Bitcoin, Ether Headed Toward Losing Months in Usually Upbeat July

Bitcoin continued a month-long stagnancy, logging a fourth consecutive week of less than 2% in price movement. Directionally, the largest asset by market capitalization closed the week down 1.3%, after rising 0.3% the week prior. With 10 days remaining in July, Bitcoin is poised to log its second losing month of 2023.

Ether followed a similar trajectory though its trading range has been wider with this week’s 1.63% decline following f a 3.24% increase last week. Ether has yet to log a losing month this year, but will need to surpass $1,934 over the next 10 days to maintain its winning streak. ETH was recently changing hands at $1,897, up 0.2%. July has been a historically positive month for digital assets.

BTC and ETH’s seven-day performance ranked them 26th and 29th in a list of cryptocurrencies with a market capitalization of $1 billion or more.

The weekly leader was peer-to-peer lending platform Maker (MKR), which rose more than 30% over the most recent seven days, and is up more than 120% year-to-date. XLM performed strongly as well, increasing more than 20% over the identical period. The currency which tends to correlate tightly with XRP is up 117% year to date.

They also stood out among the CoinDesk Market Indices (CMI) weekly rankings within their respective sectors.

XLM ranked first in the CMI currency sector, while MKR led in the DeFi sector.

Overall Currency and DeFi sector performance within the CMI universe was muted this week, with DeFi finishing up 1.3% and the currency sector falling 0.5%. The computing sector led all sectors this week, increasing 6.4%.

The leading component within the computing sector was Chainlink (LINK), an oracle network which serves as a bridge between on-chain and off-chain environments. The asset, up 45% year-to-date, rose close to 20% this week.

The CMI weekly laggard was the Smart Contract Platform sector, which was held down by EthereumPoW (ETHW), and MultiversX’s (EGLD) underperformance.

What’s on tap for next week

Investors next week will be eyeing Wednesday’s Fed Interest Rate decision.

The CME Fedwatch tool is currently assigning a 99.8% probability that the central bank will boost rates 25 basis points (bps). .

Markets will also likely be scrutinizing Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) Chair Jerome Powell’s comments following the rate decision. Given recent macroeconomic data, Powell is likely to echo his comments from the past month that while inflation has declined, it remains unacceptably high and that the Fed will have to renew its prescription of monetary tightening.