Digital assets built on last week’s growth, showcasing modest growth as Bitcoin posted its best weekly close in history at over $109,000.
Bitcoin showcased modest growth this week, illustrating the fact that its volatility has fallen to the lowest levels in years
Bitcoin has approached its recent record high, but failed to break through the $110,000 barrier convincingly, as selling volume from “whales” and buying volume from ETFs appears quite evenly matched
Bitcoin rose from a Wednesday low of $105,400 to a brief Thursday peak of $110,500, spending the majority of the week trading between $107,400 and $108,800
Ether performed similarly (but with greater variance), growing from a weekly low of $2,393 on Wednesday to a high of $2,629 on Thursday
Overall industry market capitalisation increased slightly to $3.33tn
According to industry monitoring site DeFi Llama, total value locked in DeFi increased by around $2bn, to $115.2bn overall
Digital assets exhibited modest growth as Ether stole some of Bitcoin’s spotlight thanks to a growing global focus on the potential of stablecoins. Deutsche Bank became the latest big TradFi name to increase its industry involvement via custody plans, the House of Representatives announced an impending focus on digital asset legislation, JP Morgan and Robinhood both made strides in tokenisation, Elon Musk voiced Bitcoin support during the creation of a potential political party, and much much more.
What happened: ETF News
How is this significant?
For the twelfth week in a row, digital asset investment products logged overall inflows as investor bullishness continued
According to Coinshares data published on Monday, crypto funds added just over $1bn in the trading week ending Friday the 4th
Coinshares’ head of research James Butterfill noted that even though absolute volume was lower, Ether products share of inflows compared to AUM is currently outperforming Bitcoin (1.6% to 0.8%), as some analysts believe potential stablecoin legislation is enhancing Ether’s appeal
Total AUM across all products reached a new record high of over $188bn
Spot Bitcoin ETFs provided predominantly positive performance, with inflows on three of four days in a trading week truncated by the 4th of July public holiday
Inflows and outflows alike were all in the nine-figure zone
The smallest daily inflows ($102m) occurred when markets opened on Monday, whilst the biggest buys ($602m) came just before the long weekend on Thursday
Tuesday featured the only outflows ($342m), dominated by selling from Fidelity’s FBTC ($173m) and Grayscale’s 2.5% fee GBTC fund ($120m)
In an anomaly, BlackRock’s IBIT didn’t boast the best performance this week; it logged multiple net-zero days, and its $225m growth on Thursday was bested by FBTC’s $237m daily inflows
Overall, inflows were spread more evenly across the funds than in recent IBIT-dominated memory, as only GBTC returned any net outflows
Despite underperforming its own lofty standards this week, Bloomberg chief ETF analyst Eric Balchunas revealed “IBIT is now the 3rd highest [of all time] revenue-generating ETF for BlackRock out of 1,197 funds, and is only $9bn away from being #1. Just another insane stat for a 1.5yr old (literally an infant) ETF”
Nate Geraci of NovaDius Wealth Management told Bloomberg “IBIT overtaking IVV in annual fee revenue is reflective of both the surging investor demand for Bitcoin and the significant fee compression in core equity exposure. Although spot Bitcoin ETFs are priced very competitively, IBIT is proof that investors are willing to pay up for exposures they view as truly additive to their portfolios”
Spot Ether ETFs continued their recent strong performance, adding nearly $150m on Thursday, one of the best growth days since launch
BlackRock’s ETHA and Fidelity’s FETH led the way with $85m and $65m inflows respectively on Thursday
In total, the week featured eight-figure inflows twice, nine-figure inflows once, and low-one figure ($2m) outflows once (on Wednesday)
Additionally, Grayscale was granted SEC approval to convert its large-cap crypto trust into an ETF (as it did with its Bitcoin and Ether funds), but current timeframes on actual conversion remain uncertain
This marks just the latest move into digital assets and crypto custody for major banks, after BNY Mellon launched its own custody platform back in late 2022
Deutsche itself recently announced interests in other areas of the crypto and blockchain space, such as stablecoins and tokenised deposits
This week, German regulators BaFin granted a licence to Deutsche for a Euro-pegged stablecoin project
Following the recent passage of president Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” (which left analysts divided on benefits or drawbacks for Bitcoin), the House Financial Services Committee decided to concentrate on another policy priority; crypto
On Thursday, chairman French Hill declared that the week of July 14th would be “Crypto Week” in congress, as the House considers three bills; “the CLARITY Act, the Anti-CBDC Surveillance State Act, and the Senate’s GENIUS Act as part of Congress’ efforts to make America the crypto capital of the world”
CLARITY is the House’s attempt at a digital asset market structure bill, GENIUS is the stablecoin bill already passed by the Senate, and the last bill is largely self-explanatory—a Republican-led effort designed to ban CBDCs for fear of impinging on personal privacy rights
Hill stated that “I thank my colleagues in Congress and the Trump Administration for their partnership and leadership and stand ready to work alongside the Senate as they work to advance standalone market structure legislation by the end of September”
Majority Whip (and longtime congressional crypto supporter) Tom Emmer added “This is a historic opportunity for the United States. After years of work, American innovators are one step closer to having the clarity they need to build here at home while ensuring the future of the digital economy reflects our values of privacy, individual sovereignty, and free-market competitiveness”
Additionally, this Wednesday sees digital asset market hearings for both the House Ways & Means, and Senate Banking Committees
Wednesday’s House hearing (“Ensuring Digital Asset Policy Built for the 21st Century”) will concentrate on tax policy frameworks, whilst the Senate hearing (“Building Tomorrow’s Digital Asset Markets”) will feature testimony from Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse, among other major industry players
The CLARITY bill has garnered the support of crypto advocacy groups, with over 65 digital asset firms signing a letter urging politicians to adopt the legislation
The Stand With Crypto alliance is also supporting specific crypto-specific politicians behind the bill, according to reports by Semafor
If the GENIUS Act passes the house, it is one (enthusiastic) presidential signature away from becoming law, but the CLARITY act would still require Senate approval
What happened: Stablecoin news
How is this significant?
The global profile of stablecoins continued to grow, with developments across several major global economies
Alongside the aforementioned GENIUS Act nearing completion, Bloomberg notes that in America, Visa and Mastercard are feeling the pinch from stablecoin competition
The two payment processors control around 85% of US card spending, where businesses last year spent $187bn in swipe fees alone—a figure that could be drastically reduced by stablecoin adoption
MIT Cryptoeconomics Lab Christian Catalini commented “It’s clear that eventually this entire space could be a threat to TradFi providers. But credit card networks aren’t sitting on the sidelines. The card networks will push to work with many stablecoins, so they retain their central role”
Visa chief product and strategy officer Jack Forestell told the publication “We’ve been tokenising access to value for a very long time now. Now the value that underlies that token, by and large, is either bank accounts or credit lines, debit and credit cards, but there’s absolutely no reason that can’t be a stablecoin or another crypto asset”
Meanwhile, Mastercard announced its joining stablecoin issuer Paxos’ Global Dollar Network, and is recruiting for several major executive roles to bolster its crypto industry expertise
Italian banking group Sella is running an internal stablecoin custody pilot program in collaboration with institutional digital asset firm Fireblocks
The trial will run through the summer, after which leadership of the $78bn AUM institution will decide whether to roll it out to its 1.4 million customers
Speaking at the Andrew Crockett Memorial Lecture, Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey warned against systemic fragility or eroded trust that stablecoins could potentially introduce
He said “If, for instance, stablecoins emerge as a new form of money, we have to decide how to ensure the singleness of money and therefore trust in money in this world, and what role the notion of reserve currency should play here”
Bailey added “At least for the large economies, it could be asked today, what is the point of official reserves? My view is that today their use is more to do with preserving financial stability in the event of stress. They may be needed to support financial system liquidity in situations of extreme stress”
On the opposite end of the spectrum, former ECB board member Lorenzo Bini Smighi argued in the Financial Times that stablecoins are “a technological breakthrough with profound implications for the financial system”, and Europe can’t risk being left behind
He claimed “authorities do not seem to understand that failure to be proactive ultimately puts European monetary sovereignty at risk. Indeed, unless euro stablecoins are issued and widely used in Europe, euro-area deposits will migrate to foreign platforms, disintermediating European payment systems”
RLUSD issuer Ripple partnered with British fintech OpenPayd “to build a stablecoin and payments infrastructure for businesses looking to move money across borders quickly and at lower costs”
In China, stablecoins are gaining attention after people’s bank governor Pan Gongsheng spoke at a Shanghai event last month and said they could revolutionise international finance, particularly as traditional payment systems may be politicised in times of geopolitical duress
Morgan Stanley China chief economist Robin Xing believes Beijing could use Hong Kong as a petri dish for potential Yuan-based stablecoins; “Stablecoins are not new currencies, but new distribution channels for existing ones. It is crucial for China to embrace the trend of sovereign currency tokenisation to maintain competitiveness in the digital infrastructure race”
Online retail giant JD.com’s chief economist Shen Jianguang commented “If China doesn’t develop stablecoins, it will essentially withdraw from the competition for next-generation global currency dominance and hand it to others”
Bloomberg reported that JD founder Richard Liu “told staff the company plans to apply for stablecoin licenses in all major markets to cut cross-border payment costs by 90% and reduce settlement time to under 10 seconds”
Stablecoin interest appears to be growing so much that Shenzhen authorities have issued official warnings against investment scams masquerading as stablecoin projects and other crypto platforms
Banking giant JP Morgan is working on carbon credit tokenisation via its Kinexys blockchain unit, according to multiple reports this week
According to a press release, JPM is “teaming up with S&P Global Commodity Insights, EcoRegistry and the International Carbon Registry to test a new application that will tokenise credits listed in registry systems overseen by the three companies”
Currently carbon markets suffer from numerous challenges, including inefficiencies and opacity, both of which can be remedied by blockchain
Alastair Northway of JP Morgan Payments commented “The voluntary carbon market is ripe for innovation. Tokenisation could support development of a globally interoperable system that adds confidence into the integrity of the underlying infrastructure”
Keerthi Moudgal, head of product at Kinexys Digital Assets added "Our shared aim is to establish standardized infrastructure that enhances information and price transparency, paving the way for financial innovation and increased market liquidity"
In other tokenisation news, the Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange (ADX) is preparing for the region’s first blockchain-based bond, issued by First Abu Dhabi Bank via HSBC's digital asset platform Orion
According to industry publication Coindesk, “The bond will be accessible to global institutional investors via major securities settlement systems including Euroclear, Clearstream and Hong Kong’s Central Moneymarkets Unit”
In a press release, ADX Group CEO Abdulla Salem Alnuaimi stated “This initiative not only expands access to institutional-grade digital instruments, but also lays the foundation for a broader class of tokenized assets—including green bonds, sukuk [Islamic bond] and real estate-linked products… It reinforces Abu Dhabi’s position as a leading global financial centre”
Popular online trading platform Robinhood recently launched a broad range of tokenised stocks on Ethereum scaling solution Arbitrum—and announced the development of its own proprietary Layer-2
European Robinhood customers “will have access to 200+ US stock and ETF tokens. Stock token holders will also receive dividend payments directly in their app” according to a blog post by the firm
The Robinhood chain will be a permissionless (i.e. public) Layer-2 blockchain designed for real-world assets
Tech platform Gizmodo reported Robinhood’s stance, saying “The clear message? Crypto isn’t just for digital money anymore. It’s for everything”, and added that “Robinhood’s ultimate goal is to create a financial system where assets trade around the clock, are easily moved between different digital wallets, and can be self-custodied”
CEO Vlad Tenev appeared to echo BlackRock leader Larry Fink’s ambition to “tokenise every financial asset”, aiming for a variety of blockchain benefits including 24/7 trading
As part of its continued revenue diversification efforts, USDT stablecoin issuer Tether this week announced Bitcoin mining efforts utilising surplus energy via a partnership with LatAm agribusiness firm Adecoagro
Tether holds a 70% stake in Adecoagro, and may add Bitcoin to its balance sheet in future
Adecoagro CEO Mariano Bosch said “This project opens the door to stabilising a portion of the energy we currently sell on the spot market, locking in pricing, while also gaining exposure to the upside potential of Bitcoin”
In other Bitcoin mining news, Hut8—partnered with Donald Trump’s family to create the American Bitcoin Company—is opening an office in Dubai for a trading team to “enhance the precision and efficiency of Hut 8’s capital strategy”
CoreWeave completed its long-planned takeover of mining firm Core Scientific via a $9bn all-stock deal
This led to a fall in Core Scientific’s stock value, as investors seemingly expected a higher valuation from a deal that intensifies its pivot from Bitcoin mining to artificial intelligence processing power
XRP developers Ripple Labs were the largest player to apply for such a licence this week, alongside established crypto custodians BitGo
The Wall Street Journal reported that “A national charter would place Ripple's dollar-backed stablecoin, RLUSD, under the OCC's regulatory remit”, and that the firm applied for a Federal Reserve master account, increasing access to the American financial system’s liquidity
Markets responded positively to news of Ripple’s application, jumping several percent in the immediate aftermath of initial reports
Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse tweeted that “True to our long-standing compliance roots, Ripple is applying for a national bank charter from the OCC. If approved, we would have both state (via NYDFS) and federal oversight, a new (and unique!) benchmark for trust in the stablecoin market… we also applied for a Fed Master account—this access would allow us to hold RLUSD reserves directly with the Fed and provide an additional layer of security to future proof trust in RLUSD”
In the latest episode of the recent dramatic fallout between Elon Musk and Donald Trump (and thus by the transitive property, most of the Republican party), the billionaire Tesla CEO announced the formation of his own political party
Musk’s new “America Party” is still in its formative stages, without a great insight into policies (beyond a general “centrist” label), but one of the first platforms to emerge was significant to the digital asset industry; support for Bitcoin
When asked on X (formerly Twitter) whether the America Party would embrace Bitcoin, he responded “Fiat is hopeless, so yes”
In the entrenched two-party US system, the America Party (no matter how patriotic its name) is unlikely to secure any overall wins, but Musk suggested it could concentrate on a few attainable congressional seats to become a kingmaker on major issues
Early support has already been voiced by fellow digital asset advocates Mark Cuban and SkyBridge Capital Founder Anthony Scaramucci
It has however entered into a $4.2bn sales agreement of its 10.00% Series A Perpetual Stride Preferred Stock, designed to raise funds for more Bitcoin buys
Asian Bitcoin treasury leader Metaplanet caught up slightly to Strategy as it did increase its holdings this week
CEO and founder Elias Sacal commented “We see Bitcoin as a transformative asset that not only offers long-term growth potential but also strengthens our balance sheet against inflation and systemic risk”
This weekly financial roundup is for informational purposes only and is not financial, investment, or legal advice. Information is based on public sources as of publication and may change. Consult a professional before acting.