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A subtle change in Elon Musk’s Twitter bio after his platform’s rebrand to “X” has again fanned the flames of speculation — that Dogecoin (DOGE) may have a future on the platform.

On July 25, eagle-eyed Twitter (now X) users began pointing out that Elon Musk’s profile location now sports both an “X” and a “D” — with X referencing Twitter’s new branding, while D has been interpreted to mean Dogecoin — a memecoin he has been publicly supportive of in the past.

Other observers, such as Real Vision CEO Raoul Pal came to a similar conclusion, albeit with different reasoning.

In a July 25 tweet, Pal said Musk would most likely use Dogecoin to make global payments for creators on the platform, noting that the eccentric billionaire already “owns a big chunk anyway” and “he likes it.”

When asked why Musk wouldn’t create his own platform-specific token for these payments, Pal suggested that Dogecoin could help Musk get around securities laws, giving him “zero execution risk.”

Bitcoin-related investment products appear to have lost some of their sheen among crypto investors, recording its first week of outflows since Blackrock filed for spot Bitcoin ETF in June.

According to a July 24 report by CoinShares’ head of research, James Butterfill, Bitcoin (BTC) investment products saw outflows of $13 million for the week ending July 21, reversing five weeks of inflows.

Short Bitcoin products also saw outflows of $5.5 million in the week.

In contrast, Ethereum (ETH) and XRP (XRP) investment products recorded combined inflow of $9.2 million over the last week.

Butterfill noted that Ethereum investment products were the best performer last week with inflows of $6.6 million, while XRP funds recorded an inflow of $2.6 million. Other altcoins, such as Solana (SOL) and Polygon (MATIC) tracked inflows of $1.1 million and $0.7 million respectively.

Maker has gained 53.5% over the past month, and the cryptocurrency witnessed a remarkable 28.1% surge between July 15 and July 22, achieving its highest daily close in nearly a year. While the gains are impressive, the real question is: Can the cryptocurrency sustain its current trajectory, or were short-term factors behind the price pump?

MakerDAO, the decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) responsible for the Dai (DAI) stablecoin and the governance token Maker (MKR), unveiled a five-phase roadmap in mid-May. Dubbed “Endgame," the upgrade plan includes a new blockchain, a rebrand and the introduction of two tokens featuring updated functionalities.

Rune Christensen, co-founder of MarkerDAO, revealed that the primary component of “Endgame” entails developing incentive programs for interactions and governance participation based on a new chain bridged to the Ethereum network. Essentially, users will have the capacity to initiate hard forks in response to power attacks or abuse.

Ascribing the recent rally solely to these proposed changes seems simplistic, given that Maker’s price remained stable for 30 days after the announcement. Consequently, investors seeking to understand MKR’s movement must delve deeper to identify the precise triggers behind the price surge.

Venture capital funds unload MKR

According to crypto markets and decentralized finance analyst Nay, Paradigm Capital likely divested a significant portion of its MKR investments in March. Furthermore, A16z, another major venture capital firm that previously invested in Maker, has been reducing its position over recent weeks.

Bitcoin (BTC) plunged to $29,000 on July 24, signaling that bears are trying to seize control. It looks like the failure to hold on to the higher levels may have tempted short-term bulls to book profits and aggressive bears to initiate short positions.

Although the near term looks bearish, long-term investors remain unfazed and they continue to hold on to their positions. Glassnode data shows that Bitcoin’s Long-Term Holder Supply made a new high of 14.52 million Bitcoin, “equivalent to 75% of the circulating supply.”

While the cryptocurrency markets have turned soft in the near term, the United States equities markets remain on a strong footing. The Dow Jones Industrial Average has risen for ten straight days, its longest streak since 2017. However, things could change this week with a slew of key earnings reports and the Federal Reserve’s policy decision on July 26. The latter could also impact the U.S. dollar index (DXY), which is on a recovery path.

Could lower levels attract buyers in Bitcoin and select altcoins? Will the strength in the U.S. equities markets limit the downside in the cryptocurrency markets? Let’s analyze the charts to find out.

S&P 500 Index price analysis

The S&P 500 Index (SPX) turned down from 4,578 on July 19 but a positive sign is that the bulls have not given up much ground. This suggests that the buyers are not dumping their positions as they anticipate the uptrend to continue.

XRP (XRP) price is down today, mirroring trends elsewhere in the cryptocurrencymarket as traders await the Federal Reserve rate decision in the week.

XRP price drops amid rising dollar strength

On July 24, XRP price dropped 8% to $0.68, underperforming the crypto market's 3.5% decline on the same day. The XRP/USD pair declined amid growing expectations that the Fed would raise interest rates by 25 basis points in its July 25-26 meeting.

A higher rate environment is considered bad for cryptocurrencies like XRP. As a result, some traders have rotated out of high-cap cryptos to seek shelter in safer assets like the U.S. dollar, selling at the peak of the Ripple-led market rally on July 13.

For instance, XRP's price climbed 75% on July 13 but was unable to extend its gains above $1. Since then, the token's price has fallen by 28%. On the other hand, the U.S. dollar index (DXY) bounced nearly 2% in the same period.

Meanwhile, the correlation coefficient between DXY and XRP was -0.79 on July 24 compared to +0.25 on July 13, showing a greater likelihood of XRP dropping further if the dollar keeps rising in the coming months.

Worldcoin (WLD), a project partly created by OpenAI CEO Sam Alman, launched the token that will be used within the project's ecosystem on July 24. 

The project has continuously split opinions from within the crypto space up to Silicon Valley, with some praising the project’s ambition to some calling it “creepy” and “dystopian.” Despite these comments, the project continues to pursue its goal of solving income inequality and online identity authentication.

The project was first launched back on March 14, along with a waitlist for its software development kit (SDK). According to its team, the World ID will function as a global digital passport that users are able to store within their phones. The project also claims that the World ID will also provide proof that they are not robots, without the need to provide identifying information to various websites like phone numbers. 

On May 8, the project released its gas-free crypto wallet for verified humans. This allowed users to take advantage of gas-free transfers by registering for a World ID — where they would be asked to provide a phone number or an iris scan. 

According to the developers, the project does not store the data provided by the users. It generates a zero-knowledge proof to verify that the user is a human being, without revealing the data that was used to generate this proof.

Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried has agreed to a “gag order” which will prevent him from making comments to third parties that may interfere with his trial — but argues it should apply to all potential witnesses as well, including current FTX CEO John Ray.

The gag order against Sam Bankman-Fried was initially requested on July 20, when the U.S. government accused the FTX founder of attempting to interfere with a fair trial by publicly discrediting former business partner and witness Caroline Ellison in an interview with the  New York Times.

In a July 22 letter to United States District Court Judge Lewis A. Kaplan of New York, Bankman-Fried’s lawyers Cohen & Gresser LLP denied the accusations but agreed to accept a gag order as requested.

A gag order is a legal order often issued by a court to restrict information or comment from being made public or passed onto any unauthorized third party. In this case, Bankman-Fried will no longer be able to make comments that publicly discredit a government witness by sharing confidential information that may taint the jury pool.

However, in accepting the relief, Bankman-Fried’s lawyers also want the same gag order to be applied to all parties and witnesses that could be involved in his criminal trial.

Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse has condemned the United States securities regulator over recent comments from its lawyers that hint at a possible appeal to its case against Ripple.

In a July 23 tweet, Garlinghouse slammed the regulator for its "regulation by enforcement" approach, arguing it has only served to hurt retail investors.

“​​The SEC created this mess by proclaiming it was the cop on the crypto beat when it had no legal jurisdiction,” wrote Garlinghouse in a July 23 tweet. “Where’s that gotten us? Consumers left holding the bag in bankruptcy court while the SEC holds press conferences,” he added.

Garlinghouse’s criticism came in response to the SEC’s latest round of comments concerning Ripple, where the regulator hinted at appealing the split-decision ruling against Ripple Labs.

On July 21, the SEC used its ongoing case against Terraform Labs founder Do Kwon to air out its concerns with the decision that retail sales of XRP (XRP) on exchanges didn’t constitute the legal definition of a security.

Bitcoin (BTC) is struggling to rise above the overhead resistance at $31,000 but a minor positive is that the bulls have not allowed the price to dive below the $29,500 support. This suggests that a catalyst may be needed for the price to break out from its range.

On the macroeconomic front, the Federal Reserve’s meeting on July 25 and 26 is an important event to keep an eye on. The FedWatch Tool shows a 99.2% probability of a 25 basis point rate hike in the meeting. If that happens, the markets may not witness a knee-jerk reaction as the hike seems to have been priced in. However, any surprise move by the Fed could thrust the price out of the range.

Several analysts expect the range to break soon but there is no consensus on the direction of the breakout. If the price breaks below the range, analysts expect a significant downside. Some are even projecting a fall closer to $20,000.

If Bitcoin moves higher, select altcoins could attract buyers. Let’s study the charts of top-5 cryptocurrencies that could turn positive over the next few days.

Bitcoin price analysis

Bitcoin remains pinned below the 20-day exponential moving average ($30,036) for the past few days but a positive sign is that the bears have not been able to sink the price to the 50-day simple moving average ($28,979).

Stellar (XLM) is basking in the glow of Ripple's partial win against the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), up around 60% since the court ruling on July 13.

XRP fuels XLM price rally again

XLM price has risen over 60% since July 13, when a federal judge ruled that the XRP sales on public exchanges did not break U.S. securities laws. Still, the token is down about 20% from its local peak of $0.195 and was changing hands for about $0.154 on July 23.

The period of XLM's price rise has appeared alongside the token's growing positive correlation with XRP on the daily timeframe. As of July 23, the correlation coefficient between the two assets was 0.95, suggesting they are moving in a near-perfect tandem.

The price trends in XLM and XRP markets typically mirror one another, given Stellar is a breakaway blockchain payment project founded by Ripple's co-founder Jed McCaleb. For instance, XRP's price has also surged around 60% since the Ripple win.

But XRP price risks dropping approximately 40% by September, which will likely put XLM under similar bearish stress.

With less than two weeks until Litecoin’s halving, when the miner’s block subsidy will be cut in half, traders are questioning whether the additional scarcity effect will be enough to sustain the LTC price above $90. 

Litecoin’s (LTC) price has declined by 19% in the last 18 days, but it has shown a positive 31% performance this year. Notably, most gains occurred between June 29 and July 2, with a 34% rally pushing the price to a 14-month high of $115.

However, there’s an alarming statistic coming from the derivatives market that indicates a sharp correction is likely underway.

Historical data doesn’t favor Litecoin bulls

Each of the previous three instances where Litecoin futures open interest dropped below $500 million caused price drops of 38% or higher, which potentially matches the current scenario.

Litecoin futures’ aggregate open interest in dollars from June 29 ($300 million) to July 2 ($615 million) shows there was a significant surge, indicating increased demand for leveraged futures contracts.

Bitcoin continues to test investors’ patience, as it remains stuck inside a tight range. Although the near term is boring, traders need to be on their toes because narrow ranges are generally followed by a sharp increase in volatility. The only problem is that it is difficult to predict the direction of the breakout with certainty.

Glassnode’s latest weekly newsletter highlighted that Bitcoin’s (BTC) consolidation has shrunk the Bollinger Bands, which are separated by just 4.2%. Citing various on-chain indicators, the authors concluded that investors are unwilling to sell, and in several aspects, it looks similar to “periods like 2016 and 2019-20, characterized by choppy market conditions.”

Although Bitcoin’s near term may look uncertain, the long term remains bullish. Capriole Investments founder Charles Edwards said in an interview with Cointelegraph that access to BlackRock’s exchange-traded fund application could make it “easier for institutions to put Bitcoin on their balance sheet.”

Will Bitcoin plunge below the support of the range and start a new downward move, dragging several altcoins lower? Let’s study the charts of the top 10 cryptocurrencies to find out.

Bitcoin price analysis

Bitcoin has been sustaining below the 20-day exponential moving average (EMA) of $30,067 since July 17, which is a negative sign. It shows a lack of aggressive buying at current levels.

XRP (XRP) price booked an incredible 100% gain on the same day as the landmark ruling in the XRP securities case, but buyers are now struggling to hold on to these gains. 

The price surge came after judge Analisa Torres of District Court of the Southern District of New York ordered that XRP sale to retail investors does not qualify the token as a security in the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) case against Ripple.

While the trading interest in XRP is reviving, the technical and network usage data hint at a short-term pullback.

Traders flock to XRP but network growth stalls

According to Coinglass data, the open interest volume for XRP futures contracts, which represents the total value of open bets for the asset, surged to its highest point since November 2021, reaching $1.19 billion on July 20.

XRP’s spot trading volumes topped Bitcoin and Ethereum and U.S.-based exchanges like Gemini and Coinbase relisted XRP, boosting the market’s sentiment further.

Crime in Web3 is shifting away from Bitcoin (BTC) to stablecoins while ponzi schemes remain prevalent, according to Elliptic’s former head of technical crypto advisory.

Tara Annison shared the latest insights from the murky world of cryptocurrency-related crime during a presentation on the final day of EthCC in Paris, addressing a wide variety of ways in which digitals assets are either facilitating crime or being used to launder funds.

According to Annison, Bitcoin is no longer the cryptocurrency of choice to carry out illicit activities or launder money. As the cryptocurrency industry has matured, the establishment of decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols, mixing services and stablecoins present new avenues for criminals to explore.

Criminals have shifted towards using dollar-denominated assets, like USD Coin (USDC), as their easy accessibility and ability to be laundered through decentralized exchanges (DEXs).

“The criminals use that as a target point. It's also super easy to launder through Dex's. There's deep liquidity, really good volume, so that's pretty worrying.”