Plus: Mike Novogratz makes a bold ETH call

GM. Today’s menu: a fruit salad where half the fruit is memes and the other half is trauma. Dig in.

🍍 Why's the market down?

🤔 Galaxy CEO Mike Novogratz speaks about Ethereum.

🍋 Kraken vs. Crypto(.)com, trade groups vs. banks + more

🍍 Market flavor today

Crypto Market Cap: $3.84T -1.51% (24H)
Name		Price	24H	7D
	Bitcoin BTC	$115,205.31	-2.62%	-2.43%
	Ethereum ETH	$3,647.57	-1.57%	1.80%
	XRP XRP	$3.03	-5.82%	-12.28%
	BNB BNB	$764.12	-0.79%	2.39%
	Solana SOL	$178.35	-5.36%	-0.02%

Aaaaand… everything’s in a slump.

The total crypto market cap decreased by $130B in the past day.

Bitcoin dropped back to $115K, and altcoins followed.

... But why?

1/ Overleveraged traders got nuked

A whole lotta traders were going long - aka betting that Bitcoin's price is gonna go up - with heavy leverage.

Quick explainer for the newbies: leverage means borrowing extra money from the exchange so you can make a bigger trade than your wallet actually allows.

• Say you have $1K.

• You use 10x leverage, so you're now trading as if you have $10K.

You’re doing this because you think the price of Bitcoin is going to go up, and if it does, you make 10x more profit than usual.

But that also means the losses are gonna be bigger if it doesn't.

So if the price drops, your position can get liquidated - meaning the exchange forcefully closes your trade so you don’t lose more than you have.

And this is how we get into this liquidation spiral:

A small dip triggered liquidations → exchanges had to sell Bitcoin to cover the losses → the price got even lower → more traders got liquidated → etc etc etc.

2/ No real bullish narrative

There’s no major exciting news to drive the market right now.

And without a reason to be hyped, things get unstable - especially at high levels.

3/ Macro fears

The Fed’s next rate decision is coming on July 30.

Some had been hoping for a rate cut - especially since Donald Trump's been publicly pressuring Fed Chair Jerome Powell to make it happen.

But that hope has faded. Inflation is still sticky, and Powell hasn’t shown any sign of giving in.

Without the promise of lower rates (which would be bullish for crypto), investors get nervy = more selling.

4/ Bitcoin was looking tired in general

Like we’ve been discussing lately, Bitcoin's been losing momentum these days.

It was due for a cool-off after its recent highs. The pullback was expected.

So... now what?

According to trader Daan Crypto, if BTC loses the $115K - $120K range, we could see a dip to ~$113.5K - which might be a potential support zone.

For now, BTC is still holding within that range - but if altcoins keep selling off, it could get harder to stay there. Weakness in altcoins can sometimes mean overall risk-off behavior, which puts more pressure on BTC as well.

Maybe this is a sign that it's time to go touch grass...

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🥝 Memecoin harvest

If you’re looking for logic here, it left the chat 🤪

Data as of 07:00 AM EST.

Check out these memecoins and plenty more here.

📄 The case of Ethereum

Yeah, the market isn't sunshine and rainbows today.

But there are still some solid reasons to stay optimistic about crypto in the long run:

👉 Institutional demand is growing, and there’s more infrastructure than ever for 'em to get involved;

👉 Regulations are getting clearer, especially in the US, which helps remove a lot of uncertainty;

👉 Tokenization is becoming a big deal, as it creates new ways to use blockchain.

And because of these narratives, a lot of people are still bullish.

One of them is Mike Novogratz, CEO of Galaxy Digital (a crypto-focused investment firm).

In a recent interview, he said he thinks the crypto market is “destined to go higher” - and that Bitcoin could hit $150K this year.

But it's not the most interesting thing he said.

Novogratz believes ETH could outperform BTC over the next few months - mainly because it has more room to grow in terms of institutional interest.

Now, what does that mean exactly?

Like we've already discussed in a previous newsletter, institutions might lean toward Ethereum rather than Bitcoin rn for a few reasons:

👉 ETH can be staked to earn yield, which is appealing to treasuries looking for passive returns;

👉 Tokenization - turning real-world assets into blockchain-based tokens - is mostly happening on Ethereum;

👉 There’s less competition in ETH compared to BTC, which some see as already "fully priced in" for now.

And the numbers are backing it up:

• This month, ETH is up ~50%, while BTC is only up ~11%;

• ETH ETFs had $1.3B in inflows this week, while BTC ETFs actually saw $58.5M in net outflows.

Novogratz pointed out that if Ethereum breaks above $4K, we could enter “price discovery” - basically meaning we’re in uncharted territory with no strong resistance ahead.

TL;DR: your portfolio might look like it got hit by a truck today - but the longer-term setup still looks solid.

That said, it’s important to remember that things can change fast. If the macro environment turns ugly or if interest in ETFs slows down, this could all flip in the other direction.

But for now, crypto's got the juice 😎

🍋 News drops you can't miss

🤔 Not sure which CEX deserves your crypto? We put Kraken and Crypto.com in the ring - and here’s what went down.

✊ Trade groups are asking Trump to support rules that let people share their own financial data with whatever apps they want. They say big banks wanna block that and stop innovation.

👀 An Arizona TikToker got 8.5 years in prison for helping North Koreans land US jobs using fake IDs. She also has to pay back nearly $460K and stay under supervision for three more years.

🍌 Juicy memes