July Crypto Market Recap: BTC Peaks and Retreats, ETH ETF Launch Falters, SOL Rises Against the Trend
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July Crypto Market Recap: BTC Peaks and Retreats, ETH ETF Launch Falters, SOL Rises Against the Trend
Among the new coins, only $ZRO has performed well.
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsAuthor: VIKTOR
Translation: TechFlow
BTC: Rebounds After 4-Month Range Breakout, Finally Tests $70,000 Resistance
BTC began the month with five days of sharp declines, culminating in a range breakdown and market sell-off (including altcoins and BTC) on July 5, dropping as low as 53,500. This selloff was likely due to poor positioning by market participants, but the primary panic narrative at the time was that the German government was selling 50,000 $BTC it had seized years earlier.
Following this, $BTC traded sideways between $54,000 and $58,000 for several days. On July 13, Donald Trump was shot during a rally, triggering a strong rebound in $BTC over the following days, while also increasing market expectations for a Trump election win. Within a week, $BTC rose nearly uninterrupted to $68,000. This occurred simultaneously with Mt. Gox beginning distributions of $BTC to creditors—worth billions of dollars—which surprisingly had little impact on BTC’s price, widely interpreted as a bullish signal.
On July 27, Trump spoke at the Bitcoin conference in Nashville, fueling rumors that he would announce a Bitcoin Strategic Reserve if re-elected. This triggered significant FOMO in the market, pushing $BTC above $69,000 in the hours before his speech. Prices pulled back slightly during the speech, but Trump's mention of a "strategic stockpile" was seen as a strongly bullish signal.
Subsequently, as $BTC approached $70,000, open interest (OI) continued rising (typically a warning sign, but “is this time different?” haha). The price briefly touched $70,000 in one second before falling back to $66,000 within hours. The month closed at $65,000, and as we now know, the sell-off continued into early August, breaking below $50,000—a development we’ll cover in the next monthly recap.
ETH ETF Launches, But Price Performance Disappoints
For the first half of July, ETH largely followed BTC, underperforming slightly. The ETH ETF launched on July 23. While trading volume wasn’t particularly disappointing relative to expectations, there were massive daily outflows from ETHE afterward. ETHBTC plunged to 0.048 on the second and third days of ETF trading. $ETH ended the month at $3,230, making the overall ETF launch performance underwhelming.
Most direct ETH beta tokens also performed poorly in July.
$SOL and Its Ecosystem Shine
While ETH was lackluster, $SOL was the opposite. It outperformed the broader market throughout July, rising over +50% from its lows and approaching $193 by month-end.
SOLETH neared its all-time high and finally broke through resistance that had rejected it three times—in March, April, and May. $JUP is the most direct beta token to $SOL, while other standout performers in the ecosystem included: $PYTH, $JTO, $RAY, and $HNT.
Top Cat Coins: $POPCAT, $MOG, and $MEW
In July, cat-themed coins emerged as the best-performing sector: $MOG and $POPCAT became the new "PEPE and WIF," consistently leading rallies. Both reached new all-time highs and approached $1 billion in market cap. $MEW joined them as the third major cat coin, nearly tripling from bottom to top.
Unexpected Winner: $XRP Leads July Gains
An unexpected performer in July was $XRP, which significantly outpaced the market, finishing the month up +31%. A key driver was speculation around a potential settlement between Ripple and the SEC. Other strong performers in July included: $TRX, $BCH, $XMR, $XLM, and $ZEC.
DeFi 1.0 Giants $MKR and $AAVE Outperform
One token was heavily impacted by news in July: $MKR. The catalyst was BlackRock's plan to apply for MakerDAO’s $1 billion tokenized treasury initiative, sending $MKR up +10% within hours and +50% from lows to highs.
$MKR belongs to the DeFi 1.0 category—highly undervalued yet generating substantial revenue. Another similar token is AAVE, which has outperformed the market since May 2024. They also announced new Aavenomics, introducing fee adjustments for $AAVE holders.
Altcoin Selloff and Rebound, With a Short Squeeze on $WLD
As mentioned earlier, July 5 was a day of broad altcoin selloffs accompanied by heavy liquidations—conditions often followed by strong rebounds. Many high-FDV, low-circulating supply VC-backed tokens rebounded sharply, some gaining between +40% and 2x after falling 80–90% from their peaks.
A particularly strong short squeeze occurred on $WLD after they announced an extension of certain token vesting periods. $WLD surged +85% in two days before pulling back. Overall, altcoins underperformed BTC again in the second half of July.
Altcoins sold off, bounced, then underperformed again.
Ordinals Quietly Excel
From the early-July selloff through month-end, ordinals became one of the top-performing sectors, led primarily by $SATS, $ORDI, and $RATS. However, Runes tokens—originally expected to be the next evolution of ordinals—did not perform well.
Among New Launches, Only $ZRO Performed Well
July did not see many major new token launches. $AVAIL went live—it's a data availability solution competing with Celestia.
Among recently launched tokens, the most notable was $ZRO, which rose from $2.5 to $5.5 during the month. $TAIKO also performed well until the end of July.
$NEIRO: Could It Be the Next DOGE?
"Kabosu's owner"—the woman behind the original $DOGE meme dog—shared photos of her new Shiba Inu named Neiro. Naturally, the community rushed to create a "DOGE #2" meme coin, resulting in three $NEIRO meme tokens: two on Solana, one on Ethereum.
In the first few days, the two Solana-based tokens clearly led, alternating in position, but surprisingly, the Ethereum-based $NEIRO emerged as the winner, reaching a market cap near $200 million by month-end.
Top Performers List:
Largest tokens with best performance in July:
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XRP : +31%
-
ZRO : +28%
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JTO : +23%
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JUP : +22%
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SOL : +17%
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TAO : +11%
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TAIKO : +11%
-
ICP : +10%
-
AAVE : +10%
-
MKR : +10%
-
PYTH : +9%
-
KAS : +8%
Some smaller-cap tokens that performed well in July:
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NEIRO : 50X (if bought in the first few days)
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BNX : +70%
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ZEC : +61%
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DSYNC : +67%
-
OM : +49%
-
MEW : +47%
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HONEY : +46%
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ALPH : +46%
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ZEN : +44%
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HNT : +41%
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SATS : +39%
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KMNO : +30%
-
GAL : +25%
Smaller tokens:
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SCF : Up to 100X if invested early
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ZKML : +282%
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MUMU : +277%
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Y2K : +256%
-
AZUR : +97%
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RETARDIO : +72%
-
STMX : +72%
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