U.S. Stocks Ripping & Crypto Taking a Breather

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This Week’s Top Stories

“President Trump has officially signed the GENIUS Act.” – Friday, 18 July 2025 

• Last week was historic for U.S. cryptocurrency legislation, as the three major crypto regulations were passed, and the infamous GENIUS Act was officially signed into law by President Trump on Friday. The bill aims to establish a clear regulatory framework for stablecoin issuance, with the goal to enhance the global U.S. dollar influence through cross-border penetration of internet-native, low-cost crypto infrastructure. 

• After Trump signed the GENIUS Act, Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino announced that the company plans to bring USDT to the United States via the foreign issuer path and that he wants to launch a local stablecoin as well. The focus of the company in the U.S. will be on institutional clients, offering stablecoins for payments, interbank settlement, and trading.  

“The 180-day report on Digital Assets from Trump’s Working Group is coming at the end of the month.” – Thursday, 23 July 2025 

• Bo Hines, Executive Director of the President’s Digital Asset Advisory Council, announced that the White House’s first policy report on digital assets was completed and that it will be released to the public on 30 July 2025. 

• The report is expected to cover the evaluation of a potential creation and maintenance of a national digital asset stockpile and propose criteria for establishing such a stockpile. The report may also include proposals to grow the stockpile via governmental buying of digital assets. 

A Quick Crypto Overview: U.S. Stocks up while Crypto is Taking a Breather 

While the week started on a positive note, after a weekend of wild price action with Ethereum up more than 5 percent over the weekend, the market turned around on Tuesday, with the total market capitalization currently down 3 percent on the week. Most major cryptocurrencies are down this week, with PUMP leading the way on the downside, having taken an over 50 percent hit this week. 

On the upside, Maple Finance is up 40 percent, PENGU and Ethena are up more than 20 percent, and Tezos is sitting on a weekly increase of almost 18 percent at the time of writing. 
The U.S. stock indices S&P 500 and the Nasdaq are both up more than 1 percent on the week, trading at new all-time highs, while gold is flat on the week and the U.S. Dollar Index has lost its recent gains again, down almost 1 percent. 

When looking at the chart below, comparing Bitcoin to the S&P 500, one can observe a fresh all-time high for BTC vs. the U.S. stock index. The high was short-lived, however, lasting for less than a day, and Bitcoin is currently down more than 7 percent from said high on 14 July 2025.

Chart of the Week: Google Trend Searches “Buy Bitcoin” 

Market participants are often trying to gauge the retail sentiment when it comes to crypto to assess where we might stand in the current cycle. Looking at the Google searches for “Buy Bitcoin” over the past five years, we can see that the number of searches is on the rise again, after having reached a multi-year high in November and December 2024, after the U.S. elections. While one should likely not expect the old highs from 2020 and 2021 to be reached again, this data can help in the assessment of the cycle stage, as both new multi-year highs (in March 2024 and end of 2024) coincided with the price peak for Bitcoin, at least on a temporary basis.

What’s Happening On-Chain? NFTs Comeback and Polymarket’s U.S. Re-Entry 

NFTs started to wake up again this week, with the trading volume on NFT marketplaces more than doubling on Monday compared to a normal day in the weeks before, with an NFT whale purchasing 45 CryptoPunks, pushing the floor price of CryptoPunks above 50 ETH again. The two marketplaces OpenSea and Blur are dominating in terms of trading volume, with Blur accounting for $15 million and OpenSea $10 million of the total $27 million in trading volume on Monday alone.

In other news, the PUMP token is trading roughly 40 percent below the ICO price, currently trading at 0.0025, down 65 percent from its high on 13 July, one day after the infamous ICO. Various whales who participated in the PUMP private sale have been selling large chunks of their allocations, with two addresses selling a combined $140 million over the past week, realizing roughly $40 million in profits. The Pump.Fun team communicated this week that a potential airdrop of the PUMP token is not happening anytime soon, further disappointing community members around the world. 

Polymarket, the crypto-betting platform, announced the acquisition of the CFTC-approved derivatives exchange QCX for over $100 million, allowing it to return to the United States and to legally reopen their services to U.S. users. The news came after the DOJ and CFTC recently dropped their investigations into Polymarket. According to a person familiar with the matter, Polymarket is additionally considering issuing its own stablecoin to capture yield from the reserves backing the USDC held on its platform. A final decision seems not to have been made yet, however. 

Digital Asset Fund Flows: Ethereum Spot ETFs are Crushing it 

Last week, digital asset investment products saw a record-breaking $4.4 billion of net inflows, pushing the total assets under management to $220 billion, also a new record. 

Ethereum played a huge part in this new all-time high of weekly net inflows, with a staggering $2.1 billion in net weekly inflows. Ethereum investment products have never seen such large inflows. In fact, last week’s inflows are nearly double that of any other week on record. Ethereum was almost on par with the net inflows into Bitcoin products, both bringing in more than $2.1 billion last week, followed by Solana and XRP, with roughly $35 million each. The U.S. is once more leading by a landslide, attracting $4.36 billion last week, followed by Switzerland with $47 million. 

This week, the Ethereum spot ETFs continue to see large daily net inflows, currently sitting on $1.3 billion in net inflows this week, compared to $50 million for the Bitcoin spot ETFs, a very interesting change in dynamics, which we have been talking about since the beginning of June.

In the world of crypto treasury corporations, last week was once again packed with news. The number of companies announcing crypto treasury strategies keeps increasing by the day, and existing crypto treasury companies are continuing to scoop up digital assets. You can find a list of the top 100 Bitcoin treasury companies here, and a list of entities holding more than 100 ETH here. You will find the news surrounding new acquisitions of such companies in the “Other Relevant News” section of this week’s Weekly Wrap. 

Meanwhile, the stories keep getting crazier. GameSquare Holdings has not only raised its crypto treasury authorization from $100 million to $250 million, but also introduced a new Ethereum-based NFT strategy with an initial $10 million allocation. 

Market Sentiment: Crypto holding Steady in the lower “Greed Zone” 

While the crypto fear and greed index remains in "greed" territory at 70, holding steady since the beginning of the month, the stock market sentiment index has returned to "extreme greed" at 75. The last time the CNN Fear & Greed Index hovered at these levels, back in October 2024, the stock market experienced a minor correction before accelerating following the U.S. election in November. 

Retail investors are increasingly neutral, as seen in the weekly AAII sentiment survey. While the majority is bullish (36.8 percent), the number of bearish members is sitting at 34 percent and 29.2 percent are neutral. This data suggests that there is currently no major inflection point when it comes to sentiment, and a lot of market participants seem to be wondering why the stock market just continues to increase. 

Sentiment analysis is able to give valuable insights during moments of peak euphoria or peak fear and stress. During market phases such as the current one, it’s worth monitoring the sentiment, but it’s hard to form a strong thesis, as the sentiment is rather neutral. 

Other Relevant News 

• Christie’s International Real Estate has launched a dedicated crypto real estate division. – Link 

• Strategy has increased its latest Series A perpetual preferred stock offering “Stretch” from $500 million to $2 billion. – Link 

• Strategy has acquired 6’220 BTC for ~$739.8 million at ~$118’940 per bitcoin. Strategy now hodl 607’770 BTC. – Link 

• Bit Digital (Nasdaq: BTBT) announced it has acquired 19’683 ETH using proceeds from its recent $67.3 million direct offering. The company now holds 120’306 ETH. – Link 

• SharpLink Gaming increased its ETH holdings to 360’807 ETH during the week of July 14–20, 2025, acquiring 79’949 ETH. – Link 

• Trump Media & Technology Group revealed it now holds approximately $2 billion in Bitcoin and related securities, making up around two-thirds of its $3 billion in liquid assets. – Link 

• Nasdaq-listed Thumzup Media Corporation has announced that its Board has authorized the company to hold up to $250 million in crypto assets, including BTC, ETH, SOL, XRP, DOGE, LTC, and USDC. – Link 

• Mexico-listed real estate firm Grupo Murano plans to adopt Bitcoin as a core strategic asset, with an initial investment of $1 billion and a goal to build a $10 billion BTC treasury within five years. – Link 

• JPMorgan is exploring offering loans backed by customer-held crypto assets like Bitcoin and Ethereum, possibly starting as early as next year. – Link 

• Goldman Sachs partners with BNY Mellon to enable institutional investors to buy tokenized money market funds. – Link 

• Cathie Wood's Ark Invest purchased 4 million shares of Ethereum treasury company Bitmine Immersion (BMNR), worth approximately $175 million. – Link 

Looking Ahead: Crypto Taking a Breather While U.S. Stocks Keep Rising 

Crypto has been taking a bit of a break this week, while U.S. stocks continue to trade to the upside. The U.S.-listed Ethereum spot ETFs are on a record-breaking run, attracting more than $2 billion in net inflows last week and currently on track to bring in over $1 billion again this week, compared to just $50 million for the Bitcoin spot ETFs. Investors seem to be betting on ETH and other altcoins, expecting Bitcoin dominance to finally stall after its multi-year run. Bitcoin dominance is currently down almost 7 percent since the end of June. 

Selling pressure from an OG whale appears to be weighing on Bitcoin for now, while many major altcoins have managed to hold up reasonably well so far. It is worth keeping an eye on this BTC whale, as his selling is expected to stop soon. The question is, will crypto then follow U.S. equities to the upside once more? 

Looking ahead to next week, markets face a packed schedule of economic data releases. The Federal Reserve is set to announce its interest rate decision on Wednesday, just hours before the Bank of Japan reveals its own decision. U.S. GDP data, Japan’s unemployment rate, and the unemployment numbers from the U.S. are also worth watching, as they could influence global market sentiment. 

Below, you can find some of the key data releases and events to watch out for next week. 

Tuesday, 29 July 2025 

U.S. – House Price Index 

U.S. – JOLTS Job Openings 

Wednesday, 30 July 2025 

Eurozone – GDP 

U.S. – GDP 

U.S. – FOMC meeting, Fed Interest Rate Decision 

Japan – BoJ Interest Rate Decision 

Thursday, 31 July 2025 

U.S. – Initial Jobless Claims 

U.S. – PCE Price Index, Core PCE Price Index 

Japan – Unemployment Rate 

Friday, 1 August 2025 

Switzerland – National Day 

Eurozone – CPI, Core CPI 

U.S. – Unemployment Rate 

U.S. – ISM Manufacturing Prices