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Spot market conditions have improved after months of weakness, with U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs shifting from persistent outflows to modest inflows. Still, the report cautioned that demand has yet to fully recover, with ETF flows and purchases by corporate bitcoin treasury companies such as Strategy (STR) remaining well below the levels seen earlier this year.
While bitcoin’s rebound has helped lift sentiment across the market after a difficult second quarter, Bitfinex cautioned that the recovery is “not yet healed.”
Bitcoin currently accounts for nearly 67% of spot crypto trading volume, up from roughly 50% a year ago, according to Bitfinex. The shift suggests investors continue to favor bitcoin over smaller tokens, a sign that traders remain defensive rather than embracing broad risk-taking.
Data from K33 Research paints a similar picture.
Head of research Vetle Lunde said institutional participation has continued to fade, with CME bitcoin futures open interest falling to its lowest level since 2023. Offshore perpetual futures positioning has remained largely unchanged, indicating speculative traders have been reluctant to add leverage despite bitcoin’s recent gains.
Spot trading activity has also stayed slow. Thirty-day bitcoin trading volume is running at just 62% of its annual average, according to K33, and late July has historically been the weakest period of the year. Average daily spot volume over the past week was roughly $2.3 billion, hovering near yearly lows even as prices recovered.
K33 described the backdrop as a “promising, and typical, summer slumber.”
An April 2025 CoinDesk investigation found that Movement was examining whether it had been misled into signing a market-making agreement that handed a single counterparty unusual influence over MOVE’s circulating supply. Internal documents reviewed by CoinDesk at the time showed the arrangement allowed 66 million MOVE tokens to be sold into the market one day after the token debuted, contributing to a sharp decline in price.
The controversy centered on Rentech, a little-known intermediary that appeared in contracts connected to Chinese market maker Web3Port. According to documents obtained by CoinDesk, Movement executives later questioned whether the foundation believed Rentech was affiliated with Web3Port when it was not. Rentech has denied any wrongdoing or misrepresentation.
The fallout extended beyond Movement. Binance banned the market-making account involved in the token launch for what it described as misconduct, while Movement launched a token buyback program and hired outside firm Groom Lake to review the events surrounding the deal.
Movement Labs and co-founder Rushi Manche separated in May 2025.
More recently, the company attempted to chart a new course.
In June, Move Industries, a separate legal entity from MVMT Labs, the company that filed for bankruptcy, announced it would pivot away from competing with other Ethereum scaling networks and instead focus on cross-border payments, remittances and stablecoin settlement. The company said it had secured access to licensed payment infrastructure in the U.S., Canada and the European Union as it sought to build services aimed at emerging markets.
“If Senate Democrats block this historic legislation after the administration has bent over backward to accommodate their concerns, stakeholders should make no mistake: It is the Democrats who are blocking this legislation because they were never serious about a legislative outcome,” the White House official said.
Democratic negotiators such as Senators Kirsten Gillibrand, Ruben Gallego and Angela Alsobrooks reportedly haven’t received details of the agreement with Trump, who’d met personally with Republican senators last week. But many of the Democrats have drawn a line in the sand that the ethics provision — driven primarily by Trump’s own deep crypto connections — needs to be strong.
The dispute was heightened recently by the president’s disclosures that he’d pocketed more than $1 billion last year from his crypto interests.
The White House, Republicans and their crypto industry allies are already building their case against any Democrats who don’t accept the new answer to their ethics demands. It’s unclear when they’ll get to see it.
The industry is expecting full circulation of the Clarity Act legislative language as soon as Tuesday night or Wednesday, though that expectation has been repeatedly delayed since last week.
The Senate has fewer than three weeks to finish the bill, including the ethics piece, and get it through the political gauntlet of a floor vote before lawmakers leave town for their reelection campaigns. There’s technically enough time, but even without significant further debate, it would be tight.
The White House agreed to provisions in a crypto market structure bill that could ensure support from some Democratic lawmakers in the US Senate.
According to a Tuesday Punchbowl report, White House officials met with Republican Senators Cynthia Lummis and Bernie Moreno to reach an agreement on ethics language in the Digital Asset Market Clarity (CLARITY) Act under consideration in the Senate.
Neither Lummis nor Moreno have publicly announced the details of the deal, which could facilitate Democratic support in what is expected to be a tight Senate vote, but the report suggested that it could affect US President Donald Trump’s crypto investments.
Event contract on chances of CLARITY Act being signed into law in 2026.
Source: Polymarket
The CLARITY Act, passed by the House of Representatives in July 2025 as part of Republicans’ “Crypto Week” agenda, has faced several delays in Congress due to government shutdowns, concerns from lawmakers over ethics, tokenization and stablecoin rewards and provisions for protecting developers from enforcement actions. Many lawmakers and industry advocates expect the Senate to consider the bill before the chamber breaks for August state work periods, but as of Tuesday, no vote appeared on the congressional calendar and the text of the bill had not been made public.
Last week, Trump urged the Senate to pass CLARITY “in honor of” the late Senator Lindsey Graham, whom the president said was “a big supporter” of the bill. Many crypto industry executives and lawmakers have publicly come out in support of the bill, but it’s unclear whether the legislation will pass the 60-vote threshold in the Senate, due to many Democrats’ concerns about potential conflicts of interest with the Trump administration.
Related: Ethics remain sticking point as crypto market structure bill goes to markup
Several Senate Democrats, including Elizabeth Warren, Chris Murphy, Jeff Merkley and Chris Van Hollen said that any CLARITY bill would be “worthless” without ethics provisions to address Trump’s ties to the crypto industry, including his memecoin and his family’s World Liberty Financial business. Cointelegraph requested details on the agreement from Lummis’ office but did not receive an immediate response.
A White House official told Cointelegraph that the administration was “committed to working with Congress to see the CLARITY Act advance and has agreed to the most comprehensive and wide-ranging ethics provision in history,“ adding that it had “bent over backward to accommodate [Democrats’] concerns.“
According to Coinbase vice chair Ryan VanGrack, Democrats have already been able to negotiate to include provisions on customer protection in the Senate bill. However, many lawmakers are calling for hearings to explore Trump’s investments and links to the industry before any potential vote.
The price of Bitcoin (BTC) rose above $66,000 early on Tuesday, reaching a seven-week high amid reports of an ethics deal and Trump’s plans to introduce additional 10% international trade tariffs.
“The reason that prices are running upwards are entirely dedicated towards the potential approval of the Clarity Act,“ said Michaël van de Poppe, founder and chief investment officer of MN Fund and MN Capital, in a Tuesday X post. “Things are brighter and brighter, and as the charts technically look incredible from here, it looks likely that we’ll see the Clarity Act being approved shortly.“
Magazine: Will the crypto lobby’s $189M campaign get CLARITY over the line?
Bitcoin (BTC) passed one-month highs on Tuesday as price action defied the odds to top $66,000.
Key points:
BTC/USD hit highs of $66,306 on Bitstamp, according to TradingView data. That’s a level last seen on June 17.
BTC/USD one-hour chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView
A series of rejections around the $65,000 mark had failed to quash traders’ enthusiasm, with calls for $67,000 or higher gaining momentum. Those short-term predictions continued on the day, with key psychological levels around $70,000 now on the horizon.
“$BTC reclaimed the range lows, and is now pushing higher – as expected,” trader Jelle wrote in his latest analysis on X.
“The area between 65 and 67k is resistance from the Q1 range, but given how we sliced through it on the way down – it might not put much of a fight up here either. Eyes on those 70k range highs if so.”
BTC/USD one-day chart. Source: Jelle/X
Short liquidations began to mount as the BTC price broke through range highs, with data from CoinGlass putting 24-hour cross-crypto liquidations at around $200 million.
BTC/USD vs. crypto liquidations (screenshot). Source: CoinGlass
“$BTC has reclaimed the $65,000 level. The next key resistance is $67,500-$68,000, which means Bitcoin has some room to pump,” trader Ted Pillows said.
“If BTC manages to reclaim the $68,000 resistance too, it could rally another 5%-6% very quickly.”
BTC/USDT one-day chart. Source: Ted Pillows/X
Concerns had accompanied the start of the latest move, with commentator Exitpump seeing closing short positions fueling the upside.
“There’s very little real buying interest here,” they warned X followers while analyzing derivatives markets.
Observing options trends, trading company and market maker QCP Capital flagged “some demand” for higher Bitcoin bets into the end of July.
Related: Trader maintains $67K BTC price target: Five things to know in Bitcoin this week
Here, it noted the US Federal Reserve would hold its next meeting on interest-rate changes, with chair Kevin Warsh potentially offering fresh insight into future policy.
As Cointelegraph reported, market expectations remain that the Fed will leave rates unaltered before September. CME Group’s FedWatch Tool shows 83.4% probability that policy makers will stick with the current target range of 3.50-3.75% at their July 29 meeting. For the Sept. 16 FOMC meeting, there’s a 53.8% probability of a hike to 3.75-4.00%.
“There has been some demand for month-end BTC upside,” Monday’s QCP Market Colour analysis said.
“This positioning leaves dealers short upside gamma into the 28 to 29 July FOMC meeting, increasing the potential for an accelerated move higher should tensions around the Strait of Hormuz ease.”
QCP referred to the US-Iran war once again closing a key global oil route.
Bitcoin (BTC) built on gains at Tuesday’s Wall Street open as crypto echoed resilient US stock markets.
Key points:
Data from TradingView showed BTC/USD approaching $67,000, closing in on seven-week highs.
BTC/USD one-hour chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView
Upward momentum that began the day showed little signs of stopping despite macro conditions that seem to favor a risk-off mindset.
The US-Iran war saw further escalation on the day as Iran struck Amazon facilities in Bahrain in response to US strikes, while the Strait of Hormuz oil route remained closed.
As a result, WTI crude oil prices reached their highest levels in over a month, nearing $85 per barrel.
CFDs on WTI crude oil one-day chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView
Multiple media reported US president Donald Trump plans to introduce new 10% international trade tariffs. These would follow 50% measures imposed on Canada this week.
Despite these notional headwinds for crypto and risk assets, traders attributed the lack of bearish reactions to expectations that the situation would ultimately resolve in markets’ favor.
“Markets are pricing in peace,” YouTube channel host Crypto Rover summarized in a post on X to their 1.6 million followers.
Caleb Franzen, creator of Bitcoin and macro analysis resource Cubic Analytics, was confident about the near-term trend in the S&P 500 index.
“I reiterate… I have zero fear, concern, or worry with S&P 500 futures looking like this,” he told X followers on Monday.
S&P 500 futures one-day chart. Source: Caleb Franzen/X
To be sure, words of caution came from figures such as JPMorgan CEO, Jamie Dimon, who warned that markets were treating current risks too lightly.
While some traders looked for a retest of levels up to and including $70,000, Keith Alan, cofounder of trading resource Material Indicators, was conversely cautious on the BTC price outlook.
Related: Trader maintains $67K BTC price target: Five things to know in Bitcoin this week
Despite a “golden cross” involving the 21-day and 50-day simple moving averages (SMAs) on Monday, the bear market, he warned, had gone nowhere.
“Bear Markets don’t always look like Bear Markets, especially in lower timeframes,” he wrote in his latest X analysis.
“The macro trend will be challenged if Bitcoin pushes above the 21-Week SMA. Until that happens, the Bear Market remains intact.”
BTC/USD one-day chart with 21-week, 50-week SMA.
Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView
The 21-week SMA stood at $69,720 at the time of writing, coinciding with Bitcoin’s then-all-time high from 2021.
Alan acknowledged that there was “no real resistance” until $67,250.
Russia’s lawmakers moved the country closer to its first comprehensive crypto market framework after completing final readings on a bill that would regulate digital asset activity.
Russia’s State Duma, the lower house of parliament, approved bill No. 1194918-8, titled “On Digital Currency and Digital Rights,” in its second and third readings on Tuesday, according to official parliamentary records.
If enacted, the bill would establish rules for crypto market participants, including exchanges, brokers, asset managers and custodians, while allowing crypto assets to be used in foreign trade operations.
The vote marks Russia’s biggest legislative step toward a regulated crypto market to date, although the bill still requires approval by the Federation Council and President Vladimir Putin’s signature before it becomes law.
The bill would give the Bank of Russia broad oversight of the regulated market, including authority to determine which crypto assets may be offered through licensed intermediaries and to issue implementing regulations.
It would also establish five categories of regulated market participants — crypto exchanges, brokers, asset managers, custodians and exchange service providers — defining who can buy, sell, hold and exchange crypto assets under the new framework.
Source: The State Duma
The bill introduces different rules for qualified and non-qualified investors. Non-qualified investors would face a 300,000-ruble (about $3,800) annual limit on crypto purchases through a single intermediary and a 100,000-ruble limit on transfers abroad. Qualified investors would face annual limits of 3 million rubles for purchases and 1 million rubles for transfers abroad.
The bill would continue to prohibit the use of crypto assets to pay for goods and services inside Russia. At the same time, it would allow crypto assets to be used in foreign trade operations, reflecting Russia’s broader effort to facilitate cross-border settlements outside traditional payment infrastructure.
Most of the bill’s provisions would take effect on Sept. 1, 2026, if the president signs the bill into law. Lawmakers also included a transition period through July 1, 2027, giving market participants time to comply with the new rules.
After the transition period ends, market participants would have to conduct crypto transactions through regulated organizations. Banks would also have to reject transactions that do not comply with the new framework, according to the bill.
Related: Russia’s largest private bank, Alfa-Bank, tests crypto trading
Russian lawmakers are also working on related draft bills covering crypto taxation and penalties for violations of the new framework. A separate tax bill has already passed its first reading, while lawmakers expect bills establishing penalties for violations to pass before the transition period ends.
Olga Goncharova, head of the Digital Financial Assets and Digital Currencies Expert Center at the Association of Russian Banks, said the bill would create a legal framework but would still require extensive follow-up regulation before the market can operate.
“The law itself is only the beginning,” Goncharova told Cointelegraph, adding: “Whether it works in practice depends on several mechanisms that are still being developed by the banking community together with the Bank of Russia.”
Related: MiCA licensing only the beginning as crypto custodians face scrutiny
Goncharova said the Bank of Russia plans to issue about 80 additional regulatory acts by the end of the year to define how the new framework will work in practice. She added that she expects the president to sign the bill into law in the coming days.
She also said the banking industry and the central bank are developing key infrastructure, including a domestic Travel Rule system, blockchain node infrastructure and crypto analytics tools, to support the regulated market.
Magazine: Will the US get CLARITY this week? Bitcoin’s new $80K target: Hodler’s Digest, July 19
The crypto market rallied on reports suggesting the final hurdle for the long-awaited U.S. Clarity Act may have cleared.
Eleanor Terrett, host of Crypto in America, posted on X that President Donald Trump had agreed to a crucial ethics provision for the crypto market structure bill. The specific language has been shared with a group of Senate Republicans, marking a significant step forward for the legislation.
The ethics provision is a major sticking point in holding back the bill’s passage through Senate. The legislation aims to provide a definitive regulatory framework, clearly distinguishing between digital commodities and securities to end years of enforcement-led oversight.
Bitcoin rallied above $66,000, gaining 3.5% in 24 hours to its highest in just over a month. Othe cryptocurrencies, including ether (ETH), BNB and XRP (XRP) posted even larger gains. Among industry, the standout is the CoinDesk DeFi Select Index, which surged 9%.
Additional tailwinds came from Asia, where the selloff in semiconductor stocks that dragged crypto lower last week reversed, fueling to a broad risk rally.
Russia’s State Duma passed legislation establishing the country’s first comprehensive framework for regulating cryptocurrencies with most of the new rules set to take effect on Sept. 1.
The law creates a legal framework for crypto exchanges, depositories and other digital asset providers, while setting rules for who can buy crypto and under what conditions, Russia’s state-owned news agency TASS reported Tuesday.
Only organizations included in a special registry will be permitted to operate as cryptocurrency exchanges, although firms will be allowed to continue operating without registration until July 1, 2027.
Under the new law, banks will be required to refuse transfers if they suspect an unauthorized entity is operating a cryptocurrency exchange.
The legislation also guarantees judicial protection for holders of digital currencies regardless of whether the assets were previously declared.
Retail investors will be allowed to buy the most liquid cryptocurrencies through licensed intermediaries, subject to an annual limit equivalent to roughly $3,800 per intermediary. Qualified investors will be able to purchase any crypto without restrictions.
