Crypto Weekly Review & Outlook | July 19 — July 26, 2021

News Highlights

• Elon Musk reveals that SpaceX owns bitcoin and that Elon personally owns BTC along with some ETH & DOGE
• Amazon ‘definitely’ lining up Bitcoin payments and tokens, confirms insider
• Ethereum 2.0 Chain Merge Proposal Gets Formal Approval
• Bitcoin exchange supply down, decreasing sell-off risk
• Grayscale launches a DeFi Fund tracking the Coindesk Defi Index
• Cardano to be compatible with browsers and mobile devices
• Artist Damien Hirst’s ‘Currency’ NFT drop more than 6x oversubscribed
• Solana to Launch Stake Pools
• Defi protocol Thorchain hacked again

Markets

• The entire market value of all crypto assets has moved in a range from $1.18 trillion to $1.55 trillion over the last week and as of this writing sits near the top end of the range at $1.52tn after steadily rising since Wednesday and jumping higher this morning.
• BTC-USD has gained around 22% over the past week. The pair started the week with bearish price movement and broke below $30k for the first time in a month before regaining it and more from Wednesday. It was in the process of solidifying support at the $34K level, before skyrocketing to as high as $39k this morning.
• ETH-USD rose approximately 26% during the past week. The pair followed bitcoin’s bearish price movement and fell into the $1,700 range before breaking back above the psychologically important $2,000 level and went along for the ride this morning currently sitting near $2,350.

The Week Ahead

• An Amazon insider is claiming that the megacompany is lining up bitcoin payments by the end of 2021 and will introduce its own token in 2022. The news isn’t limited to bitcoin as the insider claims that once bitcoin payments are working smoothly, the other major cryptocurrencies will be next in line. If true, such a major player could truly help bitcoin become a standard means of exchange and will likely fuel further bullish sentiment in bitcoin and the other leading cryptocurrencies.
• With Ethereum’s merge proposal getting formally approved, investor focus should move back towards the upcoming London fork scheduled for August 4th deployment. With it comes the much anticipated EIP-1559 which will lower Ethereum’s gas fees while moderating the volatility of the network’s transaction fees.
• Is Elon giving the bitcoin community a head fake or is he being sincere with his bitcoin support? This is a question being asked following his remarks at The B Word Conference. The community is still quite skeptical of the eccentric billionaire’s true intentions, especially after his “I might pump, but I don’t dump” remark. Not to mention his comment that Tesla will “most likely” resume accepting BTC as a payment option. It appears that Elon’s crypto pumps (and unacknowledged dumps) will still be a major market factor going forward.
• Cardano will likely be high on investors’ radar as its founder promises that the next two months are going to be “fun.” With Cardano progressing towards its launch of functioning smart contracts, the cryptocurrency betting market Polymarket is currently giving Cardano only a 47% chance of having the smart contracts ready by October 1st.
• Institutions have been gravitating towards the rich opportunities in the Defi space. The latest example is Grayscale’s launching of a Defi Fund mainly consisting of Uniswap (49.95% weight), Aave (10.25% weight), Compound (8.38% weight), and others. As more institutions come around to owning altcoins, and specifically DeFi coins, demand in this space should increase significantly.

Chart of the week

According to Santiment, the bitcoin exchange supply hit an 18-month low earlier last week, indicating a decrease in sell-off risk and an increased likelihood of price recovery. As the bitcoin price has already jumped higher this morning, the chart’s implication appears quite prescient. Not to mention the fact that there have been over $700 million in bitcoin short liquidations over the past twelve hours.

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