THE WEEKLY WRAP
Crypto markets edged slightly higher this week, with total market cap rising 0.48% to US$2.22 trillion. Despite the green finish, sentiment weakened, with the Fear and Greed Index falling to 25 and slipping back into extreme fear.
ETF weekly flows remained positive but fairly quiet. Bitcoin recorded US$75.67 million in inflows, while Ethereum pulled in US$105.44 million, beating BTC for the week.
VanEck’s mid-July report found that US spot Bitcoin products shed 40,010 BTC, worth around US$2.4 billion, over the 30 days to 12 July. Corporate treasuries added just 2,343 BTC during the same period, while exchange balances increased by 26,674 BTC.
Macro
Australia:
Australian home values fell 0.4% in June, the biggest monthly decline since December 2022. Sydney dropped 1.2% and Melbourne fell 1.0%, leaving national values 0.7% below their March peak.
Australian consumer sentiment rose 4.1% in July, while business confidence also improved. Both remain weak, suggesting households and businesses are feeling slightly better but are still cautious.
London extends trading hours:
The London Stock Exchange plans to launch a separate overnight venue in 2027, initially offering exchange-traded products from 5:00pm to 7:50am. The move reflects growing demand for the near-round-the-clock market access already common in crypto.
BTC vs GOLD vs Nasdaq
🟡 Gold: -7.39%
🔵 Nasdaq: +13.01%
🟠 Bitcoin: -25.72%
Bitcoin was the strongest mover of the three this week, improving from -28.85% to -25.72% year-to-date. BTC has continued to recover from its June low, although it remains well behind both gold and the Nasdaq for the year.
Gold was almost unchanged, moving from -7.42% to -7.39%. It remains stuck below flat despite continued geopolitical uncertainty.
The Nasdaq slipped from +14.99% to +13.01%, giving back some of its recent gains. Even after the pullback, it remains the clear leader and the only one of the three assets in positive territory this year.
The gap has narrowed slightly, but the standings remain unchanged: Nasdaq first, gold second and Bitcoin still trailing.
Source: TradingView, BTC, GOLD, NASDAQ
ETH vs BTC
Is the downtrend finally breaking?
ETH has spent nearly four years losing ground against Bitcoin, with every rally into the same descending trendline eventually rejected.
Source: TradingView, BTC/ETH
This time, the setup looks a little more interesting. ETH/BTC has bounced from around 0.026 and is now pushing back above the trendline near 0.029. The zoomed-in chart shows a cleaner reaction than several previous attempts, but one move above the line is not enough on its own.
Source: TradingView, BTC/ETH
The next test is whether ETH can hold above the trendline, reclaim the 0.030 to 0.032 area and turn the old resistance into support. If that happens, it would be one of the stronger signs in years that Ethereum is beginning to outperform Bitcoin again.
If price slips back below the trendline, this may simply become another rejection in a long series of failed breakouts, leaving Bitcoin firmly in control.
For now, the breakout is worth watching, but ETH still needs to hold above the trendline before the move can be treated as confirmed.
ALTCOINS
Altcoins found their footing this week, with four of the five tracked categories finishing in the green. AI led the pack at +5.63%, closely followed by DeFi at +5.47% and meme coins at +4.18%. RWA posted a smaller gain of 1.11%, while GameFi was the only category to finish lower, slipping 0.94%.
VIRTUAL’s 17.90% rally and VVV’s 8.52% gain helped push AI into first place. DeFi had LDO doing most of the heavy lifting, up 25.39%, which was enough to offset some weakness from AAVE, down 4.76%. PENGU gained 9.83% and gave meme coins a boost, while ONDO’s 15.61% rise helped keep RWA in positive territory.
Source: https://defillama.com/narrative-tracker
STORY OF THE WEEK
One of the stranger market stories this week came from Trump Media, the company behind Truth Social.
From 1 August, its new Truth API will provide banks, hedge funds and algorithmic traders with a licensed, 24/7 feed of posts from the platform’s most influential accounts. The company says the service will deliver posts faster than regular Truth Social notifications, potentially giving paying firms a valuable head start when market-moving news drops.
Reuters reports that Trump Media has discussed charging as much as US$100,000 per month, or US$60,000 per month for firms willing to sign a three-year agreement. The service does not appear to provide posts before they are publicly published, but when trading algorithms react in milliseconds, even a small delivery advantage can matter.
The uncomfortable part is fairly obvious. President Trump regularly uses Truth Social to announce developments involving tariffs, trade and international conflicts, all of which can move stocks, currencies, commodities and crypto. A company financially connected to his family is now looking to sell Wall Street faster delivery of those statements.
Sources: Trump Media announcement | Reuters overview | Reuters pricing report
THIS WEEK’S INSIGHT’S
What Is Market Cap in Crypto? Why PEPE Probably Isn’t Going to $1
My dad has a plan: when PEPE hits $1, he becomes a multimillionaire. Unfortunately, the maths has other ideas.
With around 414 trillion tokens in circulation, a $1 PEPE would need a market cap of roughly US$414 trillion. That is more than three times the world’s annual economic output and around 80% of everything owned by everyone on Earth, all parked in a frog meme.
This week’s Insights explains why a coin’s price tells you very little without its supply, how market cap actually works and the quick calculation that can save you from waiting for a yacht that may never arrive.
Read the full article here: What Is Market Cap in Crypto? Market Cap vs Price Explained
