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Crypto consolidates after selloff as South Korea’s market meltdown drives crypto volumes higher

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Bitcoin consolidated following Monday’s selloff, trading at $62,600 after tumbling from $64,400 to $61,800 over the course of 24 hours.

Ether (ETH) tracked the larger cryptocurrency, trading in a relatively tight $1,770-$1,790 range. Trading volume across ETH pairs increased by 2.2% to $8.95 billion over the past 24 hours, suggesting a healthy balance of buyers and sellers rather than opposed to apathy.

Lighter (LIT) rebounded from Monday’s downturn, rising by 5.7% since midnight UTC as it looks to stage another rally following a 200% surge since May.

U.S. equities were mixed, with Nasdaq 100 index futures adding 0.31% while S&P 500 index futures fell by 0.12%, reflecting uncertainty after U.S. President Donald Trump said Iran would be hit by “very heavy” strikes on Tuesday.

Gold extended its decline from January’s record high to languish around $4,020 per ounce, falling about 28% since Jan. 29.

Derivatives positioning

  • Bitcoin derivatives positioning remains broadly unchanged. Open interest (OI) held at $17.1 billion; the three-month annualized basis stayed at 3.8%; and annualized funding rates ran between 0%–8% across multiple venues — with Bybit’s earlier negative outlier now brought into line.
  • No meaningful leverage was added in either direction, and no stress signals emerged in the funding structure.
  • Options positioning remains call-biased, but continues to moderate. The 24-hour call/put ratio sits at 58/42, softer than yesterday’s 64/36, and the one-week delta skew has compressed further to ~15% from 26% a week ago.
  • The at-the-money term structure stays in contango (front end ~31–32%, long end ~43%), and Deribit’s implied volatility index, DVOL, at 37.43 is near multiyear lows. Low-stress, mild call bias, but the options premium is quietly fading.
  • Coinglass data shows $283 million in 24-hour liquidations, with a 74-26 split between longs and shorts. BTC ($66 million) and ETH ($50 million) were the leaders in terms of notional liquidations.
  • The Binance liquidation heatmap indicates $61,300 as a core liquidation level to monitor in the event of a price drop.

Token talk

  • Ethena (ENA) mirrored LIT’s surge on Tuesday, rising by 5.7% to lead the altcoin market. Unlike LIT, however, ENA is in a deep downtrend dating back to September, since when it has lost more than 90% of its value.
  • There were also encouraging signs in the AI sector on Tuesday, with NEAR rising 3.3% and FET gaining 1.7%.
  • JUP and WLFI continued to show weakness amid dwindling trading volume, falling by 1.5% and 0.5%, respectively.
  • CoinMarketCap’s “Altcoin Season” indicator paints a more positive picture with a reading of 54/100. It spent most of June below 50/100.
  • One potentially bullish driver of altcoin price action could be the deep selloff in South Korea’s stock market. The benchmark KOSPI index has dropped 10% since Friday, leading to an inverse correlation with the country’s crypto exchanges.
  • Wu Blockchain reported that Upbit trading volume surged by 1,426% following KOSPI’s plight, indicating a potential unwind of the machine chip trade that saw investors ditch crypto at the tail end of last year.

Bitcoin holds near $62,000 as RHODL compression signals the historic market rotation

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Bitcoin is currently down roughly 50% from its October 2025 all-time high of approximately $124,000. Trading near $62,000, it has spent the past five months grinding sideways between $60,000 and $80,000, leaving the market in a state of apathy.

But a closely watched onchain metric suggests this quiet period may be setting the stage for a significant move.

Glassnode’s RHODL Ratio, which compares the wealth held by long-term holders with that of newer market participants, reached 6.5 in early July, its second-highest reading in Bitcoin’s history. It has since begun to decline and is now below 6. Crucially, this compression is occurring while the price stagnates, rather than collapses.

In 2022, the ratio rolled over alongside a violent selloff. The collapse of FTX sent Bitcoin tumbling to around $15,000. The situation in 2026 looks different. Bitcoin continues to trade near $60,000, while coins change hands without signs of panic.

This suggests a gradual transfer of supply from long-term holders, many of whom accumulated throughout 2023 and 2024, to a new cohort of buyers who view current prices as a discount.

U.S.-Iran hostilities over Strait of Hormuz drag crypto lower after positive week: Crypto Markets Today

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The crypto market pulled back during Asian and European hours on Monday, with bitcoin falling to $63,100 from above $64,300 at the weekly close at midnight UTC.

That’s a decline of about 1%. Steeper losses hit the altcoin market. Lighter (LIT) led the downside cascade, sliding 8% in its first major selloff since rallying by more than 200% over the past two months.

The exit from riskier assets was felt across equity markets, too. South Korea’s Kospi index lost 9.2% as SK Hynix, the memory-chip maker that went public in the U.S. on Friday, slumped 15%. Japan’s Nikkei and China’s SSE both fell more than 2%.

The drops reflected reignited tensions in the Middle East as Iran and the U.S. fought over control of the Strait of Hormuz, with both nations firing airstrikes against each other.

U.S. equities are also indicated to open lower, with Nasdaq 100 index futures and S&P 500 futures losing 0.9% and 0.25% since midnight, respectively.

It’s worth noting that going into the weekend bitcoin and the broader crypto market enjoyed a period of bullish price action, steering itself away from immediate danger, and Monday’s selloff could also be attributed to profit-taking.

Derivatives positioning

  • Bitcoin derivatives positioning held steady this week. Open interest (OI) was steady at $17 billion, while the three-month annualized basis held at 3.8%.
  • Funding rates were little changed to positive across multiple venues, with Bybit the notable exception at roughly -13% annualized on BTC perps. Stable OI alongside a firm basis and constructive funding suggests the market is holding its positioning without meaningful new leverage being added in either direction
  • Options positioning has tilted bullish. The 24-hour put/call ratio sits at 64/36 in favor of calls, and while the one-week delta skew remains elevated at 16%, it has narrowed from 26% a week ago, suggesting call demand is easing off rather than building.
  • The at-the-money term structure remains in contango, with the front end around 34%-35% and the long end at ~43% out to mid-2027, which implies traders see a calm longer-term volatility environment
  • Coinglass data shows $253 million in 24-hour liquidations, with a 76-24 split between longs and shorts. BTC ($70 million) and ETH ($60 million) led in terms of notional liquidations.
  • The Binance liquidation heatmap indicates $62,000 as a core liquidation level to monitor, in case of a price drop.

Token talk

  • AI tokens FET and NEAR showed strength, rising by around 1.5% apiece despite the rest of the market suffering losses.
  • Hyperliquid (HYPE) followed rival LIT down, dropping by around 3.3% to $65.1, its lowest point since July 2.
  • CoinMarketCap’s “Altcoin Season” indicator reflects the recent volatility. The measure is reading 56/100 after rising from last week’s average of 50. This implies more risk-on sentiment from investors following months of heavy losses.
  • One of the most volatile tokens of late has been , which suffered a grueling 39% downturn in June before bouncing by more than 40% at the start of July. It has since retraced that upshift, losing 19% since July 4.
  • Solana-based decentralized exchange jupiter (JUP) has also struggled of late, losing more than 15% over the past week as daily trading volume dwindled to just $17 million, down from 2025 when it regularly topped $500 million.

BlackRock, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley join UK government's tokenization taskforce

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The 54 firm-strong group, which is backed by the City of London Corporation, will spend the next year working on live tokenisation use cases across UK financial markets.

SBI Holdings’ blockchain initiative pivots to Solana for tokenization, stablecoin issuance

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Japanese asset giant SBI Holdings’ (8473) blockchain initiative is turning to Solana for its stablecoin and real-world asset (RWA) tokenization efforts.

SBI Solana Global, previously SBI R3 Japan, aims to use the network to connect Japan’s domestic market to global liquidity, according to a Monday post on its website.

The SBI Solana Global joint venture, which also counts Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group (SMFG) among its shareholders, now includes the Solana Foundation, the Zug, Switzerland-based organization that oversees the layer-1 network.

“By creating a new market for Japan-originated digital assets, the collaboration aims to establish Japan as a core hub for onchain finance in Asia,” SBI Holdings said in the statement.

SBI Holdings lists supporting the issuance and distribution of stablecoins, supporting the structuring and distribution of tokenized RWAs and developing payment infrastructure for AI agents among the venture’s functions.

The blockchain initiative previously centered around Corda, the permissioned blockchain developed by R3.

SBI Holdings has been active in expanding its digital asset business in recent months, agreeing to buy Japanese cryptocurrency exchange Bitbank last month for around $289 million.

Bitcoin holds $62,600 as the Iran conflict reignites and CPI looms

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Bitcoin traded near $62,600 on Tuesday, down 0.3% over 24 hours and roughly flat on the week, per CoinDesk data. The market is steady on the surface but the macro backdrop underneath it has turned.

President Trump reinstated the U.S. blockade of Iranian ships through the Strait of Hormuz and demanded a 20% fee on all other cargo moving through the waterway, reviving a conflict that a June peace deal had appeared to settle.

Brent crude rose as much as 2.8% to about $85 a barrel, its second day of gains, and traders lifted bets on a Fed rate hike.

That combination runs directly against crypto. Oil pushing higher feeds the inflation pressure that kept the Fed hawkish through June, and the easing of that pressure was much of what let bitcoin recover from its late-June lows near $58,000. The peace trade is now unwinding, and rate-hike odds are climbing back.

Bitcoin has spent a month between roughly $59,000 and $66,000, and the majors are mixed. Ether held near $1,783 and is up on the week, while Solana, XRP and Hyperliquid are all down 5% or more over seven days.

Today’s June inflation print is the more immediate test. A soft number would ease the rate-hike pressure the Iran news just revived. A hot one, especially with oil climbing, would stack a second hawkish signal onto the first, two weeks before the Fed meets July 28 and 29.

U.S. government moves $288 million in seized bitcoin, ether to Coinbase Prime

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The US government just staged its seized crypto for an exchange, and it took an extra hop to get there.

Wallets tied to the government moved about $288 million in seized bitcoin and ether onto Coinbase Prime over roughly half a day on Monday, blockchain data from Arkham shows. The ether went direct, while the bitcoin took a detour through fresh intermediary wallets first.

The movements are despite an executive order in March 2025 by President Donald Trump, which designated seized bitcoin for the country’s Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and said it should not be sold.

A government wallet tied to Ryan Farace, the “xanaxman” case, sent 2,875 BTC worth roughly $178 million to a new address, which forwarded the full 2,875 BTC to a Coinbase Prime deposit wallet minutes later.

A second wallet linked to defunct exchange BTC-e sent 925.512 BTC worth $57 million through the same pattern, in from the seizure address, straight out to Coinbase Prime. Both intermediary wallets were emptied out.

The ether skipped the middle step, however. A wallet connected to Brian Krewson, the Oracle employee named in a $54 million laundering scheme, sent 30,007 ETH worth $53.09 million directly to a Coinbase Prime deposit address.

Battle over blockchain stock ownership is heading to Washington regulators

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“I’d encourage the Commission not to dismiss third-party stock tokens, but to treat them as what they are — a different class of financial instrument, with clear separation from real stocks.”

Not everyone agrees

Some market participants, however, say the STA’s proposal risks grouping together fundamentally different tokenization models.

“The key is whether the tokens represent true stock ownership or just economic exposure,” Dinari CEO Gabe Otte told CoinDesk.

He said many of the STA’s concerns are valid but apply primarily to synthetic tokenized products. He pointed to the SEC’s January statement, which distinguishes custodial tokenized securities from synthetic structures, arguing that regulated custodial models should be evaluated separately.

“Both issuer-sponsored and custodial models offer true stock ownership and these should be distinguished from synthetic models for the benefit of the end investor,” Otte said.

Alan Konevsky, CEO of digital securities platform tZERO, agreed that issuer-sponsored tokenization offers important advantages by preserving the direct relationship between companies and investors. But he argued the market is likely to support multiple compliant approaches.

“Innovation is accelerating, and we expect multiple compliant, non-misleading, economically and technologically meaningful models to emerge as the market matures,” Konevsky said.

Eli Cohen, chief legal officer at tokenization platform Centrifuge that focuses on bringing funds onchain, said the letter reflects transfer agents’ concerns that issuer-sponsored tokenization could lose ground if third-party models become more widely adopted.

Strategy (MSTR) Raises $467M, Skips Bitcoin Buy Again

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Strategy (MSTR) sold about $466.7 million worth of its stock last week and put the proceeds toward cash rather than bitcoin, according to an 8-K filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday. The move lifted the company’s U.S. dollar reserve to $3 billion and marked another week without a purchase from the largest corporate holder of bitcoin.

Between July 6 and July 12, the Michael Saylor–led firm sold 4,818,781 Class A common shares through its at-the-market equity program. It issued no preferred stock under its other ATM facilities during the period. 

The company said the fresh cash pushed its dollar reserve up by some $450 million, and that it holds the reserve to cover dividend payments on its preferred stock and interest payments on its outstanding debt.

Strategy neither bought nor sold bitcoin over the week. Its holdings stand at 843,775 BTC, a position the company acquired for an aggregate price of about $63.69 billion including fees and expenses, at an average of $75,476 per coin. 

At current prices near $63,000, that stack is worth about $53 billion, which leaves the firm with roughly $10.7 billion in paper losses. The holdings equal around 4% of bitcoin’s 21 million supply cap.

Markets read the filing without much enthusiasm. MSTR fell close to 3% in premarket trading on Monday, extending a slide that has erased 38% of the stock’s value since the start of the year. Bitcoin dropped through the weekend to trade around $62,500, a decline that pulled the so-called bitcoin proxy lower with it.

A shift in Saylor’s posture

For most of Strategy’s history, the pattern ran one direction: raise capital, buy bitcoin, repeat. This year has broken that rhythm. The company has leaned on a wider capital structure, and its recent disclosures show cash building rather than coins.

The clearest break came on July 5, when Strategy sold 3,588 BTC for $216 million — the largest bitcoin sale in its history. The disposal followed a Sunday post from Saylor on X, part of a weekly ritual that market watchers treat as a signal. 

In the past, captions such as “A good time to add more dots” and “Looks better with more dots” landed ahead of purchase announcements. The tone has turned harder to read. A June 28 message reading “We’re gonna need more charts” preceded a new capital framework instead of a buy, and Sunday’s post, captioned “Orange dots tell only part of the story,” arrived before a filing that showed no purchase at all.

The building block behind the change is STRC, a preferred instrument that expanded the company’s capital structure and created new obligations to service. That structure is what makes the cash reserve matter. Dividend and interest commitments now form a fixed cost that 

Strategy must meet whether bitcoin rises or falls, and the dollar reserve exists to keep those payments funded.

How much runway does Strategy have?

For now, the near-term picture looks manageable. A $3 billion reserve gives Strategy a cushion against its dividend and interest commitments, and Monday’s filing shows the company can raise cash without touching its bitcoin. 

Selling stock dilutes shareholders but leaves the treasury whole; selling coins does the opposite. This week, Strategy chose the first path.

The open question is what happens if the choice starts to narrow. As long as the equity market absorbs new share sales at prices the company finds workable, the ATM program can fund its obligations. A sustained slide in MSTR, or a longer bitcoin downturn, would tighten that math and could turn optional sales into forced ones.

The firm’s paper losses give the shift its weight. Strategy sits on about $10.7 billion in unrealized losses, and its stock has surrendered 38% this year. Against that backdrop, the pivot from buyer to cash-builder reads less as a retreat than as a company managing a capital structure that now carries fixed costs of its own.

Bitcoin traded flat near $62,500 in the hours after the disclosure.

White House Crypto Adviser To Take Leave of Absence as CLARITY Act deadline looms

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Patrick Witt, the White House’s pointman on the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, is taking a leave of absence at the end of July for several months of military training, Crypto In America reported.

Witt, who has served as the executive director of the President’s Council of Advisors for Digital Assets since August, is expected to wrap up his work on July 24 before reporting for Judge Advocate General (JAG) training with the Georgia Army National Guard. The training will qualify him to serve as a legal officer in the Guard, the report wrote.

“Patrick has always been forthcoming and honest with every stakeholder that he was taking military leave later this month,” said Cody Carbone, CEO of Digital Chamber, on Tuesday. 

The move comes as the CLARITY Act, which would create the first comprehensive US regulatory framework for the crypto market, faces a narrow window to pass the Senate before lawmakers begin the Aug. 8 recess, which many see as a critical deadline for the bill. 

Source: Patrick Witt

Cointelegraph reached out to the White House and Patrick Witt for comment. 

Related: CLARITY Act gains second law enforcement endorsement before Senate push

Witt has been instrumental in advancing negotiations between the crypto and banking industry representatives over certain aspects of the crypto market structure bill, including stablecoin yield and disputes over ethics provisions. 

In Witt’s absence, the President’s Council of Advisors for Digital Assets’ deputy director, Harry Jung, is expected to take on his responsibilities, though Witt intends to remain involved in the process during his military training, according to sources who spoke with Crypto In America.

Magazine: Will the crypto lobby’s $189M campaign get CLARITY over the line?

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