<h2 id="market-overview">Market Overview 📉</h2><img src="https://academy-public.coinmarketcap.com/optimized-uploads/2ff8c62e936348e9a004b06f9703c7e6.png">*Data as of 6:45 AM UTC on July 17, 2026.<a href="https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/bitcoin/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Bitcoin (BTC)</a> drifts lower alongside the traditional market, falling 1.57% this week. <a href="https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/ethereum/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Ethereum (ETH)</a> surprisingly held onto its gains from the early half of the week, closing up 3.34%. Total crypto market cap fell slightly, dropping to $2.17T, down 0.913% from $2.19T in the week before.Despite the volatility, weekly <a href="https://coinmarketcap.com/charts/liquidations/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">liquidations</a> remain contained, spiking on the short side early in the week before swinging back to take out long positions closer to the end of the week. <a href="https://coinmarketcap.com/charts/funding-rates/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Funding rates</a> slide lower this week amidst weakening sentiment, dragged down by the traditional equities market.📌 Michael Saylor’s Strategy increases their USD reserve by $450M, bringing their USD reserve to $3B. - <a href="https://www.strategy.com/press/strategy-increases-usd-reserve-by-450-million-now-holds-btc-reserves-of-843775-btc-and-usd-reserves-of-3-billion" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Link</a>📌 The DTCC partners with almost 40 financial firms and service providers on a trial run to tokenize stocks and treasuries. - <a href="https://www.wsj.com/finance/investing/jpmorgan-blackrock-and-goldman-to-tokenize-stocks-treasurys-0a776ba7" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Link</a>📌 Visa launches a new platform to provide stablecoin payment services to over 200M merchants worldwide. - <a href="https://fortune.com/2026/07/16/exclusive-visa-new-platform-stablecoin-services-200-million-merchants/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Link</a>Why does it matter?Crypto started the week strong, pushing higher against weakness in high momentum names in the equities market. However, as the major indices begin to weaken closing into the end of the week, the crypto runup has also given back all of its returns. The S&amp;P 500 fell 0.19% over the week, while the Nasdaq was hit much harder, down 2.00% this week.Notable altcoin outperformers this week included <a href="https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/ecash/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">eCash (XEC)</a>, <a href="https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/kaito/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Kaito (KAITO)</a>, <a href="https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/lido-dao/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Lido (LDO)</a>, <a href="https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/decred/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Decred (DCR)</a>, and <a href="https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/audiera/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Audiera (BEAT)</a>.View <a href="https://coinmarketcap.com/gainers-losers/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">CMC Gainers &amp; Losers board</a><h2 id="narrative-of-the-week">Narrative of the Week 📰</h2>Robinhood chain continues to lead the narrative as crypto traders continue to latch onto any signs of a market recovery.📌 Leading Robinhood chain launchpad, Noxa, stops all new deployments while turning trading fees to 100% for all creators, in a highly controversial decision. - <a href="https://x.com/Noxa_Fi/status/2077054908944076825" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Link</a>📌 Noxa’s shutdown quickly created a fight for dominance among the other launchpads on the chain, seeing names like Pons rise to take their spot. - <a href="https://x.com/theunipcs/status/2077246617774645289" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Link</a>📌 Based launches Based Alpha, a token launchpad on the Robinhood chain, after the launch of an earlier feature to allow direct swaps onto Robinhood chain via their app. - <a href="https://x.com/BasedOneX/status/2077755371943260318" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Link</a>Why does it matter?Despite the bearish sentiment in the broader crypto market, Robinhood chain continues to be the center of activity as the market’s “new shiny thing”, driven by fresh interest and the support of Robinhood founder, Vlad Tenev.<h2 id="major-project-updates">Major Project Updates 🗓️</h2>📌 The Ethereum Foundation spins out EthSystems, which focuses on building private and confidential settlement layers for Ethereum, targeting institutional adoption. - <a href="https://ethsystems.org/blog/introducing-ethsystems/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Link</a>📌 Stripe’s Tempo L1 introduces Receive Policies, allowing users to customise what tokens and sender addresses an account will accept. - <a href="https://x.com/tempo/status/2076665200611311997" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Link</a>📌 Jito announces plans to use fees earned from their trading platform, JTX, to buyback and burn JTO tokens periodically over the next one year. - <a href="https://x.com/DrNickA/status/2076673079749525720" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Link</a>📌 Jesse Pollak steps down from BaseApp, handing over the reins to Cobie. - <a href="https://x.com/jessepollak/status/2077427261586997745" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Link</a>Why does it matter?While transparency has always been a desirable trait for any trusted blockchain, this is the opposite for most enterprise use cases, which lean into private blockchains. The push to cater to such use cases could help to drive the next push for Ethereum adoption.<h2 id="defi-brief">DeFi Brief 🏦</h2><img src="https://academy-public.coinmarketcap.com/optimized-uploads/6dc7bb793994418c8a16938ab8632cb2.png">*Data as of 6:45 AM UTC on July 17, 2026.Source: <a href="https://coinmarketcap.com/chain-ranking/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">https://coinmarketcap.com/chain-ranking/</a>📌 Uniswap introduces Uniswap Trading Tools, including DCA, indexing, and copy-trading bot skills, which run through Uniswap’s API to enable automated trading. - <a href="https://x.com/UniswapBuilders/status/2077384759328547286" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Link</a>📌 Solana DEX aggregator, Jupiter, introduces Jupiter Gacha, allowing users to open digital packs, collect cards, and trade them, all on Jupiter. - <a href="https://x.com/JupiterExchange/status/2076654397237445092" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Link</a>📌 Stablecoin payments app, Plasma, goes live on Android. Users who sign up on Android before July 18th will be eligible for six months of their Core tier free. - <a href="https://x.com/Plasma/status/2077000199197839785" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Link</a>📌 Token streaming service, Sablier, goes into maintenance mode. Users will continue to be served until June 2028, after which the product will continue to run on-chain. - <a href="https://x.com/PaulRBerg/status/2076695661303443667" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Link</a>📌 Perp DEX, Ostium, has been exploited for $18M from their public liquidity pool, OLP. Withdrawals and trading remain paused until further notice. - <a href="https://x.com/kaledora/status/2077525044733837736" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Link</a>Why does it matter?With the proliferation of AI and AI-assisted trading, tools like Uniswap’s Trading Tools further lower the barriers to entry to automating trading in crypto.<h2 id="fundraises">Fundraises 💰</h2>📌 Stablecoin payment infrastructure protocol, Velocity, raises $38M in a Series A funding round led by Dragonfly and FirstMark, with participation from Capital One Ventures, Coinbase Ventures, and more. - <a href="https://x.com/Queathem/status/2077017868009410697" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Link</a>📌 Stablecoin payment startup, Cyclops, raises $20M in a Series A funding round led by Nava Ventures, with support from Coinbase Ventures, Circle Ventures, Castle Island Ventures, and more. - <a href="https://x.com/Cyclops_inc/status/2077385576156704989" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Link</a>📌 Digital assets clearinghouse, Glacis Labs, raises $6.8M in a seed round led by Lightspeed Faction, with support from Franklin Templeton, Coinbase Ventures, and more. - <a href="https://x.com/glacislabs/status/2077435098954178630" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Link</a>📌 Prediction markets platform, Pascal, raises $9M in a Series A funding round led by Union Square Ventures, bringing their total funding to $15M. - <a href="https://x.com/pascaldottrade/status/2077763507722813838" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Link</a><h2 id="tweet-of-the-week">Tweet of the Week 📝</h2><img src="https://academy-public.coinmarketcap.com/optimized-uploads/8e38e8340fea43a38d9ee14106a82f9d.png">Source: @HighyieldHarryAI trades out, the MAG7 trade is back on.

CMC Market Pulse: It’s Over for AI?

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