Trakx Weekly Update: Bullish Momentum Returns

Key Crypto Market Figures

CTIs Weekly Performance

Digital asset markets regained bullish momentum last week as a much weaker-than-expected US non-farm payroll report (55,000 versus consensus expectations of 110,000) helped mitigate growing concerns that the Fed may be forced to raise interest rates in the second half of the year. The macro surprise helped our flagship large cap Top 10 Crypto CTI gain almost 9% over the preceding seven day period. Top of the weekly performance rankings though was the Top 10 PoS CTI, after it rallied just shy of 13%. By contrast, the weakest performer was the Recovery CTI, posting a drop of over 3%.

Clarity Push Back

With fewer than 21 legislative days remaining before the August recess, last week saw renewed efforts by the White House to advance the Crypto Clarity Act. The proposed framework is intended to address one of the industry’s longest-standing challenges: the lack of clear regulatory boundaries governing digital assets in the world’s largest economy. In particular, the legislation seeks to establish more consistent criteria for determining whether a digital asset should be regulated as a security or as a commodity, thereby reducing uncertainty for issuers, exchanges, custodians and institutional investors—a prerequisite for greater institutional participation in the US digital asset ecosystem.

Reports that the White House has been engaging with law enforcement stakeholders reflect an effort to build broader consensus around the bill by addressing concerns related to illicit finance, consumer protection and market integrity. However, the focus on strengthening market integrity has become politically complicated following President Trump’s recent financial disclosure, which revealed more than $1.4bn in digital assets and crypto-related income generated during his first year back in the White House. The disclosure prompted the ranking Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee, Elizabeth Warren, to accuse the President of “brazen crypto corruption”, arguing that lawmakers should not advance legislation that could benefit an industry in which the President has substantial financial interests. Because the legislation will require bipartisan support to clear Congress, these conflict-of-interest concerns have made it more difficult to build the cross-party consensus needed for passage. Reflecting this growing political uncertainty, the online prediction market Polymarket now assigns only a 40% probability that the Act becomes law this year, down from more than 75% in mid-May.

FCA Finalizes Crypto Rule Book

Staying on the theme of digital asset legislation, the FCA, the UK’s financial regulator, confirmed a comprehensive set of rules governing digital asset firms, including requirements relating to governance, operational resilience, consumer protection and the issuance of stablecoins. Notably, the regulator reduced the proposed capital requirement for issuers of sterling-backed stablecoins from 2% to 1%, responding to industry feedback that the original proposal could have constrained innovation while remaining committed to maintaining financial stability. The revised framework seeks to strike a balance between supporting innovation and ensuring that firms operating within the UK maintain appropriate safeguards for customers and the broader financial system. By providing greater regulatory certainty, the FCA aims to strengthen confidence among both market participants and institutional investors considering digital asset activities in the UK. The new rules also position the UK as an increasingly competitive jurisdiction for crypto businesses, particularly as other major financial centres continue to develop their own regulatory regimes. Collectively, these measures reinforce the broader global trend towards integrating digital assets into established financial markets through clear, risk-based regulation.

Solana On-chain Governance

Solana has introduced a formal on-chain governance framework, marking a significant evolution in how the network makes high-level protocol decisions. Under the new Solana Governance Proposals (SGPs) system, validators with at least 100,000 delegated SOL can submit proposals, which must first achieve support from 15% of the network’s active stake before proceeding to a stake-weighted vote. Importantly, the framework also allows token delegators to override their validator’s vote, increasing accountability and giving stakers a more direct voice in governance. The new process is designed to complement, rather than replace, Solana’s existing technical improvement proposal system by separating strategic decisions from the detailed engineering work required to implement them. Supporters argue that the framework enhances transparency, decentralisation and community participation while providing a clearer mechanism for building consensus on major protocol changes. The move aligns Solana with a broader trend across leading blockchain networks towards more formalised on-chain governance as ecosystems mature and institutional adoption increases. The announcement was well-received by investors with SOL outperforming many other large-cap digital assets, rising around 5% on the day.

Sources: Trakx, Coingecko, Alphavantage

Market Trends

• Bitcoin jumps as monthly jobs report comes in cooler than expected: YahooFinance
• Senate leaders push for July passage of CLARITY Act: Cointelegraph
• Trump Discloses Over $1.2 Billion in Crypto Earnings, $50M in Bitcoin Holdings: Decrypt
• UK dilutes stablecoin capital requirement in final crypto rulebook: Reuters
• Solana launches onchain governance with validator voting: Crypto.news
• Aave logs biggest network-growth day in nearly 5 years as DeFi interest returns: CoinDesk
• Mystery owner challenges the $200B ‘lost’ Satoshi Bitcoin claim in New York court: CryptoSlate

Trakx News

• Last week Ryan published his June crypto Monthly Update examining recent price trends in the context of the four-year cycle.

Trakx CTIs Performance

Sources: Coingecko and AlphaVantage

*Return of bitcoin is calculated since 01/05/2020, while CTIs performances were calculated since their respective launch date.
**Includes simulated performance.
***The risk signal is determined according to the historical volatility level, the higher the riskier.

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Disclaimers: No Investment Advice. Index returns and statistics are for illustration only. Index returns do not reflect any transaction costs or expenses. Past performance does not guarantee future results. The information provided in this newsletter does not constitute investment advice, financial advice, trading advice, or any other sort of advice and you should not treat any of the newsletter content as such. Trakx.io does not recommend that any cryptocurrency should be bought, sold, or held by you. Readers shall conduct their own due diligence and consult their financial advisors before making any investment decisions.