I've seen people recently conclude that "an increase in stablecoin supply = OTC money flowing into ETFs = a sign of takeoff" based on this chain of reasoning... I admit the correlation is quite tempting, but don't rush to treat it as causation.

A rise in stablecoins might be due to market makers/hedge positions moving around, or it could just be everyone switching to "crypto cash" to wait and see, or even cross-chain and cross-exchange arbitrage expanding the statistical scope, making it look lively but not necessarily meaningful.

I'm more concerned about the path the money takes after coming in: whether it goes directly to spot trading on exchanges, or loops through OTC, then gets routed into pools in segments; when the path changes, the MEV opportunities for "front-running" also change.
Recently, some regions have been tightening and relaxing regulations on taxes and compliance, which seems more like adjusting everyone's deposit and withdrawal expectations—pressing the buttons more cautiously first...
So when I see data fluctuations, I now prefer to look more at the flow directions and routing, and less at drawing conclusions.
That's all for now.