🏛️ U.S. Treasury Wants Your Input
🗞️ Where Wall Street Meets DeFi
💰 Yield Recap
📈 Weekly Market Review

This week, I tracked how U.S. stablecoin policy is taking shape and found something worth paying attention to.

Treasury is asking for input on how the GENIUS Act should work in practice, including access for foreign-issued stablecoins. If you care about a workable path into the U.S. market, I’d recommend submitting feedback while the rules are still being shaped.

I also kept an eye on tokenized equities. They now make up 15% of the RWA market, with nearly $2.8 billion in market cap, while Ondo, Binance bStock, and xStocks account for 77% of the space. Hermetica is already positioned to benefit from that growth through STRCx in the USDh backing mix.

My read is that the market is getting more serious on both fronts: regulation and infrastructure.

The U.S. Department of the Treasury is shaping access to the U.S. stablecoin market, and it wants to hear from you before the rules are finalized. 

The GENIUS Act created the first federal framework for payment stablecoins in the U.S., setting broad rules around issuance, reserves, compliance and market access. Now, Treasury is defining how those rules work in practice.

Its latest proposal sets out rules for who can issue or offer stablecoins in the U.S., how foreign-issued stablecoins can reach U.S. users, and where exemptions or safe harbors should apply.

Those definitions will shape which stablecoins can reach U.S. users and how exchanges, wallets, custodians, and protocols can support them.

Hermetica supports rules that protect users while preserving a workable path for compliant stablecoins to serve the U.S. market. For us, the key questions are how foreign-issued stablecoins are treated and what obligations fall on the service providers supporting them.

Treasury is asking for industry feedback before the rules are finalized.

If you want compliant stablecoins to have a workable path into the U.S. market, this is the moment to weigh in on how foreign-issued stablecoins should be treated, where responsibility should sit, and what safeguards are actually necessary. 

Read Treasury's proposal and submit your response.

Traditional equities are becoming building blocks for on-chain finance.

The Block reports that tokenized equities now represent 15% of the RWA market, roughly triple their share at the start of the year, with market cap approaching $2.8 billion. RWA transfer volume also doubled in August to $20 billion.

Ondo, Binance bStock, and xStocks now control 77% of the tokenized equity market, creating increasingly liquid rails through which stocks can move into wallets, protocols, collateral systems, and yield products.

Hermetica is already using that infrastructure through xStocks’ STRCx. Tokenized exposure to Strategy’s STRC preferred stock now sits inside the USDh backing mix, with allocations visible through the Transparency Dashboard and monthly attestations.

The market is expanding quickly. Ondo now offers 260+ tokenized U.S. stocks and ETFs, Kraken lists 100 xStocks, and BNB Chain users can access 709+ tokenized stocks through multiple providers.

As more institutional-grade assets come on-chain, Hermetica gains a broader set of assets to use as collateral, backing, and yield sources across products like USDh.

This week's reward for HODLing:

hBTC: 1.3%
USDh: 8.0%

If you’re going to wait, the waiting room might as well pay.

Bitcoin broke out this week, moving from last week’s $63,753 close to roughly $76,690. Price reclaimed the 7-day, 30-day, 200-week, and 180-day moving averages, marking the clearest improvement in market structure in weeks. BTC is now trading above the 180-day SMA at $69,031, with the next major trend level at the 360-day SMA near $83,022.

The move coincided with three supportive forces: lower pressure on long-end rates, renewed U.S. crypto policy momentum, and forced short-covering. The U.S. Treasury’s plan to expand long-end buybacks from $2B to at least $4B per operation helped ease bond-market stress and reduce pressure from long-end yields. At the same time, the White House crypto meeting put the CLARITY Act back in focus, while broader SEC safe-harbor proposals helped markets price lower regulatory uncertainty. Spot Bitcoin ETFs turned that backdrop into demand, taking in roughly $1.61B across four sessions. As price pushed higher, shorts were forced to cover, adding fuel to the breakout, with roughly $1.4B in short liquidations during Wednesday’s move.

Data Summary:

Simple Moving Averages (SMAs) in Figure 1:

Bitcoin extended the breakout this week and is now trading well above the 7-day SMA at $67,756, the 30-day SMA at $64,934, the 200-week SMA at $64,284, and the 180-day SMA at $69,031. This is a major shift from last week, when BTC was still trying to reclaim the 200-week SMA.

The key support zone has moved higher to $68,900-69,000, around the reclaimed 180-day SMA. Holding above that level would keep the breakout structure intact. Below it, support sits near $67,800, followed by the $64,300-65,000 moving-average cluster where the 30-day SMA and 200-week SMA sit. Near-term resistance levels are $78,000-80,000, $83,000, and $85,000, with the 360-day SMA at $83,022 still the larger bull-trend confirmation level.

Net inflows totaled $1.61B this week.

Spot Bitcoin ETF flows reversed after last week’s $389.71M of net outflows. The complex recorded four consecutive inflow days from August 17 to August 20, peaking at $606.29M on August 20. Cumulative spot Bitcoin ETF net inflows now stand at $53.40B, while total spot Bitcoin ETF net assets rose to $90.16B.

August net inflows now stand at $2.07B, compared with just $172.43M for all of July, and spot Bitcoin ETF net assets now represent 6.18% of Bitcoin’s market cap.

DVOL rose to 42.81% from 35.36% last week, extending the repricing in Bitcoin implied volatility as BTC broke into the upper-$70,000s. Options markets are no longer pricing the compressed, range-bound setup that defined early August. The move looks more like demand for upside exposure and event optionality than panic hedging.

IV Rank remains low at 17.9, meaning current implied volatility is still well below the top of its one-year range. IV Percentile has risen to 52.7, meaning implied volatility is now higher than it was on slightly more than half of trading days over the past year.

The equal-weighted basis across observed maturities rose to 4.86% APR from 4.82% last week. The curve remains positive, with the front end still carrying the strongest premium. August 28 is now the curve high at 5.95%, while March 26, 2027 is the curve low at 4.29%, leaving a low-to-high spread of roughly 1.7 percentage points.

The front end is now firmly inside the 5%-8% range typically seen in stronger carry conditions, with August 28 at 5.95%, September 4 at 5.07%, and September 11 at 5.18%. Farther out, the curve settles lower, with September 25 at 4.69%, October 30 at 4.38%, December 25 at 4.47%, and March 26, 2027 at 4.29%. Carry is improving and points to stronger short-dated demand, but not yet aggressive leverage across the full term structure.

The main macro event this week came from Treasury. The U.S. Treasury said it would at least double long-end buybacks from $2B to $4B per operation starting September 9, targeting 10-year to 30-year nominal Treasuries. That is not QE, but it is a direct liquidity-support operation for the part of the bond market where stress has been most visible. Long-end yields eased after the announcement and the dollar weakened, reducing one macro headwind for BTC. The move also coincided with renewed U.S. crypto policy momentum after President Trump hosted crypto and market-structure executives at the White House and urged Congress to pass the CLARITY Act. Spot Bitcoin ETFs confirmed the shift in demand, recording $517.19M of inflows on August 19, the largest daily inflow since May 4.

The main macro constraint on Bitcoin’s breakout is still energy. President Trump increased economic pressure on Iran, and oil jumped as markets priced renewed risk around the Strait of Hormuz. WTI rose nearly 4% to $87.51, while Brent moved above $94. Higher oil keeps headline inflation risk alive, which can make it harder for the Fed to ease and keep yields and the dollar firmer. This does not directly weaken BTC, but it can tighten the liquidity backdrop around the move. BTC’s breakout is now supported by ETF demand, policy momentum, and lower bond-market stress, but it still needs to hold above reclaimed trend levels while energy risk remains elevated.

Sincerely,
The Hermetica Team