Happy Friday! Binance Bytes is an initiative by the Research team to provide a quick round-up of the week.

Highlights 🧵:

1/ This week has delivered several positive economic indicators for the U.S., including encouraging inflation data and resilient growth figures. Annual inflation in July slowed to its lowest level since March 2021. Weekly jobless claims fell by 7,000 to 227,000, and retail sales rose by 1.0% in July, marking the largest increase in 1.5 years. These data points have bolstered confidence in a "soft landing" and alleviated concerns over recession risks. As a result, the U.S. stock market has regained much of its losses over the past two weeks.

2/ On the other hand, the stronger macro releases and stock market recovery do not seem to have spilled over to the crypto market. Total crypto market capitalization is down over 5% this week, and DeFi TVL has fallen by nearly 9%. Overall sentiment in the crypto market remains muted, and the market sold off on the back of the U.S. government transferring 10,000 BTC to Coinbase Prime and news of Jump Trading offloading 17,000 ETH, igniting fears of increased selling pressure.

3/ In other notable news, DBS has launched a pilot for DBS Treasury Tokens, a cutting-edge treasury and liquidity management solution, in partnership with Ant International. Separately, MetaMask, in collaboration with Mastercard and Baanx, has launched the pilot of the MetaMask Card, allowing direct spending from one’s MetaMask wallet.