The Federal Reserve has entered a blackout period before its July 30 interest rate meeting. It is expected that the new monetary policy statement at the July meeting may change the description of the economy and outlook, laying the foundation for a rate cut in September. Fed head Powell said this would mark a "significant" shift in monetary policy, from a tightening cycle to fight inflation to an easing phase. From July 5 to 18, the Big Pie spot ETF had net inflows for 10 consecutive trading days, with a total inflow of US$2.052 billion.

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Gary Gensler, head of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, issued an investor alert, warning of five ways scammers may lure victims into scams involving crypto-asset securities. Scammers often use emerging technologies such as cryptocurrencies to commit investment scams, and detailed the warning, outlining common types of cryptocurrency scams: promises of high returns with low risk; unlicensed sellers; virtual recommendations and endorsements; manipulative trading strategies; phishing scams. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority announced on July 18 a list of participants in the "sandbox" for stablecoin issuers, which were able to demonstrate their true intentions and reasonable plans to develop stablecoin issuance business in Hong Kong during the assessment process, and that the proposed operations under the "sandbox" would be conducted within limits and with controllable risks. The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) has issued new requirements for banks that wish to hold crypto assets. The BIS stipulates that a bank's total exposure to secondary crypto assets shall not exceed 1% of its total Tier 1 capital, and any single secondary crypto plus shall not account for more than 5% of total secondary asset holdings. The guidelines are expected to be implemented by January 1, 2026. CNBC said that OpenA launched a mini AI model called "GPT-40mini". Netflix co-CEO said generative AI has "huge potential" to improve recommendations. CryptoQuant said BTC is back above the average cost basis of short-term holders. Since 2023, BTC has recovered the realized price of short-term holders twice, each time bringing at least 30% profit. Its CEO Ki Young said that stablecoins began to flow into the market, and its market value has been rising since the beginning of July, reaching an all-time high last week. Analyst TraderTardigrade said that BTC's next target is $74,000. BTC has formed a tight bull flag on the daily chart, and the measuring target of the flagpole is $74,000, or a record high.

The results of the Reddit survey show that about 260 MtGox creditors (56% of the 467 survey participants) plan to continue holding BTC after receiving compensation, and 88 creditors (about 20% of all survey members) said they would sell all the BTC they received as compensation. This survey may reflect the overall sentiment of MtGox creditors. Julien Bittel, head of macro research at Global Macro Investor, a financial consulting publication, said that BTC has recently seen a "crazy compression" of the Bollinger Bands. Historically, there have only been two other months in which the weekly Bollinger Bands have been so compressed: April 2016 and July 2023. In the weekly time frame, the gap between the upper and lower limits is rarely so narrow, and traditionally what happens next is always good news for bulls. In the first two times, BTC prices rose sharply in the next 12 months. If history repeats itself, BTC will break through the re-accumulation range in September 2024. On July 18, the U.S. spot BTC ETF had an inflow of $84.8 million, achieving inflows for 10 consecutive trading days. Among them, Grayscale GBTC had a net outflow of $22.5 million, and BlackRock IBIT had a net inflow of $102.7 million. BTC spot ETF achieved net inflows for 10 consecutive trading days (July 5 to 18), with a total inflow of $2.052 billion. Mainstream investors in the traditional market purchased more than 325,000 BTC through BlackRock's BTC ETF IBIT in about 6 months. The US spot BTC ETF holds more than 900,636 BTC◇, a record high. Previously, the media said that the first batch of spot ETH ETFs may be launched next Tuesday (July 23). As issuers have successively submitted S-1/A and other documents of spot ETH ETFs to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the fees of 9 spot ETH ETFs have been announced. The fee of BlackRock spot ETH ETF is 0.25% (0.12% for the first $2.5 billion or the first 12 months); the fee of Fidelity spot ETH ETF is 0.25% (no management fee for the whole year of 2024); the fee of Grayscale spot ETH ETF is 2.50%. The fees of other spot ETH ETFs except Grayscale are between 0.2% and 0.25%. Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas said that Grayscale has not reduced its fees at all, and pointed out that the company's ETF is about 10 times more expensive than its competitors.

Bitwise CIO Matt Hougan said that the price of ETH is expected to be volatile in the first few weeks after the ETH ETF goes online, because funds may flow out of the trust after the $11 billion Grayscale ETH Trust is converted to a spot ETF. He believes that the price of ETH will break through $5,000 and set a record high by the end of the year. Citi reported that the net inflow of the ETH spot ETF in the first 6 months ranged from $4.7 billion to $5.4 billion. The Federal Reserve entered a silent period before the July 30 interest rate meeting. It is expected that the new monetary policy statement of the July meeting may change the description of the economy and prospects, laying the foundation for the September rate cut. On Wednesday, Fed Governor Waller said that interest rates will be cut in the "near future". Before the upcoming July policy meeting, Fed members believe that inflation may continue to slow, and if inflation slows, a rate cut will be appropriate. Investors are focusing on the Federal Reserve's September interest rate meeting, when the central bank is expected to start cutting interest rates. Fed Director Powell said this would mark a "significant" shift in monetary policy from a tightening cycle to fight inflation to an easing phase. On Friday, Bitcoin hit $66,000 again, up 4%. In the past ten trading days, the S&P 500 and Dow Jones hit new highs, and the Nasdaq was also near new highs. BTC spot ETFs in the traditional market benefited, with a net inflow of $2.052 billion in ten trading days. The inflow from the traditional market has to some extent diluted the impact of the sell-off of MtGox and other exchanges. From the performance of Bitcoin spot ETFs in the past six months and the past ten days, it can be simply seen that after the Federal Reserve began to release water, its purchasing power will be stronger, which is also in line with the traditional capital market water flow. The water release cycle is the so-called risk market stock market/gold/currency market bull market, nothing new, old tradition. What do you think? #以太坊ETF批准预期 #美国大选如何影响加密产业？ #山寨季何时到来？