PCE Cooling Drives Strong Tech Rally, BTC Pulls Back After Testing 65K
🔍 Key Insights
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📊 Market Overview
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The cooling of U.S. Q2 core PCE inflation and weaker-than-expected GDP growth boosted expectations for future rate cuts. Meanwhile, Microsoft’s stronger-than-expected earnings restored confidence in AI investment, while the easing of previous AI fund liquidation pressure fueled a strong rebound in technology stocks. Microsoft surged over 15% in a single session, adding approximately $450 billion in market capitalization, marking the largest single-day market cap gain in U.S. stock market history. The memory and semiconductor sectors also rallied, with Micron up 18%, SanDisk up 26%, AMD up 13%, and TSMC up more than 7%. The crypto market followed the broader risk-on move, with BTC briefly breaking above $65,000. However, repeated attempts to hold the $65,000–$65,300 range failed, triggering short-term profit-taking. BTC has since pulled back to around $64,500. The market remains in a consolidation phase following the rebound. While the bullish structure remains intact, strong resistance above $65,000 and insufficient trading volume are limiting further upside.
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BTC: $64,775.6 (+1.24%); ETH: $1,918.36 (+0.42%); NASDAQ: 25,122.18 (+2.78%); S&P 500: 7,437.63 (+1.66%); Fear & Greed Index: 25 (Previous: 28) (Data as of: 2026-07-31 00:00 UTC)
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🧠 Market Insights
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In July, the DeFi lending market ended five consecutive months of decline, with active loan balances recovering to $22.2 billion, indicating a gradual recovery in on-chain capital demand. Aave and Morpho continued to dominate the market. Meanwhile, Aave reduced risk exposure by removing low-adoption assets and scaling back deployments in marginal markets, shifting the protocol focus from expansion toward efficiency improvements, reflecting a broader move among leading DeFi protocols toward refined operations. On-chain trading infrastructure also continued to mature, with Uniswap launching the Launches aggregation page to support Robinhood Chain token issuance, improving new asset issuance and trading efficiency. The rapid growth in tokenized stock holders further highlights continued expansion of RWA and on-chain asset trading scenarios.
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Meanwhile, Coinbase and Strategy reported weaker-than-expected financial results. Although Coinbase’s Q2 revenue declined, prediction market revenue increased 106% quarter-over-quarter, aligning with Robinhood’s growth in prediction markets and indicating that event contracts and prediction markets are emerging as new growth drivers for trading platforms. Strategy recorded an $8.22 billion loss in Q2 due to Bitcoin fair value changes, but its BTC holdings increased to 843,775 BTC, up 25% since the beginning of the year, demonstrating its continued Bitcoin accumulation strategy.
Macro Economy
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U.S.–Iran Conflict: U.S.–Iran hostilities have escalated again, with the Strait of Hormuz remaining effectively closed. The U.S. military resumed airstrikes against dozens of Iranian military targets, while Iran retaliated by attacking U.S. bases in Jordan, Kuwait, and Bahrain. Iran officially rejected Oman’s proposal for joint management of the Strait of Hormuz, leaving negotiations stalled. The U.S. Treasury sanctioned Iran’s Strait of Hormuz insurance network, citing the use of Bitcoin to circumvent sanctions.
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Israel–Palestine Conflict: Trump announced that a peace committee had reached a historic agreement, under which Hamas and all armed groups in Gaza would fully disarm. Israeli forces would subsequently withdraw, while an international stabilization force would cooperate with a new Palestinian police force to maintain security.
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U.S. June core PCE price index rose 3.3% year-over-year, in line with market expectations and down from 3.4% in the previous month.
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U.S. initial jobless claims for the week ending July 25 came in at 197,000, below expectations of 200,000, while the previous figure was revised from 187,000 to 188,000.
Industry Events
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South Korea completed a draft digital asset framework bill, which may include provisions for AI Agent payments.
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South Korea plans to impose a 22% tax on cryptocurrency gains exceeding $1,740 starting next January.
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Samsung SDS is collaborating with Dunamu, the parent company of Upbit, to develop stablecoin infrastructure and AI payment solutions.
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Polymarket will upgrade crypto up/down market settlement rules by replacing single-price snapshots with time-weighted average pricing.
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Project Agorá, led by the Bank for International Settlements, completed a $1 million tokenized fund cross-border payment test.
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South Korean fintech company KSNET partnered with Solana to integrate Solana Pay into 330,000 merchants.
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The U.S. CFTC plans to revise multiple regulatory rules to address conflicts of interest among derivatives clearing organizations and related entities.
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Aviva Investors received approval from the Central Bank of Ireland to launch a tokenized dollar liquidity fund.
Alpha Project Performance
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UNI: Uniswap launched the token issuance aggregation portal Launches and added support for Robinhood Chain token issuance. Ecosystem developments drove the token price up more than 11% intraday.
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INJ: Injective completed a mainnet upgrade to improve on-chain efficiency. Additional exchange support for native USDC deposits and withdrawals also boosted sentiment, pushing the token up around 10% intraday.
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PUMP: After Pump.fun introduced the BOOST mechanism, token graduation rates increased to 6.7%, eight times June’s average level, driving the token up more than 8% intraday.
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KOMA: Multiple trading accounts opened high-leverage long positions on KOMA/USDT, triggering FOMO sentiment. Trading volume expanded more than 13 times, pushing the token up over 70% intraday.
Weekly Outlook
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July 31: Bank of Japan announces interest rate decision; Apple, Amazon, and Coinbase release earnings reports.
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August 1: BEAT token unlock: 6.87% of circulating supply, worth approximately $76.07 million; EIGEN token unlock: 5.17% of circulating supply, worth approximately $7.97 million.
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August 2: OPEC+ meeting; ZAMA token unlock: 12.7% of circulating supply, worth approximately $14.50 million; ENA token unlock: 1.16% of circulating supply, worth approximately $9.43 million; 2Z token unlock: 3.9% of circulating supply, worth approximately $8.39 million.
