Bitcoin held near $65,000 on Monday even as AI-linked tech stocks — led by Nvidia, down 4.8% — came under pressure, while ether hit its strongest price in nearly two months. The resilience sets up a critical test: with the Federal Reserve's policy decision, key U.S. inflation data, and mega-cap tech earnings all due this week, analysts say the outcome could determine whether bitcoin finally breaks out of its months-long range or revisits June's lows. LMAX Group's Joel Kruger called the decoupling from traditional risk assets "encouraging," noting bitcoin needs to clear $67,300 and ether needs to hold above $2,000 to confirm the next leg higher. Tom Lee flagged ether's outperformance versus bitcoin — the ETH/BTC ratio hit a three-month high — as a bullish signal. Not everyone agrees: Nansen's Nicolai Sondergaard said the rebound lacks conviction, with falling futures open interest and persistent net selling pressure pointing to a potential pullback toward the mid-$50,000s rather than a sustained breakout.
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Perpetual futures — crypto's most traded product, with Bank of America estimating annual volume at roughly $90 trillion — are officially landing in regulated U.S. markets. Kalshi topped $1 billion in perps volume within a week of its June launch, and Coinbase has also received CFTC approval. But while prop trading firms and crypto exchanges race to capture demand, large Wall Street banks are holding back. Unlike prop shops that trade their own capital and can test new venues quickly, big banks face stricter capital requirements, compliance costs, and reputational risk that make them want years of data, clear regulatory treatment, and stable infrastructure before committing. The product has genuine institutional use cases — including managing weekend risk when traditional futures markets close — but thin liquidity, unsettled swap-vs-futures classification questions, and a brewing competitive fight between Kalshi and CME mean the largest banks are likely to be fast followers, not first movers.
Fanatics is making a major push into prediction markets, announcing it will acquire Water Street Labs and CX Clearinghouse from BGC Group — giving the sports merchandise giant ownership of a federally regulated exchange and clearinghouse it can use to list and settle its own contracts. The deal lets Fanatics control its own prediction market infrastructure rather than rely on third-party venues, and move faster in bringing new markets online. The two companies also plan to build joint market data products combining prediction market activity with traditional financial data. Fanatics launched its Markets platform in late 2024 and is currently available in 23 states and four U.S. territories, betting its massive sports audience can bring event-based trading to a broader consumer base — a space already heating up with Kalshi, Polymarket, Coinbase, Robinhood, and DraftKings all staking out positions.
Ballooning U.S. debt is growing by ~$7B a day. Bitcoin and gold rise as debasement trade heats up. Iran-U.S. pause sends oil tumbling, lifting risk assets. BTC back above $65K.
The two largest memecoins, DOGE and SHIB, together represent just 1.02% of bitcoin’s market cap — down from 7% at the 2021 peak. That collapse tells the structural story of the week: institutional capital flowing into crypto has no interest in internet joke tokens, and higher real yields mean the era of easy speculative money is over. Meanwhile the options market is telling a different story: nearly $5 billion has accumulated at the $70,000 and $72,000 call strikes on Deribit — 18% of total open interest — with calls outnumbering puts by 10-to-1 or more at both levels. And the EU just deployed its most sweeping crypto sanctions yet against Russia, targeting the $120 billion A7 network and introducing a new instrument that could allow a blanket ban on any EU crypto transaction with Russia. Have a good weekend.
Bitcoin is back above $65,000 as U.S. and Iran hold fire. Oil drops 5%.
Risk-on peace trades are back in vogue after the U.S. and Iran held fire for a second consecutive day, sending oil prices tumbling roughly 5% to around $85 a barrel for WTI. Bitcoin has reclaimed $65,000, up about 1.2% over 24 hours, while ether has surged over 3% to nearly $1,950 â outperforming BTC and hinting at a potential rotation into alternative cryptocurrencies. Solana, XRP, and other top-10 tokens posted 1â2% gains. Nasdaq and S&P 500 futures ticked half a percent higher, and the Aussie dollar and euro strengthened against the U.S. dollar, reflecting broad risk-on sentiment. The diplomatic situation remains fragile: Iran signaled it would continue to halt airstrikes as long as the U.S. did the same, marking a tenuous start to what could be another peace process. Despite etherâs outperformance, BTC dominance held at 58.6%, suggesting the altcoin rally is not yet broad-based. Traders are also keeping one eye on the Fed: markets are pricing a 36.3% probability of a 25-basis-point rate hike at the July 28â29 FOMC meeting, with Brent crudeâs 4.7% drop to $92.19 offering some relief on the inflation front.
Bitcoin ETFs post third straight weekly inflows despite late-week losses.
Bitcoin’s options market on Deribit has concentrated an extraordinary amount of positioning around two specific strikes. The $70,000 and $72,000 calls have together accumulated nearly $5 billion in notional open interest — roughly 18% of the exchange’s total $28 billion in BTC options open interest. The skew is striking: the $70,000 strike carries approximately 39,000 calls against just 3,800 puts. The $72,000 strike has roughly 37,900 calls against only 1,200 puts. At both levels, calls outnumber puts by 10-to-1 or more. Several large, deliberate trades drove this concentration, according to Laevitas. The dominant structure is a bull call spread — buying the $70,000 call and simultaneously selling the $72,000 call — a bet on a moderate upswing to $72,000. That structure accounts for approximately 49% and 50% of total call open interest at the respective strikes. A separate trader or group paid $3.4 million in premium for outright $70,000 calls, gaining direct upside exposure. Orbit Markets co-founder Jimmy Yang linked much of the demand to Clarity Act optimism: “A lot of this positioning was driven by expectations that the CLARITY Act could be passed before the end of the month.” He noted that in the past 24 hours, markets have dialed back those expectations, with some unwinding of bullish bets. Polymarket’s Clarity Act odds have fallen from 51% early this week to 38% following Senate Majority Leader Thune’s comments that the bill will miss August recess. The $5 billion cluster is still there — the question now is whether it unwinds further or holds as a floor for the next catalyst.
Cloud data firm Storj files for Chapter 11, extending a week of crypto failures.
The European Union has deployed its 21st package of sanctions against Russia, and crypto is at the center of the most consequential new measures. The package targets the A7 cross-border payments network — which Chainalysis estimates has processed nearly $120 billion to date and was purposely built for Russian sanctions evasion — along with the A7A5 stablecoin that operates on it. Fourteen unnamed crypto-related service platforms based in Georgia, Panama, the UAE, the Marshall Islands, Kyrgyzstan and Belarus have had their transaction access to EU entities banned. The most significant new instrument in the package is a mechanism that would allow the EU to impose a blanket ban on any transaction between an EU crypto provider and any crypto service used by Russia — the first time the EU has introduced the possibility of a full third-country crypto ban of this kind. High Representative Kaja Kallas framed the package broadly: “We’re hitting over a hundred banks and crypto operators, 40+ vessels in Russia’s shadow fleet, and several oil refineries in Russia and Belarus.” Alongside the digital asset measures, the EU is imposing asset freezes and transaction bans on 94 banks and major financial institutions and extending its ban to 33 additional Russian credit institutions. The package arrives three days after Russia’s State Duma passed its own first comprehensive crypto regulation framework, which takes effect September 1 — raising the question of whether Russia is building domestic crypto infrastructure partly in anticipation of further Western isolation from international networks.
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