In June, two curves are tearing at global venture capital: on one side, South Korea's storage chip exports surged steeply between June 1 and 20 — DRAM up approximately +342% year-on-year, NAND up approximately +336%, MCP including HBM up approximately +209%, and SSD up approximately +405%. This export data, viewed as a barometer for the semiconductor and technology cycle, directly corresponds to strong orders in AI and data centers; on the other side, the crypto market sentiment index fell to 23, indicating "extreme fear". De-leveraging and spot selling pressure forced BTC and ETH, which had been highly correlated with tech stocks, to stand at the far end of the risk curve under the same macro backdrop. Meanwhile, the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial artery for global oil and liquefied natural gas transportation, has once again been pushed to the center of the game — the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Navy announced the closure of the channel, while the U.S. publicly denied that Iran had the right to close it. The U.S. and Iran held technical talks in Switzerland, and former U.S. President Trump proposed a ceasefire period with "zero tolls" and a potential charge after the ceasefire. Against the backdrop of Israel announcing a ceasefire in Lebanon while retaining operations in a so-called "security zone," global expectations for energy and inflation have been raised, resulting in an overall price discounting of risk assets, while U.S. Treasury yields around 3-4% provide a straightforward safe haven for capital. At the same time, on-chain "dollars" are forced to answer an old question: Reeve Collins, co-founder of Tether, pointed out that under the current dollar-pegged coin model, users exchange their money for on-chain dollars, but the majority of interest is exclusively enjoyed by the issuer through assets like U.S. Treasuries. He announced the launch of the dual-token protocol STBL, attempting to return part of the profits to participants. This is not a technical press conference but a proposal for the redistribution of the on-chain dollar's interest rights. The surging chip exports, the instability of the energy channel, high U.S. Treasury rates, and the competition for on-chain dollar profits combined will rewrite the position of BTC, ETH, and on-chain dollar funds in the macro asset spectrum. This article will dissect how these three threads — "chip exports, strait channel, and on-chain dollar profits" — reshape the risk appetite and capital flow in the crypto market.

South Korea's Chip Exports Skyrocket: AI Capital Expenditures Pulling Risk Funds

The early June export report from South Korea redirected global fund managers' attention back to "silicon." As a bellwether for storage chips, South Korea saw DRAM (including modules) exports surge approximately +342% year-on-year between June 1 and 20, showing around a 3% increase month-on-month even with a high base. NAND flash exports increased about +336% year-on-year and about +28% month-on-month. In a more sensitive high-bandwidth segment, MCP (including HBM) exports rose approximately +209% year-on-year and +51% month-on-month, while SSD exports skyrocketed approximately +405% year-on-year. This set of numbers practically serves as a "high prosperity certificate" for the AI and data center cycle, transforming the semiconductor sector's narrative in traditional markets from a "theme" to a high-certainty main line with performance support, significantly elevating the priority of AI hardware capital expenditures.

In this macro context, global institutions' risk budgets will not expand infinitely but will focus on relative allocation between tech growth stocks and high-beta sectors like cryptocurrencies. The 3-4% yield range of U.S. Treasuries provides a risk-free base for dollar funds, while South Korea's record chip exports establish an aggressive pathway for the semiconductor and AI industry chain that is supported by both narrative and cash flow. While the redistribution of on-chain dollar profits is still in contention, Asian investors have already begun making choices with real capital: increasing allocations to Korean stocks and related ETFs while betting on the AI cycle along the export curve of DRAM, HBM, and SSD. Simultaneously, on an emotional level, the crypto market's fear and greed index has dropped to the "extreme fear" phase of 23, with deleveraging and spot selling pressure causing high-beta assets like BTC and ETH to lose relative advantage within the same risk pool, leading to a systematic reduction in regional allocation willingness toward them due to the new wave of AI capital expenditure cycle.

Extreme Fear Phase: Crypto Market's Blood Loss and Underlying Risks in the AI Bull Market

Sentiment typically softens ahead of price. The fear and greed index dropping to 23 marks a typical "extreme fear" phase: investors are collectively pessimistic about short-term pricing, regulatory trends, and the macro environment. Corresponding to this in the market is an increase in spot sell orders and passive deleveraging of derivative leverage, with futures funding rates sliding from their highs or even briefly turning negative. High-beta BTC and ETH were forced to retreat from "offensive assets" to "de-risking priority lists" during this round of emotional pullback. While the exports of DRAM, NAND, MCP, and SSD from South Korea soared year-on-year in early June, yielding rare high-growth certainty for the AI hardware chain, institutions with only a single budget for risk find it easier to vote with their feet: cutting positions in volatile, cash flow-less crypto assets and shifting their chips to semiconductor and AI assets that can present stories through sales, revenue, and capital expenditures.

Extreme fear brings not only price declines but also a reordering of asset pricing benchmarks. On-chain dollars, as a settlement and collateral layer, often choose to "go home" under such emotions: part flows back to dollar banks and money market funds, and part enters risk-free assets like U.S. Treasuries through the asset pool of dollar-pegged coin issuers, which have yields in the 3-4% range. For holders of these currencies, the issue becomes a simple math problem — in a high-interest-rate environment, why bear double volatility for BTC and ETH instead of earning a 3-4% annualized "sleeping income"? As the AI cycle provides a new high-growth track, rising U.S. Treasury yields increase risk-free returns, while the fear index depresses risk appetite in the crypto space, forcing the valuation center of on-chain dollar rates and high-beta assets like BTC and ETH to seek a new balance between "blood loss" and "latent risks."

Strait of Hormuz Games: How Energy Risks Compress Crypto Risk Premiums

While on-chain funds are still weighing the risk-free returns of U.S. Treasuries at 3-4%, the Strait of Hormuz has become a new source of uncertainty. Around June 20, 2024, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Navy announced the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, to which the U.S. immediately denied Iran's closure rights, leading to ongoing technical talks between the U.S. and Iran in Switzerland concerning channel management and the risk of escalating conflicts. Former President Trump proposed that during a 60-day ceasefire period, there would be no tolls for transit through the Strait and that if the U.S. and Iran couldn’t reach an agreement after the ceasefire, the U.S. might impose transit fees. While Israel announced a ceasefire in Lebanon, it retained military operations in a so-called "security zone," leaving the situation in the Middle East unresolved. For the Strait of Hormuz, which carries a significant proportion of global oil and LNG transportation, the accumulation of these signals means that even if the physical channel is not truly blocked, the market must preemptively pay an energy risk premium for the possibility of being "choked off."

Once the risks in the Strait of Hormuz are internalized by oil prices, the downward slope of global inflation expectations will be flattened, forcing central banks to adopt a more conservative approach to interest rate cuts and possibly reverting to a hawkish stance, with high interest rates "staying longer" becoming the baseline scenario. In this macro environment of rising discount rates, the valuation space for high-beta assets like BTC and ETH is compressed: on one hand, during escalating geopolitical conflicts, some funds may try to explain short-term price support through "digital gold" narratives; on the other hand, in actual trading, they are more like duration assets reliant on liquidity, ultimately dictated by the liquidity tightness and interest rate expectations rather than any single safe-haven logic. For holders, this means that every moment of tension and easing in the Strait of Hormuz is essentially rewriting the macro discount rates that BTC and ETH face and the weight of the "safe-haven / risky asset" narrative.

Who Takes the Profits: STBL Aims to Rewrite the Dollar-Pegged Coin Game

Reeve Collins' criticism points to a problem that has been deliberately downplayed for years: in the existing dollar-pegged coin model, users send dollars into a black box while the issuers invest the money into short-term U.S. Treasuries, reverse repos, and other assets, with 3-4% annual returns almost entirely remaining on the issuers' balance sheets. Users bear the inflation, fund lock-in, and counterparty risks but do not receive even a 1 basis point interest share. With current U.S. Treasury yields remaining high, coupled with large amounts of on-chain dollars, this "invisible interest margin tax" is amplified into astronomical numbers, making it easier to be interpreted as a systemic deprivation in an environment where risk appetite has already dropped to "extreme fear," rather than a mere choice of business model.

STBL attempts to re-segment this interest margin at the protocol level. The dual-token structure announced by Collins essentially returns some profits to holders and participants, transforming on-chain dollars from merely being "non-interest bearing liabilities" on CeFi balance sheets into interest-bearing cash flow entrances. If this logic holds, then the existing funds concentrated in centralized dollar-pegged coins will have the incentive to migrate to this new profit-sharing model; the foundational interest rate curves for on-chain lending protocols, decentralized exchanges, and cross-chain bridges will have to be re-priced based on "who surrenders the U.S. Treasury interest margin." For BTC and ETH, once on-chain dollars start systematically raising the risk-free interest rate anchor, the discount rates for high-beta assets will rise, likely leading to long-standing valuation pressures. For traditional leaders used to monopolizing profits, the emergence of STBL signifies a slow but continuous squeeze: users will start to question not just "Is it safe?" but "Who is taking away my rightful share of profits?"

From Chips to the Strait: Next, Observe Where Funds Flow

The surge in South Korean storage chip exports to the uncertainties of the Strait of Hormuz presents a macro combination resembling a "real economy recovery + energy risks + high interest rates" trifecta: on one side is the recovery of prosperity in the AI and semiconductor chain, with complete export data for June from South Korea yet to be released, leaving the market to gauge how far this prosperity can extend with preliminary statistics from the 1st to the 20th; on the other side, the situation in the Strait of Hormuz and the Middle East ceasefire arrangements remains unstable, with oil prices and inflation expectations lifted, making U.S. Treasury yields of 3-4% appear more attractive in this uncertainty. In the face of extreme fear and a battle for risk-free interest rates, high-beta assets like BTC and ETH need to achieve real meaningful repricing, which will only happen once inflation has clearer signs of easing or liquidity expectations fundamentally shift toward looseness, rather than relying solely on emotional recovery; a fear and greed index of 23 indicates potential rebound elasticity but is insufficient to counteract rising discount rates. On the on-chain level, profit-sharing dollar-pegged coins like STBL attempt to rewrite the rules of dollar profit distribution, but details regarding protocol technology and token economics remain unrevealed, leading to significant uncertainty over acceptance. This implies that in the coming period, how the on-chain interest rate curve is re-priced and whether funds flow from traditional leaders to new protocols will become key signals for judging whether risk appetite is warming. For investors, the focus will be on three lines: whether subsequent export data from South Korea can confirm a new round of semiconductor cycle, the developments in the Strait of Hormuz and Middle East that might push oil prices and inflation to new levels, and the progress of new dollar coin experiments in terms of regulation and market implementation. Only when at least one of these lines converges toward "low inflation + looser policies + higher predictable on-chain risk-free interest rates" will crypto funds have a greater probability of shifting from a defensive stance back to an offensive one.

Join our community to discuss together and become stronger!
Exclusive Hyperliquid benefits for AiCoin: https://app.hyperliquid.xyz/join/AICOIN88
Exclusive Aster benefits for AiCoin: https://www.asterdex.com/zh-CN/referral/9C50e2
On-chain Telegram community: https://t.me/AiCoinWhaleData
On-chain community: https://www.aicoin.com/link/chat?cid=N6OVMor5g
AiCoin on-chain Twitter: https://x.com/aicoinwhaledata

免责声明：本文章仅代表作者个人观点，不代表本平台的立场和观点。本文章仅供信息分享，不构成对任何人的任何投资建议。用户与作者之间的任何争议，与本平台无关。如网页中刊载的文章或图片涉及侵权，请提供相关的权利证明和身份证明发送邮件到support@aicoin.com，本平台相关工作人员将会进行核查。