Gate Research: ETF Inflows Return, South Korea Moves to Include Virtual Assets in National Asset Management

Summary

• BTC remained rangebound at high levels with a weaker tone this week. Short-term moving averages shifted from a bullish alignment into sideways consolidation. ETH continued its catch-up rally and clearly outperformed BTC.

• On the trending-token side, capital continued rotating into AI Agent, Ethereum ecosystem, RWA, and highly elastic small-cap assets. AKE, Talus Network (US), and Orbler (ORBR) ranked among the top gainers.

• South Korea plans to formally include virtual assets in the national asset management system. The United States froze more than $130 million in crypto wallet assets linked to Iran, and DTCC launched the first real trades of tokenized stocks and U.S. Treasuries. These developments show that global digital-asset regulation, compliance, and RWA infrastructure construction continue to advance.

• Funding conditions improved this week. U.S. crypto ETFs returned to net inflows, with BTC and ETH ETFs attracting a combined nearly $100 million in a single day.

• A total of 14 financing deals were disclosed this week, with capital mainly flowing into areas such as DeFi risk management, enterprise payments, and Layer 1 infrastructure. Gauntlet, Flex, and ADI Chain were among the representative projects with the largest financing sizes, showing that institutional capital continues to focus on underlying financial infrastructure construction.

• Over the next 7 days, the market is expected to see about $72.75 million in token unlocks. Overall unlock pressure has eased compared with earlier periods, with ZRO, KAITO, and DBR as the main projects to watch. Short-term changes in the circulating supply of these tokens remain worth tracking.

Market Overview

Market Commentary

• BTC Market Update — As earlier rebound momentum cooled, U.S. market buying remained weak, and risk appetite stayed cautious, BTC shifted into a high-level rangebound but weaker pattern. On the hourly chart, MA5 fell below MA10, while MA10 and MA30 were largely intertwined, showing that short-term moving averages had shifted from a bullish alignment into sideways resistance. Price was also trading below all three moving averages, meaning the rebound needs renewed volume support. Short-term EMAs flattened, but the medium- and long-term structure still remained in repair. MACD momentum weakened, with the gap between the fast and slow lines narrowing, and no clear new upward signal has formed yet. RSI returned to neutral territory, meaning short-term overheating pressure has eased. On the Bollinger Bands, price pulled back from near the upper band into the middle-to-lower band area, while the band width narrowed, showing lower volatility and an unresolved directional choice. The first support zone below lies between 64,460 USDT and 64,000 USDT, with further support at 63,700 USDT. The main resistance zone above lies between 64,920 USDT and 65,380 USDT, and a breakout would still need to face resistance at 65,600 USDT. BTC options positioning is concentrated around bullish targets of $70,000-$72,000 for late July, while protective puts are still being held in the $55,000-$60,000 range, reflecting that the market remains broadly constructive but still values downside protection. Strategically, attention should focus on the 70,000/72,000 call spread, with $66,000 and implied-volatility changes as key validation signals.

• ETH Market Update — Against the backdrop of a stronger institutionalization and privacy-infrastructure narrative around Ethereum, along with continued catch-up rotation in capital flows, ETH maintained a rangebound uptrend and outperformed BTC. On the hourly chart, MA5 was slightly below MA10, but both remained above MA30, showing that ETH entered high-level consolidation after a rapid rise, while the medium-term bullish structure has not been broken. Price stayed close to short-term moving averages, and further upside still needs volume confirmation. Short-term EMAs remained upward sloping, while medium- and long-term moving averages continued turning into support. MACD remained in positive territory, though histogram expansion slowed. RSI on the hourly timeframe pulled back into a neutral-to-strong zone, while the 4-hour timeframe remained relatively hot, meaning upside momentum and pullback risk coexist. On the Bollinger Bands, price stayed above the middle band and band width remained expanded, showing that trend elasticity is still stronger than BTC. The first support levels below are 1,906 USDT and 1,893 USDT, with further support at 1,864 USDT. The main resistance zone above lies between 1,946 USDT and 1,953 USDT. If that area is broken effectively, the short-term strong structure could continue.

• Altcoins — The broader crypto market was weak over the past 24 hours. Major coins and most altcoins either pulled back together or traded in narrow ranges, and the heatmap showed that a broad-based expansionary rally has not formed. The Altcoin Season Index was around 44, indicating that the market has not yet entered a typical environment in which altcoins broadly lead the move.

• Stablecoins — Total stablecoin supply remained at the high level of about $320 billion. This on-chain U.S. dollar liquidity reservoir is still ample and provides underlying settlement depth for both spot and derivatives markets.

• Gas Fees — Ethereum mainnet gas remained in a historically very low range, generally below 0.1 Gwei, meaning on-chain interaction costs are still extremely low.

Trending Tokens

Over the past 24 hours, BTC moved into narrow consolidation after the previous day's rebound, while ETH continued its catch-up move and clearly outperformed, and GT pulled back slightly. Capital rotated from BTC into the Ethereum ecosystem, RWA, and certain highly elastic small-cap assets, leading to more differentiated internal market performance. The Crypto Fear and Greed Index stood at 25 today, remaining in the Extreme Fear zone. Prices have not weakened sharply in parallel, but spot buying in the U.S. market remains soft and macro and geopolitical uncertainty is still high, causing sentiment recovery to lag behind price performance.

ZBT ZEROBASE（+35.50%，Market Cap: $22.53M）

According to Gate market data, ZBT is currently priced at USD 0.10476, up 35.50% over the past 24 hours. ZEROBASE is a decentralized crypto infrastructure network that leverages zero-knowledge proofs (ZKP) and trusted execution environments (TEE) to enable verifiable off-chain computation. It supports products such as zkStaking, zkLogin, and ProofYield, bridging institutional DeFi, user privacy, and real-world asset strategies. ZEROBASE offers programmable, compliant staking and transparent cryptographic guarantees without exposing sensitive data.

The recent rebound in ZBT primarily reflects a strategic technical upgrade by ZEROBASE. On December 8, ZEROBASE deployed geographically distributed hub nodes in Tokyo, Singapore, Paris, and Virginia, increasing network throughput to over 7,000 TPS. This upgrade provides foundational support for high-concurrency applications such as ZK staking and verifiable on-chain vaults, significantly alleviating scalability bottlenecks and strengthening ZEROBASE’s competitiveness in privacy-focused DeFi.

At the same time, the team actively participated in events such as Blockchain Week at major exchanges and the BNB Chain Hackathon in Abu Dhabi from December 3–6, further enhancing ecosystem exposure and developer engagement, signaling strong long-term commitment.

BEEFI Beefy.Finance（+31.72%，Market Cap: $12.07m）

According to Gate data, BEEFI is currently priced at USD 152.18, up 31.72% over the past 24 hours. Beefy is a “custodial-style” yield farming platform that supports efficient background operations without interfering with users’ daily activities. It is designed for users seeking passive yield strategies with minimal time commitment, enabling continuous asset compounding through simple interactions.

BEEFI’s rally is primarily driven by technical momentum. Price successfully broke above the 200-day exponential moving average (EMA, approximately USD 156.9), while trading volume expanded to nearly three times its previous level, signaling a clear bullish structural shift. Technically, RSI(7) rose to 80.39, and the MACD histogram formed a bullish crossover (+3.11), indicating strong short-term momentum, though also suggesting the asset has entered an overbought zone with potential pullback risk.

BANANA Banana Gun（+29.46%，Market Cap: $31.26m）

According to Gate data, BANANA is currently priced at USD 7.79, up 29.46% in the past 24 hours. Banana Gun is a Telegram-based trading bot that allows users to buy and snipe new tokens on networks such as Ethereum. It is known for its fast execution, intuitive user interface, and incentive-based fee structure that helps users gain early access to new token launches.

On December 18, Banana Gun officially announced that Banana Pro now supports the Base network, marking a major expansion from the Solana ecosystem into the EVM ecosystem. This upgrade introduced core features such as swaps, limit orders, DCA, and wallet tracking on Base, while also unifying asset views and trading interfaces across Solana and Base. This significantly improves cross-chain trading efficiency and user experience. The announcement signaled Banana Gun’s accelerated expansion into the EVM ecosystem and broader user base, serving as a key catalyst for the recent price surge.

Key Market Data Highlights

South Korea plans to include virtual assets in its national asset management law

The Block reported on July 15, 2026, that the South Korean Ministry of Strategy and Finance plans to formulate the "Basic Law on National Assets" to update the national asset management system that has been in use since 1950 and is centered on real estate. The new framework will incorporate new asset categories such as intellectual property and virtual assets into management, and strengthen specialized operation and development by asset type, promoting the transformation of state-owned asset management from preservation and sale to value creation.

The inclusion of virtual assets in South Korea's national asset system means that cryptocurrencies are gradually transitioning from being regulated for trading to becoming a type of asset that the government can hold, manage, and develop. This move is expected to establish standards for public sector custody, valuation, disposal, and audit, and to form policy synergy with South Korea's advancement of CBDC, digital asset basic law, and stablecoin regulation. However, specific accounting and risk management rules still need to be implemented.

The US has frozen more than $130 million related to Iranian cryptocurrency wallet assets

The Block reported on July 16, 2026, that the US Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control added several Iran-related cryptocurrency wallets to its sanctions list, resulting in the freezing of over $130 million in assets. US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent stated that these measures are part of an effort to combat Iran's use of digital assets to evade sanctions, involving stablecoins and on-chain financial networks such as Tron.

This incident shows that stablecoin publishers, centralized service providers, and public chain analysis have become an important part of geographical sanctions. Freezing capabilities can improve compliance credibility, but also intensify market discussions about asset auditability and centralized control. For the industry, sanctions list screening, wallet risk identification, and cross-border stablecoin compliance costs will continue to rise.

DTCC launches the first batch of tokenized stocks and US bond trading

The Block reported on July 15, 2026, citing The Wall Street Journal, that the US securities clearing and settlement agency DTCC launched the first batch of tokenized stocks and US bond transactions in a limited production environment. The first batch of assets includes shares of Invesco QQQ Trust, Microsoft, Circle, SPY, and short-term US bond ETFs. The tokens are interchangeable with traditional securities and retain ownership, dividends, and governance rights.

This means that these tokenized stocks and bonds are no longer experimental or simulation tests, but real transactions completed in the formal business system of financial institutions. This is an important milestone for the adoption of blockchain in traditional market infrastructure. The related assets can be used for collateral transfer, repurchase, and stock trading, and are settled on the permissioned chain, which is expected to release the occupied liquidity and shorten the settlement cycle. If the plan is fully launched in October, the institutional RWA competition will be further extended from the publish end to the clearing and custody links.

Focus of the Week

U.S. Crypto ETFs Return to Net Inflows as Institutional Allocation Sentiment Continues to Improve

CoinMarketCap data shows that as of July 15, 2026, U.S. crypto ETFs recorded about $98.84 million in net inflows in a single day, including about $68 million into BTC ETFs and about $31 million into ETH ETFs. Looking at flows over the past week, ETFs have returned to net inflows after a prior brief outflow period, showing that traditional allocation demand has recovered at the margin.

ETF flows have always been an important indicator for observing institutional risk appetite. This week, both BTC and ETH ETFs achieved net inflows at the same time, showing that institutional capital is no longer confined to Bitcoin allocation and is beginning to spread toward mainstream assets such as Ethereum. Against the backdrop of advancing stablecoin legislation and continued momentum in RWA and tokenized securities, the return of ETF inflows could continue to improve market sentiment and provide some liquidity support to the spot market.

Funding Rates for Mainstream Assets Remain Neutral While Overall Leverage Sentiment Stays Restrained

As of July 16, the average funding rate across the market was about 0.003%. Funding rates for mainstream assets such as BTC and ETH generally remained slightly positive near 0%, without the high funding-rate conditions often seen in earlier bull-market phases when rates broadly exceeded 0.02%. Differences in rates across exchanges also remained relatively limited.

Funding rates reflect the holding cost between longs and shorts in the perpetual futures market. The fact that funding rates stayed mild this week means that although market sentiment has improved, leveraged capital has not become clearly overheated. The long side's advantage is still driven more by spot capital than by highly leveraged trading. This market structure is healthier than one in which funding rates stay persistently elevated, and it also reduces the risk of sharp short-term pullbacks caused by excessive leverage.

24-Hour Liquidations Across the Market Exceed RMB 2 Billion as Short Covering Drives the Move Higher

As of July 16, total liquidations across the market over the past 24 hours reached about RMB 2.09 billion, including about RMB 1.24 billion in short liquidations and about RMB 842 million in long liquidations. The largest liquidation amounts were mainly concentrated in major coins such as BTC and ETH.

The fact that short liquidations have remained larger than long liquidations shows that during the recent rise, many short positions were forced to close, further amplifying upward price momentum. Historically, large-scale short covering often pushes short-term moves sharply higher, but it also means volatility rises at the same time. If fresh capital does not continue to flow in, the short-term market could still move into a rangebound consolidation phase. The market therefore needs to watch changes in leveraged positioning and whether liquidation scale expands further.

Funding Weekly Recap

According to RootData, from July 9, 2026 to July 16, 2026, the market disclosed 14 financings in crypto and related projects, covering areas such as DeFi infrastructure, enterprise payments, and Layer 1 infrastructure. The projects with the largest disclosed financing sizes are briefly introduced below:

Gauntlet

On July 9, Gauntlet disclosed the completion of a $125 million Series C financing, with SBI Holdings as the investor.

Gauntlet is a well-known on-chain risk-management and DeFi yield-optimization platform. In its early stage, it mainly provided DeFi protocols with risk-parameter design and stress testing. In recent years, it has gradually shifted toward institutional-grade vault management and on-chain asset-allocation services. This financing reflects that under the broader trend of stablecoins, RWAs, and institutional capital continuing to move on-chain, risk management and yield infrastructure are becoming key areas of institutional attention. The funds will mainly be used to expand global business, broaden stablecoin support, and further improve institutional-grade on-chain financial infrastructure.

Flex

On July 14, Flex completed a $70 million Series B1 financing, with investors including Halo Fund.

Flex focuses on enterprise payments and fintech infrastructure, providing businesses with payment, treasury-management, and financial-service capabilities. This financing reflects that the capital market continues to pay attention to payment-infrastructure projects that can connect the traditional financial system with the digital-asset ecosystem. As stablecoin payments and enterprise-level financial services continue to develop, such payment platforms with commercialization capabilities still retain strong financing appeal.

ADI Chain

On July 13, ADI Chain completed a $50 million strategic financing.

ADI Chain belongs to the Layer 1 infrastructure track, and this strategic financing shows that the market continues to focus on the construction of underlying public chains and infrastructure. As AI, RWAs, and cross-chain applications continue to develop, the new generation of public chains still has long-term investment value in areas such as performance, asset-carrying capacity, and ecosystem building. Strategic investment also reflects industrial capital's continued push into the layout of underlying infrastructure.

Next Week to Watch

Token Unlocks

According to Tokenomist data, over the next 7 days (2026-07-16 to 2026-07-22), the market will see about $72.75 million in token unlocks. Overall scale has declined compared with the previous period, but some projects still face certain circulating-supply pressure. The top three projects by unlock size are as follows:

• ZRO will unlock about $21.11 million worth of tokens over the next 7 days, accounting for 7.3% of circulating supply.

• KAITO will unlock about $13.44 million worth of tokens over the next 7 days, accounting for 7.3% of circulating supply.

• DBR will unlock about $10.38 million worth of tokens over the next 7 days, accounting for 11.6% of circulating supply.

References:

• Gate, https://www.gate.com/trade/BTC_USDT
• Farside Investors, https://farside.co.uk/btc/
• Gate, https://www.gate.com/trade/ETH_USDT
• Gate, https://www.gate.com/crypto-market-data
• DeFiLlama, https://defillama.com/stablecoins
• Etherscan, https://etherscan.io/gastracker
• Coingecoko, https://www.coingecko.com/en/cryptocurrency-heatmap
• The Block, https://www.theblock.co/post/383595/tom-lees-bitmine-88-million-eth
• The Block, https://www.theblock.co/post/383711/polymarket-third-party-vulnerability-hack
• Coindesk, https://www.coindesk.com/business/2025/12/24/trump-media-shuffles-2-000-btc-after-fresh-bitcoin-inflows
• Rootdata, https://www.rootdata.com/Fundraising
• Tokenomist, https://tokenomist.ai/
• Deribit, https://www.deribit.com/statistics/BTC/metrics/options
• X, https://x.com/AustinBarack/status/2003902632973275405?s=20
• CNBC, https://www.cnbc.com/2025/12/24/nvidia-buying-ai-chip-startup-groq-for-about-20-billion-biggest-deal.html

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