Hyperliquid plans to require developers to stake 500,000 HYPE, worth about $30.4 million, to deploy permissionless prediction markets under HIP-4.
BTC Price Focus Turns To $67,000 Despite Iran Risk-Asset Pressures
Bitcoin (BTC) starts the last full week of July holding key support while macro clouds continue to gather.
Key points:
- Bitcoin preserves its 200-week trend line at the weekly close, leading to short-term BTC price targets of up to $67,000.
- US-Iran war rhetoric ramps up, with oil prices hitting five-week highs ahead of a week of corporate earnings reports.
- Bitcoin spot demand retreats from its early-July uptick despite ETF inflows.
- Bitcoin’s Puell Multiple heads higher, but analysts are wary of calling a “generational low.”
- Crypto market sentiment hits highest levels since the start of June.
Trader sees “further relief” for Bitcoin bulls
In a familiar move, Bitcoin saw sell-side pressure soon after the weekly close going into Monday morning, with local lows reaching $63,700, data from TradingView confirms.
BTC/USD one-hour chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView
Despite this, traders are becoming increasingly optimistic on shorter time frames as range lows continue to hold.
“Wouldn’t surprise me if we see some further relief this week – towards 65-67k,” trader Jelle predicted in his latest analysis posted Monday morning on X.
BTC/USD one-day chart. Source: Jelle/X
Trader Daan Crypto Trades noted that BTC/USD had sealed its third consecutive weekly close above the 200-week simple moving average (SMA), currently at $63,322.
“To really get this interesting you want to see a strong push higher now to retrace that last leg down and get back above the Weekly 200EMA,” he told X followers, referring to the 200-week exponential moving average (EMA) at $68,521.
“Until then, we’re just caught in this $60K choppy price range.”
BTC/USD one-week chart. Source: Daan Crypto Trades/X
Others doubled down on bullish conviction, with trader Roman again flagging multiple bullish divergences across BTC price metrics, including the relative strength index (RSI), a classic leading indicator.
Contrasting the optimism was seasonality, with BTC price cycle history demanding another year of bear-market moves.
“Bitcoin is more than halfway through its second year in the current BTC Four Year Cycle. 2025 proved to be the year of the $BTC Bull Market peak. And 2026 has proven itself to be the year of the Bitcoin Bear Market,” trader and analyst Rekt Capital summarized.
“2027 will be the Bottoming Out year to precede an entirely brand new future Bitcoin Bull Market.”
BTC/USD 12-month chart. Source: Rekt Capital/X
As Cointelegraph reported, Rekt Capital now calculates the current bear market to be just over 70% complete.
Iran worries send oil prices higher
Geopolitical risk is top of the agenda for risk-asset traders this week as the US-Iran war escalates once again.
Iran’s foreign minister warned of potentially “unresolvable” nuclear disputes while US President Donald Trump called on lawmakers to add Iran to a sanctions bill that was initially directed at Russia.
Source: Truth Social
Oil futures surged at the weekly open, with WTI crude at five-week highs above $80 per barrel and Brent crude topping $90.
CFDs on US WTI crude oil one-day chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView
As Cointelegraph reported, the return of the conflict saw the swift closure of the Strait of Hormuz, a key global oil route, that was briefly cleared for traffic as part of the now-failed US-Iran peace deal.
The latest Iran events provide volatile backdrop to the week’s macro outlook, which focuses on major corporate earnings as tech stocks face new headwinds.
In the coming days, Tesla, Alphabet and Intel will all report, providing a potential short-term volatility catalyst across risk assets.
“Earnings season is officially in full-swing,” trader resource The Kobeissi Letter summarized in a thread on X.
Following last week’s lower-than-expected US inflation data, meanwhile, Trump was buoyant, calling the numbers “great news.”
“As Investment pours into our Country, Factory Construction surges, Manufacturing Jobs rise, and Prices fall, there is so much to be proud of — The Golden Age of America is here!” he wrote in a post on Truth Social.
Markets remained conservative on policy changes from the Federal Reserve, with the latest data from CME Group’s FedWatch Tool showing consensus for a 0.25% interest-rate hike in September.
Fed target-rate probabilities for September FOMC meeting (screenshot).
Source: CME Group
Bitcoin spot demand returns lower
Lackluster spot-market demand remains a key stumbling block on the road to bull-market recovery, research says.
In a blog post on Monday, onchain analytics platform CryptoQuant revealed that a modest supply increase at the start of July had already dissipated.
“Bitcoin’s 30-day Spot Demand recovered sharply to around -80K BTC in early July but has since deteriorated again to nearly -170K BTC,” contributor ScenarioX wrote.
Bitcoin demand data (screenshot). Source: CryptoQuant
Earlier, Cointelegraph reported on spot demand staying negative while recovering significantly on a rolling 30-day basis as BTC/USD hit $64,000. At the same time, futures markets saw a more pronounced influx of interest.
This was reflected in net flows to the US spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs), which were positive for four out of five days last week, per data from UK-based investment manager, Farside Investors.
“Despite this significant decline in spot demand, Bitcoin’s price has remained relatively stable, mainly due to easing short-term selling pressure and short covering in the derivatives market,’ ScenarioX said.
“However, derivatives demand remains insufficient to support a sustainable uptrend on its own. This leaves the market in a structurally fragile state, where renewed spot selling could trigger a sharp downside move.”
US spot Bitcoin ETF netflows (screenshot). Source: Farside Investors
CryptoQuant suggested that the market could still continue to gain “for a while” before futures demand was exhausted.
“However, the rally without meaningful spot demand is likely to end in a significant long liquidation event,” ScenarioX warned.
Puell Multiple lows fail to convince
A classic BTC price metric is showing signs of a reversal this month, but CryptoQuant warns that it is too early to talk of a “generational low.”
The Puell Multiple, which measures the USD value of newly issued BTC each day relative to its 365-day moving average, continues to head higher after seeing macro lows in early June.
“A low reading means miner income is well below normal,” CryptoQuant contributor TheChessOnChain explained in a blog post.
Bitcoin Puell Multiple. Source: CryptoQuant
Puell in turn reflects on Bitcoin miners’ financial stability, and June’s 0.87 reading was the lowest since September 2024. Zooming out, however, each BTC price cycle has delivered higher lows for Puell, potentially boosting that latter reading’s chances of forming the next floor.
“These bottoms are getting shallower, and the four-year supply cut (the halving) is not the cause: the metric scales both sides of its ratio, so cutting new supply cancels out. The real driver: price falls less each cycle (down 83% in 2018, 77% in 2022, less since), so miner income never sinks as deep,” TheChessOnChain said.
Bitcoin Puell Multiple data (screenshot). Source: CryptoQuant
While Puell lows do not strictly correspond to BTC price bear-market bottoms, TheChessOnChain suggests that waiting for new lower readings — including the metric’s classic deep value territory — may be a flawed strategy.
“The 2024 and 2026 lows came with price still high, so they are Puell lows, not price bottoms. Waiting for the classic sub-0.5 zone, where miners sell at a loss, may mean waiting for a level that no longer prints,” they said.
“Today reads as easing miner pressure, not a generational low. It turns decisive only if it holds beneath recent lows for weeks.”
Crypto sentiment gauge nears two-month high
Despite macro headwinds brewing over the weekend, crypto market sentiment continues to post a steady recovery.
Related: Bitcoin bottom countdown nears 50 days after BTC supply in loss passed 50%
The latest readings of the Crypto Fear & Greed Index show panic slowly dissipating among the broader investor base.
On Monday, the gauge measured 29/100 — still within its “fear” bracket but at its highest levels since the start of June. For much of the intervening period, crypto was gripped by “extreme fear.”
Crypto Fear & Greed Index (screenshot). Source: Alternative.me
In commentary on the rebound last week, research platform Santiment underscored its timing with the return of ETF inflows.
“After a long outflow stretch throughout May and June, this shift signals ETF demand is back and confidence in crypto is starting to pick up again,” it wrote on X.
Santiment argued that “encouraging” US inflation data had helped boost risk appetite, while “crypto policy optimism added another reason for sidelined buyers to re-enter.”
Brazil’s securities regulator sets up task force with 60-day deadline for tokenization proposal
Brazil’s securities regulator, the Comissão de Valores Mobiliários (CVM) said it created a working group to draft an experimental framework for tokenized securities.
The regulator said the framework will cover the registration, custody, trading and settlement of securities using distributed ledger technology.
The group must send its first proposal to the CVM’s board within 60 days of being formally installed, while a broader review will run for 120 days, with a possible 30-day extension.
The group brings together 14 CVM departments and may consult government agencies, market associations, self-regulatory bodies and outside specialists. It will also review cybersecurity risks, international regulatory models and results from earlier sandbox programs, the regulator said.
Brazil already applies securities law according to a token’s economic characteristics. The CVM’s 2022 guidance clarified that using blockchain does not change whether an asset qualifies as a security.
The new review will focus on what happens around the asset.
Blockchains can combine functions that are normally split between exchanges, custodians, registrars, depositories and settlement systems. That raises questions over who controls the official ownership record, how private keys are held, when transactions can be reversed and who is liable when systems fail.
Crypto prices slip without a macro catalyst as PUMP steals the show: Crypto Markets Today
The crypto market is drifting lower, with bitcoin losing 1% since midnight UTC while ether (ETH) is holding up marginally better, shedding 0.65% even as some other risk assets, like U.S. equity index futures, advance.
Futures on the Nasdaq 100 and S&P 500 indexes posted gains of 0.35% and 0.20%, respectively, expanding the divergence between crypto and stocks that has defined much of this year.
Gold is little changed, holding above $4,000, and the Dollar Index (DXY) also barely moved, leaving crypto without a clean macro narrative to lean on.
CoinMarketCap’s Fear and Greed index sits at 34, deep in “fear” territory, while the average relative strength index (RSI) across crypto pairs has slipped to 44.07, nudging back toward the oversold conditions that set up July’s relief rally.
Derivatives positioning
- Churn over conviction: Crypto futures are characterized by churning rather than new position establishment. While trading volume surged 81% to $127 billion in the past 24 hours, open interest (OI) remained flat at approximately $111 billion.
- Leverage demand stalls: Bitcoin futures OI growth stalled near 750K BTC, failing to gain traction despite a recent swing that took the price above $64,000. This stagnation indicates that demand for leverage remains low and is a clear sign investors are not comfortable increasing their risk exposure. A similar pattern of caution is evident in ether (ETH) and XRP futures.
- Solana capital outflow: Solana (SOL) is seeing a distinct trend of contraction, with futures OI declining to 62 million tokens, the least since early May. This represents a significant drop from the June 24 peak of over 76 million, signaling substantial position unwinding and capital outflows from the SOL market.
- Bitcoin cash outlier: stands out as today’s exception. OI in BCH futures has surged by 20% to 1.73 million tokens, matching the record high set on June 21. This build-up increases the likelihood of volatile price action ahead, particularly as the token has slipped 3% to $213 over the past 24 hours.
- Bearish market delta: Broadly speaking, bears appear to be driving the price action across most top-tier tokens. This is reflected in negative 24-hour cumulative volume delta (CVD) readings for most major coins, including bitcoin and ether. Notably, the privacy-focused ZEC has posted the most negative CVD in the market.
- Volatility fear gauge alert: Traders should stay alert for potential market turbulence. Bitcoin’s 30-day implied volatility index (BVIV) is nearing the 36% mark. This level has served as a floor in recent years; previous instances of the index hitting this threshold have often preceded major volatility booms and sharp bitcoin price slides.
- Options sentiment divergence: On the Deribit options exchange, persistent downside caution is keeping BTC and ETH puts priced higher than calls. However, 24-hour volume figures reveal a tactical bias toward the upside: the $70,000 Bitcoin call has emerged as the most-traded contract, while the $2,450 call is leading the rankings for ether.
Token talk
- Zcash (ZEC) reversed course on Monday after its recent run, falling 3.68% to $527. The pullback follows a period of outperformance and may reflect profit-taking.
- AI tokens are among the broader losers, with FET dropping 2.94% and TAO shedding 2.58%, giving back some of the gains posted last week as the sector struggles to sustain momentum.
- is the standout mover of the past 24 hours, surging 20% following a wave of noise on social media, led by crypto influencer Ansem who posted bullish analysis alluding to the company making $30 million to $40 million per month in a bear market.
- Jupiter (JUP) also advanced, rising 1.02% to $0.197 alongside a pickup in trading volume, continuing the token’s gradual rehabilitation after weeks of heavy losses.
- Lighter (LIT) slipped a further 1.83%, extending a pullback from its record highs as profit-taking continues to weigh on a token that surged more than 200% between May and early July.
- CoinMarketCap’s Altcoin Season indicator is at 55/100, the highest reading in months, though the Fear and Greed score of 34 suggests the market remains cautious despite pockets of altcoin strength.
Bank of Korea prepares for live CBDC transactions with 9 banks in September
The Bank of Korea’s central bank digital currency (CBDC) plans are moving forward with nine participating banks.
The second phase of BOK’s CBDC program is scheduled for September with real-transaction testing, Yonhap News Agency reported on Monday.
“The Bank of Korea will provide the infrastructure for the institutional CBDC, and each bank will conduct its own business using deposit tokens,” a BOK official told YNA. “From the second phase, we will lay the groundwork for commercialization.”
The BOK’s second phase will expand to include a total of nine participating banks, including Gyeongnam Bank and iM Bank. The country’s top three banks, KB Kookmin, Shinhan, Hana, and Woori Financial Group, are also participating in the CBDC project.
“The goal is to create an environment where the won can be traded freely regardless of time or place,” Yonhap quoted the government as saying.
CBDCs are a digital form of blockchain-based fiat currency that are managed by the issuing central bank and considered legal tender. Only a handful of countries have officially introduced a CBDC. Bahamas unveiled one in October 2020, Nigeria in 2021, and Jamaica in 2022, according to the Atlantic Council’s CBDC tracker.
A BTC price volatility surge may be brewing, key indicator suggests: Crypto Daily
While past patterns are never a guarantee of future performance, volatility metrics are widely known to be mean-reverting. This cyclical nature suggests that periods of below-average volatility are often followed by higher turbulence, while above-average volatility paves the way for market stability.
Currently, the index is trading below both its 30-day and 200-day simple moving averages. In essence, volatility is relatively “cheap” and sitting at a historically reliable support zone, suggesting the measure could be set to rise, which means another round of turbulence.
For now, bitcoin continues to trade just above $64,000, maintaining the range-bound price action that has persisted since last Wednesday. While some analysts have noted two consecutive weeks of spot ETF inflows, the capital movement is tiny compared with the billions yanked from the market during the preceding eight-week outflow streak.
Global volatility gauges in traditional markets are currently offering mixed signals. South Korea’s KOSPI VIX is currently above 70%, its highest level since the 1990s. Meanwhile, Wall Street’s VIX jumped over 12% to reach 18% on Friday, where it continues to hover. However, these levels have been in the play for months, which means that stocks are anything but panicked.
Additionally, the MOVE index, the 30-day volatility gauge for U.S. Treasury notes that underpins global finance, remains steady around 70%, as it has since April, offering a constructive cue for risk assets. Stay alert!
Hyperliquid plans to introduce decentralized prediction markets in HIP-4 upgrade
Hyperliquid said its HIP-4 upgrade, which introduced “outcome trading” to the decentralized exchange, will support permissionless deployment of the contracts in a future enhancement.
Once live, anyone will be able to offer a prediction market on the platform, subject to templates approved by validators, Hyperliquid said on Telegram on Sunday. In the meantime, they remain under the authority of validators.
Prediction markets, a sector dominated by Polymarket and Kalshi, allow participants to bet on event outcomes and have evolved into a multibillion-dollar sector of the blockchain industry. Users take positions on events from central bank interest-rate decisions to who performs at the Super Bowl halftime show.
The growing popularity of the platforms — the FIFA World Cup, which wrapped up Sunday with Spain winning its third title, drew more than $50 billion in bets — has attracted centralized trading platforms like Coinbase and Robinhood into the sector to offer customers a one-stop shop for predictions markets alongside more conventional financial trading.
Cross-chain protocol Allbridge halts after $1.65 million flash loan exploit
Allbridge Core has paused its cross-chain stablecoin protocol after an attacker stole roughly $1.65 million from its Solana liquidity pools, according to security firms CertiK and PeckShield.
Allbridge is a bridge that lets users move assets between blockchains that do not communicate directly. Its Core product uses liquidity pools to transfer native stablecoins such as USDC and USDT without issuing wrapped versions of the assets.
The attacker used a $1.12 million flash loan from Solana lending protocol Kamino to rapidly swap USDC and USDT, manipulating the pools’ internal ratios before withdrawing assets at favorable rates, according to Onchain Lens. A flash loan is a loan taken and repaid within the same transaction.
The stolen assets were bridged to an Ethereum address and dispersed across additional addresses. It isn’t currently clear how much remains under the attacker’s control.
Allbridge said it paused the protocol while investigating, and told liquidity providers to withdraw from affected pools. The initial manipulation left the pools imbalanced and created a temporary arbitrage opportunity. Allbridge asked traders who profited from the pricing distortion to return funds for LP compensation.
Allbridge suffered a similar flash loan attack in 2023 that drained roughly $650,000 from its BNB Chain pools. The firm later said it recovered most of the funds and changed its liquidity and withdrawal calculations. Allbridge had raised $2 million in 2022 to expand the bridge and fund security audits.
Amazon Japan distributor AZ-Com Maruwa to adopt yen stablecoin JPYC for payments
A Japanese logistics company that counts Amazon Japan as a client plans to settle payments in the regulated yen stablecoin JPYC with business partners, including independent truck drivers, according to a report by Nikkei Asia.
Tokyo-listed AZ-COM Maruwa Holdings (9090), which reported 230.5 billion yen ($1.4 billion) in revenue for the fiscal year ended March, plans to use JPYC for fees and other payments to its network of around 2,300 partners, including subcontractors and truck drivers. The company has been working with Amazon Japan since 2017, providing delivery services for its online shopping operations.
The move marks the first large-scale corporate use of a stablecoin in day-to-day operations in Japan, signaling that mainstream adoption of tokenized assets continues to expand even as broader cryptocurrency valuations remain subdued in a lingering bear market.
JPYC is Japan’s first fully regulated yen-pegged stablecoin, and is issued by Tokyo-based fintech firm JPYC Inc. The stablecoin debuted in October last year under the Payment Services Act and maintains a strict 1:1 peg to the yen. It is 100% backed by bank deposits and Japanese government bonds. As of last week, its onchain circulation had surpassed 2 billion yen.
South Korea Uncovers 30 Cases Unfair Trading
South Korea’s financial authorities investigated more than 40 cases of unfair trading, including market manipulation and fraudulent crypto trading, in the last two years.
According to an X post by Financial Services Commission Chair Lee Eog-won, 30 of them reported or referred to investigative agencies, identifying 25 suspects since the Virtual Asset User Protection Act took effect in July 2024.
Lee said the average unlawful gains were around 1.4 billion Korean won ($940,000).
“Today marks the second anniversary of the enactment of the ‘Virtual Asset User Protection Act…’ It was a meaningful time that brought the virtual asset market, which was outside the institutional framework at the time, into the fold of the law and created an opportunity to establish a user protection system for virtual assets,” said Lee.
Related: South Korea to bring digital assets under new state asset management system
The Virtual Asset User Protection Act is designed to protect users who buy and store crypto assets with virtual asset service providers.
VASPs are legally required to separate user deposits and virtual assets from their own corporate holdings, holding client deposits in banks.
The legislation also targets illicit activities such as insider trading, wash trading and market manipulation, enhancing the Financial Services Commission (FSC) authority to supervise and inspect VASPs.
“We will continue to enhance market surveillance investigation and monitoring systems based on AI, and proactively respond to high-risk areas,” Lee added.
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