The Quiet Accumulation Before the Storm
Institutional capital is quietly moving in while retail sleeps. Here is what the data is telling me.
Hello everyone,
It’s great to be back! It’s been a while. I made the intentional decision to step away from writing and focus on other areas of my life, but I’m happy to say the newsletter is officially back. Going forward, I’ll be aiming to show up consistently with at least one post per week.
I’ve also been thinking about the Weekly Alpha edition and have some ideas to take it in a new direction. I’d love to hear your thoughts on that too.
With that said, I’m writing this letter because over the last few weeks I’ve been closely observing the market, and I believe we are somewhere near the bottom.
First, the Digital Asset Treasuries are running at full speed. Strategy leads the pack with 818,334 BTC in holdings, followed by Bitmine with roughly 5,078,386 ETH held and 4.7M ETH staked.
This tells us something important: institutional investors simply don’t care about market conditions right now. That is a positive signal in a bear market, especially when retail investors seem more focused on AI than crypto. Based on this alone, it makes sense to start positioning, though caution is still warranted.
Michael Saylor put it well when he said...
Bitcoin has won. Global consensus is that $BTC is digital capital. The four-year cycle is dead. Price is now driven by capital flows. Bank and digital credit will determine Bitcoin’s growth trajectory. The biggest risk is bad ideas driving iatrogenic protocol changes.
I couldn't agree more. To me this is one of the clearest signs that crypto is maturing. We are moving away from hype driven speculation and toward a market shaped by institutional capital and real infrastructure. That changes everything about how you should think about positioning.
Bitcoin is reacting far less to geopolitical instability than it used to, but black swan events can still happen. Whether it’s an escalating global conflict, a new virus shutting down the economy, or an oil crisis, no one can predict what’s coming. Holding high risk assets through those moments is never comfortable.
That said, I don’t personally consider Bitcoin to be a high risk asset, at least not on a long enough time horizon. Over the last ten years it has proven to be a remarkable investment and store of value. Having at least a small allocation in your portfolio remains a wise decision.
I’ve also been keeping an eye on NFTs. Over the past 30 days, top collections have risen significantly, which could be another early sign of a bull market.
Personally, I see PFP NFTs as a way to flex online, much like wearing a Rolex in real life. The interesting thing here is that crypto has been flat or down, yet NFT prices are climbing. To me, that suggests a new wave of tech-savvy buyers have entered the market and started accumulating, rather than the dynamic we saw in 2021, where liquidity flowed from Bitcoin and Ethereum into altcoins, and then from altcoins into NFTs.
This time the entry point looks different, and that distinction matters.
On the RWA front, the metrics are also looking bullish. ONDO Finance just crossed $1B in total value locked, and to me that is an early signal that traditional finance is genuinely moving into DeFi on the Ethereum ecosystem.
It might sound naive at first, but it really isn’t. ONDO is backed by Blackrock and other major institutions, and if you think about market efficiency, there are few things more efficient than tokenizing real world assets. The data speaks for itself.
Finance has always been a closed loop, so it is exciting to see traditional players stepping into DeFi. The reason it matters so much is composability. Any protocol can plug into any other protocol, and that kind of open infrastructure is exactly what DeFi needs to interface with the traditional financial system and succeed long term.
I could go on with the bull case for crypto this year, from stablecoins to prediction markets, but I’ll keep it short for my comeback. I hope you enjoyed this format and I’d love to hear from you in the comments. If you want more letters like this one, let me know. Otherwise I’ll get back to the Weekly Alpha. As always, I could be wrong, and I’m very open to feedback.
Other news
Starknet launches strkBTC to bring ZK-powered shielded bitcoin to its Layer 2 network - read
Senate Banking Panel Releases CLARITY Act Draft Ahead of Thursday Markup - read
Bitcoin miner MARA sold $1.5 billion of bitcoin as it shifts toward AI infrastructure - read
Ark Invest buys $5.5 million worth of Circle shares as stock jumps 16% on Q1 earnings - read
That’s it for this week.
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None of the information in this newsletter constitutes financial advice. While I personally use most of the protocols that I discuss, it’s important to understand that they involve substantial risk. Don’t invest what you can’t afford to lose