Brevan Howard · 189

Wall Street Q2 holdings revealed: as institutions fall and buy more, ETH outperforms BTC across the board

Source: ChainCatcher Author: Zhou Original title: Q2 Wall Street Institutional Crypto Positions: Most institutions bucked the trend, and ETH exposure completely outperformed BTC in the second quarter. ETF capital flows and institutional behavior were decoupled, and the institutionalization of crypto assets deepened; at the same time, institutional differences over crypto-related stock targets are also getting bigger. August 14 is the legal deadline for the US SEC to require institutional investors to submit Q2 13F forms. After the centralized disclosure of documents, Wall Street's crypto holdings were once again spread out on the table. There was a clear contrast between institutional movements and currency price trends this season. The price of Bitcoin fell by about 14.2%, while crypto holdings declared by institutions increased. According to Bitcoin Strategy's calculation of 13F data, institutional Bitcoin holdings increased 7.5% from about 498,000 to about 536,000, up 7.5% month-on-month, while total ETF holdings fell from about 1.297,000 to about 1,211,000 during the same period. According to SosoValue data, the US spot Bitcoin ETF continued to make net redemptions in the second quarter, with net outflows of about 2.4 billion and 4.5 billion US dollars in a single month in May and June, respectively. Among them, June set the worst monthly record since listing. The Ethereum ETF also had a cumulative net outflow of around $700 million over the same period. At the same time, the chips are concentrated on the head. The number of institutions declaring Bitcoin holdings dropped from about 2,000 to about 1,900. According to Bloomberg data, as of August 13, the number of institutional holders of an IBIT product reached about 1,500, with a net worth of about US$47.35 billion. The growth rate of Ethereum on the bank side completely outperformed Bitcoin. Previously, ChainCatcher wrote in the first quarter position review: Institutional interest in Ethereum's allocation is increasing, and Jane Street, Wells Fargo, and J.P. Morgan Chase all added Ethereum ETFs during the outflow phase. In the second quarter, this sign was confirmed on the bank side. According to DWF Labs estimates, in terms of the number of corresponding crypto assets, Morgan Stanley's exposure to BTC increased 3.7% month-on-month and ETH exposure increased 18.6% in the second quarter. J.P. Morgan's BTC exposure increased 12.2%, and ETH exposure increased 67.3%. Both banks are growing at a significantly higher rate of ETH than BTC. The individual level is more intuitive. Morgan Stanley's ETHA increased by about 202% to 4.6 million shares, J.P. Morgan's ETHA increased by about 338% to nearly 1.17 million shares, and Bank of America ETHA increased from about 67,500 shares to about 1.98 million shares, about 29 times the previous one. But in fact, there was an overall net outflow of Ethereum spot ETFs in the second quarter. According to SosoValue data, there was still a net inflow of about 356 million US dollars in April, net outflows of about 541 million and 529 million US dollars in May and June respectively, and a total net outflow of about 714 million US dollars in the second quarter. Jane Street bought it back. Hedge funds moved their positions into options. Last season, Jane Street cut IBIT holdings by about 71%. The market once speculated that it was bearish on Bitcoin. This quarter, it reversed IBIT and added back about 24.9 million shares, a sharp increase of about 324% over the previous quarter, making it one of the biggest buyers of the quarter. Its current spot Bitcoin ETF exposure is approximately $9.9 billion, of which approximately $828 million is in IBIT. As an authorized participant and market maker, its end-of-quarter inventory is related to redemptions and hedging, and a large amount on spot is not equal to a directional bet. It is worth noting that 13F only reported a long spot volume at the end of the quarter. If options were added, the image of several institutions would also reverse. Global macro hedge fund Brevan Howard cut spot IBIT from 24.3 million shares to 7.21 million shares in the second quarter, reducing its holdings by about 70.4%. But it also holds a call option corresponding to approximately 7.23 million IBIT shares and a put option of 5.27 million shares. Graham Capital reduced its current IBIT from about 926,000 shares to 259,000 shares, reducing its holdings by about 72%, while holding down options corresponding to about 1.74 million IBIT shares, with a declared value of about $57.94 million. Multi-strategy giant Millennium reduced current IBIT from about 19.29 million shares to 9.69 million shares, reducing holdings by about...

3d ago22#Wall Street #Bitcoin

Wikipedia has less than 7% coverage, how can crypto projects be “hidden” in the AI era?

Author: Shenchao TechFlow Original title: Only 67 of the top 1000 crypto projects by market capitalization have Wikipedia pages. ChatGPT's “understanding” of the crypto industry is being distorted Shenzhen Guide: The crypto communication agency Chainstory audited the Wikipedia coverage of CoinGecko's top 10,000 tokens and found that only 67 of the top 1000 had entries. Wikipedia is the single most cited source for ChatGPT (accounting for about 7.8% of total citations), which means that AI tools have systemic gaps in their perception of the vast majority of cryptographic projects. Neither the $15 billion Hyperliquid nor the $5 billion Sui have Wikipedia pages. The crypto industry is almost non-existent on Wikipedia. According to CoinDesk's July 14 report, a research report published by crypto communication agency Chainstory shows that according to CoinGecko's market capitalization ranking, only 67 of the top 1000 crypto projects have Wikipedia entries, with less than 7% coverage. At a time when AI tools are increasingly becoming the main channel for users to obtain information, this gap is systematically affecting the understanding and presentation of the crypto industry by models such as ChatGPT. Coverage fell cliffside down with market capitalization rankings. From June 1 to 4, 2026, the $15 billion project, Chainstory audited the top 10,000 CoinGecko tokens by market capitalization to verify the existence of entries one by one through the Wikipedia API. The results showed an extreme long-tail distribution: the top 10 tokens in market capitalization had 80% coverage, the top 100 had 40% coverage, the top 500 had only 12%, the top 1000 dropped to 6.7%, and the 1001-10000 tokens had only 0.2% coverage. Out of the entire top 10,000, only 84 tokens have Wikipedia entries. There is no shortage of huge projects on the absentee list. Hyperliquid, a perpetual contract platform with a market capitalization of about $15 billion, has no Wikipedia page; Sui, a Layer-1 network with a market capitalization of about $5 billion, is also absent; Monad Labs (valued at $3 billion) led by Paradigm, Berachain (valued at $1.5 billion) co-led by Brevan Howard Digital, and eigenLayer with a $100 million investment by a16z, None of them have been recorded on Wikipedia. The smallest project with a market capitalization of $15 million and ranked 959th is Firo. As a comparison, Wikipedia includes about 640 fintech companies and more than 7,000 software companies, but only about 80 companies in the crypto and bitcoin categories. Wikipedia is the single most cited source by ChatGPT, accounting for nearly 8%. The reason this coverage gap is important is because Wikipedia's position in the AI information chain far exceeds general perception. Chainstory cites audit data from AI tracking platform Investigations in the report: Of all ChatGPT citation links, about 7.8% point to Wikipedia, and Reddit (1.8%) and Forbes (1.1%), which rank second and third, fall far behind. Of the top 10 most referenced domains by ChatGPT, Wikipedia accounts for about 47.9%. Another research agency, Trakkr's analysis of 3.29 million citation links showed that as of May 2026, Wikipedia had 36.1% of the top 10 ChatGPT citation sources and 25.3% of the top 100 cited sources. Muck Rack's May 2026 study further confirmed that Wikipedia is not only the number one citation source for ChatGPT, but also Claude's second most cited source (after PubMed Central), and the fourth most cited source for Gemini. The report points out that Wikipedia mainly provides conceptual information to AI models, but when users ask questions about specific projects, Wikipedia entries are the core basis for model reasoning...

38d agoburnking#AI #ChatGPT #GPT #Sui #token

TrueDAO closes $10 million strategic financing led by Brevan Howard Digital

In comparison, TrueDAO, an AI-driven decentralized financial infrastructure project, announced the completion of a $10 million strategic financing led by Brevan Howard Digital, with participation from Zee Prime Capital and Jump Capital. This round of financing will mainly be used for AI protocol core development, AI risk control systems, security audits, global compliance construction, and ecological cooperation expansion. TrueDAO said it is positioned as a modular on-chain financial infrastructure rather than a single blockchain application, and aims to provide services such as liquidity management, reserve management, risk warning, revenue distribution, and DAO governance for ecological projects. In the next phase, TrueDAO will promote test site launch, security audits, developer tools and ecosystem integration, and will disclose protocol operation and reserve data in stages. The specific main network launch time, token arrangement, and incentive mechanism will be subject to subsequent official announcements.

43d ago#financing

Why did S fall more than 97% after AC withdrew from Sonic while FT's valuation reached 1 billion?

Author: Curry, Shenchao TechFlow Original title: AC withdrew from Sonic's board of directors. The Godfather of DeFi once again experienced the experience of breaking out of the shell and doing crypto this year. He probably watched the US stocks reach new highs every day, then open his position in silence for three seconds and then shut it down. BTC has fallen by almost 20% since the beginning of the year, and ETH is even worse, so don't mention copycats. Under this kind of market, a 90% drop in any public chain's token is not news. What's even colder than the price is that people walk away to cool off. On June 19, AC, the godfather of DeFi, left the Sonic Labs board along with two other founding directors. The S token was reported at 0.028 at the time, leaving only a fraction of 1.03 at the beginning of the year. The on-chain TVL dropped from a peak of 1.14 billion in May last year to 20 million. According to DeFilLama's data, 98% has evaporated. There wasn't much reaction from the community when AC left. After all, he left the ring once in 2022 and then came back. The withdrawal statement is also very standard, saying that he is “still optimistic about Sonic,” but that he is no longer involved in business decisions. But what bothers me is the next part. He said the main focus has been on Flying Tulip for the past 18 months. This project raised 200 million dollars in private placement in August last year, with a valuation of 1 billion dollars. In February of this year, another public offering was launched on CoinList. The investors are Brevan Howard, DWF Labs, Susquehanna. In other words, during the period when S dropped from 1.03 to 0.028, AC was busy setting the stage for a new billion dollar project. What's even more impressive is the Flying Tulip token design. Investors with a Tier 1 subscription get an NFT called FTPut, which is essentially a perpetual put option. If they lose money, they can destroy the token at any time and redeem the principal amount at the original price. CoinList's public offering page clearly states that FT (splitable tokens, normal coins) bought on the open market do not have this right; only first-level participants have it. In contrast, the holders of S took over the market and fell to 0.028, which is 0.028. No floors, no redemptions, no one wrote you a way out... AC's exit statement that had nothing to do with me was posted on X, very short, but it seemed like every sentence was over measured. He said he was a technical advisor when he joined Fantom in 2018 and only officially became a director in December 2022. He wasn't the founder of Fantom; he never was; he was just the earliest technical architect. He was responsible for the underlying technology, including later Sonic's core system and cross-chain gateway. Then there is the critical section, which originally stated: “I am responsible for the technical decisions I lead, but I am not the sponsor or patcher of migration, airdrops, tokenomics, and the disposal of old networks.” One sentence removed myself from the fact that the S token dropped 97%. The technology was done by me, and the technology was fine. As to why the coin you bought dropped from one dollar to three percent, that was someone else's decision. The author does not evaluate whether this statement holds true, but admits that the cut is so clean that it is admirable. When most project founders run away, they either pretend not to talk, or send a vague statement full of “us” and “the team,” turning responsibility into a pot of porridge. AC is different; he drew his boundaries of responsibility so accurately that it's hard for you to refute, because he really doesn't care about the token economy. Moreover, he didn't temporarily think of doing this. In March 2022, AC announced its exit from the crypto industry citing regulatory pressure and burnout. At the time, Fantom's TVL evaporated almost one-third within a week, and the community was full of criticism. He quietly came back a few months later, and all he did was reinvent Sonic's technology. He said he was tired when he left, was silent when he came back, and when he left, he said, “I've actually been busy with other things for the past 18 months.” On Sonic's side, the six months before he left, executives changed one after another. CEO Mitchell Demeter, who was just invited in September of last year, resigned in February of this year, and the business leader also joined him. After the CEO left, the board of directors took charge of the board itself for a few months, and now the board of directors has resigned and replaced it with Matt Visser, a new CEO who has never managed the front line of the public chain. Five months, the whole tube...

61d agoburnking#AI #DeFi #Sonic

The 300 million valuation is a thing of the past, and the market is repricing

Author: Bibi News Original title: Reproduction of signals at the bottom of history? Messari, valued at 300 million, sold for 10 million. Messari used to be the crypto industry's closest data platform to Bloomberg. At its peak, it was valued at 300 million US dollars. Its founder, Ryan Selkis, was the first to reveal that Mt. Gox is insolvent. After becoming famous, he founded Messari with the goal of incorporating data, research, and disclosure from the crypto world into a professional platform. It covers more than 40,000 crypto assets, and the Mainnet conference held every year in New York is one of the industry's most important summits. In September 2022, hedge fund giant Brevan Howard's crypto division led its Series B financing, followed by Point72 and Coinbase Ventures, with a valuation of about $300 million. On June 12, 2026, Messari was bought by rival Blockworks at a price of around $10 million. This isn't the current state of a company. When the primary market valuation and the coins in your wallet are shrinking drastically, is the entire crypto industry's collective repricing? Crypto companies collectively shrink in July 2024. Messari founder Selkis resigned as CEO due to a series of controversial remarks, and co-founder Eric Turner took over. Turner also left in March 2026, and CTO Diran Li took over. At the same time, the company made large-scale layoffs, turned a U-turn to AI, and announced that it would become an AI-first company. But AI is not only the direction of transformation for Messari; it is also one of the reasons for its decline. The core products sold by Messari are research reports and data collation. In the past, an analyst spent a week writing an industry report, but now it can be completed in a few hours using AI tools. When research costs are close to zero, it is difficult for businesses selling research reports to receive any more money. This is not a cyclical difficulty; it is a structural threat. Eventually, Messari's data platform and API were merged into Blockworks, and the eight-year entrepreneurial story came to an end. But Messari is no exception. From 2025 to 2026, a quieter and deeper change is taking place: companies that don't issue coins and make money by selling products and services can't hold up. The data platform is closing its doors. DappRadar, which has been in operation for seven years, tracks more than 18,000 decentralized applications on 93 chains, uses 500,000 monthly users, and announced its shutdown in November 2025 due to “financial unsustainability”. The on-chain analysis platform Parsec has been in operation for five years and shut down in February 2026. CoinGecko is currently negotiating the overall sale and has hired investment bank Moelis as an advisor. The media is underselling or layoffs. CoinDesk, the benchmark for crypto media, was once rumored to sell for 300 million US dollars, cut 45% of the editorial team in August 2023, and was bought by Bullish for about 75 million dollars in November of the same year. Bankless, one of the most influential brands in crypto podcasts, has over 1,300 shows, a $35 million VC fund, and quietly cut most of its team in May of this year. Blockworks, which bought Messari, also shut down its entire news department in October 2025, putting all resources into the data business. Its founder put it bluntly: users are increasingly using data as their primary source of information rather than news. On-chain data company Dune laid off 25% of employees in May 2026. Since VC did not invest in 2017, more than 800 crypto investment funds have been set up around the world. Today, only about half are still in operation. In 2025, 63% of crypto hedge funds lost money. The new fund is also unable to raise money. Only 8 new crypto VC funds were set up in Q1 2026, the lowest since Q3 2020, and the amount raised was only 12% of the 2022 peak. From October 2025 to April 2026, monthly investment in crypto VC plummeted from $3.85 billion to $660 million, falling more than 80% in six months. Where did the money go? Went to AI. In 2025, VC financing in the AI sector was 192.7 billion US dollars, exceeding half of the world's total VC for the first time. A partner at Robot Ventures, a crypto fund founded by the founder of Compound, said a very direct statement: “AI has taken away oxygen, and talent and LP's attention have been taken away. Many people who should have started crypto businesses are now starting AI companies. “People are walking too. Multicoin Ca...

66d agoLuxurytracy

Nomura Group's KAIO Announces Issuance of Governance Tokens, Targeting the $30 Trillion RWA Circuit

According to the news, RWA tokenization agreement KAIO officially announced the launch of the governance token KAIO, with a fixed total supply of 10 billion pieces, and simultaneously established the KAIO Foundation, which is responsible for ecological governance, treasury management, and protocol development. KAIO was incubated by Laser Digital, the digital asset division of the Nomura Group, and has received strategic investments from institutions such as Tether (the world's largest stablecoin issuer), BH Digital Assets, and Further. The platform currently has 5 institutional-level funds online, with a TVL of about 100 million US dollars, spanning more than 10 blockchains. Supported asset managers include BlackRock, Brevan Howard, Hamilton Lane, and Digital Laser, and it is predicted that cooperation with Mubadala Capital (Mubadala Capital) will soon be implemented. In terms of token distribution, community and liquidity incentives account for the highest share, reaching 37.5%; foundations hold 17%; teams, investors, and pre-TGE sales together account for 45.5%, and TGE's lock-up ratio for the day was zero. Unlocks have a cliffhanger period of 6 to 12 months, followed by a linear monthly release period of up to 60 months. Core uses of the token include access to protocol products, participation in staking to obtain rewards, and governance voting rights on key decisions and treasury allocations of the agreement. The agreement will generate revenue by charging base point fees on tokenized assets, but token holders have no legal rights over fee allocations. KASH products for retail users are scheduled to go live in the second quarter of 2026 and are designed to provide RWA revenue exposure to regular users.

115d ago

Decentralized fundraising platform LEGION now integrates the RootData API

Compared to the news, LEGION, a decentralized fundraising platform, has now integrated the RootData API to obtain more reliable support in expanding customers and market research. According to reports, Legion enables retail investors to invest in on-chain fundraising through regulatory compliance and investor accountability. Investors include VanEck, Brevan Howard Digital, and Coinbase Ventures. Currently, the RootData API has accumulated more than 220 partners, including Ethereum Foundation, OKX Wallet, CertiK, Gate, Blockworks, Amber Group, CMT Digital, TechFlow, Mask Network, Token Pocket, and many other well-known projects covering many scenarios.

155d ago

[Comparing Daily News Picks] The New York Times: The US will announce the launch of a new Section 301 trade investigation; Bloomberg: Ripple launches a $750 million share repurchase, and the valuation rises to $50 billion; SEC and CFTC sign a memorandum of cooperation to jointly promote crypto regulation and new product development

Web3 news selected for you every day by the editor: [The US will announce the launch of a new Section 301 trade investigation] Bitrate news. According to the “New York Times” report, the US will announce the launch of a new Section 301 trade investigation on Wednesday local time. After the US Supreme Court ruled to overturn some of the tariffs, the Trump administration turned to rely on Section 301 (Section 301) to advance a new round of trade investigations and potential tariffs. [Bloomberg: Ripple launches $750 million share repurchase, valuation rises to $50 billion] In comparison, according to Bloomberg's Wednesday report, Ripple, a blockchain company closely linked to the XRP Ledger (XRP) network, has begun share buybacks, which could bring the company's valuation to around $50 billion. The report quoted people familiar with the matter as saying that the blockchain payment company plans to buy back up to 750 million US dollars of shares from investors and employees through an offer, which is expected to last until April. The move comes on the heels of a massive funding round a few months ago. In November of last year, Ripple raised $500 million from investors including Fortress Investment Group funds, Citadel Securities funds, Pantera Capital, Galaxy Digital, Brevan Howard, and Marshall Wace, reaching a valuation of $40 billion. [SEC and CFTC sign a Memorandum of Cooperation to jointly promote crypto regulation and new product development] Comparatively, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), two major US financial regulators, announced the signing of a Memorandum of Cooperation (MOU) promising to strengthen collaboration in the regulation of crypto assets and the launch of new digital asset products to support legal innovation and protect investors. According to the parties' statement, the Memorandum is intended to “guide coordination and cooperation between the two institutions,” focusing on supporting legitimate innovation, maintaining market integrity, and ensuring investor and customer protection. The two sides also plan to jointly promote the formulation of policy frameworks at the federal level to establish a “fit-for-purpose regulatory framework (fit-for-purpose regulatory framework)” for emerging technologies such as crypto assets. SEC Chairman Paul Atkins said that long-standing disputes between SEC and CFTC, repeated registration requirements, and different regulatory rules have curtailed innovation to a certain extent and prompted some market participants to switch to other jurisdictions. According to the memorandum, the two agencies will also coordinate to resolve regulatory barriers that prevent the legal launch of new financial products, including products related to crypto assets. Although MOUs are generally not legally binding, the market generally believes that the SEC and CFTC's formal statement to strengthen policy coordination is a positive sign for the digital asset industry. CFTC Chairman Michael Selig said that the reason the US financial market is leading the world is that it can continuously adapt to investors' needs, and the regulatory system must evolve simultaneously to achieve more unified and comprehensive market supervision. [Circle and Binance Join Mastercard Cryptocurrency Partner Program] Comparatively, Mastercard Inc. (Mastercard Inc.) is recruiting more than 85 digital asset companies, payment providers, and financial institutions to join a new global partner program, including Circle, Binance, and Gemini. The plan aims to keep crypto payments connected to the Mastercard network while positioning stablecoins as an alternative to traditional payment tracks. [Bullish surpassed Coinbase for the first time in February and was promoted to third place on the exchange] In comparison, institutional crypto exchange Bullish's spot trading volume reached 76 billion US dollars in February, an increase of 62.6% over the previous month, and its market share rose to 5.06%, surpassing Coinbase (4.59%) for the first time to become the third largest centralized spot exchange in the world. This is another milestone since Bullish went public on the NYSE last year. The data shows that although overall market trading slowed in February and total spot volume fell by 3.01% month-on-month, Bullish bucked the trend. Binance still topped the market with 22% market share, but its share fell to a new low since 2020, indicating that trading activity is being scattered across more platforms. [Bloomberg Strategist...

163d agoWendy#Compare Daily Picks

Bloomberg: Ripple launches $750 million share buyback, valuation rises to $50 billion

Comparative news, according to Bloomberg on Wednesday, Ripple, a blockchain company closely linked to the XRP Ledger (XRP) network, has begun share buybacks, which could bring the company's valuation to around $500 billion. The report quoted people familiar with the matter as saying that the blockchain payment company plans to buy back up to 750 million US dollars of shares from investors and employees through an offer, which is expected to last until April. The move comes on the heels of a massive funding round a few months ago. In November of last year, Ripple raised $500 million from investors including Fortress Investment Group funds, Citadel Securities funds, Pantera Capital, Galaxy Digital, Brevan Howard, and Marshall Wace, reaching a valuation of $40 billion.

164d agoWendy

Alan Howard-backed crypto incubator WebN Group is about to shut down

According to news, WebN Group, a crypto incubator supported by billionaire Alan Howard, is about to close. The agency previously invested in digital asset infrastructure projects such as KAIO (formerly Libre), Twinstake, TruFin, and Geometry, and received investment from Laser Digital, a crypto joint venture platform owned by Japan's Nomura in 2023. According to people familiar with the matter, WebN is considered to have completed its mission, and some employees have transferred to Brevan Howard; previously, Brevan Howard's digital asset fund lost nearly 30% in 2025 and drastically reduced BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin Trust holdings by about 85%. (CoinDesk)

177d ago