Gate Institutional Weekly Report: Crypto Market Fluctuates and Closes Higher, DVOL Continues to Decline (July 6, 2026 – July 12, 2026)

Summary

• The crypto market continued its sideways recovery, with BTC and ETH posting modest gains. ETF flows flipped from net outflows to net inflows, indicating marginally improved institutional sentiment. However, capital remains concentrated in top-tier products, and market leverage expansion is limited.

• Gate TradFi weekly trading volume remained stable at around $85 billion, with CFDs accounting for approximately 95%. Gate Stocks' trading structure continues to diversify, with Korean stocks rapidly becoming the primary driver of volume.

• The Robinhood Chain Meme narrative drove a significant increase in Uniswap trading volume, with capital rotating from the Solana Launchpad ecosystem toward RWA, tokenized stocks, and Meme assets.

• USDC further strengthened its institutional compliance positioning amid regulatory progress. Ethereum ecosystem protocols like Lido and Aave continue to benefit from RWA, stablecoin, and institutional capital inflows, while demand for SOL ecosystem LSTs and lending on emerging chains has cooled.

• In terms of protocol revenue, Tether and Circle continue to dominate industry earnings. Revenues for protocols such as Hyperliquid, Pump, and Jupiter have generally declined, suggesting that trading activity has not yet fully translated into protocol profit growth.

• BTC OI is fluctuating within a range, and funding rates remain persistently positive, indicating that leveraged capital is re-entering the rebound, though long crowding has increased. The 25D Skew has recovered from earlier levels, alleviating market defensiveness, but medium-term caution persists.

• Options market volume continues to cool, with monthly contracts still dominating and demand for short-term event trading notably declining. DVOL has continued its downward trend to low levels, reflecting a market shift from protective pricing to a low-volatility recovery phase.

1. Market Focus Interpretation

Last week (July 6–12, 2026), the global market narrative remained centered on Federal Reserve policy divergence, the AI trading recovery, and the repricing of oil prices and geopolitical risks. The Fed's June meeting minutes showed the policy rate held at 3.6%, but roughly half of the 18 officials who submitted projections favored a rate hike within the year, while the other half favored holding or cutting. As a result, markets continued to dampen expectations for rapid easing. On the inflation front, May CPI rose 4.2% year-over-year, the New York Fed's 1-year inflation expectation rose to 3.7%, and the 3-year expectation rose to 3.3%, keeping Treasury yields elevated in a volatile range—the 10-year yield traded around 4.46%–4.55% during the week. In equities, AI and chip sectors recovered risk appetite, with the S&P 500 up 1.2% for the week, Nasdaq up 1.7%, Dow down 0.5%, and Russell 2000 down 0.6%, reflecting a "large-cap tech strong, small-cap weak" structure. In commodities, OPEC announced a production increase of approximately 188,000 barrels per day next month, pressuring oil prices early in the week, with WTI trading around $68.70 per barrel. However, escalating US-Iran tensions around the Strait of Hormuz later in the week introduced upside tail risks to oil prices and inflation expectations. Gold remained range-bound between safe-haven demand and real rate constraints, with elevated intraweek volatility. The crypto market edged higher, supported by improved risk appetite, tech stock rebounds, and news related to corporate BTC holdings. However, high Treasury yields and hawkish Fed divergence limited leverage expansion, with both BTC and ETH showing choppy upward movement rather than a one-sided breakout.

2. Liquidity Analysis

2.1 ETFs Remain in Notable Net Outflow Territory—BTC ETF Weekly Net Outflow of Approximately $1.787 Billion

On the ETF fund flow front, BTC spot ETFs flipped from a net outflow of $526 million the previous week to a net inflow of $197 million last week, a week-over-week improvement of approximately $724 million. ETH spot ETFs also turned from a net outflow of $14 million to a net inflow of $84 million, improving by approximately $98 million week-over-week. On the BTC side, IBIT was the strongest product with a net inflow of approximately $292 million for the week, while GBTC was the weakest with a net outflow of about $108 million, followed by FBTC with a net outflow of approximately $93 million. On the ETH side, ETHA led with a net inflow of approximately $54 million for the week, while ETHW remained positive after a large inflow on July 8, with FETH, CETH, and QETH seeing modest net outflows.

In terms of AUM, BTC spot ETF products held combined net assets of approximately $76.818 billion. Combined with the slight BTC price rebound and positive inflows, this should represent an increase week-over-week. The ETH ETF page failed to render precise AUM figures reliably, so only a qualitative assessment is possible: with ETH price appreciation and positive fund flows, ETH ETF AUM likely improved sequentially. Overall, institutional sentiment shifted from defensive redemptions to selective re-entry compared to the previous week, but capital remains concentrated in top-tier low-fee products, indicating that the risk-appetite recovery remains uneven.

2.2 TradFi Liquidity

• TradFi Perp DEX: Looking at the overall market structure of TradFi Perp DEX trading, commodities and equities remain the two most core trading categories. Meanwhile, index/ETF products have long maintained a stable share of approximately 20%–30%, providing investors with index-based allocation tools. This shift reflects that the TradFi Perp market is gradually transitioning from trading primarily around safe-haven assets to being dominated by equity risk assets, while maintaining a multi-asset, 24/7 market characteristic. Commodity perpetual contracts remain the fastest-growing segment since 2026, while equity trading has become the primary direction for recent capital inflows.

• Gate TradFi Trading Volume: Over the past week, Gate TradFi total trading volume remained at approximately $85 billion, roughly flat compared to the previous week and still near recent monthly highs, indicating stable user trading activity. In terms of structure, CFDs remain absolutely dominant, accounting for approximately 95% of total volume, with spot maintaining a low share and Perp trading contributing a stable 4%–6%. Although total volume has declined from the late-June cyclical high of approximately $98 billion, the overall fluctuation is limited, reflecting sustained strong demand for TradFi products such as equities, indices, forex, and commodities during the sentiment recovery phase. Platform trading scale has remained elevated for several consecutive weeks.

• Gate US Equity Trading Volume: From a market structure perspective, the trading focus of Gate Stocks has shifted notably over the past month or so. In early June, trading volume was almost entirely concentrated in US stocks, holding a share of roughly 80% or more. With the successive listings of Hong Kong and Korean stocks, the trading structure has diversified rapidly, with Korean stocks showing the most significant growth—their share quickly rose to approximately 60%–90% since late June and became the platform's largest market by volume in early July. In contrast, the US stock share fell to approximately 10%–30%, Hong Kong stocks maintained a stable share of about 2%–6%, and ETF trading share declined from around 20% to below 5%, indicating that capital is accelerating its concentration in newly listed markets such as Korean stocks.

• TradFi Order Book Depth: We selected XAUT, the highest-volume TradFi instrument, to analyze its order book depth (Delta). Over the past week, XAUT's price trended downward with choppy movements, falling from approximately $4,090 to around $4,000, breaking through key support levels multiple times during the period. Order book liquidity Delta shows frequent shifts in market buying and selling pressure. Around July 13, there were consecutive large positive Delta readings, with net buying exceeding $1.8 million in a single hour at times, but the price failed to stabilize effectively, indicating that active buying was mainly used to absorb selling pressure rather than to drive a trend reversal. Overall, liquidity remains skewed toward the buy side, but price performance is weak, reflecting cooling safe-haven demand. Gold still faces near-term pressure from profit-taking and recovering risk appetite.

3. On-Chain Data Insights

3.1 Robinhood Chain Meme Narrative Drives Uniswap Volume Expansion

This week, Uniswap trading volume rose to approximately $19.24 billion, a notable increase from the previous week, driven primarily by Robinhood's push into tokenized stocks and the heating up of the Robinhood Chain Meme narrative. As the primary trading gateway for multi-chain assets including Ethereum and Robinhood Chain, Uniswap absorbed turnover demand for RWA, related narrative assets, and Memes. Meanwhile, PumpSwap, Meteora, Raydium, and Whirlpool all declined from the previous week, indicating that the Solana launchpad-style meme hype is cooling, with attention partially rotating toward the Robinhood Chain side.

3.2 Stablecoin Supply Diversifies Moderately—Circle Regulatory Progress Strengthens USDC Institutional Narrative

The stablecoin market remained broadly stable this week. USDT maintained its largest scale with a slight recovery, while USDC grew modestly to approximately $69.2 billion. DAI rose to around $5.32 billion, PYUSD remained roughly flat, and GHO stayed stable near $600 million. Notably, following Circle's regulatory progress related to US trust bank licensing, USDC's institutional compliance narrative continues to strengthen, with the market viewing stablecoins as critical infrastructure for payments, broker-dealer settlement, and RWA trading. In contrast, USDe declined from approximately $5.06 billion to around $4.56 billion, with USDS and USD1 also pulling back, indicating a slowdown in the expansion pace of yield-bearing and politically/brand-driven stablecoins. The stablecoin theme this week is that compliant dollar assets are increasingly favored by institutions, while yield-bearing assets are entering a cooling phase.

3.3 LST Sector Shifts Toward Divergence—ETH Staked Assets Supported by RWA and Mainnet Liquidity

The LST sector showed divergent performance this week. Lido's TVL rose to approximately $16.41 billion, with Rocket Pool, StakeWise, and mETH Protocol all posting modest gains, as ETH-side staked assets continued their gradual recovery. This is driven partly by ETH price factors and partly by Ethereum's growing role as the home of RWA, tokenized stocks, and institutional on-chain settlement narratives. Conversely, SOL-side LSTs came under notable pressure, with Sanctum, Jito, Jupiter Staked SOL, and DoubleZero Staked SOL all declining week-over-week, reflecting weakened staked asset elasticity as Solana meme and launchpad trading cools. Kinetiq kHYPE also retreated from highs, indicating that capital chasing high-beta LSTs is beginning to fade.

3.4 Aave Lending Supported by Ethereum and Plasma—RWA and Stablecoin Financing Demand Underpins Core Markets

Aave's lending scale continued its recovery this week, with Ethereum market borrow balances rising to approximately $7.78 billion, making it the protocol's most core liquidity pool. Plasma borrowing increased to around $890 million, while Base and Arbitrum improved modestly, indicating sustained demand for stablecoin financing and collateral cycling on mature chains. Meanwhile, MegaETH borrow balances fell sharply from approximately $386 million to around $118 million, with Mantle, Avalanche, and Ink also declining, suggesting that incentive-driven lending demand on emerging chains is receding. Aave's capital is rotating from high-volatility new chains back to markets with deeper collateral and more reliable liquidation liquidity.

3.5 Aave Rates Show Restrained Dollar Financing—USDT Tail Volatility Reflects Short-Term Trading Demand

This week, Aave's Ethereum main market borrowing rates remained broadly low. The average USDC borrowing rate fell from approximately 5.15% to around 4.1%, indicating that while demand for compliant dollar assets is strong, it has not yet created systemic funding strain. The average WETH rate edged down to approximately 2.07%, with ETH leverage still restrained and no one-sided trend-chasing borrowing. The average USDT rate rose to around 3.87%, with the intraweek high touching approximately 9.37%, reflecting amplified short-term trading and arbitrage demand during specific periods. Combined with Uniswap's volume expansion and active TradFi perpetuals, capital this week favored rapid turnover around hot narratives. The signals from the rate market are more measured than volume figures: risk appetite is recovering, but capital remains disciplined in controlling duration and leverage exposure.

3.6 Protocol Revenue Cools—Hot Trading Volume Not Fully Converting to Protocol Profit Expansion

Protocol revenues cooled overall this week. Tether and Circle continued to dominate with approximately $112 million and $44.84 million in revenue respectively, maintaining the stablecoin issuers' role as the industry's revenue foundation. Hyperliquid's revenue declined to approximately $8.44 million—despite expanding on-chain TradFi perpetual volume, the profit elasticity of crypto-native perpetuals has weakened. Pump's revenue fell to roughly $6.29 million, corroborating the decline in PumpSwap and Solana meme trading. Titan Builder dropped significantly from the previous week's highs, indicating that order flow and MEV impulses did not persist. Axiom Pro, Jupiter, Aave, and Aerodrome also posted weak revenues.

4. Derivatives Tracking

4.1 BTC Funding Rates Remain Positive—Price Recovers in Range but Long Crowding Increases

Last week, BTC's price showed an overall choppy recovery pattern. Early in the week, prices traded around $62,000, briefly dipping below this level around July 8, but quickly recovered and held in the $63,000–$64,000 range from July 10–12. Overall, the price remains in a low-level recovery phase, but upward breakout momentum is limited. OI fluctuated notably this week. Around July 6, OI stood at approximately $21.4 billion, then pulled back to around $20.9 billion, before quickly recovering to approximately $21.9 billion around July 10. The combination of price rebound and OI recovery suggests leveraged capital is again attempting to participate in the rebound, but positions have not formed sustained one-sided expansion.

Funding rates remained positive throughout the week, with cyclical highs around July 6 and July 10, indicating that long sentiment continues to dominate. Compared to price performance, funding rates are relatively elevated, suggesting the market has already re-accumulated a certain amount of long exposure before prices have achieved a valid breakout.

In summary, this week's BTC derivatives market exhibited a structure of "price choppy recovery + OI range fluctuation + persistently positive funding rates." If prices can hold above $64,000, the current leverage structure could support further upside; however, if prices fall back to around $62,000, long positions built under sustained positive funding could face drawdown pressure.

4.2 Options Volume Cools Overall—Short-Term Trading Demand Declines

The options market cooled notably last week. Volume on July 6 was approximately 32,000 contracts, marking a relative weekly high, before gradually declining. From July 7–10, volume mostly ranged between 16,000 and 25,000 contracts, then fell further to around 5,000–7,000 contracts over the weekend. Structurally, monthly options remain the primary source of volume, indicating that market participants continue to use medium-to-longer-dated contracts for position management and directional positioning. Weekly options maintained some activity on certain trading days but did not show significant volume spikes. Daily options accounted for a limited