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More →Crypto Long & Short: Why real-world assets need fixed-rate loans onchain
You're reading <a href="/newsletters/crypto-long-short/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Crypto Long & Short</a>, our weekly newsletter featuring insights, news and analysis for the professional investor. <a href="/newsletters/crypto-long-short/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Sign up here</a> to get it in your inbox every Wednesday. This is your institutional newsletter, Crypto Long & Short. This week: <em>…and if you’re looking for more institutional insights: ETF Central’s <a href="https://www.etfcentral.com/global-etf-survey/2026" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">>Trackinsight Global ETF Survey 2026</a>, produced with Calamos Investments and S&P Dow Jones Indices, finds nearly 7 in 10 professional investors are reassessing their ETF holdings.</em> <em>Plus, CoinDesk’s latest <a href="/research/digital-assets-quarterly-review-and-outlook-q3" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Digital Assets Quarterly Report</a> is out now.</em> <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/kim-klemballa-80101812/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">>- Kim Klemballa</a> <em>by <a href="/author/peter-gaffney" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Peter Gaffney, co-founder, O2O Capital Partners</a></em> Fixed-rate lending is the clearest growth lever for real-world assets (RWAs) in decentralized finance (DeFi). It unlocks a strategy that credit desks have run for decades but DeFi has never meaningfully implemented: buy a quality income asset, borrow against it at a locked rate below the asset’s yield and buy more of the asset. Stablecoins are steadily sitting around $300 billion in <a href="https://app.rwa.xyz/stablecoins" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">>supply</a> and aggregate <a href="https://o2ocapital.com/research/rwa-vaults-institutional-track-record" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">>vault assets</a> are nearing the $20 billion milestone. Morpho alone carries more than <a href="https://data.morpho.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">>$16 billion</a> in deposits, most of it in variable-rate markets priced on pool utilization, which serve crypto-native traders who manage liquid positions in real time but leave longer-dated borrowers with uncertainty. Fixed-rate, fixed-term lending closes that gap by matching the term of the loan to the duration of the collateral, especially for RWAs whose redemptions can settle anywhere from T+7 to T+90. With the borrow cost and maturity known at entry, institutional counterparties can underwrite an RWA looping vault the same way they approve conventional term financing. This is the same bedrock foundation that formed and grew traditional credit markets to $51 trillion in US <a href="https://www.sifma.org/research/statistics/research-quarterly-fixed-income-outstanding" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">>fixed income</a> versus $1.6 trillion in <a href="https://www.lsta.org/content/morningstar-lsta-leveraged-loan-index-analysis-december-2025/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">
Ken Griffin Says AI Is 'Almost Certainly' in a Bubble—And Compares GPUs to Airline Seats
Ken Griffin, founder of the Wall Street giant Citadel, <a href="https://www.marketwatch.com/story/ai-stocks-are-probably-in-a-bubble-but-might-be-worth-holding-onto-says-citadels-ken-griffin-87f535ce" target="_blank" class="sc-adb616fe-0 dJryYS" rel="nofollow">said</a> Tuesday that investors are “almost certainly” in an AI bubble—though he isn’t telling them to dump their AI stocks. “What’s left in the wake of these bubbles, if we want to use that word, is often game changing for the world. And the companies that are on the other side of that bubble are the market leaders for decades to come,” Griffin said at Citadel’s Future of Global Markets Conference in New York on Oct. 20 This reaches beyond tech investors, since the AI buildout has <a href="https://decrypt.co/359175/nvidia-earnings-steady-markets-ai-spending-debate-intensifies" target="_blank" class="sc-adb616fe-0 dJryYS" rel="nofollow">underpinned equity markets</a> over the past year, so many index funds and retirement accounts hold a slice of it. A bubble is what happens when prices climb far faster than the businesses behind them can justify, until reality catches up. Citadel is a hedge fund, a private firm that invests money for wealthy clients and institutions. But the fact that it seems like a bubble isn’t <i>that</i> big a deal if you look at the big picture, according to Griffin. “Any radical transformation of our economy is generally intertwined with a bubble,” he said, recalling the internet boom and adding that he wishes he had kept his Amazon stock. The companies that emerge on the other side of a bubble tend to lead markets for decades, he argued, though he stopped short of predicting a collapse. His own firm is a case study: Griffin said AI agents, software that carries out multistep tasks on its own, cut some high-level Citadel research from weeks to a couple of hours. Griffin compared GPUs, the graphics chips that many companies use to train and run AI models, to airline seats. Both have a very low marginal cost to run, meaning the extra expense of serving one more customer is tiny, so prices can collapse once supply outstrips demand. He pointed to the telecom boom around 2000, when companies laid more fiber-optic cable than demand required and communication prices fell. He also doubted that chips five or six years old, which still earn rental rates he called extraordinary, will keep doing so for another five or six years. Buyers are getting pickier, Griffin said, sorting which jobs justify premium models from OpenAI and Anthropic and which can run on cheaper open-source alternatives, meaning models anyone can download and run on their own computers. Corporate America has been uneven at extracting value from AI, he added, with companies studying their bills from the labs and asking where the productivity is. Gartner forecasts worldwide<a href="https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2025-09-17-gartner-says-worldwide-ai-spending-will-total-1-point-5-trilli
Three addresses have withdrawn a cumulative 24,400 ETH, worth approximately $60.68 million.
According to data from Bijie.com: three addresses have cumulatively withdrawn 24,454 ETH from Kraken and Binance, worth approximately $60.68 million at real-time prices. Among them, one address withdrew 10,954 ETH from Kraken and staked it; another address withdrew 9,000 ETH from Binance and deposited it into AAVE; the last address withdrew 4,500 ETH from Binance.
Ethereum ETF saw a net inflow of $14.98 million, and the SEC postponed its decision.
CoinWorld data: On October 21, net inflows into Ethereum ETFs were $14.98 million, month-to-date net outflows were $1.07 billion, and year-to-date net inflows in 2026 were $699.6 million. The SEC postponed its decision on Nasdaq's request to add staking to BlackRock's Ethereum Trust ($ETHA), with the new decision delayed until October 30, and also postponed decisions on Franklin Templeton's Solana and XRP funds. Specific inflows: $ETHA (BlackRock): -$29.3 million, $ETH (Grayscale Mini): +$28.07 million, $ETHE (Grayscale): $0, $FETH (Fidelity): +$13.03 million, $ETHB (BlackRock Staked): $0, $ETHW (Bitwise): +$890,000, $ETHV (VanEck): $0, $MSSE (Morgan Stanley): +$1.34 million, $EZET (Franklin): +$940,000, $TETH (21Shares): $0, $QETH (Invesco): $0.
Ukraine will procure military supplies through NATO agencies.
According to the UK Financial Times, NATO will allow Ukraine to purchase weapons, ammunition, and military equipment through its central procurement agency; this move is expected to enable Kyiv to obtain defense supplies more quickly and economically. Ukraine is establishing a partnership with the NATO Support and Procurement Agency (NSPA). This move not only brings Ukraine's defense industry closer to its Western allies but also provides it with an additional procurement channel, so that it does not have to rely entirely on bilateral negotiations.
Bitcoin ETF total net inflows reached $528 million, with cumulative inflows of $139 million year to date.
CoinWorld data: On October 21, total net inflows into Bitcoin ETFs reached $528.41 million, with net inflows of $463.3 million month-to-date and cumulative net inflows of $1.39 billion year-to-date in 2026. Grayscale stated that it now accepts in-kind subscriptions, directly exchanging tokens for shares, covering 10 crypto ETFs and trusts, including the Bitcoin Mini Trust. Specific inflows were: BlackRock IBIT: $235 million, Fidelity FBTC: $212.71 million, Grayscale GBTC: $32.59 million, Grayscale Mini BTC: $8.21 million, Bitwise BITB: $19.23 million, ARK ARKB: $9.79 million, VanEck HODL: $0, Morgan Stanley MSBT: $0, Franklin EZBC: $7.31 million, Valkyrie BRRR: $3.57 million, Invesco BTCO: $0, WisdomTree BTCW: $0.
Whales continue to accumulate Ethereum, with large withdrawals from multiple addresses.
CoinWorld data: According to Lookonchain monitoring, whales are continuously accumulating Ethereum. Address 0x4a85 withdrew 10,954 ETH, worth approximately $26.97 million, and staked it after 4 months of inactivity. Address 0xdea6 withdrew 9,000 ETH, worth approximately $22.42 million, and deposited it into AAVE. Address 0xd338 withdrew 4,500 ETH 10 hours ago, worth approximately $11.29 million.
BTC contract long/short account ratio (October 22, 2026, 12:00) is 1.36
CoinWorld data: The BTCUSDT 4-hour long/short account ratio is 1.36, with more net long accounts than net short accounts. Compared with the same-caliber snapshot 24 hours ago, it is down 0.1109; compared with the same-caliber snapshot 7 days ago, it is down 0.421.
Raoul Pal: The AI economic singularity may arrive in 2029.
Benzinga reports that Raoul Pal said the AI economic singularity may arrive in 2029. Meanwhile, Elon Musk warned that building data centers is more challenging than financing them.
BlackRock's Bitcoin ETF saw net inflows of 2,785 BTC this month, totaling $112 million.
CoinWorld data: BlackRock's Bitcoin ETF ($IBIT) recorded a net inflow of 2,785 bitcoins on October 21, equivalent to approximately $235 million at current prices, with trading volume reaching $2.4 billion. BlackRock currently holds 814,263 bitcoins, with cumulative net inflows of $112 million so far this month and total net inflows of $433 million year-to-date in 2026.