The July 2025 Endowment Report is now available on kpk’s website.
kpk is pleased to present its Community Update for the month of July to the broader ENS Community, to increase awareness and transparency of its activities.
Market Update
- The crypto market extended its rally in July, marking the fourth consecutive month of positive returns.
- BTC gained+9%, reaching a new all-time high above $123K before settling in the $118–$120K range by month-end. ETH significantly outperformed, surging +52%; it briefly exceeded $4,000 before closing in the $3,780–$3,800 range. Institutional inflows reached $11.2B, with Ethereum-based products attracting nearly $5B and Bitcoin products around $5.5B.
- Bitcoin dominance declined slightly (62.34% to 60.87%) as ETH outperformed other majors; some altcoins did incredibly well (ZORA +702%, SPK +290%, ENA +138%, PENGU +127%). Ethena stood out as the rally was accompanied by an increase in USDe supply ($5.3B to $8.6B) and news of Digital Asset Treasury company for ENA. Other top-20 altcoins also ended the month positive, but underperformed ETH (XRP +45%, SOL +35%, BNB +17%, HYPE +3%).
- The total digital asset market capitalisation reached $3.85T at the end of July, up 12.2% from $3.43T in June.
- Crypto funding rates fluctuated significantly during July without reaching extreme levels:
- Off-chain Funding Rates: BTC and ETH funding rates stayed between 3% and 11% on Binance despite the positive price action. Open Interest for Binance BTC and ETH perps saw an increase (BTC Perps: 110K to 130K, ETH Perps: 2.35M to 2.56M)
- On-chain Funding Rates: On Hyperliquid, the rate fluctuations were much more pronounced; ETH funding moved between 6% and 64%, while BTC funding was between 6% and 47%. Open interest for ETH rose sharply from $1.35B to $4B, driven partly by price appreciation but still materially higher. BTC open interest increased from $3B to $4.5B.
Several notable developments in the crypto space in July were:
- Digital Asset Treasuries continued gaining traction and drove demand for ETH.
- BitMine Immersion Tech (BMNR), targeting to hold 5% of total ETH supply, purchased 300K ETH in July, bringing its treasury to 566K ETH.
- Sharplink (SBET) expanded its ETH treasury from 198K to 361K ETH.
- The Ether Machine (DYNX) and Bit Digital (BTBT) also increased their ETH holdings.
- SEC Chair Paul Atkins unveiled “Project Crypto”, a commission-wide push to modernise securities rules and move U.S. financial markets onchain. The plan replaces subjective Howey tests with clear, rule-based token classification. It creates tiered disclosure requirements based on market cap and trading volume. Safe-harbor provisions for tokenised securities and DeFi activities are also included. The draft rules are expected to come in Q4 2025, with potential final adoption by mid-2026. After years of regulatory uncertainty, crypto has a clear path forward.
As noted in previous updates, crypto treasury companies have been rewarded for buying digital assets, outperforming the broader market in the medium term. This has created a virtuous cycle, attracting more participants and driving some further along the risk curve.
However, we remain concerned that if this trend reverses and the market stops allocating surplus value to corporations following this strategy, corporate demand for crypto could dry up. In such circumstances, the premium to net asset value (NAV) of these crypto treasury companies would likely compress, as seen for Grayscale’s premium last cycle. This dynamic remains an important market signal, and we are monitoring it closely as part of our treasury outlook.
ENS Token Update
- Token holder distribution across the top-50 ENS token holders remains relatively unchanged, and concentrated in the hands of centralised exchanges (‘CEXs’) and ENS-related wallets (DAO, ENS Labs, etc.).
- For further information on ENS Governance and Delegation statistics, please refer to ENS DAO Governance Dune dashboard.
- The ENS token’s price increased 37.7% in July, outperforming BTC but lagging behind ETH.
- Trading volume for ENS rose significantly. On the CEX side, Binance’s ENS/USDT daily spot trading volume almost doubled from 333K ENS/day in June to 653K ENS/day in July, and Upbit’s ENS/KRW pair nearly tripled from 474K ENS/day to 1.2M ENS/day.
DAO Financial Update
Endowment Update
Please refer to the July kpk monthly report for further details.
- Asset Allocation
- Assets under management (AUM) of $127.8M, with a capital utilisation ratio of 100.0%.
- Endowment Allocation split into 77.5% ETH ($99M) and 22.5% stablecoins ($28.7M).
- Yield Generation (“DeFi Results”): $312.6K gross yield generated in July.
- Marked-to-market (“MTM”) valuation: increased by $34M, driven by the rise in ETH price.
- Protocol Distribution
- Endowment’s biggest position (protocol exposure) consists of staked ETH in Stader and Stakwise v3 each comprising about 24% of total funds. On the stablecoin side, sUSDS (Sky Savings Rate) is the highest allocation complemented by small allocations to Compound v3 and Aave v3. Morpho lending markets which have been generally comparable or higher than Sky Savings Rate will be introduced in the next permissions update request.
- Across the Endowment’s various positions, no single protocol exceeds 30% of the Endowment’s total exposure.
For further details on our financial accounting, please refer to Financial Reporting Dune Dashboard, as well as the July Steakhouse monthly report, which now presents financial statements both with- and without $ENS tokens.
Other Updates
- Starting July 24th, the Endowment started rebalancing by selling ETH. ~1,142 ETH were sold in July at an average price of ~$3.77k, netting ~$4.3M in stablecoins, which were deployed into yield-generating strategies.