Weekly: Underneath the Surface

Weekly Summary

• Breaking down market areas showing steady growth despite the low volatility environment

• Market update

Underneath the Surface

In the current market environment, it’s easy to get caught up in price action and sentiment swings.

When markets chop sideways and fear dominates the conversation, it can feel like nothing’s happening—or worse, that the space is stagnating.

But price and sentiment tell only part of the story.

While certain metrics naturally ebb and flow with market cycles (trading volumes, active speculation, token launches), the charts we’re highlighting today point to something different: persistent, compounding growth in foundational infrastructure and adoption that continues regardless of whether we’re in a bull run or a drawdown.

These following charts cut through the noise. They show what’s actually being built, used, and scaled—quarter after quarter—even as broader markets remain range-bound and investor sentiment stays cautious. The signal is there if you know where to look.

Adjusted Stablecoin Transaction Volume

Total monthly stablecoin transaction volume has reached $6T for the first time, growing 50% MoM from December.

January 2026 has been the single largest MoM increase in nominal dollar volume on record (+$1.8T) despite the month not even being over. Base has been the largest contributor by chain (66%).

*Adjusted volume here means MEV and intra-exchange volumes are removed from the analysis.

Perpetual Daily Active Users

While perpetual volumes have decreased 75% from their October 2025 peak (largely due to points farming activity), we’ve seen a consistent rise in the number of active users across decentralised perpetual exchanges in the last 2 years.

Perpetual DEXs now see 50-75k daily active users, up ~2x in 12 months. The attractiveness of 24/7 trading platforms is making legacy exchanges want to launch their own 24/7 stock trading platforms.

Launchpad Total Token Launched

The number of tokens offered on launchpads has seen a dramatic rise in 2026, effectively 3x from where we just 1 month ago.

The greatest increase has come from Zora (Base) where content coins continue to be rolled out by creators. Equally, Solana-based token launchers like Pump.fun continue to see a resurgence in appetite as the platform.

One notable reason why is the increase in ‘creator rewards’ where creators are earning greater fees on the volume of their respective tokens if they graduate onto the secondary markets - creating a flywheel of sticky interest.

Market Update

Markets have pared back gains over the last 7 weeks (-7.4%). We see a clear channel forming with BTC.

The decline on Sunday was partially driven by mounting fears over further Government shutdowns on January 30th.

On the Government funding process: only departments that have not been funded will close but it is generally anticipated in Washington that Congress will pass Continuing Resolutions (CR) if areas remain unfunded on Jan 30th given politicians concluded that last year’s shutdown had bad outcomes for everyone.

Despite all of this, sentiment remains at near all-time-lows.

Broader Markets - ‘Business as Usual’

Elsewhere, Gold (orange) continues to blast through previous ATHs ($5,090), sending a clear signal of the liquidity and currency debasement on track over the coming quarters.

This is why we continue to believe global net liquidity (white) growth will continue to accelerate throughout 2026.

Gold (orange) with 80 day lead vs. global net liquidity (white).

On a 180-day lead basis, BTC is trading at its cheapest level relative to gold since July 2022—a period that coincided with cycle lows across several assets, including ETH.

Growing liquidity has also been a primary driver of why we’re seeing equal-weighted US equity indices making new ATHs as well as fast recoveries in the wake of Trump’s rhetoric around Greenland.

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