Original author: VIKTOR
Original translation: TechFlow
BTC: 4-month range breakout and recovery, finally hitting $70,000 resistance
BTC started the month with a 5-day sharp decline that ended with a range breakout and a market sell-off (both altcoins and BTC) on July 5th, dropping to as low as $53,500. This sell-off was likely caused by market participants’ mispositioning, but the main panic news at the time was that the German government was selling 50,000 $BTC that had been confiscated a few years ago.
Subsequently, $BTC oscillated between $54,000 and $58,000 for a few days. On July 13, Donald Trump was shot at a conference, which triggered a strong rally in $BTC for a few days, and also increased the possibility of Trump winning the election. Within a week, $BTC basically rose to $68,000 with almost no pullback. All this happened at the same time that Mt. Gox began to distribute $BTC to creditors, involving billions of dollars of $BTC, but the impact on the price of BTC was not obvious, which was considered a very bullish signal.
On July 27, Trump spoke at the Bitcoin Conference in Nashville, announcing the launch of a BTC strategic reserve if re-elected. This triggered a lot of FOMO in the market, with $BTC breaking through $69,000 in the hours leading up to the speech. The price retreated slightly during the speech, but Trump’s mention of a “strategic reserve” was seen as a pretty bullish signal.
Then, as $BTC approached $70,000, the open interest (OI) continued to rise (although this is usually a sign of disaster, but “will it be different this time?” haha), it hit $70,000 in just a second before falling back to $66,000 within hours. The month closed at $65,000, and we now know that the sell-off continued below $50,000 in early August, but that will be discussed in the next monthly review.
ETH ETF launched, price performance poor
ETH mainly followed BTC in the first half of July, with slightly underperforming. The ETH ETF went live on July 23, and while the volume was not particularly disappointing compared to expectations, we saw a large outflow of ETHE every day after the launch, and ETHBTC plummeted to 0.048 on the second and third days of ETF trading. $ETH closed the month at $3,230, and the overall ETF launch performance was disappointing.
Most direct ETH beta tokens also underperformed in July.
$SOL and its ecosystem perform well
While ETH’s performance was lackluster, $SOL was the exact opposite. It outperformed the market throughout July, rising over + 50% from the bottom to close to $ 193 at the end of July.
SOLETH is near its all-time high and reaching a resistance level where it was rejected 3 times before, in March, April, and May. $JUP is the beta token most directly associated with $SOL, while other top performers in the ecosystem include: $PYTH, $JTO, $RAY, $HNT.
Catcoin Leaders: $POPCAT, $MOG, and $MEW
In July, catcoins became the most prominent performers on the market: $MOG and $POPCAT became the new “PEPE and WIF”, consistently performing best on the upside. They both reached new all-time highs and are approaching $1 billion in market cap. $MEW also joined the group, becoming the third most significant catcoin, having risen almost 3x from bottom to top.
Unexpected surprise, $XRP leads the July gains
An unexpected coin outperformed in July - $XRP outperformed the market by a wide margin, ending the month with a + 31% gain. One factor driving this move was rumors of a potential settlement in the Ripple case with the SEC. Other coins that performed strongly in July included: $TRX, $BCH, $XMR, $XLM, $ZEC.
DeFi 1.0 giants $MKR and $AAVE perform well
One coin that was significantly impacted by the news in July was $MKR. The news was that BlackRock planned to apply for MakerDAO’s $1B tokenized treasury plan, which caused $MKR to rise by +10% in a few hours and an overall rise of +50% from bottom to top.
MKR is a DeFi 1.0 coin that generates a lot of revenue despite a low valuation. Another similar coin is AAVE, which has been performing strongly and outperforming the market since May 2024. They also announced the new Aavenomics, which will introduce fee adjustments for $AAVE token holders.
Altcoin sell-off and rebound, $WLD short squeeze
As I mentioned before, July 5th was a sell-off day for altcoins, with massive liquidations, and is usually followed by a strong rebound. Many high FDV low flow venture coins experienced rebounds, some falling 80% to 90% from their all-time highs, with rebounds ranging from +40% to 2x.
There was a strong squeeze on $WLD in particular as they announced that they would extend the vesting period for some of their tokens. $WLD experienced a short squeeze of + 85% in 2 days before falling back again. Overall, altcoins underperformed BTC again in the second half of July.
Altcoins sold off, rebounded, and then underperformed again.
Ordinals quietly excel
After the sell-off in early July and by the end of the month, ordinarys were among the best performing coins, mainly including $SATS, $ORDI, and $RATS. However, the Runes token, which was supposed to be the next evolution of ordinarys, did not perform well.
Among the new coins, only $ZRO performed well
There weren’t a lot of major coin launches in July. $AVAIL, a data availability solution competing with Celestia, was launched.
Among the recently launched coins, the most notable one is $ZRO, which has risen from $2.5 to $5.5 within this month. $TAIKO has also been outperforming in the market until the end of July.
$NEIRO, will it become the new DOGE?
“Kabosu’s mother,” the owner of the original $DOGE dog in the meme, posted a photo of her new Shiba Inu, Neiro. Naturally, people flocked to create a “DOGE #2 ” meme coin, and three $NEIRO meme coins appeared: two on Solana and one on Ethereum.
In the first few days, the two Solana tokens were the clear leaders and alternated in the lead, but surprisingly, $NEIRO on ETH ended up being the winner and reached a market cap of nearly $200M by the end of the month.
List of top performing coins:
July’s top performers among large-cap coins:
XRP : + 31%
ZRO: + 28%
UN: +23%
YUP: +22%
SUN: + 17%
PEOPLE : +11%
TAIKO : + 11%
ICP : + 10%
AAVE : +10%
MSEK : + 10%
PYTH : +9%
WHAT : +8%
Some smaller coins performed well in July:
NEIRO : 5 0X (if purchased in the first few days)
BNX : +70%
ZEC : + 61%
DSYNC : + 67%
OM : +49%
MEW : + 47%
HONEY : + 46%
ALPH: +46%
WAS : +44%
HNT : +41%
SATS : + 39%
KMNO : + 30%
GAL : + 25%
Smaller coins:
SCF: If you invest in the early stage, the increase can reach 10 0X
ZKML : + 282%
RED : +277%
Y 2 K : + 256%
AZUR : + 97%
DELAY: + 72%
STMX : + 72%
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