UPDATE 17/8: Bitcoin remains the leader - but altseason hides selective opportunities
BTC & ETH are taking a breather but waiting to break out!
• Bitcoin ($BTC) is currently trading at around $117,500, with a slight fluctuation of only -0.2% in the past 24 hours and an increase of about +0.7% over the past week
• Ethereum ($ETH) is at ~$4,405-4,410, down slightly -1.6% in the past 24 hours and only increasing about +2–3% over the week
Money flow is gradually shifting
• As $BTC moves sideways at the current level and $ETH experiences a slight correction, this presents an opportunity for money to flow into quality altcoins, particularly projects in Layer-2, blockchain gaming, and on-chain real use ecosystems.
- Arbitrum ($ARB ) – L2 Optimistic Rollup of Ethereum, TVL around $18 billion, throughput can reach up to 40,000 TPS, using the ARB token for governance & staking.
- Optimism ($OP ) – TVL ~$9 billion, supports DeFi & gaming, has the OP Stack platform to build scalable chains.
- zkSync Era ($ZK ) – TVL ~$5 billion, ultra-low fees, throughput up to 20,000 TPS, anticipated to have an airdrop of the ZKS token.
- Immutable X (IMX) – L2 specialized for NFT and gaming, processing over 4,000 TPS, TVL around $22 million, market cap ~$1.35 billion.
- Illuvium (ILV) – AAA open-world RPG game, ILV token used for staking/reward, market cap ~$65 million, price around $11.3
