Hotcoin Research | Market Insights: July 1-5, 2024

Cryptocurrency Market Performance

Currently, the total market capitalization of cryptocurrencies is $2.08 trillion, with BTC accounting for 53.859%, or $1.12 trillion. The market cap of stablecoins is $15.26 billion.

This week, the price of BTC was affected by a combination of factors including summer liquidity shortages, the official start of BTC and BCH repayments to creditors by Mt. Gox, and the German government transferring large amounts of BTC to CEX, leading to a panic similar to "5.19." The price of BTC fell from $63,000 on July 1 to below $54,000, while ETH also briefly dipped below $2,900.

This week, among the top 200 projects ranked by Coinmarket cap, there was a general decline of 20% in prices, plunging the market into panic, with only the recently launched ZRO seeing a 15.66% increase over the past 7 days.

The "Fear & Greed Index" stands at 29 (indicating a more fearful market sentiment compared to last week), with 5 days classified as neutral and 2 days as fearful.

Understanding the Present

Weekly Major Events Recap

1. On July 1, QCP Capital indicated various signs of strong bullish sentiment for July;

2. A wallet address marked as "German government" transferred 400 BTC to CEX;

3. Catizen launched the Catizen SDK, supporting developers to deploy games on Telegram with one click;

4. Jupiter co-founder: A vote on reopening the Jupuary plan will take place in the coming weeks, with a new design proposed;

5. Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin believes that prediction markets and community notes will become two major social cognition technologies of the 2020s;

6. The Ethereum Foundation has sold a total of 2,266 ETH since January 2024;

7. On July 3, the probability of Biden's election on the Polymarket prediction market fell to a historic low of 15%, while Trump's election probability was at 64%;

8. On July 4, Arkham data showed that the wallet address marked as "German government" transferred 13,475 BTC to another address also marked as "German government";

9. On July 4, QCP Capital stated in its latest market analysis that BTC fell below the $60,000 support level under heavy selling pressure, reaching a low of $57,875. BTC miners showed signs of capitulation, which historically indicates a price bottom;

10. The repayment timeline for Mt. Gox creditors may take up to 3 months, with different custodians having varying processing times;

11. On July 5, U.S. cryptocurrency-related stocks fell before the market opened, with companies like MicroStrategy, Marathon Digital, and Coinbase seeing declines in their stock prices;

12. Ethereum network gas prices rose to 36 Gwei, Zhu Su re-bought ETH at the $2,900 level, and the Pendle ecosystem fund address transferred 1 million PENDLE to Binance.

Macroeconomics

1. On July 2, the U.S. SEC sued crypto-friendly bank Silvergate in federal court for securities fraud;

2. Consensys legal advisor: A ruling from the judge on the SEC's lawsuit against the agency is expected around December;

3. On July 3, Matthew Sigel, head of digital asset research at VanEck, suggested that if SEC Chairman Gary Gensler is no longer in office after the 2024 presidential election, the chances of Solana ETF approval may increase;

4. On July 4, according to CME's "Fed Watch" data, the probability of the Federal Reserve maintaining interest rates in August is 91.2%, while the probability of a 25 basis point rate cut is 8.8%.

ETF

Statistics show that from July 1 to 5, the U.S. Bitcoin spot ETF saw a net inflow of $237.8 million; as of July 5, GBTC (Grayscale) had a total outflow of $18.603 billion, currently holding $15.491 billion, while IBIT (BlackRock) currently holds $17.374 billion. The total market cap of U.S. Bitcoin spot ETFs is $50.869 billion.

Foreseeing the Future

Upcoming Events

1. EthCC 7 (Ethereum Community Conference) is a large annual Ethereum technology and community event scheduled to take place in Brussels, Belgium, from July 8 to 11, 2024, expecting over 5,000 participants, 54 sponsors, more than 350 speakers, and over 300 side events;

2. IXO 2024, hosted by Korean blockchain media TokenPost and co-hosted by Mask Network, will be held in Seoul, South Korea, from July 9 to 10, 2024, serving as a major forum for entrepreneurs, institutions, industry insiders, investors, and builders to discuss emerging issues in the cryptocurrency and Web3 fields;

3. DFG, Jsquare, and AlterVerse will host an offline event titled "Decentralized at Dusk: Brussels Crypto Brews" on July 9, 2024, from 19:30 to 22:30 at Delirium Cafe in Brussels, Belgium, featuring guests including DFG founder and CEO James Wo, Jsquare CMO Angela Tong, AlterVerse CMO Andy Deme, Shardeum VP of Developer Relations Chris Chabot, and Shardeum Chief Growth Officer Kelsey McGuire;

4. The TON Season 5 The Open League event will officially start at 19:00 Beijing time on July 10.

Project Progress

1. The airdrop claim for ether.fi's Season 2 will open on July 8;

2. The Layer2 network Kinto's mining plan rewards will begin distribution on July 8, with up to 33% of the token supply allocated over 10 years, decreasing over time and distributed weekly on-chain. The mining plan will reward asset deployers and developers, with longer and larger capital deployment resulting in more Kinto tokens earned. Additionally, Engen founding participants holding ENGEN tokens can receive a 15-20% reward;

3. The crypto lending platform Nexo announced that points from its "NEXO Token hunt" event can be used to claim NEXO tokens at 21:00 on July 10;

4. OP Labs tweeted that the Fjord upgrade will go live on the OP mainnet at 00:01 Beijing time on July 11. This upgrade will introduce new features and reduce costs, including a 20-fold reduction in smart wallet key verification costs through RIP-7212 precompilation; developers will be able to create smart wallet experiences without scale and cost limitations; more accurate pricing functions and more efficient Brotli bulk compression will reduce transaction costs by 5 to 15%; and the sequencer drift will increase from 10 minutes to 30 minutes;

5. The Solana ecosystem project Holdium announced that it will airdrop to holders of pre-purchase tokens for Solana Mobile Chapter 2. Before July 12, Holdium will distribute 5% of its supply to all holders of pre-purchase tokens.

Important Events

1. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has requested Ethereum ETF issuers to address modification comments and resubmit by July 8;

2. A hearing related to the SEC's lawsuit against Binance is tentatively scheduled for July 9;

3. A jury in a Manhattan court ruled on May 30 that Trump was guilty in the "hush money" case, making him the first former president in U.S. history to be convicted in a criminal case. The 12-member jury unanimously found Trump guilty on all 34 criminal charges brought by the prosecution. The presiding judge denied Trump's defense attorney's motion to declare Trump not guilty and scheduled a sentencing hearing for July 11;

4. A motion hearing for Tornado Cash co-founder Roman Storm is set for July 12 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, where Tornado Cash's lawyers submitted a series of final pre-trial motions in May, alleging prosecutorial overreach.

Token Unlocking

1. The Xai token XAI will unlock 198.1 million tokens at 17:00 on July 9, valued at approximately $56 million, accounting for 71.59% of the circulating supply;

2. The Immutable token IMX will unlock 32.47 million tokens at 20:00 on July 12, valued at approximately $41.24 million, accounting for 2.15% of the circulating supply.