Altcoins Pop as Bitcoin Stalls Near $120K: Crypto Daybook Americas

By Omkar Godbole (All times ET unless indicated otherwise)

Bitcoin

traded little changed around $120,000, struggling to build on a weekend bounce characterized by consistent demand at around $117,000.

Other tokens were less moribund. The CD20 Index, which captures about 80% of the digital asset market, rose 2% over 24 hours while the CD80 Index traded 4% higher, pointing to the relative strength of altcoins.

According to Glassnode, bitcoin dip buyers are adding exposure around the $117,000 level, with 73,000 BTC now held at this cost basis. "Each dip is being absorbed as investors steadily accumulate in this range," Glassnode said.

For those looking to join the current bull run, one analyst suggests ideal entry points either above the $120,000 resistance level upon a clean breakout or near the former resistance-turned-support level around $111,600, which aligns with the May high.

Corporate demand for major cryptocurrencies shows no signs of slowing down. Early Monday, Metaplanet said it bought another 780 BTC at an average price exceeding $118,000, bringing its total holdings to 17,132 BTC, valued around $2 billion.

Similarly, SharpLink Gaming, the second-largest corporate holder of ether (ETH), expanded its reserves by another 77,210 ETH, worth $295 million. According to Ultra Sound Money, this acquisition notably outstripped ether's 30-day net issuance of 72,795 ETH, suggesting strong underlying demand. However, ether's recent rally notably lacks on-chain support, with active addresses and other usage metrics failing to keep pace with the price surge. (See Chart of the Day for more on that.)

In broader altcoin news, Aptos, a layer-1 proof-of-stake blockchain, surpassed Solana to become the third-largest chain by total value of real-world assets (RWA) on its network, now trailing only zkSync and Ethereum.

For its part, the Ethena Foundation reportedly acquired 83 million ENA tokens between July 22 and July 25 through a third-party market maker as part of its buyback program. Meanwhile, blockchain sleuth Lookonchain reported a whale transaction involving the exchange of 1.75 million FARTCOIN for 790.4 million PUMP.

Looking ahead, traders are keenly awaiting the White House’s digital asset report, scheduled for release on July 30, anticipating that it could serve as a significant catalyst for cryptocurrency markets.

On the macroeconomic front, reports of a potential 90-day extension to U.S.-China tariffs pause and the announcement of the U.S.-EU trade deal failed to spur notable gains in risk-sensitive currencies such as the Australian dollar or U.S. stock index futures, indicating a cautious global market sentiment. Stay alert!

What to Watch

• Crypto
  • July 28: Starknet (STRK), an Ethereum layer-2 validity rollup (zk-rollup), launches v0.14.0 on mainnet.
  • July 31, 12 p.m.: A live webinar featuring Bitwise CIO Matt Hougan and Bitzenship founder Aleesandro Palombo discuss bitcoin’s potential as the next global reserve currency amid dedollarization trends. Registration link.
  • Aug. 1: The Helium Network (HNT), now running on Solana, undergoes its halving event, cutting annual new token issuance to 7.5 million HNT.
  • Aug. 1: Hong Kong’s Stablecoins Ordinance takes effect, introducing a licensing regime to regulate stablecoin activities in the city.
  • Aug. 1: New Bretton Woods Labs will launch BTCD, which it says is the first fully bitcoin-backed stablecoin, on the Elastos (ELA) mainnet — a decentralized blockchain secured by merged mining with bitcoin and overseen by the Elastos Foundation.
  • Aug. 15: Record date for the next FTX distribution to holders of allowed Class 5 Customer Entitlement, Class 6 General Unsecured and Convenience Claims who meet pre-distribution requirements.
• Macro
  • Day 1 of 2: U.S. and Chinese officials meet in Stockholm for their third round of trade talks. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng lead discussions focused on preventing further tariff escalations. While extending the tariff truce set to expire Aug. 12 is a key goal, the meeting also aims to lay the groundwork for future negotiations and a possible leaders’ summit later this year.
  • July 28, 8 a.m.: Mexico's National Institute of Statistics and Geography releases June unemployment rate data.
    • Unemployment Rate Prev. 2.7%
  • July 29, 10 a.m.: The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics releases June U.S. labor market data (the JOLTS report).
    • Job Openings Est. 7.35M vs. Prev. 7.7691M
    • Job Quits Prev. 3.293M
  • July 29, 10 a.m.: The Conference Board (CB) releases July U.S. consumer confidence data.
    • CB Consumer Confidence Est. 95.5 vs. Prev. 93
  • July 30, 8 a.m.: Mexico's National Institute of Statistics and Geography releases (preliminary) Q2 GDP growth data.
    • GDP Growth Rate QoQ Prev. 0.2%
    • GDP Growth Rate YoY Prev. 0.8%
  • July 30, 8:30 a.m.: The U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) releases (advance estimate) Q2 GDP data.
    • GDP Growth Rate QoQ Est. 2.5% vs. Prev. -0.5%
    • GDP Price Index QoQ Est. 2.4% vs. Prev. 3.8%
    • GDP Sales QoQ Prev. -3.1%
    • PCE Prices QoQ Prev. 3.7%
    • Real Consumer Spending QoQ Prev. 0.5%
  • July 30, 9:45 a.m.: The Bank of Canada (BoC) announces its monetary policy decision and publishes the quarterly Monetary Policy Report. The press conference follows at 10:30 a.m. Livestream link.
    • Policy Interest Rate Est. 2.75% Prev. 2.75%
  • July 30, 2 p.m.: The Federal Reserve announces its monetary policy decision; federal funds rates are expected to remain unchanged at 4.25%-4.50%. Chair Jerome Powell’s press conference follows at 2:30 p.m.
  • July 30, 5:30 p.m.: Brazil’s central bank, Banco Central do Brasil, announces its monetary policy decision.
    • Selic Rate Prev. 15%
  • Aug. 1, 12:01 a.m.: New U.S. tariffs take effect on imports from trading partners that fail to secure a trade deal by this date. These increased duties could range from 10% to as high as 70%, impacting a wide range of goods.
• Earnings (Estimates based on FactSet data)
  • July 29: PayPal Holdings (PYPL), pre-market, $1.30
  • July 30: Robinhood Markets (HOOD), post-market, $0.31
  • July 31: Coinbase Global (COIN), post-market, $1.39
  • July 31: Reddit (RDDT), post-market, $0.19
  • July 31: Sequans Communications (SQNS), pre-market
  • Aug. 5: Galaxy Digital (GLXY), pre-market, $0.19
  • Aug. 7: Block (XYZ), post-market, $0.67
  • Aug. 7: Coincheck (CNCK), post-market
  • Aug. 7: Hut 8 (HUT), pre-market, -$0.08
  • Aug. 27: NVIDIA (NVDA), post-market, $1.00

Token Events

• Governance votes & calls
  • Lido DAO is voting on a new system that lets validator exits be triggered automatically through the execution layer, not just by node operators. It includes tools for different authorization pathways, emergency controls and built‑in limits to prevent misuse. The update is expected to make staking more decentralized, more secure and more responsive. Voting ends July 28.
  • GnosisDAO is voting on a proposal to provide $30 million a year, paid quarterly, to Gnosis Ltd., now a non-profit, to sustain its 150‑person team building critical Gnosis Chain infrastructure, products (like Gnosis Pay and Circles), business development and operations. Voting ends July 28.
  • Aavegotchi DAO is voting on funding three new features for the official decentralized application: a Wearable Lendings UI, Gotchis Batch Lending and a BRS Optimizer. Voting ends July 29.
  • Balance DAO is voting on deploying Balancer v3 on HyperEVM. Voting ends July 29.
  • NEAR Protocol is voting on potentially reducing NEAR’s inflation from 5% to 2.5%. Two-thirds of validators must approval the proposal for it to pass, and if so it could be implemented by late Q3. Voting ends Aug. 1
  • July 29, 10 a.m.: Ether.fi to host a bi-quarterly analyst call.
• Unlocks
  • July 28: Jupiter
    JUP$0.6012
    to unlock 1.78% of its circulating supply worth $32.35 million.
  • July 31: Optimism
    OP$0.8248
    to unlock 1.79% of its circulating supply worth $26.26 million.
  • Aug. 1: Sui
    SUI$4.2093
    to unlock 1.27% of its circulating supply worth $188.54 million.
  • Aug. 2: Ethena
    ENA$0.6713
    to unlock 0.64% of its circulating supply worth $28 million.
  • Aug. 9: Immutable (IMX) to unlock 1.3% of its circulating supply worth $14.85 million.
  • Aug. 12: Aptos
    APT$4.9094
    to unlock 1.73% of its circulating supply worth $55.87 million.
• Token Launches
  • July 28: NERO Chain (NERO) and Spheron Network (SPON) to be listed on Gate.io, Bitget, MEXC, and others.

Conferences

The CoinDesk Policy & Regulation conference (formerly known as State of Crypto) is a one-day boutique event held in Washington on Sept. 10 that allows general counsels, compliance officers and regulatory executives to meet with public officials responsible for crypto legislation and regulatory oversight. Space is limited. Use code CDB10 for 10% off your registration through Aug. 31.

• Day 1 of 2: TWS Conference 2025 (Singapore)
• Aug. 6-7: Blockchain.Rio 2025 (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil)
• Aug. 6-10: Rare EVO (Las Vegas)
• Aug. 7-8: bitcoin++ (Riga, Latvia)
• Aug. 9-10: Baltic Honeybadger 2025 (Riga, Latvia)
• Aug. 9-10: Conviction 2025 (Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam)

Token Talk

By Shaurya Malwa

• Believe App's API v2 allows crypto projects to build self-reinforcing tokenomic flywheels, where automated actions like burns, airdrops and future buybacks are triggered by specific project events.
• The core value lies in enabling positive feedback loops in which one bullish trigger leads to automated, on-chain actions that reinforce momentum (e.g., a spike in trading volume triggering a buyback-to-burn-to-airdrop pipeline).
• All flywheel actions are powered by base coins, secured via a dual-signature multisig wallet. That means they require both Believe and the project’s approval to execute, adding strong protection against misuse.
• Projects can configure daily action limits, and all flywheel activity is publicly transparent via a vault address, enabling community participation in contributing funds to power the flywheel.
• Each transaction includes an on-chain JSON memo for proof, offering auditable, transparent and regulatory-aligned documentation for every action taken.
• Authentication is simple: Generate an API key from the Believe Web App and pass it with every request using the x-believe-api-key header.
• Believe App-linked LAUNCHCOIN could be one to watch as such flywheel mechanisms go live, accruing value to the token.

Derivatives Positioning

• Cumulative open interest in bitcoin CME futures and offshore standard and perpetual futures rose to 742,180 BTC on Saturday, the highest since October 2022. Though the figure's pulled back slightly since then, the elevated level suggests price volatility.
• Open interest in ether futures has reached a lifetime high of 15.53 million ETH, alongside positive funding rates in perpetual futures. The combination points to bullish market sentiment.
• On Deribit, BTC and ETH risk reversals show call bias across all tenors, with bullishness more pronounced in ETH.
• Block flows featured a large short positions in the $105,000 strike call expiring on Aug. 15.
• The one-year call-put skew on BlackRock's IBIT ETF has jumped to 1.60, showing the strongest call bias in two months.

Market Movements

• BTC is up 1.55% from 4 p.m. ET Friday at $118,871.47 (24hrs: +0.61%)
• ETH is up 5.6% at $3,891.41 (24hrs: +1.91%)
• CoinDesk 20 is up 4.58% at 4,113.88 (24hrs: +1.65%)
• Ether CESR Composite Staking Rate is down 10 bps at 2.86%
• BTC funding rate is at 0.0044% (4.818% annualized) on KuCoin

• DXY is up 0.56% at 98.19
• Gold futures are unchanged at $3,337.30
• Silver futures are down 0.26% at $38.26
• Nikkei 225 closed down 1.1% at 40,998.27
• Hang Seng closed up 0.68% at 25,562.13
• FTSE is up 0.12% at 9,131.39
• Euro Stoxx 50 is up 0.85% at 5,397.41
• DJIA closed on Friday up 0.47% at 44,901.92
• S&P 500 closed up 0.4% at 6,388.64
• Nasdaq Composite closed up 0.24% at 21,108.32
• S&P/TSX Composite closed up 0.45% at 27,494.35
• S&P 40 Latin America closed down 0.42% at 2,616.48
• U.S. 10-Year Treasury rate is down 1.2 bps at 4.374%
• E-mini S&P 500 futures are up 0.26% at 6,442.00
• E-mini Nasdaq-100 futures are up 0.45% at 23,527.50
• E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average Index are up 0.17% at 45,160.00

Bitcoin Stats

• BTC Dominance: 60.79% (-0.39%)
• Ether to bitcoin ratio: 0.03266 (0.71%)
• Hashrate (seven-day moving average): 933 EH/s
• Hashprice (spot): $59.08
• Total Fees: 4.12 BTC / $488,258
• CME Futures Open Interest: 147,525 BTC
• BTC priced in gold: 35.1 oz
• BTC vs gold market cap: 9.93%

Technical Analysis

• Bitcoin cash's (BCH) daily chart shows that prices have topped the prolonged sideways channel formation, suggesting a resumption of the uptrend from the June 2023 lows.
• The next big resistance is seen at $800, the swing high registered in September 2021.

Crypto Equities

• Strategy (MSTR): closed on Friday at $405.89 (-2.18%), +3.08% at $418.41 in pre-market
• Coinbase Global (COIN): closed at $391.66 (-1.27%), +1.95% at $399.30
• Circle (CRCL): closed at $192.86 (-0.11%), +3.04% at $198.72
• Galaxy Digital (GLXY): closed at $30.59 (-4.08%), +5.1% at $32.15
• MARA Holdings (MARA): closed at $17.25 (-0.06%), +3.36% at $17.83
• Riot Platforms (RIOT): closed at $14.54 (-1.02%), +0.41% at $14.60
• Core Scientific (CORZ): closed at $13.76 (+0.51%), +0.94% at $13.89
• CleanSpark (CLSK): closed at $11.82 (-4.21%), +2.79% at $12.15
• CoinShares Valkyrie Bitcoin Miners ETF (WGMI): closed at $26.56 (-2.03%), +2.41% at $27.20
• Semler Scientific (SMLR): closed at $38.08 (-2.08%), +0.18% at $38.15
• Exodus Movement (EXOD): closed at $33.02 (-1.76%)
• SharpLink Gaming (SBET): closed at $21.99 (-5.7%), +6.64% at $23.45

ETF Flows

Spot BTC ETFs

• Daily net flow: $130.8 million
• Cumulative net flows: $54.79 billion
• Total BTC holdings ~ 1.29 million

Spot ETH ETFs

• Daily net flow: $452.8 million
• Cumulative net flows: $9.35 billion
• Total ETH holdings ~ 5.51 million

Source: Farside Investors

Overnight Flows

Chart of the Day

• Ethereum's native fees, the transaction costs paid in ether (ETH) to validators for executing transactions, and total revenue have declined, decoupling from the 56% surge in ether's spot price.
• The divergence raises a question: Will ETH's rally hold up if the corporate treasury demand weakens?

While You Were Sleeping

• U.S. and China Meet as Trade Truce Nears Expiration (The New York Times): The two days of talks in Stockholm are seeking to extend the tariff ceasefire before Aug. 12, when U.S. import duties on Chinese goods are set to rise 10 percentage points.
• Brazil to Double Down on BRICS in Defiance of Donald Trump (Financial Times): To counter U.S. pressure over its domestic affairs, Brazil is deepening ties with other BRICS countries, Europe and South America, including efforts to revive the Mercosur-EU trade pact and expand regional integration.
• Cambodia, Thailand Agree to ‘Immediate and Unconditional Ceasefire’ (BBC): The midnight local time ceasefire follows U.S. pressure linking resolution to trade talks after deadly border clashes since July 24.
• Here Is the Bitcoin Price Level That Could Be an Attractive Entry Point for BTC Bulls (CoinDesk): For traders hesitant to buy now, 10x Research’s Markus Thielen says waiting for a pullback to May’s former resistance, now support, price below $112,000, might be the best strategy.
• Clearmatics' New DeFi Derivatives Let Traders Bet on Anything, but It's Not a Prediction Market (CoinDesk): Unlike prediction markets like Polymarket that resolve on binary events, Clearmatics’ on-chain futures track real-world metrics such as inflation and temperatures, enabling ongoing exposure and risk hedging.
• Metaplanet Buys 780 More Bitcoin, Increases Stash to 17,132 BTC (CoinDesk): The Japanese company made its latest purchase at an average price of 17.5 million yen ($118,176) per BTC. Its shares rose 5% on Monday, outperforming the Nikkei 225, which fell 1.1%.
• EU Reaches Tariff Deal With US to Avert Painful Trade Blow (Bloomberg): To secure a 15% base tariff, excluding steel and aluminum, effective Aug. 1, the EU agreed to boost U.S. energy purchases, expand military imports and invest $600 billion more in America.

In the Ether