As of the most recent trading day data within this week in the Eastern Eight Time Zone, the net inflow for the Ethereum spot ETF was approximately $4.9583 million, and for the Bitcoin spot ETF was approximately $69.4404 million, with funds realigning among mainstream chain assets. Meanwhile, the risk curve on the other end has been rapidly raised—Starcloud announced completing a $170 million Series A financing round, with a latest valuation of about $1.1 billion, accumulating total financing of about $200 million, taking roughly 17 months from YC Demo Day to unicorn status. As liquidity flows back into financial products on-chain, funds are also betting on narratives like space computing power and orbital data centers, raising a new allocation question: how should institutions slice chips between "tradeable Ethereum and Bitcoin ETFs" and "hard-to-price space computing unicorns" on the same balance sheet?

Two Main Lines of Net Influx for ETFs

The Ethereum and Bitcoin spot ETFs again recorded net inflows, but the comparison of strength is quite stark. On a daily basis, the net inflow for the Ethereum spot ETF was about $4.9583 million, while the Bitcoin spot ETF absorbed about $69.4404 million, with the latter's volume being more than ten times that of the former, indicating that within traditional financial accounts, Bitcoin still serves as the higher-weighted "core asset," while Ethereum primarily plays a role of increment and supplement.

Breaking it down at the individual product level, the concentration of funds and institutional preferences are more intuitive. On the Ethereum side, Fidelity's FETH had a daily net inflow of approximately $10.5609 million, having clearly surpassed the total net inflow of the entire Ethereum spot ETF, indicating that under this statistical scope, other products face outflows or close-to-zero inflows, with funds concentrating towards a few leading issuers. On the Bitcoin side, the ARKB ETF, developed by Ark Invest and 21Shares, had a daily net inflow of around $33.0297 million, similarly ranking among the top in all Bitcoin ETFs, enhanced by brand effects, making it a primary vehicle for "offensive" funds.

It is crucial to emphasize that this data is from a single source, and not authoritative statistics verified by multiple parties; therefore, it is more suitable as a local sample to observe the direction and preference of funds rather than the sole basis for constructing a complete panorama of fund flows. Daily net inflows themselves also carry strong noise attributes, easily magnified by individual large redemptions; attempting to deduce long-term trends or permanent preferences from it is neither robust nor may mislead judgments on risk rhythms.

Wall Street's Decision Between ETFs and Cutting-edge Technology

For traditional financial institutions, the path to allocate Bitcoin and Ethereum through spot ETFs has become highly familiar: compliance frameworks are clear, redemption mechanisms are mature, and custody and valuation systems are integrated with traditional assets, which fundamentally aligns with their past participation in commodity ETFs and gold ETFs. In contrast, early-stage tech stocks or private equity investments belong to entirely different tracks—requiring enduring high uncertainty, prolonged liquidity lock-up periods, and valuation returns brought by dual evolutions of technology and regulation.

If we place the daily net inflow of approximately $69.4404 million for the Bitcoin ETF against Starcloud's $170 million Series A financing on a horizontal axis of capital scale, we can see two completely different risk-return curves. The funds from the ETF side often come from pensions, family offices, and asset management institutions, which value liquidity that allows for timely repositioning and relatively predictable risk exposure; whereas the $170 million invested in early-stage cutting-edge tech companies like Starcloud predominantly comes from venture capital and growth stock funds represented by Benchmark and EQT Ventures, which are more willing to endure "potentially zero or tenfold" high beta outcomes.

Therefore, the asset allocation strategy for institutions often reflects this: using Bitcoin and Ethereum spot ETFs to construct a "certain cash flow and valuation anchor"—management fees, market making, and volatility trading can all contribute stable returns; then utilizing projects like Starcloud to add a few high-risk long-term options. The former resembles a "formal position" on the books that can be regulated and audited, while the latter is a "frontier exploration budget" written in the investment committee memorandum, with both hedging and balancing each other on the same balance sheet.

Starcloud's Accelerated Path to Unicorn Status

The story of Starcloud, from a temporal dimension, feels quite compressed: based on public information, in about 17 months after YC Demo Day, it was rated by the market as one of the "fastest startups in Y Combinator's history to achieve unicorn status", currently valued at around $1.1 billion. In a context where most tech infrastructure projects require years of iterations to approach a billion-dollar valuation, this pace itself constitutes a kind of "funds' vote."

This round of $170 million Series A financing was led by Benchmark and EQT Ventures, alongside previous rounds of financing, Starcloud's cumulative financing has reached approximately $200 million. This capital lineup indicates that, apart from the early validation by the YC system, it has been included in the "key holdings list" of front-line venture capital and large institutional investors. For institutions that only allocate ETFs in traditional public markets, Starcloud's valuation and story may still be off their radar, but for funds focusing on cutting-edge tech, especially those tagged with a long-term infrastructure focus, this is almost a "narrative ticket" that must be participated in.

It is also due to the label of being "one of the fastest in YC history" that Starcloud appears particularly rare among similar early-stage projects. It is not only competing for orbital resources and computing power markets but also seizing the pricing power of the narrative of cutting-edge technology—when a company can push its valuation to the billion-dollar level in just over a year, each subsequent financing round and satellite will be considered a key node for validating or correcting the overall pricing of the "space computing power" track.

The Boundaries and Gaps of the New Narrative of Space Computing Power

Starcloud tells an external story of a computing infrastructure blueprint extending from ground data centers into space: by deploying hardware and data centers in orbit, it constructs a new type of computing supply network that is not entirely constrained by geographical and land factors. In this vision, computing power is no longer limited to high-latitude cold regions or areas with low energy costs, but partially migrates to the orbital layer, working in conjunction with ground nodes, forming humanity's first truly "space computing layer."

Compared to traditional Bitcoin mining farms, potential space computing projects exhibit significant differences in geographical properties, regulatory environment, and energy logic. Ground mining farms must face factors such as national regulations, grid access, land use rights, and community relations, while facilities in orbit may involve space treaties, multinational regulatory coordination, and new forms of insurance pricing. In terms of energy, traditional mining farms heavily rely on the seasonality and locality of hydropower, thermal power, or wind and solar resources, whereas space solutions are often associated with more stable solar power or other forms of spatial energy, but these concepts are still distant from verifiable business models.

Equally important is that all details regarding Starcloud's future satellite batches, whether to carry specific types of computing power equipment, and the target power costs of orbital data centers are currently undisclosed or awaiting verification. Research briefs clearly state that the fabrication of any specific satellite performance data or operational milestone timelines is prohibited, which means that what the market can currently grasp is more a high-concept narrative and a fundraising list rather than a detailed technical manual. At this stage, viewing space computing power as "early, rough long-term options" rather than a fully-formed infrastructure asset better aligns with its real risks and uncertainties.

Old Miners' Choices and New Funds' Bets

As macro funds flow back into ETFs and venture capital embraces space computing power, individual stories also provide a different scale. According to public statements, F2Pool co-founder Wang Chun sold his apartment in Thailand for 7 BTC; the same source states that he purchased this property in 2015 for about 2900 BTC. The contrast between buying a house with thousands of Bitcoins and selling it for single-digit Bitcoins almost condenses the price cycle of Bitcoin over the past decade into one person and one asset.

If we juxtapose this reallocating asset story with the current net inflows of Bitcoin and Ethereum spot ETFs and Starcloud's Series A financing on the same canvas, an interesting contrast forms: on one side, "old miners" are making subtractions at high points, monetizing their past computing power dividends into more consumable and defensive fiat assets; on the other side, "new money" and institutions allocate funds into mainstream on-chain assets through ETFs or bet on cutting-edge projects like Starcloud, trying to seize the advantage in the next round of technical and liquidity cycles. The former is a bottom line on the risk-return of the past cycle, while the latter continuously bets on future uncertainties.

It should be clarified that the specific time and price details regarding the Thai property transaction come from a single source, and the research brief emphasizes that no further personal privacy information should be inferred or extrapolated as a general market trend. This is better suited as a sample of sentiment and mindset—showing that after experiencing several rounds of bull and bear cycles, even deep participants choose to reallocate chips at certain points—instead of being used to deduce macro conclusions like "all early miners are selling."

The Endpoints of Two Tracks and Possible Convergence

Returning to the capital layer, on one end is the accelerated financialization of Ethereum and Bitcoin spot ETFs: redemption channels are becoming increasingly smooth, the ecosystem for managers and market makers is continuously expanding, allowing traditional financial institutions to gain exposure to crypto assets in a familiar manner within compliance boundaries; on the other end, represented by Starcloud's narrative of space computing power and orbital data centers, quickly attracting hundreds of millions in venture capital on technology and business models yet to be fully validated, becoming a new battlefield for cutting-edge tech fund games.

In this structure, a relatively clear judgment is: in the short to medium term, spot ETFs will continue to be the core tool for mainstream institutions to allocate crypto assets. They carry the funds' long-term judgments on Bitcoin and Ethereum and serve as the cornerstone for building multi-asset portfolios and derivative products. Projects like Starcloud, on the other hand, resemble "high-risk long-term options" that are only open to a few funds, with entry located in VC and growth stock funds, and thresholds based on technological judgment abilities and deep understanding of regulation and the aerospace industry chain, which won’t become standard allocations for most institutions in the short term.

Even more interesting is the potential intersection of these two narratives in the future. Regulatory environments will determine whether ETFs and space computing projects can be implemented and gain institutional capital in more jurisdictions; the progress of technological deployment will validate whether space computing power can evolve from concept to a measurable asset class; while macroeconomic liquidity cycles will amplify or compress the risk premiums of these two asset ends. In a certain sense, if space computing power and orbital data centers ultimately evolve into stable, predictable infrastructures, they may also be repackaged into new financial products, or even give rise to ETFs linked to a "space computing power index"—by that time, the seemingly diverging paths today might converge once again in the depths of financial engineering and infrastructure evolution.

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