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Today’s Menu

• Alibaba Just Gave AI Images the Photoshop Treatment

• BlackRock's Bitcoin ETF Just Had the Strangest Year Ever

Markets

TODAY IN AI

Alibaba Just Gave AI Images the Photoshop Treatment

Qwen-Image-Layered lets users break images down into separate, editable RGBA layers to provide more specific, prompt-based instructions. This layering feature allows users to edit, recolor, or swap one element without impacting the rest of the image, just like most traditional design tools.

When AI image generation gets layered editing like professional design software, that closes the gap between AI-generated content and production-ready graphics that designers can actually use.

TODAY IN CRYPTO

BlackRock's Bitcoin ETF Just Had the Strangest Year Ever

BlackRock's Bitcoin ETF just closed one of the strangest years in ETF history. IBIT ranked sixth in U.S. ETF inflows for 2025, pulling in $25.4 billion. It's the only fund in the top 25 posting a negative return for the year, down 9.6%.

Gold's SPDR ETF ranked eighth with $20.8 billion in flows. But GLD is up 65% on the year. Bitcoin has dropped roughly 30% from its October high of $126,000 and now trades near $88,000.

Normally, negative returns trigger outflows. But IBIT's $25 billion in inflows during a drawdown signals something different: institutional buyers are accumulating during the pullback, not selling.

Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas called it a "HODL clinic." He stated: "The real takeaway is that is was 6th place DESPITE the negative return. Even took in more than $GLD which was up 64%. That's a really good sign long term in my opinion. If you can do $25b in bad year imagine the flow potential in good year."

James Thorne, Chief Market Strategist at Wellington-Altus, argues the flows validate Bitcoin's "financialization." The asset now behaves less like a speculative tech stock and more like a mature macro commodity.

"Bitcoin now trades increasingly like gold behaved for decades under heavy institutional influence, with price action reflecting not just fundamental demand, but also positioning, product design, and the preferences of large financial intermediaries," Thorne noted.

But here's the question: why hasn't $25 billion in institutional buying pushed Bitcoin higher?

Balchunas suggests the market is maturing. Early holders are taking profits. Others are deploying income strategies like selling covered calls. And Bitcoin already ran 120% in 2024. Expecting continuous gains was unrealistic in his opinion.

IBIT absorbed more capital than nearly every major equity and bond ETF, outpaced only by the largest S&P 500 trackers. It beat gold. It beat tech. And it did it while losing money.

IBIT's 2025 performance proves the Bitcoin ETF survived its first real stress test. Flows stayed strong even as price collapsed. And if $25 billion came in during a bad year, the flow potential in a recovery could be massive.

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Until next time,

Damon James