What moves crypto markets, the common ways people value crypto-assets and stablecoins, and how to separate reliable sources from noise.
What moves crypto
- Interest rates and liquidity: crypto has tended to trade as a risk asset.
- Regulation, large inflows and outflows, and supply schedules such as bitcoin's halving.
- Concentrated holders can move thin markets on their own.
Valuing something without cash flows
- Common lenses: network usage (active addresses, fees), supply and issuance, and relative value against peers.
- Tokens that earn protocol fees can be looked at through fee or cash-flow models.
- Every model is an opinion. Say so when you use one.
Stablecoins and tokenized assets
- A stablecoin's value depends on its reserve: what backs it, where it is held and how often it is attested.
- Tokenized real-world assets carry the risks of the underlying asset plus the technology and legal wrapper.
- Read the white paper and the reserve report, not the marketing page.
Sources you can rely on
- Primary sources first: white papers, reserve attestations, on-chain data and regulator registers.
- ESMA publishes an interim register of MiCA white papers, authorised service providers and token issuers.
- Treat social media and paid research as leads to check, not facts.
Red flags
- Guaranteed returns, anonymous teams, unaudited reserves.
- Pressure to act now, or offers that only work if new buyers keep arriving.
- An issuer or provider you cannot find in any regulator's register.
Key takeaways
- Label any valuation as a model, not a fact.
- Check the reserve and the register before trusting a stablecoin or a provider.
- Primary sources beat opinions.
Sources
Educational content only, not legal, tax or investment advice. Based on Regulation (EU) 2023/1114 (MiCA) and related EU texts as of September 2026. Check the official texts before relying on anything here.