On the last trading day of July, crypto assets weakened overall, with both Bitcoin and Ethereum falling, diverging from gains in Asian stocks and US stock futures. Despite giving back some of its gains during the week, the CoinDesk 20 index is still up 8.7% since the end of June, on track for its biggest monthly gain in a year.
Major cryptocurrencies declined at the end of the month.
As of the time of this report, Bitcoin was trading at $63,870, down 1.31% on the day; Ethereum was trading at $1,890, down 1.40%. Ethereum had previously touched $2,000 but failed to hold that level.
During the same period, the South Korean Kospi index surged by over 15%, while Nasdaq 100 futures and S&P 500 futures also maintained their upward trend. The short-term performance of the crypto market and risk assets showed a clear divergence.
CoinDesk reports that escalating tensions in the Middle East and hawkish comments from Federal Reserve officials have dampened the crypto market's recovery momentum this week. The CoinDesk 20 Index has fallen 2.34% since Monday, but remains up for the month.
Derivatives sentiment is bearish.
Futures market data shows that the ratio of active long to short trading volume continues to favor the short side, reflecting that short-term traders are still betting on a downward trend.
XRP futures open interest continued to rise, reaching 2.27 billion tokens in three weeks, the highest level since late June. However, the price of XRP fell from $1.13 to $1.07 during the same period. A price decline coupled with increased open interest typically indicates an accumulation of short positions.
In contrast, Bitcoin open interest remained relatively stable at around 750,000 contracts throughout the month. CoinDesk believes this indicates that traders have not significantly increased their leveraged positions, and Bitcoin, after rebounding from below $58,000 at the beginning of the month, has remained within the $62,000 to $65,000 range. Ethereum and Solana have shown similar trends.
UNI bucked the trend and strengthened, while options betting remained cautious.
Among altcoins, UNI performed the best, rising 9.30% to $4.41 in 24 hours, continuing the upward trend brought by the news of Robinhood's Layer 2 network integration earlier this month. Its open interest increased for the third consecutive day, reaching 75.8 million UNI, the highest since February 14.
ADA rose 4.09% in the past 24 hours, continuing its recovery. ENA also continued its rebound. In contrast, LIT fell further, dropping about 20% from its July high; ZEC gave back some of its gains after its earlier rise.
However, CoinDesk points out that the 24-hour cumulative trading volume difference for most mainstream tokens, including UNI, is still negative, indicating that traders actively shorting with market orders are more proactive.
In the options market, Deribit had approximately $10 billion worth of Bitcoin and Ethereum options expiring that day. Among the remaining open interest until June 2027, $60,000 worth of Bitcoin put options were one of the most concentrated bets, indicating that the market remains cautious about future price movements.
Furthermore, Bitcoin's 30-day implied volatility index (BVIV) has fallen to 37%, its lowest level since May. CoinDesk believes this level has repeatedly corresponded to low volatility in recent years, and if volatility subsequently rebounds, spot prices may face renewed pressure.
