Alpha Navigator: Quest for Alpha [August 2025]
Equities increased in Aug, while Crypto, Real Assets, and Fixed Income were mixed. Australia, New Zealand and UK reduced interest rates, China left interest rates unchanged.
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Executive Summary
- Equities increased in Aug, while Crypto, Real Assets, and Fixed Income were mixed. ETH led the increase and reached an all-time high above $4,900 on 24 Aug. BTC also reached an all-time high above $124,000 on 14 Aug.
- Australia, New Zealand and UK reduced interest rates, China left interest rates unchanged. US trade tariffs took effect on 7 Aug, ranging from 10% to 50% and impacting dozens of US trading partners. US Fed Chairman Powell mentioned that the current economic outlook “may warrant” adjustments to the Fed’s policy stance. The US Core Personal Consumption Expenditures Price Index rose 2.9% year-over-year, in line with the Dow Jones consensus forecast, representing the highest annual increase since Feb.
- BTC reached a new all-time high (ATH) above $124,000 on 14 Aug, and ETH reached an ATH above $4,900 on 24 Aug. Prices dipped in the second half of the month, coinciding with uncertainties around US FOMC minutes and the US Core Personal Consumption Expenditures Price Index showing the highest annual increase since Feb.
- Key macro events in Sep include interest rate decisions from the US, UK, Eurozone, Australia, Canada, China, and Japan.
- BTC’s 1-month performance correlation was positive with most Equity indices, but negative with Real Assets and Fixed Income.
- US spot BTC ETFs saw $749M in net outflows in Aug — the 1st monthly outflow after 4 consecutive months of net inflows.
- Market-Neutral Pair Trader hunts for strongly correlated tokens and potential market-neutral pair trades. ARB/OP (0.91) showed the strongest price performance correlation, followed by DOT/ATOM (0.88).
- For the BTC vs. ETH pair, the price ratio (BTC price divided by ETH price) dropped from the mean level to below -1 standard deviation (SD) in Aug, as ETH gained more institutional interest.
- Our style-factor screens track momentum, value, growth, and risk for the Layer-1 and Layer-2, DeFi, Gaming, and NFT categories. Below is the screen for selected top crypto tokens by market cap in the Layer-1 and Layer-2 category. Most Layer-1 and Layer-2 token prices rallied in Aug, with CRO (+118%) leading the surge.
- Our events section shows recent and upcoming events for selected tokens, as well as important macroeconomic events.
| Token | 1M Price Change | Events |
| Bitcoin (BTC) | -7.68% | US spot BTC ETFs saw $749M in net outflows in Aug. BTC reached a new all-time high above $124,000 in mid-Aug. |
| Ether (ETH) | 14.86% | US spot ETH ETFs recorded $3.9B in net inflows in Aug. ETH led the increase and reached an all-time high (ATH) above $4,900 on 24 Aug. Ethereum’s on-chain volume reached a record high of $341B in Aug, surpassing previous highs from May 2021. Ethereum Foundation outlined a roadmap to improve its user experience and interoperability, which consists of 3 streams: initialisation (Open Intents Framework for modular infrastructure), acceleration (targets latency), and finalisation (integrates finality and zk-SNARKs). |
| Cronos (CRO) | 111.37% | CRO’s bull run coincided with the announcement of Crypto.com’s strategic partnership with Trump Media and the establishment of Trump Media Group CRO Strategy, a new entity that will invest $6.4B to build a CRO treasury. |
| XRP (XRP) | -7.95% | The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) lawsuit with Ripple Labs officially ended after the parties agreed to dismiss their respective appeals, and each party will bear their own costs. The lawsuit began in 2020 after the SEC sued Ripple for allegedly violating securities law through selling XRP. |
| Chainlink (LINK) | 37.05% | The US government selected Chainlink to publish economic data on-chain. Chainlink partnered with Intercontinental Exchange, the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange, to bring foreign exchange and precious metals pricing data on-chain. |
| Hyperliquid (HYPE) | 8.31% | Hyperliquid reached an all-time high above $50 on 27 Aug, which coincided with record trading activity on the exchange. |
| Synthetix Network (SNX) | 16.95% | Synthetix is shutting down its remaining function on Optimism by September and returning to the Ethereum Mainnet to launch a high-performing perpetual futures marketplace. |
Read the full Alpha Navigator report: Alpha Navigator: Quest for Alpha [August 2025]
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