Research hub
Insights: reviews, signals and market analytics
Three desks, one standard of evidence. Every venture review carries a scorecard, every signal note shows its drawdown, and every market piece cites primary sources.
Venture reviews
Deep dives on blockchain ventures, gold-backed tokens and tokenised real-world assets, scored against a published verification framework.
open desk →Trading signals
How systematic crypto strategies actually behaved: drawdowns, hit rates and the flow data behind the moves.
open desk →Market analytics
Broad market trends across regulation, stablecoin supply, exchange security and settlement infrastructure.
open desk →Strategy backtest visualiser
Twelve months of indexed performance for the systematic strategies the desk tracks. Past behaviour is not a forecast, and the drawdown column matters more than the headline.
Long-only momentum with a volatility filter. Sits in cash when trend strength collapses, which is where most of the drawdown protection comes from.
| Modelled end value | £8,150 |
|---|---|
| Modelled gain | £3,150 |
| Worst drawdown | -18.4% (£920) |
| Winning months | 47% |
Illustrative model. Research only, not investment advice.
Latest across the desks
PositiveTokenised CommoditiesFCA drafts tokenised gold rules as London defends its bullion franchise
The Financial Conduct Authority has signalled that tokenised gold will feature in its wider digital-asset rulemaking, as issuance of metal-backed tokens moves onto public blockchains and London weighs the risk to its position as the leading bullion hub.
Daniel Voss · August 13, 2026
PositiveStablecoinsHong Kong's first bank-issued regulated stablecoin reaches the market
Hong Kong's stablecoin licensing regime has produced its first live bank-backed Hong Kong dollar token, with supervised reserves and redemption obligations, and a very small number of approved issuers behind it.
Yuki Sato · August 13, 2026
NeutralRegulationSEC advances a tailored crypto rulebook as market-structure legislation stalls
The SEC is advancing a purpose-built framework for digital-asset issuance, custody and trading, moving ahead of stalled market-structure legislation and raising the question of how durable agency-made rules can be.
Priya Nair · August 13, 2026
NeutralRegulationBank of Russia proposes regulated crypto trading with tight retail limits
Russia's central bank has proposed permitting trading of major digital assets on licensed domestic exchanges, with access weighted heavily towards qualified investors and strict limits for everyone else.
Priya Nair · August 13, 2026
NeutralRegulationJapan confronts the tax gaps opening up as stablecoin payroll spreads
As Japanese firms experiment with paying staff and contractors in stablecoins, industry bodies are forming tax committees to address unresolved questions on withholding, valuation timing and reporting obligations.
Yuki Sato · August 13, 2026
NeutralMarketsBitcoin trades the rate path as August policy expectations swing
Bitcoin's August trading has tracked shifting expectations for the next policy decision more closely than any crypto-native catalyst, with options positioning clustered around the meeting date and spot volumes thinning between it.
Hannah Weiss · August 11, 2026
PositiveMarketsSolana exchange-traded products draw steady inflows as the altcoin ETP field widens
Exchange-traded products tracking Solana have accumulated inflows in a steadier, smaller-ticket pattern than the bitcoin funds did at the same stage, suggesting allocation through model portfolios rather than tactical trading.
Hannah Weiss · August 11, 2026
PositiveStablecoinsStablecoin supply sets a fresh record as settlement volume outgrows trading
Aggregate stablecoin supply reached a new high in August 2026, with a growing proportion of transfer volume coming from settlement and treasury use rather than exchange trading.
Sofia Marchetti · August 10, 2026
NeutralRWA ReviewBanks push tokenised deposits from pilot into production settlement
Large banks have moved tokenised deposit platforms from pilot into production for intraday corporate settlement, raising the question of whether permissioned bank ledgers will ever interoperate with public blockchains.
Emma Lindqvist · August 10, 2026
NeutralRegulationCFTC advances listing standards for leveraged spot crypto products
Rulemaking at the CFTC covering leveraged spot crypto products is setting margin, customer segregation and default-management expectations that will shape how US venues structure retail accounts.
Priya Nair · August 9, 2026
NeutralRegulationFCA sets out its retail crypto access regime, and the lift on ETN restrictions bites
The UK regulator's retail crypto regime pairs wider access to crypto exchange-traded notes with appropriateness testing, prescribed risk warnings and cooling-off requirements for platforms.
Priya Nair · August 9, 2026
PositiveStablecoinsEuro-denominated stablecoins finally get competitive as MiCA licensing settles
With MiCA authorisations in place, several credible euro-denominated stablecoins are competing for a market whose main limitation is now trading liquidity rather than regulatory uncertainty.
Sofia Marchetti · August 8, 2026
NeutralDealsDerivatives consolidation reshapes the exchange league table
A run of derivatives acquisitions has concentrated open interest across fewer venues, as spot fee compression pushes exchanges toward margin-driven revenue.
Tomas Reyes · August 8, 2026
CriticalSecurityCross-chain bridge exploit revives the case against custodial message passing
A cross-chain bridge lost a substantial sum to a compromise of its validator set, repeating a failure pattern documented in most major bridge incidents of the past five years.
Hiroshi Tanaka · August 7, 2026
CriticalSecurityState-linked laundering flows draw fresh enforcement attention
Investigators report that laundering pipelines linked to sanctioned actors have shortened conversion times and increased cross-chain hops, while remaining traceable at the off-ramp.
Hiroshi Tanaka · August 7, 2026
NeutralRWA Review10 checks to run before you buy any tokenised real-world asset
Tokenised real-world assets passed $36bn in August 2026, but our own tracker finds only 45 percent of the programmes we grade publish a full independent audit. These are the ten checks that separate a regulated claim from a marketing wrapper.
Daniel Voss · August 6, 2026
NeutralMarketsWhy tokenised treasuries now dominate the real-world-asset market
Tokenised treasuries and money-market funds account for 10 of the 22 programmes in our RWA tracker and the overwhelming majority of value on-chain. The reason is regulatory, not technological, and the concentration carries a cost.
Lena Whitfield · August 6, 2026
NeutralStablecoinsHow to verify a stablecoin's reserves yourself, in six steps
Six of the nine stablecoins in our tracker publish attestations rather than audits, and one publishes neither. Here is a repeatable, six-step method for checking reserve quality using nothing but public documents and a block explorer.
Sofia Marchetti · August 6, 2026
Weekly Alpha
One email a week: the reviews, flows and risk notes that mattered.
No trading calls, no referral links. Unsubscribe requests are handled by the same desk that publishes the research.