Recently, I keep seeing people come up with a guess like this: when stablecoins are supplied and prices start rising, they immediately start imagining things—“ETF money is flowing in,” “OTC is picking up the dip,” “the bull market is back”… I understand the urge to look for a “cause-and-effect chain”; after all, when you’ve lost a lot, who wouldn’t want to grab the “root” and find a handle? But to be blunt, correlation is extremely good at misleading people: an increase in stablecoin issuance might just be arbitrage, market-making inventory, or even moving funds from off-chain to on-chain—none of which is the same as genuine buy-side demand. The ETF side is more like slow-motion footage; the timing and rhythm of capital moving in and out often don’t line up with on-chain sentiment. If you truly want to verify, don’t let yourself get hyped by a single chart—look at order book depth, slippage, and actual traded volume; at least that way you can avoid being fooled by yourself once.

And while we’re at it, I want to complain: these past few days Layer 2 has been comparing TPS, fees, and subsidies again and again. Everyone talks fast, but when you look at what it actually looks like on the order book, it’s still about where the liquidity is and whose pain shows up more in slippage… For now, I’ll just act as a cautious observer.