Weekly Market Update: 08 July 2026

Majors Push Higher as the Market Shrugs Off Saylor

All majors across the crypto market pushed higher this week, with Bitcoin reaching a high of $64.7k, moving 6% higher, while Ethereum jumped 10%. The takeaway was the market's resilience, despite Strategy selling $216 million of Bitcoin to fund its dividend obligations, this time the sale did not shock the market into a sell-off the way its first disposal did back in May. Elsewhere, Robinhood announced huge partnerships with two of crypto's modern-day heavyweights, there is plenty to unpack below.
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‍Saylor Sells $216m of Bitcoin

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Strategy sold 3,588 BTC for roughly $216 million between June 29 and July 5 to fund the dividends on its preferred securities, and he likely isn't done there. The market has spent a lot of time anxious and pricing in Saylor needing to sell BTC, and now that he is actually selling hundreds of millions, we think the important shift is this: rather than continuing to price in more forced sales, we should be watching for the interest returning from the market participants who stepped away due to Saylor's irresponsible accumulation in the first place. This is exactly what a lot of them wanted to see, and notably, Saylor himself has spoken about wanting to "inoculate" the market by selling small amounts repeatedly until it stops reacting to the news.

That said, there is blood in the water. We think more pressure comes down until he sells a larger amount, so this may not be over yet, particularly as this sale used only around 17% of his authorised $1.25 billion sales program. His financial products remain under real strain — STRC has been trading below its $100 par and the whole Strategy structure is under pressure to keep those dividends funded, which is exactly what forced this sale in the first place. With that vulnerability now exposed, it is likely that larger players will keep probing and applying pressure to try and force him into liquidating more significantly. The initial reaction, however, was telling — BTC responded positively and pushed to $64k, taking its July gain to 9% on the day of the sale. A genuinely encouraging sign of underlying strength.

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Robinhood Chain Mainnet Launch

Robinhood went live with the public mainnet of Robinhood Chain, an Ethereum-compatible Layer 2 built on Arbitrum technology, unveiled at a London keynote hosted by CEO Vlad Tenev and Johann Kerbrat. The launch bundled 24/7 tokenized US stock trading (available across 120+ countries via Robinhood Wallet), a new self-custody lending product (Robinhood Earn), perpetual futures trading, and early moves into agentic/AI-driven trading. Robinhood Chain has driven ecosystem growth to a TVL of roughly $100 million as of today, with a broader ecosystem integrating key applications in the decentralised financial world. 

Two integrations stand out: Lighter now powers perpetual futures natively inside Robinhood Wallet for eligible users in select jurisdictions, and Morpho underpins Robinhood Earn, letting users lend USDG through a self-custody wallet at an estimated 7% APY. Other launch partners included Uniswap, Chainlink, Alchemy and LayerZero.

Lighter and Morpho are two of the tokens we talk about a lot in our revenue finance thesis, both sitting on the "real value accrual" side rather than pure speculative governance plays. LIT is up 150% since we positioned it in the Alpha Portfolio, with roughly 60% of that move coming directly off the Robinhood Chain announcement alone. Back in January, when the Lighter x Robinhood narrative was barely on anyone's radar, we were already deep on the strategic Robinhood backing as a distribution moat and the growth curve this TradFi-DeFi bridge could unlock. Fast forward to today and perps are now live natively inside Robinhood Wallet, powered by Lighter — and with Robinhood having ~28 million users (many already comfortable trading stocks, options and crypto) the TAM this unlocks is massive. This is  a real-time example of the thesis at work, and a call we made months before the catalyst hit the market.

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A Big Week at UpTrade Alpha — Our Live Q&A

This week we hosted our live Q&A session, with Kane and Ben from the analyst team breaking down a full market outlook. We covered where Bitcoin sits in the current cycle, the impact of Saylor's ongoing selling, and why revenue-generating protocols are beginning to decouple from the broader market. From there we opened the floor to some genuinely sharp audience questions, ranging from upcoming token unlocks to portfolio strategy for the year ahead. A huge thank you to everyone who joined us live. For those who missed it or want to revisit the discussion, watch the full recording for free at uptradealpha.com

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The Token Reviving Solana's Culture

An interesting story out of Solana this fortnight has been the rise of $ANSEM (The Black Bull), a community-driven memecoin tied to prominent crypto trader Ansem which hit a high of $440m market cap. The token launched via Pump.fun in mid-June, and shortly after, roughly 65% of supply was sent directly to Ansem's public on-chain wallet, he now holds around 58%. Rather than cashing that out, Ansem has been steadily airdropping it back to engaged community members, funded by the creator fees the token generates. The motivation is what has caught attention, Ansem had been openly critical of Pump.fun for never delivering a meaningful airdrop to the community that built it, despite launching its own PUMP token, and this became his way of demonstrating what a more community-aligned, give-back approach could look like rather than the usual influencer extraction.

The result has seen a spark for Solana's culture, with the token growing to over 120,000 holders and driving tens of millions in daily volume. It has fed into a broader surge in on-chain activity too, Solana active addresses jumped around 38% in a week, and the network has been printing all-time highs in daily transactions during this period. The industry response has been largely positive, with many viewing it as a rare "for the health of the ecosystem" play rather than a pure cash grab.

This is a speculative memecoin with no underlying revenue or fundamentals, its value rests entirely on narrative, hype, and Ansem's continued involvement. It is a genuinely interesting example of on-chain culture and aligned incentives, and a real driver of Solana engagement right now.

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Alpha Portfolio Review - June Summary

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Digital assets sold off sharply in June. Bitcoin closed the month at $58.5k, a decline of roughly 17.89%, and a loss of the 200-week moving average. The broader crypto market fell in tandem, with the total market cap excluding stablecoins down 18.7% over the month, and top 10 assets including ETH, XRP, and SOL all posting losses. On the institutional flow front, June extended the pattern that emerged at the end of May, with continued heavy outflows across both Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs.

US equities posted a modest decline in June, with the S&P 500 closing the month down 1.66% after a record-setting May. The standout event was the SpaceX IPO, the largest in history, which had an extraordinary debut, briefly touching an intraday high of $225 from its IPO of $135.

Despite the broader weakness, the Alpha Portfolio's ROI has outperformed Bitcoin by +15.58% since inception, a strong result given the conditions. In June, performance was led by Hyperliquid making fresh all-time highs at $75, Lighter surpassing $2.00 for a position PnL of 101% (now over 150%), and Aerodrome up 42% in the portfolio ahead of its EVM compatibility launch.

Full portfolio holdings, positioning, and trade rationale are available exclusively to Alpha Pro members. 👉uptradealpha.com 

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Upcoming Alpha Space

Join the research and broker team live every Thursday at 11AM AEST for our Weekly Alpha Space, where we break down everything moving in the market in real time, the biggest stories, the charts we are watching, and the opportunities we are positioning around. It is the best way to get our unfiltered take and ask your questions directly. Head to uptradealpha.com to join us. 

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