The Flow Brief is a mid-week, charts-first scan of where crypto capital moved across ETF flows, sector baskets, derivatives, and prediction markets.
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The Weekly Tape
BTC sits near $64K, giving back the run to $66.5K and settling where it traded a week ago, while total crypto market cap holds $2.2T, flat since June and still down 44% from the October top.
The July CPI was near expectations, 0.1% on the month with headline easing to 3.4% YoY, though core came in slightly warm at 0.2% and 2.5%. The print had no effect on the September rate hike odds as the market still prices in a 30% chance of a 25bps hike. With WTI up roughly 21% in July on the Iran re-escalation, the energy channel that produced June’s disinflation is now feeding in the other direction.
BTC spot ETFs pulled in +$533M over the week, keeping the inflow streak alive since mid-July, though the last two sessions went flat into the CPI print.
ETH ETFs ran four straight inflow days into the $50-95M range before pausing, with AUM at $10.2B against BTC’s $76.5B.
HYPE ETFs show no sign of life, with cumulative flows flat around $280M since late June and small redemptions bleeding out through August.
In the Spotlight: Social Trading
The week's spotlight on the timeline has been about Fomo, a non-custodial social trading app, which logged 5 consecutive weeks of all-time-high fees. Fomo raised $75M in a Series B in June.
In response, Pumpfun launched its own social trading feature on August 7.
Word on the street is that they are offering a hefty $20K signing bonus + $30K monthly under exclusivity agreements that require migrating positions from Fomo and linking X accounts. Venues are now paying traders the way athletes are paid, because a copied wallet brings its followers’ order flow with it.
Robinhood Social has been in beta since May, running the same play for equities-native users, and Binance also teased a social trading app yesterday.
All 4 platforms are competing for the same scarce pool of attention in a crabbing market. Fomo has proven that social trading has product-market fit, generating strong revenue. And now everyone wants a piece of that pie.
Derivatives Positioning
Aggregate perp DEX open interest is back to $19.1B, flat on the week after it flushed to about $17.5B in the early-August dip. Positioning that reloads that quickly after a $2.5B flush reads as dip demand rather than deleveraging.
The skew curve confirms the hedges are back on. BTC 25-delta skew is +3.0 at 1W, +3.5 at 1M, +4.0 at 3M, +4.0 at 6M, and +3.7 at 1Y, against 1.6 / 2.7 / 3.7 / 3.9 / 4.5 three weeks ago.
The front end nearly doubled while the 1Y came off, flattening the curve into a shallow hump around 3-4pts at every tenor. Late July’s figures showed a market pricing all near-term events as noise but the oil rebound and the September hike debate have since put the front-month protection back on, and a flat curve at these levels signals low-grade caution.
Prediction Markets
The September FOMC is the market that matters now, with 31% hike and 69% hold after this morning's in-line print.
The Senate delay pushed prediction market odds of the CLARITY Act becoming law in 2026 down to 18% from 82% in February.
Summary
The relief rally stalled this week. July CPI printed close to forecasts, tame enough to avoid panic but still warm enough to keep a September hike on the table. ETF inflows slowed to a trickle into the release, and crypto total market cap sits at $2.2T with BTC ranging at $63-65K. Options desks have also rebuilt the near-term put protection they dropped three weeks ago before the July FOMC.
Onchain, we are seeing Fomo’s copy-trading app exceeding $3M in weekly revenue, and Pumpfun answering by offering financial incentives top traders. In prediction markets, September FOMC now prices in 31% hike odds, and the odds of the CLARITY Act passing have fallen to 18% today.
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