Crypto market maker Wintermute published its assessment on July 22, concluding that Bitcoin's recent gains show early structural improvement, but fall short of confirming a sustained recovery.
The catalyst was June's US CPI print. Consumer prices fell 0.4% month-on-month, the sharpest monthly drop since April 2020, while annual inflation came in at 3.5%, below the 3.8% consensus. Markets quickly priced out a Fed rate hike in July. Bitcoin jumped from roughly $62,000 to $64,900 in a matter of hours, Ethereum climbed as much as 7% to $1,884, and about $134 million in short positions were liquidated within a single hour.
Mixed signals across assets
The broader picture was less clean. Over the same period, Ethereum gained 3.64% and Bitcoin 1.46%, while the Nasdaq dropped 4.16%. Brent crude surged 15.54% on the week, pushed higher by renewed US-Iran tensions and talk of port blockades. That oil move matters: Wintermute flagged that if Brent clears $90 or the Strait of Hormuz closes formally, macro risks could flare again and undermine any positive crypto narrative.
Spot Bitcoin ETFs logged net inflows of roughly $191 million across Tuesday and Wednesday, snapping a ten-day outflow streak. Wintermute welcomed the shift but put it in context: June saw a record net outflow of $4.5 billion, making $191 million a thin counterweight.
For the firm, two conditions would signal genuine trend confirmation: spot Bitcoin ETF inflows running positive for a full uninterrupted week, and Bitcoin holding above $66,000 for several consecutive trading sessions. Neither condition has been met yet.
What Wintermute did flag as genuinely encouraging is Bitcoin's resilience during the chip-stock selloff. Holding ground while Nasdaq-linked names fell is not the behavior of an asset moving purely in lockstep with risk sentiment, and that divergence is new.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial or investment advice.
