Alpha Recap #26: Coinbase Acquires USDH, Yield Opportunity, and a Shift in Pre-IPO Markets
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COAlpha Recap #34: Native PT Looping on Pendle, Semiconductors, and Plasma One Lands on Android
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In this new edition of the Alpha Recap, we take a look back at the week's most important crypto market insights: major news, yield and airdrop strategies, key developments, and concise analyses to help you look beyond the noise.
The Alpha Recap is designed to highlight the most important crypto market Alphas of the week. Every Friday, we bring you a condensed breakdown of the most valuable insights from our Alpha Feed.
Reserved for OAK Premium members, the Alpha Feed brings together market insights, yield and airdrop strategies, along with key information across the crypto landscape. In other words, it reflects OAK Research’s core DNA: delivering filtered, high-signal content that goes beyond the noise.
Pendle Introduces Native Looping on Its PT Tokens
This week, Pendle rolled out a native looping feature for its PT tokens, available directly from a dedicated interface in a single click.
As a reminder, the protocol splits each asset in two: PTs, comparable to zero-coupon bonds that offer a fixed yield until maturity, and YTs, which capture all of the underlying's yield but see their value converge toward zero over time. In practice, looping PTs lets you increase your exposure to a yield known in advance, with mechanically lower volatility than more traditional leveraged strategies.
That's why, in reality, PT looping is already widely used through protocols like Aave or Morpho, which will remain the background liquidity sources for this new tool. This addition is above all a matter of convenience: thanks to a dedicated interface and the integration of flash loans, an operation that previously required several steps can now be carried out in a single transaction.
→ Will this really move the needle for Pendle's adoption? That's what we dug into in a dedicated Alpha, examining the protocol's TVL trajectory alongside several other factors.
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Semiconductors: Does the Correction Reshuffle the Deck?
The SOX, the benchmark index for US semiconductors, has lost more than 15% since its June 22 peak, and some names heavily tied to AI have plunged 30% to 40%. Yet just a month ago, the sector was one of the market's most consensus trades: explosive demand for compute, hyperscalers overinvesting, HBM memory needs soaring. In just a few sessions, however, the narrative flipped sharply, as if the entire thesis had vanished.
We don't share that reading. The drop comes down primarily to a stack of cyclical factors, notably a sector that had become too crowded, profit-taking after strong outperformance, macro stress against a backdrop of geopolitical tensions, and above all a Korean shock amplified by leverage, with a historic drop in SK Hynix that dragged the KOSPI to its seventh circuit breaker of the year. Nothing that proves, in plain terms, that AI-related demand has deteriorated at its core.
The signals actually point the other way: Goldman Sachs is forecasting more than $500 billion in infrastructure spending in 2026, and hedge funds have just made their largest purchases of semiconductor stocks in over three and a half years. In short, enough to turn the correction into an entry point, provided you can stomach a level of volatility that not every portfolio can absorb.
→ In our dedicated Alpha, we break down the names we find most worth watching after this correction, their respective risk profiles, and how to get exposure to them.
Plasma One Lands on Android: Enjoy the Core Tier for Free
We've mentioned it several times in the pages of OAK Research: Plasma One is an on-chain neobank that stands out by offering highly competitive cashback and interest rates, at 3% and 5% respectively.
Initially available exclusively on the App Store, Plasma One is now accessible to Android smartphone owners.
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And if you download the app on Google Play and sign up before July 18 (Saturday), you can enjoy 6 months of the Core tier for free. On top of that, Plasma One is currently running a stackable offer: you'll receive $10 once you've spent $100 or more.
This offer ends tomorrow, so we'd advise you not to wait if you want to take advantage of it.
Among the perks of the Core tier, you can claim 5% cashback on certain AI-related spending, a free ChatGPT Go subscription, 3% cashback, two virtual cards, priority support, and reduced fees, all in addition to the benefits tied to Visa Signature cards.
👉 Join Plasma One with our code "SECRET", it's the best way to support us for free. Thank you!
