Weekly Editor's Picks (0712-0718)

"Weekly Editor's Picks" is a functional column by Odaily Planet Daily. On top of covering a vast amount of instant news every week, Planet Daily also publishes many high-quality in-depth analysis pieces, but they might get lost in the information flow and hot news, passing you by.

Therefore, our editorial team will select some articles worth spending time to read and collect from the content published in the past 7 days every Saturday, offering new insights from perspectives like data analysis, industry judgment, and opinion sharing for you in the crypto world.

Now, let's read together:

Investment and Entrepreneurship

Decoding BTC's 'Unconventional Surge': When Rising Interest Rates, Dollar Depreciation Meet Trillion-Dollar Deficit

Year-to-date comparison of Bitcoin and the Dollar Index ($DXY) trends shows two clear divergence points: April 9 (after the 90-day tariff suspension period ended);July 1 (when the 'Big and Beautiful Act' was passed).

Regardless of whether trade agreements were announced, the market outcomes were strikingly similar: bond yields climbed, Bitcoin surged, the dollar fell, gold rose.

Institutional capital like family offices and hedge funds can no longer ignore Bitcoin.

Risk assets may continue to rise in the short term.

Crypto VC Transformation in Progress: From Fundraising Challenges to New Token Paradigms

2025 saw a slowdown in deals, but the pace of capital deployment remained the same as in 2024; the crypto industry's M&A activity has continued to improve over the past two years, benefiting liquidity and exit opportunities.

Looking ahead: tokens will become the primary investment vehicle; Fintech VC and Crypto VC will accelerate their integration; "Liquid Venture" will rise.

10,000-Word Long Read: The Journey from 0 to 1 in Building a CEX-DEX Arbitrage Bot

A very complete record of investment strategy thoughts, experiences, and reflections.

Bloomberg's Chief Financial Writer: Are Crypto-Involved U.S. Stocks Overpriced? What Can Retail Investors Do?

Why is the stock market willing to pay $2 for $1 worth of cryptocurrency? Because the Bitcoin held by companies is more valuable, allowing operations retail investors can't perform; many institutions unable to directly hold or buy crypto are willing to pay a premium to invest indirectly through these "crypto vault-type companies"; retail investors follow the trend to push prices up.

For retail investors, the simplest, laziest method is to buy the entire U.S. stock market index—that is, to choose to trust the market.

Insight into Bitcoin's 'National-Level Holdings Game': Who's Hoarding? Who's Selling Out?

Slow is Fast: Hold the 'Three Treasures of the Crypto World' to Outperform 90% of Traders

Bitcoin, stablecoins, platform tokens.

Where is Institutional Money Flowing? Unveiling the Five Golden Tracks of the Potential 'Altcoin Season'

A new "altcoin logic" has quietly formed: only tokens with solid fundamentals, a clear narrative, and institutional backing have the potential to navigate the valuation restructuring fog in the upcoming cycle and emerge as true winners.

Insight into the Sector Rotation Patterns Following Ethereum's Lead

ETH's takeoff is not just a confirmation of the trend but also the starting point of the next phase. Market rotation always unfolds along this path: BTC leads → ETH follows → high-cap tokens catch up → ultimately leading to a full-blown altcoin season.

ETH Surges Nearly 12% in a Single Day, Which Altcoins Usually Follow?

ETH ecosystem infrastructure tokens: LINK, UNI, MKR, 1INCH, CRV; ETH ecosystem Meme coins: MOODENG, DOGE, PEPE; ETH transmission sector tokens: AERO, BRETT, TOSHI; WLD, ENS; also refer to the Coinbase 50 index and Grayscale's quarterly selected tokens.

Will the Altcoin Season Come? Bankless is Bullish on These 6 Tokens

Bankless is bullish on Euler (EUL), Pudgy Penguins (PENGU), Spark (SPK), Lido (LDO), Aave (AAVE), Maple Finance (SYRUP), and bearish on Derive (DRV), Movement (MOVE).

WLFI Unlock and Listing Imminent, What's the Valuation?

The current OTC price has reached $1.

Also recommended: "Behind Listed Companies' Crypto Reserve Strategies, Which Crypto VCs Are Making Moves?" "Uncovering Hyperliquid Founder Jeff Yan: Building a Crypto Empire Quietly with a 10-Person Team."

Airdrop Opportunities and Interaction Guides

This week's selected interaction projects: Kuru testnet trading; Zama guild tasks; Yala stablecoin deposits.

Bitcoin ecosystem debuts on Cookie Snaps, can BOB drive a wave of BTC sector heat?

CeFi & DeFi

Restaking Sector Cools Down: Leading Projects' Transformation and Breakthrough

Two leading projects in the restaking sector have chosen to transform: Ether.fi announced its transformation into a crypto neobank, planning to launch cash cards and staking services for U.S. users;Eigen Labs announced layoffs of about 25%, reorganizing resources to fully focus on the new product EigenCloud.

The transformations of Ether.fi and EigenLayer, though different in path, essentially point to two solutions under the same logic: turning "restaking" from an end narrative into a "starting module," from the goal itself into a means to build more complex application systems.

Restaking is not dead, but its "single-thread growth model" may be hard to sustain. Only when embedded in application narratives with greater scale effects does it have the ability to continuously attract users and capital. The mechanism design of the restaking sector, which ignited market enthusiasm with "secondary yields," is now finding new footholds and vitality in more complex application maps.

Hyperliquid and Phantom's Win-Win Situation: One Hits New Highs, the Other Earns Effortlessly

Solana ecosystem mainstream wallet application Phantom announced a partnership with decentralized exchange Hyperliquid, leveraging Hyperliquid's backend support to allow Phantom users to conduct perpetual contract trades directly within the wallet, with up to 40x leverage on over 100 tokens supported by Hyperliquid for long or short positions.

As a result, Hyperliquid reached new highs after tapping into the Solana ecosystem; Phantom earns effortlessly through "rebates"; users enjoy better liquidity and lower fees.

This is almost the future of chain abstraction we once envisioned—products will no longer be limited by their native stacks, complex technologies and concepts will be hidden behind the scenes, and users will directly enjoy convenient services without noticing.

As two leading players in different sectors, Phantom and Hyperliquid have provided a great example through their collaboration, perhaps offering some reference for future cooperative innovations in the industry.

Why is Raydium the Biggest Beneficiary of Letsbonk.fun's Rise?

Value flow: Letsbonk.fun → LaunchLab → Raydium.

The Cocoon-Breaking Record of Malu Grapes' 'Pseudo RWA': A Digitalization Dilemma of Agricultural Assets Under Localized Compromise

The so-called "tokenization" of the Shanghai Malu grape asset on-chain project is actually a traditional financing restructuring with NFT digital collectibles as a compliance shell and SPV equity structure as the core—income rights tokens are castrated, governance rights still belong to centralized entities, and consumer NFTs only serve as pre-sale card functions.

This "de-financialized" survival strategy born under regulatory pressure, though breaking through in the name of technology, is trapped in deep dilemmas of rights fragmentation, liquidity suppression, and lack of producer empowerment, with three essential contradictions: technological instrumentalization dilemma, regulatory arbitrage logic, and localized compromise costs.

Also recommended: "Lazy Investment Guide｜Katana, Agora Kill Two Birds with One Stone; Huma 2.0 Opens Again (July 16)."

Web3 & AI

AI Agent Weekly Report | ElizaOS V2 Coming Soon; MAMO Weekly Surge Over 100% (7.7-7.13)

Weekly Hot Topics Recap

In the past week, Bitcoin broke through $120,000 for the first time, ancient Bitcoin whales moved out for the first time; ETH continued to rise, breaking through 3600 USDT on July 18, SharpLink Gaming followed the rise; the passage of three major U.S. crypto bills ignited the market, XRP surged 18% in a single day to hit a new all-time high; Trump plans to open U.S. retirement funds to crypto investments (analysis);

Additionally, in terms of policy and macro markets, U.S. SEC Chairman Paul Atkins: considering introducing crypto innovation exemption policies to advance tokenization; Trump sent tariff letters to 24 trade partners in four batches; Trump denied drafting a letter to fire Fed Chairman Powell; Trump: we should aim for a 1% interest rate level;

In terms of opinions and voices, JPMorgan CEO: playing with the Fed often has adverse consequences; GameStop CEO: buying BTC to hedge against inflation, won't mimic Strategy; Varys VC head and Multicoin co-founder bet on whether ETH can break $10,000 by the end of 2026; Wintermute founder: Wintermute's OTC platform has almost no ETH left to sell; James Wynn: Bitcoin may hit a short-term high this month, next 1-2 months for altcoin season; Trader Eugene has gradually taken profits on ETH, saying current market movements have met expectations, previously betting on a breakout this week; Yi Lihua: altcoin season may start in August or September after rate cuts are confirmed; Analyst: ETH's strength may indicate BTC's market dominance has peaked, market funds are flowing into Ethereum and altcoins; BIS warns: rapid expansion of stablecoins may threaten monetary sovereignty; CICC: under the current payment system, blockchain stablecoins are not highly necessary for domestic adoption, internet companies have advantages in stablecoin layout; CZ comments on Buffett refusing to invest in BTC: no one can be right about everything;

In terms of institutions, large companies, and leading projects, BlackRock's iShares Ethereum ETF filed for staking; JPMorgan and Citigroup consider issuing stablecoins, traditional finance accelerates crypto payment layout; After buying 10,000 ETH from the Ethereum Foundation, SharpLink continued to increase holdings, reaching a total of 270,000 ETH on July 14, surpassing the Ethereum Foundation for the first time to rank first; Nasdaq-listed Thumzup board approved $250 million for crypto purchases; Trend Research reduces ETH leverage; FTX/Alameda Staking address transferred 189,800 SOL to Bitgo Custody, worth $31.17 million; Binance Wallet partnered with Four.Meme to launch a new TGE model based on Bonding Curve mechanism; PUMP public sale reached the cap in 12 minutes, selling 12.5% of tokens, $500 million raised, differing from the previously announced 15% share, possibly due to the exchange's public sale system not syncing successfully; Boundless mainnet Beta now live, complete tasks to get token sale whitelist; Backpack now open for FTX claim sales;

In terms of security, BigONE exchange suffered a supply chain attack, losses exceeded $27 million, hackers converted stolen assets into BTC, TRX, etc.; Infini hacker's stolen assets floating profit over $10 million, sold 1,770 ETH within 1 hour; JD Coin Chain Technology: JD stablecoin has not been issued, all trading platforms JD-HKD/USD are counterfeit... Well, another roller-coaster week.

Attached is the portal to the "Weekly Editor's Picks" series.

See you next time~