Beyond price charts, The Duke Crypto tracks the liquidity, credit and on-chain signals that drive real crypto market risk. Get clear analysis for serious UK investors.
For affluent and professional investors who need evidence before making a portfolio decision.
Market signal board
Risk conditions
Stablecoin flow
+4.8%
Accumulation
Pool utilisation
71.4%
Watch closely
Exchange reserves
-6.2%
30D change
Protocol monitor
A high headline yield can hide thin collateral, rising utilisation or incentives that disappear next month. Our DeFi lending news follows how returns are produced, then scores the credit risk behind them.
Tracked lending TVL
£18.6bn
Across 24 major pools
Median borrow rate
8.72%
Variable-rate exposure
Model risk score
B+
Collateral and oracle review
| Protocol | TVL | Utilisation | Borrow rate | Risk score |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aave v3 | £6.4bn | 68.2% | 7.91% | Low |
| Compound III | £2.1bn | 74.8% | 9.36% | Moderate |
| SparkLend | £1.7bn | 81.5% | 10.12% | Elevated |
Scores combine collateral quality, utilisation, oracle dependency and governance exposure. Read the wider tokenised lending context in institutional digital assets.
Stress testing
Liquidity is a position risk before it becomes a price headline. We compare order-book depth, bid-ask spread and stableswap resilience across venues.
Illustrative sell pressure: £2.5m
Spread
0.08%
Depth ±2%
£42.7m
Price impact
1.34%
Signal library
On-chain data gives the market a second set of books. We follow exchange flows, whale activity, stablecoin supply and miner reserves, then put each move beside its historical range.
-18,420 BTC
30-day outflow trend
High
Above 90-day median
£128.4bn
+2.1% minted this month
1.82m BTC
Reserves remain stable
Case study signal
A sustained fall in exchange balances can suggest that holders are moving assets into longer-term custody. It is a context signal, not a trade instruction. We pair it with derivatives positioning and realised profit data before assigning a market view.
Portfolio practice
A sound allocation starts with the loss you can carry, the time you can wait and the correlations you have accepted. Our framework measures volatility, drawdown, concentration and hedge cost in one view.
Volatility budget. Set a position size against a defined drawdown limit.
Correlation check. Test whether several tokens depend on the same liquidity source.
Hedge discipline. Compare derivative cost with stablecoin and cash reserves.
Risk watch
A token's price can move while its market quality deteriorates. We map regulatory action, wash-trading indicators and unusual wallet behaviour so investors can review the evidence before exposure grows.
12 June 2025
Review of promotions aimed at UK consumers and the records firms should retain.
04 June 2025
Reported volume diverged from wallet activity across three low-depth pairs.
28 May 2025
Pool imbalance increased slippage risk during a short period of heavy selling.
Professional resources
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