Risk-On Rules as CPI Fails to Dent Rally: Crypto Daybook Americas

By Omkar Godbole (All times ET unless indicated otherwise)

Two years ago, I posted on X that the new normal for U.S. inflation in the post-COVID world is much higher than the Federal Reserve’s 2% target. The market’s reaction to Tuesday’s hotter-than-expected U.S. core CPI report suggests a growing number of investors now share that view.

The data for July showed that annualized core CPI topped the 3% mark for the first time, primarily due to the effects of President Trump's tariffs. The Fed has only once cut interest rates when core inflation was above 3%.

Even so, bitcoin (BTC) rose by over 1% on Wednesday, and ether, often envisaged as an internet bond, jumped by over 8%. U.S. stocks also rallied as traders seemingly disregarded the inflation number and continued to price in a September rate cut.

This dynamic suggests that the 2% inflation target is likely dead. The U.S. Treasury Secretary said Tuesday that the Fed should consider a 50 basis-point cut in September.

This scenario is bullish for assets with inflation-hedge appeal, such as bitcoin and gold, as it implies that central banks are willing to overlook higher inflation to cut rates.

BTC recently traded near $120,000, while gold remained lackluster between $3,300 and $3,400. Several alternative cryptocurrencies posted gains in excess of 10% as retail investors flocked to cheaper coins.

"Bitcoin's current rally reveals a structural shift in crypto market participation that could define this cycle," Will K, CEO of decentralized trading platform VOOI and Co-Founder of Symbiosis.Finance, told CoinDesk. "While institutions gained exposure through ETFs, retail traders are quietly returning to DeFi platforms that have removed previous barriers to entry."

This dual-sided crypto adoption has changed the market composition, where institutional capital flows through regulated products and sophisticated retail re-engages through evolved decentralized infrastructure.

"Traders are no longer choosing between traditional and decentralized markets, they're using both simultaneously," K said.

Speaking of adoption, USDC issuer Circle unveiled its stablecoin-focused layer 1 blockchain, Arc. The blockchain focus on financial transactions: payments, currency exchange and capital markets. Nasdaq-listed ALT5 Sigma completed a $1.5 billion registered direct offering and private placement led by World Liberty Financial.

In traditional markets, the MOVE index, which measures implied volatility in U.S. Treasury notes, fell to its lowest level since January 2022. The continued decline supports easing of financial conditions and increased risk-taking in financial markets. Stay alert!

What to Watch

• Crypto
  • Aug. 13, 9:30 a.m.: Shares of Bullish, the parent company of Bullish Exchange and CoinDesk, begin trading on the NYSE under ticker BLSH. The shares were priced at $37 each, with 30 million on offer to raise $1.1 billion and value the company near $5.4 billion.
  • Aug. 15: Record date for the next FTX distribution to holders of allowed Class 5 Customer Entitlement, Class 6 General Unsecured and Convenience Claims who meet pre-distribution requirements.
  • Aug. 18: Coinbase Derivatives will launch nano SOL and nano XRP U.S. perpetual-style futures.
  • Aug. 20: Qubic (QUBIC), the fastest blockchain ever recorded, will undergo its first yearly halving event as part of a controlled emission model. Although gross emissions remain fixed at one trillion QUBIC tokens per week, the adaptive burn rate will increase substantially — burning some 28.75 trillion tokens and reducing net effective emissions to about 21.25 trillion tokens.
• Macro
  • Aug. 13: A series of virtual meetings involving European leaders, Ukrainian President Zelenskyy, NATO chief Mark Rutte, U.S. President Donald Trump and U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance among others to coordinate Ukraine support, apply pressure on Russia and discuss peace talks.
  • Aug. 13, 3 p.m.: Argentina’s National Institute of Statistics and Census releases July consumer price inflation data.
    • Inflation Rate MoM Est. 1.8% vs. Prev. 1.6%
    • Inflation Rate YoY Est. 36.6% vs. Prev. 39.4%
  • Aug. 14, 8:30 a.m.: The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics releases July producer price inflation data.
    • Core PPI MoM Est. 0.2% vs. Prev. 0.0%
    • Core PPI YoY Est. 2.9% vs. Prev. 2.6%
    • PPI MoM Est. 0.2% vs. Prev. 0%
    • PPI YoY Est. 2.5% vs. Prev. 2.3%
  • Aug. 14, 7 p.m.: Peru's central bank announces its monetary policy decision.
    • Reference Interest Rate Est. 4.5% vs. Prev. 4.5%
  • Aug. 14, 10 p.m.: El Salvador's Statistics and Census Office, which is part of the Central Reserve Bank of El Salvador, releases July consumer price inflation data.
    • Inflation Rate MoM Prev. 0.32%
    • Inflation Rate YoY Prev. -0.17%
  • Aug. 15: U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin will meet in Alaska to discuss potential peace terms for the ongoing war in Ukraine.
  • Aug. 15, 12 p.m.: Colombia's National Administrative Department of Statistics (DANE) releases Q2 GDP growth data.
    • GDP Growth Rate QoQ Prev. 0.8%
    • GDP Growth Rate YoY Est. 2.6% vs. Prev. 2.7%
• Earnings (Estimates based on FactSet data)
  • Aug. 14: KULR Technology Group (KULR), post-market
  • Aug. 15: Sharplink Gaming (SBET), pre-market
  • Aug. 15: BitFuFu (FUFU), pre-market, $0.07
  • Aug. 18: Bitdeer Technologies Group (BTDR), pre-market, -$0.12

Token Events

• Governance votes & calls
  • Compound DAO is voting to appoint ChainSecurity and Certora as joint security provers, with ZeroShadow handling incident response under a $2 million, 12-month COMP-streamed budget starting Aug. 18. Voting ends Aug. 13.
  • Aavegotchi DAO is voting on a Bitcoin Ben’s Crypto Club Las Vegas sponsorship: a $1,000/month corporate membership (logo on sponsor wall, team access, newsletter feature, one branded meetup/month) or a $5,000, 90-day Graffiti Wall mural with promo. Voting ends Aug. 23.
  • Aug. 14, 10 a.m.: Lido to host a tokenholder update call.
  • Aug. 14, 10 a.m.: Stacks to host a townhall meeting.
• Unlocks
  • Aug. 15: Avalanche (AVAX) to unlock 0.33% of its circulating supply worth $41.92 million.
  • Aug. 15: Starknet (STRK) to unlock 3.53% of its circulating supply worth $18.22 million.
  • Aug. 15: Sei (SEI) to unlock 0.96% of its circulating supply worth $18.7 million.
  • Aug. 16: Arbitrum (ARB) to unlock 1.8% of its circulating supply worth $44.79 million.
  • Aug. 18: Fasttoken (FTN) to unlock 4.64% of its circulating supply worth $91.6 million.
  • Aug. 20: LayerZero (ZRO) to unlock 8.53% of its circulating supply worth $60.41 million.
  • Aug. 20: Kaito (KAITO) to unlock 8.82% of its circulating supply worth $28.95 million.
• Token Launches
  • Aug. 13: Overlay (OVL) to be listed on Binance Alpha, Gate.io, WEEX, Ourbit, MEXC, BYDFi, and others.

Conferences

The CoinDesk Policy & Regulation conference (formerly known as State of Crypto) is a one-day boutique event held in Washington on Sept. 10 that allows general counsels, compliance officers and regulatory executives to meet with public officials responsible for crypto legislation and regulatory oversight. Space is limited. Use code CDB10 for 10% off your registration through Aug. 31.

• Day 3 of 3: AIBB 2025 (Istanbul)
• Day 3 of 7: Ethereum NYC (New York)
• Day 1 of 2: CryptoWinter ‘25 (Queenstown, New Zealand)
• Aug. 15: Bitcoin Educators Unconference (Vancouver)
• Aug. 17-21: Crypto 2025 (Santa Barbara, California)
• Aug. 18-21: Wyoming Blockchain Symposium 2025 (Jackson Hole)

Token Talk

By Shaurya Malwa

• OKB surged to a record $142 (+200%) after OKX announced a permanent supply cut to 21M tokens — one of the largest in its history — alongside a “PP upgrade” to its Polygon-powered X Layer chain.
• The upgrade boosts throughput to 5,000 TPS, cuts gas fees to near zero and adds gasless USDT withdrawals.
• OKX will also decommission OKTChain, halting OKT trading on Aug. 13 and converting balances to OKB from Aug. 15.
• Eden Network is shutting down all services, including Eden RPC and Bundles, citing unprofitable competition in the MEV relay and block-building space.
• Starting in 2021 to optimize MEV revenue for miners and validators, Eden saw early success but lost ground post-Merge as the market consolidated around a few operators.
• FARTCOIN rose 17% as whale wallets with $1M+ in holdings increased supply by 2% over 24 hours, while “smart money” addresses boosted holdings by 3%.
• MACD momentum on the daily chart is bullish, with the token eyeing a breakout above $1.74 if buying persists. Key support sits at $0.74 if momentum fades.

Derivatives Positioning

• Ether's (ETH) price rise is accompanied by fresh capital inflows into CME-listed futures, where open interest in standard contracts sized at 50 ETH has increased to 1.85 million ETH, up from 1.5 million ETH just over a week ago.
• Traders appear to be positioning for an upside as the annualized three-month basis has topped 10%. In bitcoin's (BTC) case, CME basis remains near 7.5%.
• The altcoin market shows no signs of overheating despite ether surging toward record highs. That's evident from perpetual funding rates on offshore exchanges, which remain pinned near annualized 10% for most major tokens.
• Open interest in privacy-focused Monero (XMR) rose to the highest level since December, as the token's price dropped to $245, the lowest since April. The data indicate that traders sold the rally to profit from the price drop.
• On Deribit, ether traders chased calls at strike $5,000 and higher in a sign of bullish market sentiment. ETH calls traded at a premium relative to puts across all tenors. Still, ether's 30-day implied volatility index, ETH DVOL, remained pinned in recent ranges around 70%.
• BTC's implied volatility also remained relatively steady. Flows on the OTC network Paradigm featured demand for higher-strike OTM calls, particularly the $ 160,000 strike.

Market Movements

• BTC is down 0.1% from 4 p.m. ET Tuesday at $120,049.72 (24hrs: +1.46%)
• ETH is up 1.59% at $4,691.83 (24hrs: +9.76%)
• CoinDesk 20 is up 1.28% at 4,370.33 (24hrs: +7.11%)
• Ether CESR Composite Staking Rate is up 5 bps at 2.97%
• BTC funding rate is at 0.0196% (21.462% annualized) on KuCoin

• DXY is down 0.45% at 97.66
• Gold futures are up 0.48% at $3,415.20
• Silver futures are up 1.64% at $38.62
• Nikkei 225 closed up 1.30% at 43,274.67
• Hang Seng closed up 2.58% at 25,613.67
• FTSE is up 0.14% at 9,160.17
• Euro Stoxx 50 is up 0.76% at 5,376.35
• DJIA closed on Tuesday up 1.10% at 44,458.61
• S&P 500 closed up 1.13% at 6,445.76
• Nasdaq Composite closed up 1.39% at 21,681.90
• S&P/TSX Composite closed up 0.53% at 27,921.26
• S&P 40 Latin America closed up 1.82% at 2,696.80
• U.S. 10-Year Treasury rate is down 3.9 bps at 4.254%
• E-mini S&P 500 futures are up 0.17% at 6,479.75
• E-mini Nasdaq-100 futures are up 0.23% at 23,992.25
• E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average Index are up 0.22% at 44,656.00

Bitcoin Stats

• BTC Dominance: 59.3% (-0.63%)
• Ether-bitcoin ratio: 0.03858 (0.96%)
• Hashrate (seven-day moving average): 893 EH/s
• Hashprice (spot): $58.74
• Total fees: 4.25 BTC / $506,562
• CME Futures Open Interest: 139,255 BTC
• BTC priced in gold: 35.7 oz.
• BTC vs gold market cap: 10.1%

Technical Analysis

• Ether's 14-week relative strength index (RSI), a popular indicator, has crossed above 70 to indicate strong bullish momentum.
• Historically, readings above 70 have marked phases of the market characterized by fear of missing out (FOMO) and rapid price rallies.

Crypto Equities

• Strategy (MSTR): closed on Tuesday at $394.39 (-1.46%), +0.66% at $397 in pre-market
• Coinbase Global (COIN): closed at $322.62 (+0.94%), +0.98% at $325.77
• Circle (CRCL): closed at $163.21 (+1.27%), -4.45% at $155.94
• Galaxy Digital (GLXY): closed at $27.90 (-2.04%), +1.83% at $28.41
• MARA Holdings (MARA): closed at $15.72 (+0.38%), +1.02% at $15.88
• Riot Platforms (RIOT): closed at $11.44 (+2.97%), +0.96% at $11.55
• Core Scientific (CORZ): closed at $15.11 (+3.99%), -5.89% at $14.22
• CleanSpark (CLSK): closed at $9.92 (+0.51%), +0.81% at $10
• CoinShares Valkyrie Bitcoin Miners ETF (WGMI): closed at $25.41 (+1.4%)
• Semler Scientific (SMLR): closed at $34.54 (-2.1%)
• Exodus Movement (EXOD): closed at $27.86 (-7.5%), unchanged in pre-market
• SharpLink Gaming (SBET): closed at $22.47 (+0.6%), +2.67% at $23.07

ETF Flows

Spot BTC ETFs

• Daily net flows: $65.9 million
• Cumulative net flows: $54.65 billion
• Total BTC holdings ~1.29 million

Spot ETH ETFs

• Daily net flows: $523.9 million
• Cumulative net flows: $11.38 billion
• Total ETH holdings ~6 million

Source: Farside Investors

Chart of the Day

• The MOVE index, measuring the 30-day expected volatility in the Treasury market, has dropped to 77.42, the lowest since January 2022.
• The slide supports continued risk-taking in financial markets.

While You Were Sleeping

• Ether Eyes Record High as Options Traders Bet Big on ETH's $5K Breakout (CoinDesk): Amberdata's Greg Magadini sees ETH having "plenty of room" to rise, targeting $5,000 for a breakout into record territory and $7,200 based on ETH/BTC mid-range valuations.
• A16z, DeFi Group Pitch U.S. SEC on Safe Harbor for DeFi Apps (CoinDesk): The venture capital firm and the DeFI research and advocacy group are petitioning the SEC for regulatory safe harbors for websites and apps used to access DeFi projects.
• The Recipe Behind the Trump Family’s Crypto Riches: PancakeSwap (The Wall Street Journal): The value of the Trump family’s stake in World Liberty Financial appears linked to the demand for its stablecoin, USD1, which is benefiting from heavy promotion on decentralized exchange PancakeSwap.
• China and India Rebuild Ties After Modi’s Rupture With Trump (Bloomberg): Despite deadly 2020 border clashes, India and China are resuming direct flights, easing trade restrictions and pursuing limited cooperation after U.S. tariffs strained New Delhi’s relationship with Washington.
• France, Germany and UK willing to reimpose sanctions on Iran (Financial Times): The European countries plan to reinstate U.N. sanctions under a 2015 accord’s snapback clause if Iran doesn’t agree to a diplomatic deal by the end of August or resume negotiations to extend the deadline.
• Before Trump Talks to Putin, Germany and Others Want to Bend His Ear (The New York Times): A Wednesday video call allows Germany’s chancellor, Ukraine’s president and select European leaders to implore the U.S. president not to strike a deal with Russia’s leader at the Alaska summit.

In the Ether