Data & Insights: ATH ETH Staked; 10 Friendliest Crypto Countries

So Close Yet So Far

• Bitcoin and Ethereum have both begun a slow recovery from their summer lows, up 30% and 40% in the last 90 days.
  • Despite their recent strength, the two largest cryptocurrencies are still down YTD. Bitcoin fell more than 30%, while Ethereum fell nearly 50% this year before returning to trade near the year’s open.
  • Momentum around the majors is stalling, with both coins pulling back over the last week. Bitcoin currently trades around a key $82k level, and ETH is trading into a $2400 to $2500 range.
• Notably, one of the largest buyers of BTC, Strategy, has slowed its buying over the last few weeks. Cumulative BTC holdings by DATs have remained steady, hovering at 1.13m tokens since May of this year.
  • Strategy trades at only a slight premium multiple to NAV, which helps determine how much stock the DAT can sell to fund more token buying.
  • Strategy also has an additional vehicle for raising capital, STRC. The preferred stock was designed as an additional venue to raise capital, but over the last few months it has done more harm than good. The perpetual dividend attached to STRC caused investor panic, forcing Strategy to build a large cash position and buy back STRC shares instead of accumulating more BTC.
  • As investors become more comfortable with the obligation and size of STRC, it’s likely that the stock will go back to serving its intended purpose of helping Strategy raise capital to buy BTC.

Friendliest Crypto Countries

• As the crypto industry is growing, companies are faced with the challenge of choosing where to domicile and operate. This decision is not made lightly; a country’s regulatory system, technology ecosystem, and ability to operate cross-border are key factors in determining how well a jurisdiction serves a company’s purposes.
  • At The Block, we built the GCCI Index, a measure of how well a jurisdiction can provide the ecosystem a crypto business needs to thrive. We weigh 17 factors across 4 categories to quantify a country’s competitiveness for companies looking to establish a base.
  • The 4 scoring categories are market context, industry, regulation, and cross-border openness.
• Our data show the United States, the United Arab Emirates, and Switzerland form a tight podium. Each country offers a blend of attractive features. The United States offers a strong market with deep liquidity and a large potential customer base. The UAE has the strongest regulatory framework for establishing businesses and robust cross-border infrastructure but a weaker domestic industry. Similarly, Switzerland ranks second for industry, regulation, and cross-border, but has a weaker market context. Switzerland has built a crypto environment that lets companies scale beyond its relatively small local user base.
  • Interestingly, this is reflected in VC data as well. As of September 2026, more than 40% of VC deals have come from one of the three podium countries. When examining the dollar values of these deals, the jurisdictional attractiveness becomes even clearer. Of the $10 billion raised this year, more than 67% has flowed into one of these three countries.
• You can read more about the GCCI in our full report here.

Tokenized Equities Are Growing Faster Than Stables

• New chart alert! As tokenized equities have grown in popularity over the last few weeks, we’ve started tracking the market cap of tokenized equities as a share of stablecoins.
  • Stablecoins are the largest real-world asset onchain, but at just 1.2% of stablecoin market cap, there’s lots of room to grow for equities onchain.
  • For reference, the ratio of U.S. M2 Money Supply to Total U.S. Stock Market Capitalization sits at 0.31, meaning there is about $0.31 of broad liquid money supply for every $1.00 of public equity value.
• Stablecoin supply growth has also plateaued; market capitalization has hovered around this $300 billion level since last year, while tokenized equity market cap has risen nearly 40x over the same period.
  • Tokenizers are racing to market to build network effects. Companies like Binance, xStocks (Kraken), and Ondo are all tokenizing assets for trading. As the niche matures, the leader will likely be built through strong partnerships, deep liquidity, and user adoption.
• Stablecoins have served as a preferred base pair for onchain traders, acting as a safe-haven asset when moving between positions. However, with tokenized stocks, more assets can serve as base pairs.

Commodi-Perps Peak

• Tokenized commodity perps in the month of September recorded ~$169 billion of volume, up over 26% month-over-month (MoM).
  • Centralized exchanges accounted for $150.7 billion of that, a record high, with Binance making up ~65%.
  • September’s record for commodity perps came in the midst of multiple geopolitical headlines, from further strikes in the Strait of Hormuz, Saudi Arabia’s East-West pipeline, and a rate hike by the Federal Reserve.
  • Interestingly, onchain venues did not share in the record.
  • The combined DEX share of commodity perp volume fell to ~10% in September, compared to its record 27% from March.
• On the other hand, tokenized equity perps moved the other way, declining by 38% MoM to ~$386 billion in September.
  • The decline in equity volumes lines up with the same month the Fed raised interest rates, as the S&P 500 also closed down 0.45% on decision day.
  • With this move, the gap between the two products has narrowed sharply.
  • Equity perps did 4.7x commodity perp volume in August. In September, that multiple fell to 2.3x.
  • Month-to-date October figures stand at $54.4 billion for commodity perps and $122.5 billion for equity perps, tracking a similar multiple as September.
  • The Fed’s next meeting and developments in the Strait of Hormuz are the events to watch on how these multiples develop.

High Stakes

• The share of ETH supply staked has reached an all-time high of ~36.4% as of Friday, October 9th.
  • At the beginning of 2026, the ratio stood at 29.8%, thus a 6.55 percentage point increase year-to-date.
  • Back in January 2026, BitMine had over 1.25 million ETH staked, nearly double its position a week earlier, while Grayscale began distributing staking rewards to investors in its Ethereum ETFs.
  • By July 31, the validator entry queue had grown to about 2.5 million ETH with a roughly 43-day wait, while the exit queue at the time was largely empty.
• However, despite the impressive gains in ETH staked in 2026, September was a fairly muted month in comparison to the rest of the year.
  • After three straight months of larger increases, the ratio added just 0.54 points in September, its smallest monthly gain since May.
  • The beginning of September also saw a 0.36-point single-day drop, the largest single-day decline in the data going back to May 2023.
  • It quickly recovered afterwards, with October having added over 0.3 points so far in the month.
  • The exit queue is the metric to watch as the ratio pushes further past 36%.