The crypto market is once again knocking on the $4 trillion door but just can’t seem to walk through it.
Total market capitalization hovered at $3.93 trillion on Wednesday, marking the third attempt in four weeks to decisively break the milestone. That’s despite strong risk-on sentiment in equities, surging institutional demand for Ethereum, and fresh spot ETF headlines across altcoins.
Instead, traders appear locked in a technical deadlock, rotating capital between majors while waiting for a new headline to trigger fresh inflows.
“This is reminiscent of the stagnation we also saw at the end of last month,” said Alex Kuptsikevich, chief market analyst at FxPro, told CoinDesk in an email.
“It seems that we are seeing calendar rhythms, with increased inflows at the beginning of the month and caution at the end.”“Cryptocurrencies are ignoring the positive sentiment on the stock markets and technical factors are temporarily dominating the agenda,” he added.
Bitcoin (BTC) traded within a tight $117,000–$119,000 range during the past 24 hours before hovering around $118,500 in early U.S. hours. While the world’s largest crypto is still up 0.5% over the past week, the pace of its advance has slowed — with funding rates softening and volumes drifting lower across CME and Coinbase.
Ether (ETH), which surged 22% last week, has also started to lose steam. ETH Prices hovered around $3,670 at the time of writing, as staking flows and ETF demand plateaued following a frenzied five-day push.
BNB broke the $800 mark earlier Wednesday to set fresh highs, with ecosystem bets such as Pancakeswap (CAKE) and memecoin floki (FLOKI) up as much as 10%.
Meanwhile, the altcoin rally appears to have stalled. Solana is up 18.2% over the past 7 days, but down 1.3% in the past 24 hours. Top performers in the last 7 days, Cardano’s ADA (ADA), which jumped 14.9%, and XRP (XRP), that rose 17.1%, are now flatlining.
Even Dogecoin (DOGE) — last week’s surprise outperformer — is beginning to cool after a 27.1% weekly run sparked by speculation of a spot ETF and a $500 million reserve build-up by mining firm Bit Origin.
Sentiment, however, remains near euphoric. The Crypto Fear & Greed Index rose to 74, just shy of the “extreme greed” threshold that has historically signaled near-term tops. According to Kuptsikevich, breaching that level will require a strong new driver.
“The lack of new significant reasons on the horizon is preventing cryptocurrencies from entering the territory of extreme greed (>75),” he said. “Such a reason could be the approval of an ETF with staking or the expansion of the set of altcoins in exchange-traded funds.”
July rate cut hopes tapered
Meanwhile, hopes of a July rate cut are largely dim among forecasters.
The U.S. Federal Reserve remains under intense political pressure ahead of its July 30 meeting, with President Trump and some of his appointees openly calling for rate cuts despite sticky inflation. While Fed Chair Jerome Powell is expected to hold rates steady, the growing divergence within the FOMC is worrying economists.
A Reuters poll showed that over 70% of economists now fear for the Fed’s independence. Still, with markets pricing in a 53% chance of a cut in September and reciprocal tariff deadlines looming on August 1, crypto traders are eyeing any sign of policy softening as a tailwind.
Read more: XRP’s July Uptrend Threatened as Bitcoin’s $120K Price Resistance Holds