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Bitcoin (BTC) spoofed a breakout to fresh six-week highs into July 31 as a showdown for both the weekly and monthly close drew near.

"Bart Simpson" greets traders into BTC monthly close

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed BTC/USD canceling out all its gains from early in the weekend, dropping from $24,670 to $23,555 in hours.

The resulting chart structure was all too familiar to long-term market participants, creating a "Bart Simpson" shape on hourly timeframes.

Liquidations nonetheless remained manageable, with the cross-crypto tally totaling $150 million in the 24 hours to the time of writing according to data from analytics resource Coinglass — less than on previous days.

For popular trader and analyst Rekt Capital, there was now reason to believe that the coming weekly candle close would confirm that Bitcoin had reestablished a key trendline as support after weeks of failure.

Bitcoin (BTC) is enjoying what some are calling a "bear market rally" and has gained 20% in July, but price action is still confusing analysts.

As the July monthly close approaches, the Puell Multiple has left its bottom zone, leading to hopes that the worst of the losses may be in the past.

Puell Multiple attempts to cement breakout

The Puell Multiple one of the best-known on-chain Bitcoin metrics. It measures the value of mined bitcoins on a given day compared to the value of those mined in the past 365 days.

The resulting multiple is used to determine whether a day's mined coins is particularly high or low relative to the year's average. From that, miner profitability can be inferred, along with more general conclusions about how overbought or oversold the market is.

After hitting levels which traditionally accompany macro price bottoms, the Puell Multiple is now aiming higher — something traditionally seen at the start of macro price uptrends.

Bitcoin (BTC) dropped volatility on the last weekend of July as the monthly close drew near.

200-week moving average in focus for July close

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed BTC/USD retaining $24,000 as resistance into July 30.

The pair had benefitted from macro tailwinds across risk assets in the second half of the week, these including a flush finish for United States equities. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite Index gained 4.1% and 4.6% over the week, respectively.

With off-speak trading apt to spark volatile conditions into weekly and monthly closes thanks to thinner liquidity, however, analysts warned that anything could happen between now and July 31.

“Just gonna sit back and watch the market up until the weekly close like always,” Josh Rager summarized.

Uniswap (UNI) looks ready to post its best monthly performance in more than a year as it rallied approximately 80% in July, but signs of an extended pullback in the near term are emerging. 

Uniswap price nearly doubles in July

UNI's price is having one of its best months ever, reaching nearly $9 on July 30 versus nearly $5 at the beginning of the month, best returns since January 2021's 250% price rally. 

Merge FOMO an UNI "fee switch" proposal

Uniswap's gains primarily surfaced due to similar upside moves in a broader crypto market. But they turned out to be relatively massive due to an ongoing euphoria surrounding "the Merge."

Notably, the Ethereum blockchain's potential transition from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake in September has triggered a buying hysteria among related toke.

Additionally, UNI may also have been drawing its gains from a so-called "fee switch" proposal.

Bitcoin (BTC) rallied on the back of the United States Federal Reserve's decision to hike interest rates on July 27. Investors interpreted Federal Reserve chairman Jeremy Powell’s statement as more dovish than the previous FOMC committee meeting, suggesting that the worst moment of tight economic policies is behind us.

Another positive news for risk assets came from the U.S. personal consumption expenditures price (PCE) index, which rose 6.8% in June. The move was the biggest since January 1982, reducing incentives for fixed income investments. The Federal Reserve focuses on the PCE due to its broader measure of inflation pressures, measuring the price changes of goods and services consumed by the general public.

Additional positive news came from Amazon after the e-commerce giant reported that its quarterly financial results beat the $119.5 billion estimated revenue by 1.4%. Moreover, Apple released its 2Q results on the same day, matching analyst revenue estimates, while presenting earnings 3.4% above the market consensus.

Top traders have increased their bullish bets

Exchange-provided data highlights traders’ long-to-short net positioning. By analyzing every client’s position on the spot, perpetual and futures contracts, one can better understand whether professional traders are leaning bullish or bearish.

There are occasional discrepancies in the methodologies between different exchanges, so viewers should monitor changes instead of absolute figures.

Bitcoin (BTC) saw fresh volatility after July's final Wall Street open as highs north of $24,000 remained solid resistance.

Resistance strikes BTC at $24,000

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView reflected bulls' continuing struggle as BTC/USD lurched around the $24,000 mark on July 29.

The pair had attempted to match the week's local top of $24,450, this ultimately failing to materialize as a resurgent U.S. dollar pressured crypto despite the gains of U.S. stocks .

The U.S. dollar index (DXY) continued higher during the Wall Street trading, passing 106 after falling to its lowest levels since July 5.

Record eurozone inflation added to the mix of macro triggers on the day, while the monthly close remained a guessing game for Bitcoin analysts.

Bitcoin (BTC) may already be beginning its new macro uptrend if historical "hodl" habits repeat.

That was the conclusion from research into the latest data covering the amount of the BTC supply dormant for one year or more as of July 2022.

Hodled BTC hints that the bear market is over

According to independent analyst Miles Johal, who uploaded the findings to social media on July 29, a “rounded top” formation in "hodled" BTC is in the process of completing.

Once it does, the price should react — just like on multiple occasions before.

The clue lies in Bitcoin’s HODL Waves metric, which breaks down the supply according to when each Bitcoin last moved. One year ago or more — the one-year HODL Wave — currently reflects the majority of the supply.

Ethereum's proof-of-work (PoW) powered by GPUs generated approximately $19 billion in revenue last year for ETH miners. But these revenue streams are in danger as Ethereum is expected to become a proof-of-stake (PoS) blockchain via "the Merge" upgrade in September.

Miners could then revolt against the new upgrade by continuing to mine on the old Ethereum PoW after the hard fork chain split. 

A survey from crypto hedge fund Galois Capital recently revealed that 33.1% of respondents believe that the Merge would create two parallel blockchains: ETH1 (PoW) and ETH2 (PoS).

Nevertheless, most respondents, or 53.7%, expect Ethereum's chain to smoothly transition from PoW to PoS.

Is the ETH1 PoW "illogical"?

But contentious hard forks aren't anything new. In fact, the current Ethereum chain came to be in 2016 following a controversial hard fork aimed at reversing a $60 million exploit, resulting in a chain split between Ethereum and Ethereum Classic (ETC).

Ether's (ETH) 53% rally between July 13 and 18 gave bulls an edge in July's $1.26 billion monthly options expiry. The move happened as Ethereum developers set a tentative date for the "Merge," a transition out of the burdensome proof-of-work (PoW) mining mechanism.

According to some analysts, by removing the additional ETH issuing used to finance the energy cost required on traditional mining consensus, Ether could finally achieve the "ultra-sound money" status.

Whether or not sound monetary policy revolves around constantly changing the issuing and burning rules remains an open question, but there's no doubt that the Ethereum developers' video call on July 14 helped to catapult ETH price.

On July 26, a sudden dramatic spike in Ethereum network active addresses raised multiple speculations about whether Ether is targeting its previous all-time high. Analytics firm Santiment reported that the number of 24-hour daily active addresses reached 1.06 million, breaking the previous 718,000 high set back in 2018. Theories such as "Binance doing a maintenance sweep" emerged, but nothing has been confirmed yet.

The main victims of Ether's impressive 20% recovery on July 27 were leveraged bearish traders (shorts) who faced $335 million in aggregate liquidations at derivatives exchanges, according to data from Coinglass.

Lido DAO (LDO) price has skyrocketed by roughly 400% month-to-date to reach $2.22 on July 28, its highest level in over two months.

LDO Mergified

LDO price has benefited majorly due to its association with Ethereum, the leading smart contract platform by total-value-locked (TVL) and market capitalization.

Notably, LDO serves as a governance token inside the Lido DAO ecosystem, a project that offers staking services for Ethereum.

The staking practice allows users to earn passive income without needing to sell their coins. It also helps validate transactions and secure the blockchain. In return, the protocol offers stakers rewards in the form of new tokens minted and fees collected.

Ethereum could become a full-fledged proof-of-stake blockchain by Sept. 19, the tentative date for the Merge. A successful transition to proof-of-stake could mean more demand for Lido DAO services in the future.

Bitcoin (BTC) consolidated higher into July 28 after United States monetary policy changes fueled optimism in risk assets.

Fed hike instils fresh crypto optimism

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed BTC/USD climbing to highs of $23,452 on Bitstamp overnight.

The pair had reacted strongly to the latest Federal Reserve key rate hike, despite this conforming to market predictions. Subsequent comments from Fed Chair Jerome Powell added to the breakout’s momentum.

“I think the reason this is providing some relief to the equity market is the Fed is acknowledging that there can be an impact on growth, to the economy, based on their policy,” Gargi Chaudhuri, head of asset management giant BlackRock’s iShares investment strategy Americas, told CNBC:

“They’re recognizing there are two sides of this — there’s a growth tradeoff to fight inflation. The recognition is something we heard today that we didn’t hear before.”

Bitcoin (BTC) charged above $22,000 on July 27 after the United States Federal Reserve enacted another major interest rate hike.

Fed: "Appropriate" to keep hiking after July

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed BTC/USD reacting positively to confirmation that the Federal Open Markets Committee (FOMC) had unanimously voted to hike the Fed funds rate by 75 basis points.

"The Committee seeks to achieve maximum employment and inflation at the rate of 2% over the longer run," a press release stated.

"In support of these goals, the Committee decided to raise the target range for the federal funds rate to 2-1/4 to 2-1/2 percent and anticipates that ongoing increases in the target range will be appropriate."

Markets had already expected that 75 basis points would be the Fed's next move. Commentators, however, increasingly considered the implications of the central bank's balancing act between taming inflation and avoiding recession going forward.

Bitcoin (BTC) traders may be nervous going into the Federal Reserve rate hike decision, but research suggests that the bulls are broadly gaining ground.

In a fresh update on July 26, analytics firm Arcane Research flagged what it calls "improving" sentiment among institutional traders.

Caution mixed with "improving sentiment"

While attention has focused on the likelihood of a deeper macro low for BTC/USD to come, it appears that not every investor cohort is ready to run for the exit.

Even at current prices 70% below all-time highs, the mood among institutions is strengthening. For Arcane, the proof is in the rising premium being paid by CME Bitcoin futures clients.

This premium, while still low by historical standards, has been sloping upward through the second half of July.