Cheers to new ETH ATH, but stay focused on Spot-ETF flows

Summary:

• ETH surged above $4900 to a new ATH on Sunday after Jerome Powell’s dovish remarks at Jackson Hole boosted September rate cut optimism.
• The weekend’s move has been amplified by lower liquidity, while Jerome Powell’s dovish remarks created a short-term catalyst for the cryptomarket as a whole.
• US spot ETF flows today will be a strong indicator of whether or not this upward momentum is sustainable beyond the low-liquidity weekend.
• In the meantime, let’s take a recap on last week's spot-ETF flows: A mid-week run of spot-ETF redemptions in both BTC and ETH tightened risk and knocked momentum, but flows steadied into Friday as Powell’s Jackson Hole remarks cooled rate volatility and nudged risk back on. 
• The market closed the week in rotation mode: BTC dropped on the outflow shock yet defended the mid-July demand band (~112-114k) and finished back inside the 113-119k base, while BTC dominance stayed heavy, marking new multi-month lows. 
• After breaking the ~63% neckline of a double-top (see BTC.D), breadth has held even as BTC traded just under ATH territory.
• The cross to watch remains ETH/BTC around ~0.040, with acceptance or rejection at this level set to steer allocation skew into month-end.

1. ETH - heavy ETF outflows, orderly reset, ETH/BTC at ~0.040 decision

• ETH surged above $4900 to a new ATH on Sunday after Jerome Powell’s dovish remarks at Jackson Hole boosted September rate cut optimism.
• Entered a price discovery stage after a clean, 5-year breakout. Correction came on Monday, Asia morning, for the broader cryptomarket, which is largely expected. Pulled back to the previous breakout zone ~$4,750, but it doesn’t invalidate a bullish trend or not. 
• What’s more telling will be spot ETF flows today, which is a strong indication of whether or not the upward momentum is sustainable beyond the low-liquidity weekend.
• Early in the week, U.S. spot ETH ETFs posted several of their largest daily redemptions since launch, which immediately compressed front-end funding and narrowed short-tenor basis; perp markets cheapened and spot-perp spreads briefly flipped toward flat/negative on some venues. 
• Into Thu–Fri, prints normalised and basis recovered, exactly the reset-then-re-risk sequence we’ve highlighted in prior shocks. 
• On-chain, exchange inventories remained thin versus June/July, and stETH/ETH basis held tight; there was no collateral stress accompanying the flow wobble.
• Spot respected structure as the shelf at the high-$3k absorbed the ETF shock, with ETH holding above $4k into the back half of the week, preserving a higher-low cadence.
• Relative performance is doing the heavy lifting: after July’s clean ETH/BTC breakout through 0.0250, the pair drove into the first weekly supply zone around ~0.040, the prior breakdown zone and a natural first-reaction area. 
• Weekly acceptance above ~0.040 confirms extension toward ~0.043-0.046 (next liquidity pocket); a rejection points to a standard post-breakout retest ~0.034-0.035, rather than trend failure.
• Last week was cash-flow validation, not a squeeze: flows hit, microstructure compressed, but buyers stepped at structure and ETF prints stabilised alongside calmer macro into Friday. 
• With positioning already cleaned up by the early-week redemptions, this week’s ETF streak around this 0.040 gate will decide whether first touch breaks or backs off.

2. BTC - ATH context, falling share; ETFs choppy; breadth confirmed

• Spot BTC ETFs registered a mid-week outflow spike followed by mixed prints; the immediate response was front-end basis/funding compression and a brief tilt toward protective skew. 
• As rates/FX vol faded after Jackson Hole, basis re-normalised, skew mean-reverted, and perp funding crawled back toward neutral, i.e. rotation without stress, not de-risk capitulation.
• BTC wicked into the mid-July floor (~112–113k), absorbed supply, and re-based inside the 113k-119k range by week’s end, consistent with a new weekly consolidation just beneath highs. 
• Think of 119k as the range lid and 112k–113k as the defence zone; weekly acceptance >119k reopens the ATH magnet, while loss of ~112k would hand bears their first real structural win of the quarter.
• The crucial tell stayed intact: BTC.D printed/held new six-month lows (now ~58% handle). Making/holding highs without a dominance bid confirms leadership hand-off to ETH and select alts. 
• Until BTC.D reclaims the early-summer band (~60.5%), the base-case assumption is ongoing breadth, with BTC’s reserve-asset rails (ETFs, corporate balance sheets, improving public-equity access) continuing to underwrite the floor while non-BTC assets harvest incremental risk budgets.

3. Solana structure tightens; JitoSOL ETF filing adds a yield catalyst

• VanEck’s JitoSOL (staked SOL) ETF filing is the clearest U.S. test yet of how staking economics are treated inside a ’40-Act wrapper. 
• The mechanics matter for desks: reward pass-through, fee drag, and create-redeem frictions will re-price basis and LST spreads if a listed fund becomes a marginal JitoSOL buyer. It also formalises a SOL “yield leg” for allocators who can’t (or won’t) run DeFi plumbing.
• Technically, SOL is pinning the March-2024 high (~$200-205) from above a rising weekly trendline, with the $188–190 zone acting as near-term support and Jan-2023 AVWAP (~$108) well below as a cycle context. This is effectively an ascending triangle at resistance: a weekly acceptance above ~$206–210 projects a measured move of ~$45–55 (pattern height) towards the SOL’s January 2025 highs, implying ~$250–260 as the first extension. Failure back through ~$188–190 keeps the range intact and defers the signal.
• Perps OI continuity through the breakout test, funding behaving constructively (not euphoric), and JitoSOL vs baseline SOL staking spread stability can provide a flow-sustained move which isn’t headline-rented.

4. Tokenised-credit rails went live - issuance + custody + servicing in production

• Away from L1 beta, real-world asset rails moved from pitch decks to production. DBS began distributing tokenised structured notes on Ethereum, i.e. permissioned instruments, but on public rails, converting a pilot into live issuance and distribution. 
• In parallel, State Street became the first third-party custodian on J.P. Morgan’s Digital Debt Service, anchoring a nine-figure tokenised debt placement with full lifecycle servicing (issuance, DvP settlement, servicing) inside bank-grade stacks. 
• The sequencing matters: issuance + custody + servicing landed in the same window, stitching the institutional triangle that tokenised credit needs to scale. 
• As these rails thicken, expect knock-on demand for attestation/data (e.g., proof-of-reserves feeds, low-latency data streams) and for interop/messaging that can move assets across venues without breaking audit trails. That is the path from narrative to recurring on-chain cash flows.

5. Dollar distribution re-routes - MetaMask mUSD (wallet-native) + Wyoming FRNT (state-issued)

• The dollar distribution story also evolved in two orthogonal but complementary directions. MetaMask unveiled mUSD, a wallet-native stablecoin with M0/Stripe-Bridge plumbing, that relocates stablecoin distribution to the wallet UI most familiar to retail and SMB users. 
• It’s a routing change disguised as a product announcement: when the wallet can default to its own dollar, you should see measurable shifts in router paths, on-chain settlement, and payment share once it’s live at scale. 
• Meanwhile, Wyoming launched FRNT across seven chains, the first U.S. state-issued, fully reserved stablecoin with statutory over-collateralization. 
• That introduces a public-sector issuer with explicit policy scaffolding and Fireblocks-style institutional infra, opening a compliant faucet for liquidity that isn’t beholden to a single corporate balance sheet. 
• The immediate tells are stablecoin-share changes on major DEX routes, bridge utilisation where FRNT is supported, and early merchant/payment uptake once mUSD toggles on inside the wallet.

Outlook for the Week

• The decisive inputs for next week are simple: ETF streaks (do they turn positive), ETH/BTC resolution at ~0.040, dominance path (does BTC.D snap back or stay heavy), and SOL’s weekly close vs $206–210. 
• Absent a sharp reversal in dominance or a relapse in ETF prints, the bias remains rotation-friendly with structure, not squeeze, doing the work.
• All eyes are on Nvidia’s earnings report this week.
• Markets are now pricing in an 87% chance of a 25bps rate cut in September FOMC meeting.