1. Market observation
The U.S. House of Representatives has passed the GENIUS Act to establish a regulatory framework for stablecoins and the CLARITY Act to clarify the regulatory jurisdiction of crypto assets, both of which received significant bipartisan support, indicating that the long-sought regulatory clarity for the digital asset industry will gradually be realized. At the same time, Trump is preparing to sign an executive order planning to open investments in alternative assets such as cryptocurrencies, gold, and private equity to the $9 trillion 401(k) retirement market, which could fundamentally change the way Americans save and accelerate the mainstreaming of cryptocurrencies.
In terms of monetary policy, Federal Reserve Governor Christopher Waller and Vice Chair Michelle Bowman are the only two officials openly supporting a rate cut in July. Waller emphasized in a speech at the New York Money Market Practitioners Association that although Trump's tariff policies have pushed up prices for some goods, core inflation has been below expectations for five consecutive months and wage growth has not accelerated, arguing that the temporary impact of tariffs should be ignored, focusing on the underlying inflation that is nearing the 2% target. He warned that the labor market is on the 'danger edge' and expects the economy to 'remain weak' in the second half of the year, recommending a 25 basis point rate cut at the FOMC meeting on July 29-30. However, most officials, including Governor Adriana Kugler and the New York Fed President, are concerned about the long-term effects of tariffs and advocate keeping rates unchanged. Futures markets indicate a high probability of no change in rates this month, with expectations for a rate cut in September slightly over 50%.
HashKey's chief analyst Jeffrey Ding pointed out that Bitcoin's significant price increase and record highs are due to the dual resonance effect of active on-site funds and substantial inflows of off-site funds. The key to this increase is the breakthrough of the 'Trump bottom' trading range formed since last November, between $90,000 and $110,000. Jeffrey Ding believes that breaking this range marks the official initiation of the fourth wave of the bull market for Bitcoin and predicts that the market may complete a rapid rise within the next two to three months. Additionally, Bitcoin's breakout of the 'Trump bottom' has also stimulated bullish sentiment toward other crypto assets like Ethereum, leading to a general market rally.
Bitcoin is facing a critical technical level, analyst Rakesh Upadhyay believes Bitcoin faces a resistance level of $120,000 and may fluctuate between $115,000 and $123,218 in the short term. Although buyers are attempting to push prices up, shorts have successfully defended this level, indicating that Bitcoin may maintain a range-bound movement in the short term. If Bitcoin falls below $115,000, it may further drop to the key support level of $110,530; conversely, if the price breaks through the resistance range of $120,000 to $123,218, it could aim for $135,729 or even $150,000. Analyst Man of Bitcoin also emphasized that breaking through $120,126 is a preliminary signal for an upward trend, while holding above $123,195 will further confirm the trend. Analyst Darkfost from CryptoQuant provided an optimistic perspective from on-chain data, noting that the MVRV metric, which measures unrealized profits of short-term holders, is currently only 1.15, well below the typical profit-taking level of 1.35, suggesting that there may be another 20% to 25% upside before prices enter the next round of correction.
Regarding Ethereum, analysts Ted and Poseidon believe its current trend is similar to the 2016-17 cycle, and breaking through the $4,000 key resistance level could trigger a larger-scale increase. Analyst CryptoCondom even predicts that under the backdrop of digital asset financial companies driving large amounts of ETH into staking pools, ETFs, and private reserves leading to a continuous decline in liquidity, a target of $10,000 could be achievable. Furthermore, institutional buying enthusiasm remains high, with SharpLink Gaming increasing its holdings by 144,501 ETH in nine days, BitMine Immersion disclosing that its ETH holdings exceed $1 billion, and GameSquare planning to raise $70 million to increase its ETH position.
In the altcoin market, concept coins related to the Grok AI companion continue to cause market volatility. Yesterday, after Musk announced the male AI companion Grok was named 'Valentine', the market cap of the similarly named meme coin soared to $20 million, but associated coins such as TAKI, CHAD, and ANDREJ crashed. The previously hot Grok female AI companion Ani's market cap also dropped from a peak of $88 million to $55 million. Additionally, an AI self-running experiment conducted by developer @mckaywrigley gave rise to the meme coin $CPUTER; although the developer did not acknowledge this token, its market cap quickly surpassed $16 million and has now dropped to $13 million.
2. Key data (as of July 18, 12:00 HKT)
(Data source: Coinglass, Upbit, Coingecko, SoSoValue, Tomars, GMGN)
Bitcoin: $120,495 (up 28.59% year-to-date), daily spot trading volume $51.841 billion
Ethereum: $3,647.28 (up 9.03% year-to-date), daily spot trading volume $67.357 billion
Fear and Greed Index: 71 (Greed)
Average GAS: BTC: 0.72 sat/vB, ETH: 3.9 Gwei
Market share: BTC 60.9%, ETH 11.1%
Upbit 24-hour trading volume ranking: XRP, ERA, ETH, DOGE, BTC
24-hour BTC long-short ratio: 50.58%/49.42%
Sector performance: PayFi sector up 15.95%; L2 sector up 11.52%
24-hour liquidation data: A total of 161,013 people liquidated globally, with a total liquidation amount of $610 million, including $228 million in BTC liquidations, $80.5679 million in ETH liquidations, and $89.3442 million in XRP liquidations.
BTC medium to long-term trend channel: upper channel line ($116,841.19), lower channel line ($114,527.50)
ETH medium to long-term trend channel: upper channel line ($2,997.71), lower channel line ($2,938.35)
*Note: When the price is above the upper and lower bounds, it indicates a medium to long-term bullish trend; conversely, it indicates a bearish trend. When the price fluctuates within the range or briefly passes through the cost range, it indicates a bottoming or topping state.
3. ETF flows (as of July 17)
Bitcoin ETF: +$523 million, with a net inflow for 11 consecutive days
Ethereum ETF: +$602 million, setting a new historical high
4. Today's outlook
The Pandu Bitcoin ETF will be listed on July 18, becoming the first of its kind in Hong Kong this year
OKX will delist the LSK/USDT, LOOKS/USDT, and PIPPIN/USDT perpetual contract trading pairs on July 18
Official Trump (TRUMP) will unlock approximately 90 million tokens at 8 AM on July 18, accounting for 45% of the current circulation, valued at about $878 million;
Cloud (CLOUD) will unlock approximately 125 million tokens at 11 PM on July 18, accounting for 37.92% of the current circulation, valued at about $10.3 million;
Melania Meme (MELANIA) will unlock approximately 26.25 million tokens at 8 AM on July 18, accounting for 4.07% of the current circulation, valued at about $5.2 million.
Today's top 100 market cap gainers: Lido DAO (LDO) up 22.2%, Hedera (HBAR) up 20.6%, Cronos (CRO) up 18.7%, Flare (FLR) up 18.4%, UNI up 17.3%.
5. Hot news
Upbit will list ERA tokens on the KRW, BTC, and USDT markets
Arthur Hayes reportedly purchased $1 million worth of LDO and $1 million worth of AAVE
Solana ecosystem DEX Raydium's cumulative token buyback amount exceeds $190 million
Nearly 60% of PUMP presale participants have sold or transferred their tokens to CEX or other wallets
Jump Crypto exchanged approximately 11,800 stETH for ETH and transferred it out, some of which has been moved to exchanges
Public company BitMine Immersion disclosed that its Ethereum holdings are valued at over $1 billion
Public company GameSquare plans to raise $70 million through a stock offering to continue purchasing ETH
Public company Enlightify Inc. plans to purchase up to $20 million worth of CYBER tokens within 12 months
BSTR plans to start with a holding of 30,021 BTC and go public in the U.S. through a SPAC merger
Public company Bit Origin secured $500 million in equity and debt financing to initiate DOGE treasury reserves
Plasma officially launched the public sale of XPL, and the tokenomics model has been published
Yala announced its tokenomics: a total supply of 1 billion tokens, with 3.4% allocated for airdrop
SharpLink Gaming announced a $5 billion stock issuance and is advancing its Ethereum reserve strategy
After Elon Musk named the male AI companion Grok 'Valentine', its market value surpassed $15 million, while TAKI, CHAD, and ANDREJ dropped nearly 90%
ETH perpetual contract trading volume surpassed BTC, ranking first in the market
World Liberty Fi purchased 3,007.4 ETH for tens of millions of dollars
Backpack opened a channel for the sale of FTX debt claims
The total market capitalization of cryptocurrencies surpassed $4 trillion, and the market capitalization of stablecoins surpassed $266 billion
This article is supported by HashKey, HashKey Exchange is Hong Kong's largest licensed virtual asset exchange and is also Asia's most trusted fiat gateway for crypto assets. It aims to redefine new benchmarks for virtual asset exchanges in terms of compliance, capital security, and platform assurance.
