Gate Ventures Weekly Crypto Market Update (July 13, 2026)

Summary

• US major stock indexes mostly closed higher: The S&P 500 rose 1.2% to 7,575.39; the Nasdaq Composite rose 1.7% to 26,281.61, with the rally mainly driven by large-cap technology stocks; the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.5% to 52,956.00.

• US services-sector sentiment continued to expand, recording the 24th consecutive month of growth, with ISM Services PMI at 54.0. New home sales fell 2.4% month over month, while the median new home price rose to $440,600, a record high, reflecting that housing affordability pressures have not eased.

• Geopolitical risks rebounded significantly: the ceasefire deal fell apart and triggered large-scale airstrikes, driving Brent crude oil futures up 9.3% to $76.01 per barrel. Notably, the safe-haven appeal of gold did not materialize, with gold falling 1.0% to $4,119.00 per ounce.

• Robinhood Chain has strong growth momentum: within two weeks of launch, total value locked (TVL) surpassed $132 million, daily active users (DAU) hit a record high of 217,000. On-chain liquidity is mainly contributed by Morpho and Uniswap.

• Swift officially launched a blockchain-based shared ledger, together with 17 global banks launching a tokenized deposit pilot, marking a substantial step forward in building institutional-grade settlement infrastructure.

• Korean payment giant Toss announced a partnership with Optimism, piloting won-backed stablecoin infrastructure. The rollout of compliant stablecoins in the Asia-Pacific market continues to accelerate.

• Gauntlet completed a $125 million funding round invested by SBI Holdings. The funds will be used to expand its institutional-grade DeFi vault (Vault) business, reflecting institutions’ continued and growing commitment to on-chain asset management.

Macro overview

Growth indices led by a strong tech rally; Middle East conflict flares up again as hawkish divergence in the Fed heats up

This week, the US stock market showed a clearly divided picture. Institutional capital significantly increased holdings of large-cap technology stocks tied to artificial intelligence, contrasting with broad-based selling in cyclical sectors. The benchmark S&P 500 index closed up 1.2% at 7,575.39; the growth-oriented Nasdaq Composite rose 1.7% to 26,281.61, and both major indexes logged a second consecutive week of gains. SK Hynix completed a large-scale listing, raising $26.51 billion, becoming one of the largest foreign-company initial public offerings (IPOs) in recent years and significantly boosting sentiment in the tech sector. By comparison, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, led by value stocks, fell 0.5% to about 52,956.00, ending the prior four-week upward run; small-cap performance lagged, and the Russell 2000 slipped to 2,977.81.

US economic fundamentals continued to show resilience, with the non-manufacturing sector remaining in expansion. ISM Services PMI edged down from last month’s 54.5 to 54.0, recording expansion for the 24th consecutive month; S&P Global Services PMI rose to 51.2. However, structural pressure in the residential real estate sector remains evident: new home sales contracted 2.4% month over month, but the national median new home price rose to $440,600, a record high. Meanwhile, initial jobless claims decreased by 2,000 for the week to 215,000, underscoring that the labor market remains relatively tight.

Differences in monetary policy further intensified after the June meeting minutes were officially released on July 8. Under the new chair, the committee voted 11–1 to keep the federal funds rate in the 3.50% to 3.75% range, but internal disagreements over the persistence of inflation pressures remained clearly visible. Given that core consumer prices are still significantly above the 2.0% long-term target, officials substantially removed explicit forward guidance and traditional communication metrics. This internal policy split indicates that the inclination to raise rates in the future is increasing.

After the fragile ceasefire in the Middle East collapsed and evolved into direct military conflict, the geopolitical risk premium surged across international commodities markets. Following Iranian missile strikes on commercial tankers and military bases, the US government announced that the ceasefire was formally terminated and launched retaliatory strikes. The rapid escalation immediately raised market concerns about disruptions to energy supply, pushing Brent crude up 9.3%, from $69.56 per barrel to $76.01. Notably, spot gold fell instead by 1.0% to $4,119.00, indicating that traders cared more about yield expectations under a hawkish central-bank stance than about a war-related safe-haven premium.

Looking ahead to next week, market participants will closely analyze the economic data to be released in sequence in order to adjust their monetary policy positioning ahead of the late-July policy meeting. The focus of the macro agenda is the key July CPI report, along with subsequent PPI and retail sales data, to assess the resilience of core consumer demand. In addition, global investors will also closely watch the upcoming Eurozone CPI data and review the new central bank chair’s first testimony to the legislature to look for clearer signals on interest rates. (1)

DXY

Last week, the US dollar index traded in a range, opening at 99.54 and closing at 100.97, up 1.44% from the open. Despite the rapid escalation of the Middle East conflict, market demand for the dollar as a safe haven remained limited. This relatively steady trajectory reflects a subtle macro balance between rising US domestic bond yields and global risk-off sentiment, leading funds to diversify into multiple defensive currencies. (2)

US 10-Year and 30-Year Bond Yields

Last week, US Treasury yields rose across the curve significantly, showing a clear bear steepening structure. Borrowing costs at the long end climbed notably: the 10-year yield rose 9 basis points to 4.56%; the 30-year yield rose 7 basis points, breaking above the key psychological level of 5.06%. The main drivers behind this hawkish repricing were the internal divergence revealed by the FOMC meeting minutes and the actions by the new leadership to clearly remove forward guidance. (3)

Gold

Last week, gold prices declined, opening at $4,174.96 per ounce and closing at $4,120.35, recording a weekly drop of 1.31%. Even though the Middle East conflict further worsened, gold did not trigger a substantive safe-haven rally. Instead, as bond yields rose and the Fed adopted a hawkish stance, the appeal of holding non-yielding assets dropped significantly, putting greater pressure on the gold price. (4)

Crypto market overview

Mainstream assets

BTC Price

ETH Price

ETH/BTC Ratio

This week, BTC’s overall performance was steady, edging up 0.2%; ETH outperformed, recording a 1.2% gain. The ETH/BTC ratio rose by 0.93% in parallel, indicating mild relative strength for ETH.

In terms of fund flows, spot BTC ETFs ended a consecutive eight-week streak of net outflows, recording a net inflow of $197.4 million; spot ETH ETFs also saw strong demand, attracting a net inflow of $84.4 million. (5)

Market sentiment improved slightly, with the Fear & Greed Index rising to 28, still within the “Fear” range. (6)

Total market cap

Crypto Total Marketcap

Crypto Total Marketcap Excluding BTC and ETH

Crypto Total Marketcap Excluding Top 10 Dominance

This week, the total market cap of the crypto market was basically flat, up 0.3% overall. Excluding BTC and ETH, market cap rose 1.2%; meanwhile, the broader altcoin market excluding the top 10 coins fell 1.6%.

Within two weeks of launch, Robinhood Chain had accumulated $132 million in TVL. Most of the liquidity was contributed by Morpho and Uniswap; on July 9, its daily active users hit a record high of 217,000. (7)

STRC performance

Last week, STRC recorded $453 million in trading volume. For the seventh consecutive week, the price remained below par value, hovering around the $87 level.

Its continued weakness reflects the market repricing the credit risk and structural risk embedded in Strategy’s capital structure. As MSTR’s share price fell, the likelihood that its outstanding convertible notes would convert diminished, and performance increasingly resembled traditional senior debt. This increases the size of the creditor claims ranked ahead of STRC and, in a downside scenario, compresses the recovery value available to preferred shareholders.

At the same time, as the Bitcoin price fell, the asset base supporting the entire capital structure shrank, weakening STRC’s collateral coverage level. The increased actual debt burden above STRC, combined with the decline in asset values below it, jointly compresses the equity buffer of this preferred tranche and amplifies its sensitivity to further declines in BTC or MSTR.

Among Bitcoin-reserve-class preferred securities, STRC accounted for 79.8% of total trading volume last week; the second-largest was SATA under Strive, at 8.9%. (8)

Performance of the top 30 crypto assets

Source: Coinmarketcap and Gate Ventures, as of 13th July 2026

Last week, the average of the top 30 cryptocurrencies by market cap rose 0.35%, with DEXE and Zcash leading the market.

Zcash surged 14.2%. Earlier, it confirmed that the Ironwood network upgrade would be activated on July 28. This upgrade is designed to fix the previously disclosed “infinity” vulnerability in Orchard (the protocol’s main shielded transaction pool). The flaw had raised market concerns about the potential minting of unsupported ZEC out of thin air, as well as the integrity of the circulating supply. As the activation schedule was finalized and received broad support from the ecosystem, investor confidence improved somewhat before the upgrade. (9)

Key developments in the crypto industry

Swift launches blockchain ledger with 17-bank tokenized deposit pilot

Swift officially launched a blockchain-based ledger and initiated its first tokenized deposit pilot. Participating parties include 17 large banks such as HSBC (HSBC), Citi (Citi), BNP Paribas (BNP Paribas), UBS (UBS), ANZ (ANZ), DBS (DBS), and Standard Chartered (Standard Chartered). The platform aims to support 7×24 cross-border payments, including night and weekend settlement, while preserving compliance, credit, and risk management mechanisms within existing banking infrastructure. After the controlled pilot phase ends, Swift plans to further expand the ledger’s functionality and coverage, positioning it as the underlying infrastructure for regulated tokenized money, programmable payments, and future agentic commerce applications. (10)

South Korea’s Toss partners with Optimism to pilot won-backed stablecoin infrastructure

South Korean fintech super-app Toss announced a collaboration with Optimism and Sunnyside Labs, launching a three-month proof of concept (PoC) for won-backed stablecoin infrastructure. The pilot will evaluate the applicability of Optimism’s OP Stack and privacy infrastructure in institutional-level payment and settlement scenarios, focusing on regulatory compliance, KYC/AML, transaction privacy, and scalability. Toss currently serves more than 30 million users, and its goal is to build compliant blockchain payment infrastructure in South Korea on the basis of rising momentum for won-denominated stablecoins. (11)

Russia’s Alfa-Bank tests crypto trading, paving the way for broader regulatory rollout

Russia’s largest private bank, Alfa-Bank, has begun testing crypto trading through its Alfa-Investments broker app for a small group of qualified investors. The pilot supports major assets including Bitcoin, Ether, Solana, Litecoin, USDT, USDC, and Zcash. After Russia’s crypto regulatory framework is finalized, broader retail access is expected to open as early as Q4 2026. The bank also plans to set up its own regulated digital asset custody institution, serving both its internal crypto business and third-party clients. (12)

Major venture capital deals

Prime Intellect completes $130 million funding round to help enterprises build their own AI agents

Prime Intellect is an AI infrastructure startup that provides computing power, reinforcement learning frameworks, and evaluation tools, enabling enterprises to train dedicated AI agents without having to rely entirely on leading model providers. The company completed a $130 million Series A round, led by Radical Ventures, with participation from Nvidia Ventures, Intel Capital, Dell Technologies Capital, and Iconiq. Post-money valuation reached $1 billion. Prime Intellect’s annualized revenue run rate (ARR) has already reached $100 million. Its customers include Ramp and Zapier, reflecting sustained growth in enterprises’ demand for proprietary AI systems that can be controlled in-house, including their data, models, and deployment. (13)

Gauntlet gets $125 million investment from SBI Holdings to expand institutional DeFi vault business

Gauntlet is a DeFi risk management and vault curation platform that helps institutions allocate digital assets into yield strategies while evaluating protocols, liquidity, and market risks. The company received $125 million in funding in an exclusive investment round from Japan’s SBI Holdings, its largest round since its founding. Gauntlet has transformed from protocol stress testing into a curation-style non-custodial vault business. Its customers include Apollo, Coinbase, and Circle, reflecting increasing institutional demand for professionally managed on-chain yield products. (14)

EDX Markets completes $76 million funding round to expand institutional digital asset infrastructure

EDX Markets is an institutional digital asset trading platform that combines crypto exchanges with central clearing houses, offering trading, clearing, and settlement services based on traditional financial market infrastructure. The company completed a $76 million Series C round, led by SBI Holdings. The funding will be used to expand its trading, clearing, and settlement capabilities, accelerate product development, and support a global expansion strategy. This round comes as EDX advances its “institution-first” strategy, including a U.S. national trust bank license application that is underway and an expanding suite of infrastructure products for the regulated digital asset market. (15)

Venture capital market data

In total, 8 funding deal transactions were completed last week, including 7 in the infrastructure (Infra) track and 1 in the DeFi track.

Weekly Venture Deal Summary, Source: Cryptorank and Gate Ventures, as of 13th Jul 2026

Total disclosed funding last week was $381 million, with an additional deal whose funding amount was not disclosed. The track with the highest funding amount was infrastructure (Infra), raising $256 million; the single largest funding deal was Prime Intellect ($125 million).

Weekly Venture Deal Summary, Source: Cryptorank and Gate Ventures, as of 13th Jul 2026

In the second week of July 2026, the weekly total funding amount fell to $381 million, down 22% from the previous week.

About Gate Ventures

Gate Ventures is Gate’s venture capital division. It focuses on investing in decentralized infrastructure, ecosystems, and applications, and is committed to reshaping the world in the Web 3.0 era. Gate Ventures collaborates with global industry leaders to empower teams and startups with innovative thinking and capabilities, redefining how society and finance interact.
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Reference:

1. IG Global Week Ahead Economic Preview,

2. DXY Index, TradingView,

3. US 10 Year Bond Yield, TradingView,

4. Gold Price, TradingView,

5. BTC & ETH ETF Inflow,

6. BTC Greed and Fear Index,

7. Robinhood Chain Data,

8. STRC Dashboard,

9. ZCash Upgrade,

10. Swift launches blockchain ledger with 17-bank tokenized deposit pilot,

11. South Korea’s Toss partners with Optimism to pilot won-backed stablecoin infrastructure,

12. Russia’s Alfa-Bank tests crypto trading ahead of broader regulatory rollout,

13. Prime Intellect raises US$130M to help enterprises build their own AI agents,

14. Gauntlet raises US$125M from SBI Holdings to scale institutional DeFi vaults,

15. EDX Markets raises US$76M to expand institutional digital asset infrastructure,