Markout Labs

Market making and liquidity providing for crypto tokens

[Markout Labs @MarkoutLabs]

Calm price with disagreeing venues means positioning is stacked differently on each book. A gap like this is what arbitrage capital gets paid to close. Whether it closes by funding converging or by price moving is the thing to watch this week.

[Markout Labs @MarkoutLabs]

CoinDesk this morning: Bitcoin volatility is in meltdown, and downside protection still trades at a premium.

The funding market agrees about the calm price and disagrees about everything else. Today the same BTC perpetual costs 10.95% annualised to hold long on OKX, 8.89% on Binance, 5.17% on Bybit.

[Markout Labs @MarkoutLabs]

Funding is the periodic payment that keeps a perpetual near spot. When it is positive, longs pay shorts. A venue where longs pay 10.95% has more impatient long demand than one where they pay 5.17%.

That is a 5.78 point gap across 3 venues quoting the same asset. ETH is wider today: 9.72% on OKX vs 1.96% on Binance.

[Markout Labs @MarkoutLabs]

spreading $2k across 3 CEXes is a mistake.

5 thin books signal worse than 1 real one.

pick the venue where your traders actually are.

put everything there, and let the others be thin honestly.

concentration is underrated.

1 book that absorbs $500 without moving 10% does more for a token than 3 books that print volume and absorb nothing.

[Markout Labs @MarkoutLabs]

Deposits leave first, order books thin next. If your token trades on a shrinking venue, that shows up in your spread and depth before any announcement.

Caveat: wallet tracking has gaps. The direction and scale here are still hard to miss.

[Markout Labs @MarkoutLabs]

CoinDesk reported this week that a sale of BitMEX collapsed. Buyers pointed to a shrinking business.

The shrink was already visible in public wallet data. Over the last 30 days, $248.6M left BitMEX reserves. That is 32.5% of its tracked reserves, excluding exchange issued tokens.

[Markout Labs @MarkoutLabs]

For scale, the next largest 30 day net outflows among fully tracked venues holding over $50M:

Gemini: 7.3% of reserves ($311.7M)
Phemex: 6.8% ($18.2M)
OKX: 4.8% ($1.01B)
Bybit: 4.4% ($531M)

32.5% of reserves leaving in a month is not rotation. It is a different regime.

[Markout Labs @MarkoutLabs]

What this cannot prove: exchange flows cannot separate customer withdrawals from a venue moving its own wallets, and supply is a global aggregate, so it cannot say who redeemed. The tell worth watching: accumulation with growing dry powder is new demand. Accumulation while dry powder shrinks is the same money changing hands.

[Markout Labs @MarkoutLabs]

Whale wallets are accumulating BTC, ETH and XRP, per CryptoQuant. Here is the part of the market's balance sheet that is not cooperating: total stablecoin supply is down $3.15B over the last 30 days, about 1% of the $305.8B outstanding.

[Markout Labs @MarkoutLabs]

Coins are also leaving exchanges. Over 30 days, tracked reserves fell about $1.19B at OKX and $323M at Gemini, while Binance stayed flat. Coins moving out to self custody fits the accumulation story. New cash arriving does not show up anywhere yet.

[Markout Labs @MarkoutLabs]

@CatjakSOL Are you planing to list on any CEX soon?

[Markout Labs @MarkoutLabs]

Why it matters if you run a token: exchange balances are where resting liquidity lives. A one week inflow spike does not refill a thin order book. Watch the 30 day flow on the venues you list on, not the headline.

[Markout Labs @MarkoutLabs]

OKX says the Coldcard exploit drove record inflows to centralized exchanges. Our balance sheet scan of 78 venues shows the biggest ones still net negative over 30 days: OKX down $989M, Bybit down $605M. Both claims can be true at once. Here is the mechanism.

[Markout Labs @MarkoutLabs]

What this data cannot tell you: net flow counts tracked wallets only, and it cannot separate a customer withdrawal from an exchange moving funds between its own wallets. Reserves also say nothing about liabilities. We publish the measurement, not a verdict.

[Markout Labs @MarkoutLabs]

@arbitrum @RWA_xyz As expected 🔥

[Markout Labs @MarkoutLabs]

@Cointelegraph That means its a great accumulation zone not that the bottom is in

[Markout Labs @MarkoutLabs]

@MrWhale We provide support and a healthy market for those strong communities to trade their favorite tickers!

[Markout Labs @MarkoutLabs]

@Bitcoin Haters gonna say its AI