The crypto market started July 16 without a clear direction: bitcoin dropped to $64,579, Ethereum remained sideways, and among the top 100, Ondo, Zcash, DeXe, and Pi stood out. On a weekly horizon, some altcoins looked stronger, but the overall picture remained uneven: Strategy once again made it clear that it does not intend to stop buying BTC, and Revolut moved closer to launching crypto services in the UAE.
- Strategy believes that the debt burden will become truly painful only if bitcoin falls to around $8,000-10,000.
- Researchers from Stanford and Singapore Management University saw signs of manipulation in Polymarket’s five-minute bitcoin contracts.
- Revolut received preliminary VARA approval for crypto services in the UAE.
Market Capitalization of Leaders: Bitcoin Weakens, Ethereum Holds the Best Pace
According to TradingView, bitcoin started the day with a decline. As of 07:35 MSK, the first cryptocurrency was trading around $64,579, which is about ₽5,034,431 per token. Over the past 24 hours, BTC’s low dropped to $64,361, and the high reached $65,507. The USD pair remains the main benchmark for market participants, although for some investors, the price in rubles is also important.
Ethereum, the second coin by capitalization, started the morning more calmly and moved mostly sideways. At the time of writing, ETH was about $1,923, or roughly ₽149,901 per token.
If you break down the movement by assets, the picture looks like this:
- Ethereum: for ,97%, for ,35%.
- Hyperliquid: -1.88% in 24 hours, -1.80% for the week.
- Ondo: top-100 leader for the day with a 13.51% increase.
- Zcash: best result for the week, +24.81%.
- DeXe: biggest drop in the top 100 for the day, -10.44%.
- Pi: largest weekly drawdown in the top 100, -21.50%.
The crypto market is a global network of platforms, wallets, blockchains, and participants where digital assets are bought, sold, stored, and used in applications. It has several notable features: trading is round-the-clock, there is no single control center, participants are located worldwide, and prices can change sharply due to news, regulation, supply and demand, technological updates, and the actions of major players.
For new market participants, it is important to understand the basic concepts:
- Cryptocurrency is a digital asset that operates on cryptography and can be transferred between users without a traditional banking intermediary.
- Blockchain is a chain of blocks with transaction records maintained by a network of participants.
- Cryptography helps protect transactions and access to assets.
- Double-spending protection mechanisms prevent the same coin from being spent twice.
- Mining is a way to support the network and issue new coins in blockchains where such a mechanism is used.
- Exchanges give users access to buying and selling cryptocurrencies.
- Oracles transmit data from the outside world to the blockchain, such as market prices.
- Trading software helps analyze the market and execute trades.
- Smart contracts are programs on the blockchain that automatically execute deal conditions.
- Tokens are digital assets issued on top of a blockchain.
- Decentralization means the network operates without a single controlling center.
The capitalization of a particular cryptocurrency is calculated simply: the coin’s price is multiplied by the number of coins in circulation. The total crypto market capitalization is the sum of the capitalizations of all considered assets.
Crypto Exchanges, Strategies, and Risks for Investors
You can trade cryptocurrencies on different types of platforms. Centralized exchanges like Binance, Coinbase, Kraken, and Bybit usually handle account custody and transaction infrastructure. Decentralized platforms operate through smart contracts, and P2P services allow users to make deals directly with each other.
It is possible to make money on cryptocurrency, but there is no guaranteed return. Most often, participants choose several approaches:
- Trading — active deals on price movements.
- Long-term investing, or HODL — buying an asset with the expectation of future growth.
- Staking — earning rewards for supporting the network.
- Mining — mining coins and supporting blockchain operations.
- Participating in DeFi — using decentralized financial services.
The main risks are high volatility, theft, phishing, and loss of access to a wallet. Cold wallets, two-factor authentication, careful address verification, and basic analysis before a deal help reduce them. News, charts, and analytics are usually monitored via CoinMarketCap, CoinGecko, TradingView, and specialized media.
Notable trends remain institutional adoption, the development of DeFi and NFTs, and increased regulation. These areas may support market interest but at the same time create new challenges for projects, exchanges, and investors.
Strategy Sticks With Bitcoin and Names a Critical Debt Level
Michael Saylor’s Strategy company does not intend to halt bitcoin purchases despite recent sales. The company’s president and CEO, Phong Le, said in an interview with Bloomberg TV that Strategy will only seriously assess risks related to debt if BTC falls to about $8,000-10,000.
“We are not going anywhere,” said Phong Le, adding that Strategy wants to remain the largest bitcoin buyer in the foreseeable future.
Recently, Strategy sold more than $215 million worth of bitcoin as part of capital management. At the same time, last week the company raised about $467 million by selling shares and brought its cash reserve to about $3 billion. According to the company, this amount is enough to pay dividends on preferred shares for almost two years.
For investors, the structure of the strategy itself is important: bitcoin remains an asset on Strategy’s balance sheet, and the share as a financial instrument helps the company replenish its liquidity reserve. This model makes BTC’s behavior especially significant for assessing the company’s debt sustainability.
Polymarket: Five-Minute Contracts May Have Opened a Window for Manipulation
Researchers from Stanford University and Singapore Management University concluded that Polymarket’s five-minute bitcoin prediction markets create incentives for short-term price pressure before contract settlement.
The mechanics of such contracts are simple: participants bet on whether the price of bitcoin will be above or below a set level in five minutes. Settlement is based on Chainlink data at the end of the time window. Because of this, experienced traders have an incentive to influence the spot market right before the contract closes.
After these instruments launched in July 2024, researchers noticed sharp spikes in BTC spot market orders right before settlement, followed by a quick price reversal. This pattern resembles manipulative behavior. According to the authors, about $1.28 million shifted from retail participants to more sophisticated players.
At the same time, the researchers do not consider prediction markets inherently vulnerable. In their view, if the contract duration is increased from five to 15 minutes, the manipulation effect almost completely disappears.
Revolut Receives Preliminary Approval for Crypto Services in UAE
British company Revolut has received preliminary approval from Dubai’s Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority, known as VARA. It concerns the launch of crypto services in the UAE, including brokerage, management, investment, and exchange services.
Previously, Revolut’s activities in the region were also approved by the UAE Central Bank. The company expects that users will be able to buy, sell, and store digital assets through the Revolut app and the Revolut X exchange. For the client, such a purchase may look almost like a regular bank transaction with currency, but in fact it is an investment in a high-risk digital asset.
Approval in the UAE followed Revolut’s receipt of a banking license in the UK in March. The company is also awaiting decisions on banking license applications in the United States of America and Peru, continuing to expand the geography of its financial services.
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