives, Blueprints, Theses, Benchmarks, Memos & Pulse.
Protocol Data Rooms: Standardized due diligence portals with live analytics, risk matrices, and governance tracking across 24+ protocols.
Podcast Digest & Summit Digest: Key takeaways from the conversations shaping markets, so you don’t have to listen to every pod.
Governance Tracker: Live proposal feeds and voting activity across major protocols.
Full access to the historical research archive.
Total Crypto MCap: [MCAP] ([MCAP_7D_CHG] vs last week)
BTC: [BTC_PRICE] · dominance [BTC_DOM] · 7D [BTC_7D]
ETH: [ETH_PRICE] · 7D [ETH_7D] · ETH/BTC [ETH_BTC]
QQQ: [QQQ] · Gold: [GOLD] · Oil (WTI): [OIL] · US 10Y: [10Y]%
Crypto Fear & Greed: 47 - Neutral (vs 29 last week)
[CHART: Market Snapshot — data grid. Screenshot from AWO dashboard.]
Macro this week: [HL_1]. [HL_2]. FED rate decision probabilities via Polymarket: Cut [FED_CUT]% / Hold [FED_HOLD]% / Hike [FED_HIKE]%.
[CHART: Polymarket FED probability bar — Cut / Hold / Hike]
[CHART: BTC vs SPY — % change on key macro event days this week]
BTC reclaimed $79K in Asia hours and equities hitting record highs with S&P at 7,165, NASDAQ at 24,836 even as F&G stayed in “Fear” last week.
BTC & ETH Flows
BTC and ETH flows set the tone for everything else. Here’s what I’m watching.
BTC
ETF flows came in [net positive/negative/flat] over the week, with roughly [ETF_NET_7D] in net [inflows/outflows]. [EXCHANGE_FLOW_SENTENCE — e.g. “Exchange balances continued declining, with about [X] BTC leaving spot venues, a trend that has held for [N] consecutive weeks.”]. Derivatives are [DERIV_READ — e.g. “relatively clean: funding flat across major venues, OI up [X]% but not at crowded levels”].
ETH
[ETH_FLOW_SENTENCE — e.g. “ETH is lagging BTC in spot but picking up in perps, with funding turning slightly positive for the first time since [DATE].”]. ETF/ETP net flows [ETH_ETF_READ]. Staking deposits [NET_STAKING_READ]. ETH/BTC is at [ETH_BTC], [direction and meaning — e.g. “near multi-month lows, still showing no structural bid relative to BTC”].
Latest BTC purchase, disclosed on Apr 20 Bought 34.1K BTC for ~$2.54B at $74,395 avg
Sector Performance & Baskets
Under the hood, I slice the market into baskets and see who is actually working.
[CHART: Sector Basket Performance — 7D vs BTC. Screenshot from AWO dashboard.]
[BASKET_COMMENTARY — 3–5 sentences on which baskets led and lagged, what the divergences say. Example below:]
On-chain AI [outperformed / underperformed] BTC by roughly [X]% on the week, with [LEADERS] leading and [LAGGARDS] lagging. DeFi blue chips were [flat / up / down], with fee-generating names [diverging from / tracking] governance-only tokens. Perp DEX volumes [rose / fell] week-over-week, with [TOP_VENUE] holding the top spot on fees. RWAs continued [accumulating / shedding] TVL quietly, without much CT attention. Meme sector [read].
Baskets I’m leaning into this week: [BASKET + ONE-LINE REASON]. Baskets I think are crowded or fragile: [BASKET + ONE-LINE REASON].
Protocol Data: Fees, TVL, Other Interesting Data
Next, I look at who is actually generating fees and attracting capital.
Top fee generators (7D)
[CHART: Protocol fee ranking with mini bars. Screenshot from AWO dashboard.]
[FEE_COMMENTARY — 1–2 sentences. Example: “DeFi apps continue to dominate over base chains this week. The top five are all product-layer protocols, not infrastructure, which keeps reinforcing that value capture is skewing toward front-end and stablecoin rails.”]
TVL movers
Gainers: [TVL_GAINERS — e.g. “Pendle (+$420M), EigenLayer (+$310M), driven by a new incentive campaign and renewed restaking appetite”]. Losers: [TVL_LOSERS — e.g. “Lido (-$180M) and Curve (-$120M), with no obvious catalyst beyond rotation out of older DeFi into higher-beta names”].
[ODDITY — optional 1–2 sentences on any data that tells a different story than CT, or a single number that caught your eye this week. E.g.: “One thing worth noting: active address counts on [CHAIN] jumped [X]% while price was flat, suggesting organic activity rather than price-chasing.”]
Projects To Watch Into The Week
These are names I’m watching more closely this week. They’re not all buys, but they’re on my screen.
[PROJECT_1]
[What it is — one sentence, assume crypto-literate reader]. [Why it’s on the radar this week — catalyst, flow, structural trend]. [Your angle — “I care because X; if Y happens I’ll [accumulate / farm / fade it]”]. [Optional: “I’ll be writing deeper on this later this week; for now I’m watching [METRIC/CATALYST].”]
[PROJECT_2]
[Same structure.]
[PROJECT_3]
[Same structure. Can flag as a research preview if applicable.]
(Add up to 6 names. Remove this line before publishing.)
My Note
[SHORT_TITLE — e.g. “Flows Before Narratives” or “The Quiet Week That Wasn’t”]
[CORE_IDEA — 2–3 sentences on the lens you’re bringing to this week. Keep it anchored to something you’re genuinely thinking about, not a market observation dressed up as philosophy. Example: “Every week I try to run a simple test: which assets are attracting capital because of what they do, and which are attracting capital because of what they’re promising? The gap between those two groups tends to close in the wrong direction for the latter during volatile periods, which is where I think we are now.”]
[FLOW_TO_LENS_TIE — 3–5 sentences connecting this week’s actual data to the idea. What do the flows say? What does the basket performance confirm or contradict? Where does the fee and TVL data fit in? Example: “This week’s basket performance reinforces that read — DeFi blue chips generating real revenue are outperforming narrative tokens even in a mildly risk-on environment. The fee rankings tell the same story: the top five earners are all products people are actively paying to use. That kind of data is easy to ignore when markets are running, but it’s exactly when it matters most.”]
[BEHAVIORAL_IMPLICATION — 1–2 sentences on what this changes about how you’re operating into the week. Be honest and specific. Example: “Going into this week, I’m being stricter on position sizing in anything with no fee or TVL baseline, regardless of how compelling the narrative sounds. One exception: [PROJECT], which I think has a real catalyst rather than just a story.”]