BTC & ETH - Full Steam Ahead

1️⃣ BTC Breaks out, Eyeing $120K

Bitcoin just broke above its multi-month trading range and a 7-year trendline first established in December 2017. This development electrified holders with new all-time highs of $118k and sparked industry-wide optimism that fueled outsized gains across many top altcoins.

Volatility remains a hallmark of crypto markets, and while weekly gains were muted for traditional stock indexes like the broad-market S&P 500 and tech-heavy Nasdaq 100, they too achieved slightly higher new all-time highs, eliciting a bull post from the official White House X account in the process.

Although escalating U.S. trade war concerns seemingly hampered the stock market’s performance throughout the week, market participants continually shrugged off the headlines as they scrambled to buy every dip.

For now, crypto markets are basking in Bitcoin’s breakout. Investors are eagerly watching whether the rally can sustain momentum and push BTC deeper into price discovery territory…

2️⃣ Phantom Prompts Big Week for Perps

On Tuesday, wallet provider Phantom announced integration of Hyperliquid perpetuals markets into its mobile interfaces. Already available for users in select nations, this offering arrives through "builder codes," which let third parties create custom interfaces to serve users perps while using Hyperliquid on the backend. In just a few taps, users can trade seamlessly, with no need for separate dApp connections or wallet services.

Phantom's move came amid a massive week for perpetuals, with Hyperliquid starting a rush for pre-market trading of Pump.fun's upcoming $PUMP token, which quickly spurred similar pre-market launches from Coinbase and Binance. Adding to the buzz, Coinbase made a strategic talent acquisition of perps-adjacent platform Opyn's leadership team to bolster its onchain derivatives push. Next, Aevo ramped up intensity by adding 1000x leverage for stocks like Coinbase (COIN), Circle (CRCL), MicroStrategy (MSTR), and Robinhood (HOOD) to its Degen platform on Base, offering instant execution and zero slippage during U.S. trading hours.

Overall, the competition is high for perpetuals trading, with major platforms doing all they can to get ahead.

3️⃣ GMX V1 Exploited

Arbitrum bluechip perpetuals platform GMX had its legacy V1 GLP pools exploited for $42M on Wednesday.

According to a post-mortem, the attacker exploited a re-entrancy vulnerability to manipulate the price of GMX’s V1 BTC market, thereby creating false profits for GLP. Simultaneously, they purchased large quantities of GLP via flash loan and redeemed the token at inflated prices.

In exchange for the safe return of funds, GMX promised a $5M bug bounty and to not pursue legal action. The unknown exploiter accepted this offer on Friday, and the GMX Treasury has committed to covering the remaining GLP shortfall net of the bounty.

GMX V2 markets were not susceptible to this exploit. At the time of writing, GMX contributors were working towards a distribution plan for GLP holders, details of which are expected to be shared in the immediate future.

4️⃣ Truth Social Explores Token Rewards

Donald Trump's Truth Social, a social media platform owned and operated by Trump Media & Technology Group (DJT), is diving deeper into the world of cryptocurrency with a utility token rewards program.

According to an announcement posted to Truth Social, users who subscribe to the $9.99 per month Trump Media “Patriot Package” will receive ultra-fast streaming of premium “non-woke” news channels, a red verification checkmark, improved comment visibility, and access to a Truth+ badge.

In the future, Patriot Package subscribers can also accrue gems to their Truth Social accounts based engagement, which will eventually be tied to a utility token on Truth Social and Truth+.

Trump Media first disclosed the possibility of utility tokens in an April shareholder letter, indicating that they would be held within a “Truth digital wallet” and could be “used to pay for Truth+ subscription costs” or “applied to other products and services in the Truth ecosphere.”

5️⃣ Sharplink Apes the EF's ETH

Joe Lubin’s upstart Ethereum treasury company, Sharplink Gaming (SBET), announced on Friday that it had purchased 10k ETH directly from the Ethereum Foundation for $25.7M at an average price of approximately $2,572 per coin. Separately, a non-profit Ethereum Foundation spin-off also offloaded 1,210 ETH for $3.5M this week.

Sharplink, which enjoyed a feature in mainstream television outlet CNBC after ringing the Nasdaq closing bell on Monday, now holds over 215k ETH (worth $645M at current market prices) and was trading at a $1.55B market capitalization at market close on Friday.

SBET stock has surged 133% this month after crashing 95% in June, and the gambling advertiser turned crypto beta play has taken to inundating its X followers with a relentless string of ETH bull posts in recent weeks.