Headline News: Halfway to Altcoin Season
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The crypto market saw a notable divergence, where Bitcoin experienced a slight dip of 1.49%, while Ethereum surged by a significant 26.46% over the same period. This strong performance in ETH, along with broader market momentum, has propelled the Altcoin Season Index from 20 in early July to a current 51 with the Crypto Fear and Greed Index consistently holding above 70. This sustained optimism is further supported by the significant milestone achieved in US crypto legislation and the continued accumulation of crypto assets by public companies.
Macro-Outlook: Trump vs Powell
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The Trump administration has exerted continuous pressure on Fed Chair Jerome Powell this past week, demanding rate cuts. Reports also suggest a formal search for Powell’s successor is underway, and despite President Trump’s public assurances that he would not dismiss Powell, efforts toward his removal are reportedly being pursued.
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The latest released Beige Book indicated a slight increase in economic activities from May to July, persistent labor market and signs of higher inflation in the coming months, supporting the Fed to remain in “wait and see” mode.
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The US core inflation rate increased to 2.9% in June, slightly lower than the market expectation of 3%. Apparel prices had a notable increase in June, suggesting the impact of tariffs started to surface on consumer costs. Meanwhile, the US PPI was unchanged in June, below forecasts of a 0.2% gain, led by a plunge in prices for services.
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The US retail sales increased by 0.6% in June, higher than the market estimation of 0.1%. The Michigan consumer sentiment preliminary estimates increased to 61.8 in July, above forecasts of 61.5.
Upcoming Economic Calendar including,
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Tuesday, July 22, 8:30pm: Fed Chair Powell Speech at the Integrated Review of the Capital Framework for Large Banks Conference
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Thursday, July 24, 8:15pm: ECB Interest Rate Decision
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Friday, July 25, 8:30pm: US Durable Goods Orders in June
Weekly-Cryptos-Overview: Significant Milestone in US Crypto Legislation, Base App, Penguin Everywhere
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The GENIUS Act has officially signed into law by President Trump, a major milestone for cryptocurrency regulation, requiring stablecoin issuers to maintain 1:1 reserves in short-term Treasury bills or cash, and regulatory oversight with AML, KYC and audit requirements. The CLARITY Act and Anti-CBDC Act have passed the House and moved to Senate. The government is also working to support a de minimis tax exemption for Bitcoin payments ranging from $200 to $300.
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President Trump is reportedly preparing to sign an executive order to allow 401(k) programs to invest in alternative assets such as crypto, gold, and private equity.
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The House of Financial Services and Veterans’ Affairs introduced a new bill, HR4374, requiring mortgage lenders to consider crypto assets in the mortgage credit evaluation process.
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The SEC Chair Atkins stated the commission is considering an “Innovation Exception” to encourage tokenisation activities.
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The whale, who bought BTC in 2011, transferred all holding to Digital Capital, potentially sold all its 80,202 BTC.
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Canary Capital filed a staked INJ ETF application with the SEC.
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Sberbank, Russia’s largest bank, announced plans to offer digital assets custody services.
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Standard Chartered institutional banking and tokenisation partner, Libeara, partnered with Theo to launch a money market on-chain fund. Standard Chartered also launched BTC and ETH spot trading services through its UK branch.
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SRM Entertainment rebranded as Tron Inc, staking $365 million TRX as its corporate treasury.
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Thailand SEC and central bank launched a crypto sandbox, allowing foreign tourists to convert digital assets to Thai baht for spending.
Layer 1 and Layer 2s
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Coinbase announced a new Base app, integrating with Farcaster and enabling users to earn from content, social, chat with friends, explore mini-apps, and send anyone USDC directly with Base Pay.
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Binance launched Shariah-compliant BNB, ETH and SOL staking on its platform. Binance also launched Exclusive Bonding Curve-Based TGE on Binance Wallet, in collaboration with Four.Meme.
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Conflux announced Conflux TreeGraph Blockchain 3.0, partnering with AnchorX and Eastcompeace to promote the implementation of overseas benchmark projects for offshore RMB stablecoin issuance, cross-border settlement, RWA and other initiatives in the Belt and Road.
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Sonic announced Spark, a no-code AI-powered dapps development platform, enabling easy dapps development on Sonic Network.
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Core DAO launched Rev+, a gas revenue sharing mechanism similar to Sonic.
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Ripple partnered with Ctrl Alt and Dubai Land Department to tokenise real estate title deeds on XRP Ledger, enabling fractional ownership and global access to Dubai properties.
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Babylon announced the first wave of Bitcoin Supercharged Networks (BSNs), where BTC stakers can stake in these networks and start to earn rewards. The networks include Sui, Osmosis, Plume, Manta Network and more.
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Polkadot allocated $3 million worth of DOT incentive for a 12-month liquidity campaign across Arbitrum, Base, BNB and Ethereum.
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Anoma, the highly anticipated intent-based platform, launched its public testnet.
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Another highly anticipated multi-VM blockchain, Fluent, launched its testnet and raised $2.2 million to fund the testnet operation.
Dapps
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Pudgy Penguin announced partnerships with PEZ, Suplay, and Don Quijote to make physical Pudgy Toys available across US, China and Japan retail shops. Pudgy Penguin also announced the Pudgy Party game is launching soon on the Apple App Store and Google Play Store.
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Ondo Finance acquired Strangelove, a blockchain development company whose experienced team has unique expertise in building secure and modular blockchain infrastructure. Ondo also announced BNB Chain joining the Global Markets Alliance and supporting Ondo’s suite of tokenised assets.
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Kamino announced the launching of the money market for xStocks‘ tokenised stocks with Chainlink as the oracle partner.
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EtherFi partnered with Hyperbeat to offer new liquid staking token for Hyperliquid, beHYPE.
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Strata introduced the risk tranching protocol on USDe, splitting sUSDe into stUSDe (senior tranche) and stJLP (junior tranche), providing a similar product structure compared to Resolv.
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Falcon Finance launched its USDf on BNB Chain.
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Cap Money announced partnering with PayPal‘s pyUSD in its Cap Stablecoin Network (CSN), where users are able to exchange pyUSD 1:1 to cUSD while enjoying additional yield from various strategies.
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Privacy Pools Protocol, backed by Vitalik, onboard Sky’s USDS into its multi-assets privacy pools.
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Fantasy Top launched Fantasy V3 on Base, completely migrating its social card trading game from Blast to Base.
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BounceBit introduced xRWA, enabling staking of tokenised RWA on the network alongside BB and BTC.
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DYDX acquired Pocket Protector, a Telegram-native trading app, to further expand DYDX’s spot trading and social initiatives.
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Arweave partnered with Midnight Network to provide the permanent storage solution to the shielded data on Midnight. The technical development team, Shielded Technologies, is a spin-out of Input Output Global (IOG).
Upcoming Alpha and Governance
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The Trump administration’s Working Group on Digital Asset Markets is expected to deliver the crypto policy report and potentially budget neutral funding strategy for Bitcoin reserve on July 22.
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Block Inc is expected to join S&P 500 this week, while Coinbase and payment giant Mastercard will release earning guidance this week.
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Berachain is expected to launch PoL V2 this week, redirecting 33% of current PoL incentives which are currently issued to BGT boosters to BERA stakers.
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Optimism is expected to undergo Upgrade 16 this week, including interoperability upgrade on smart contracts, increase of gas limit to 500m gas per block and more.
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Kaito teased the upcoming launch of Capital Launchpad, with Espresso as the first protocol to be launched on the platform. Espresso serves as a shared liquidity bridge, resulting in faster transaction confirmation between Layer-2s.
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Cookie DAO also announced a similar initiative, partnering with Legion to launch Attention Capital Market. Legion enables protocols to launch their tokens to a specific KOL or community based on Legion Score.
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Ink Foundation proposed to deploy the whitelabel version of Aave v3 on Ink and governed by the foundation, Aave DAO will eligible for 5% revenue sharing and 4% of the protocol governance token.
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Linea is expected to announce LINEA tokenomics details at the end of July. Renzo is the largest protocol on Linea network by TVL.
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Bitcoin community proposed a controversial proposal to restrict transaction from quantum-vulnerable address types within 5 years. These addresses account for about 25% of all Bitcoin.
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Saga is expected to pass the proposal of redirecting the protocol block reward to a community pool intended to incentivise Chainlets’ activities. Additionally, the proposal changes inflation from 2% ~ 5% to fixed 3%. Saga also introduced Colt, a stablecoin protocol that is backed by governance-approved stablecoin designed to embed natively into every Chainlet. Colt will have its own governance token.
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World Liberty Finance passed the proposal to make the WLFI token tradable. The team is currently working with major CEXes for token distribution.
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Gnosis proposed to fund Gnosis Ltd, the core team behind Gnosis ecosystem with $30 million per year to build a core consumer-facing brand through Gnosis Wallet, Gnosis Pay, Gnosis Chain and more.
Token Unlock
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AVAIL token unlocked on July 23, amount representing 38.3% of the token supply.
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INIT token unlocked on July 24, amount representing 1.58% of the token supply.
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ALT token unlocked on July 25, amount representing 6.4% of the token supply.
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H token unlocked on July 25, amount representing 5.01% of the token supply.
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SAHARA token unlocked on July 26, amount representing 4.12% of the token supply.
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RON token unlocked on July 27, amount representing 4.83% of the token supply.
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RESOLV token unlocked on July 27, amount representing 9.14% of the token supply.
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OP token unlocked on July 31, amount representing 1.84% of the token supply.
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GRASS token unlocked on July 31, amount representing 1.26% of the token supply.
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REZ token unlocked on July 31, amount representing 12% of the token supply.
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IO token unlocked on July 31, amount representing 6.09% of the token supply.
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KMNO token unlocked on July 31, amount representing 22% of the token supply.
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