Bitcoin attempted to push the market off its low

Market overview

The crypto market capitalisation has risen by 1.6% over the past 24 hours to $2.19T, continuing to consolidate within a fairly narrow range, having pulled back from the lower boundary of the channel it has been trading within for the past month and a half. Among the most actively traded coins, the top gainers were Tezos (+3.6%), Aave (+2.9%) and Bitcoin (+1.3%). The decline was more widespread and sharp, but concentrated among smaller coins such as Immutable (-6.4%), Filecoin (-5.7%) and Cosmos (-4.8%).

The sentiment index rose to 41. This is still in the ‘fear’ zone, but the indicator has not reached this level since mid-May. This upward trend prompts us once again to remind readers that only a sustained move above 50 can be regarded as a shift in the market cycle; for now, early optimists could easily fall into a trap. 

On Monday, Bitcoin rose above $64.5K, recouping the losses of the past seven days as Strategy ceased selling the asset. However, as it approaches its recent highs, the leading cryptocurrency is once again facing increased selling pressure. BTCUSD remains extremely balanced, fuelling expectations that a breakout from this consolidation phase will trigger a sustained, strong trend in the breakout direction. In theory, there is a greater chance of a bull market recovery after nearly a year of decline. Still, history suggests we should remain open to the possibility of a final sell-off, which could prove very painful for the bulls.  

News background

Strategy has neither bought nor sold bitcoins following two weeks of BTC sales. Last week, the company continued to repurchase STRC preference shares and replenish its US dollar reserve by selling MSTR ordinary shares. The dollar reserve for dividend payments was increased to $4.8 billion; the Bitcoin reserve remained at 840,447 BTC, with an average purchase price of $75.4K per coin.

Swiss bank UBS increased its exposure to call options on Bitcoin ETFs 24-fold in the second quarter. Its direct position in IBIT rose by 12% over the quarter, while its exposure to put options fell by 53%.

Cardano developers have published a roadmap for the Dijkstra update, which is expected to speed up transaction processing on the blockchain. The hard fork will be rolled out in two phases. The first phase is scheduled to be completed by the end of the year; the second phase is planned for the second quarter of 2027.

SafePal, a manufacturer of hardware crypto wallets, has reported a data breach affecting around 40,000 users, including names, delivery addresses, telephone numbers, email addresses and details of customer orders. The incident did not affect seed phrases, private keys, passwords, bank details, card numbers or document numbers, as SafePal does not collect or store such information.

The US Department of the Treasury has presented draft regulations to implement the GENIUS Act, the first federal law on payment stablecoins. The document sets out requirements for issuers, reserves and the supervision of the issuance of dollar-pegged ‘stablecoins’.

According to Bloomberg, US President Donald Trump is set to attend a meeting at the White House on 19 August with the heads of crypto companies and prediction market platforms. The heads of the main US market regulators are also expected to attend the meeting.  

Summary: The crypto market has rebounded from the lower boundary of the range, but fear persists. Bitcoin has managed to pull the market upwards, but remains within the range for now.