Holiday Hangover: $BTC Bounces Above $63K While Shorts Get Squeezed Into the Fireworks 🎆

Bitcoin climbed back above $63,000 over the July 4 holiday weekend, reversing the losses that closed out June and reaching its highest level in more than a month. The token traded around $63,207 on Monday, up 5.5% over seven days and roughly 1.4% higher over 24 hours, according to CoinDesk data. The move extended a rally that took $BTC from below $60,000 to above $63,000 in five sessions, capped by a spike toward $64,000 in the early hours of July 6 when $BTC touched $63,900 on CoinGecko. Traders lost more than $450 million in short positions across the derivatives market as price broke through $62,000, a forced-buyback cascade that pushed $BTC into the next tranche of bearish bets. Bitcoin entered the third quarter at 21-month lows, having touched $57,950 to open July and dipped to $58,293 on July 1, its lowest level since September 2024 and a print that briefly raised concerns of a slide toward $50,000. The token later steadied near $62,800, with derivatives open interest in $BTC largely unchanged over the prior 24 hours amid thin U.S. holiday liquidity.

XRP led gains among major tokens over the week, rising 5.3% to $1.18 on Saturday and roughly 9.4% over seven days to $1.14, a move that lifted it past the USDC stablecoin into fifth place by market value at about $73 billion. The token's gain came alongside onchain data showing XRP holders at their deepest average losses on record. Ether ($ETH) added 3.2% to about $1,793 on the day and roughly 12.4% over the week to $1,777, having bottomed near $1,550 the prior week. Solana ($SOL) held near $82.50 with a 13.2% weekly gain, easing to $80.77 in later trade, and added nearly 19% across the seven-day window in one tally. Dogecoin rose 2.6% on the day, BNB gained around 5.5% on the week, and Hyperliquid's HYPE led the majors with a 14.6% weekly rise. Lighter (LIT) surged more than 50% over the week and 44% to $2.50 after its Robinhood integration, with the Lighter DEX accumulating $40 billion in 30-day trading volume. The CMC20 index of the top 20 assets rose about 9%. On the other side, MORPHO and ADA each lost around 4% over 24 hours, and CoinMarketCap's Altcoin Season indicator climbed to 52/100, its highest reading in three months.

The rally followed a friendlier macro turn. The U.S. Nonfarm Payrolls report on Thursday showed the economy added 57,000 jobs in June, well below the roughly 113,000 expected, lowering the odds of a near-term Federal Reserve rate hike. Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh's comment earlier in the week that inflation risks have come down added to the easing backdrop, while lower Treasury yields and a weaker dollar reduced the opportunity cost of holding the asset. Brent crude fell 0.6% to about $71.70 a barrel, easing some inflation pressure ahead of the U.S. price data due later this month. The dollar strengthened against all its major peers on Monday, a headwind that has tracked crypto through the past quarter. South Korea's Kospi fell 1.4% as Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix declined, and an MSCI gauge of Asian chipmakers slipped as the AI- and chip-driven stock rally lost momentum.

Spot Bitcoin ETFs added to the momentum. After bleeding a record $4.5 billion in June, the funds swung to net inflows, including a $223.5 million inflow on July 2, snapping a 10-day run of redemptions. $ETH ETFs were green two days running, adding about $15 million on July 1 and $29 million on July 2. Whales had absorbed the ETF selling through June, buying roughly $16.7 billion of $BTC over two weeks. Strategy-related assets caught relief, with STRC jumping 21% to $87.87 after hitting lows near $70 and MSTR stock rebounding 21% to reclaim $100.

Whether the momentum holds turns on the coming U.S. inflation print and on whether buying continues once U.S. desks return from the holiday. $BTC and $ETH have dropped about 1% since midnight UTC, diverging from Nasdaq 100 and S&P 500 futures, which rose about 1% and 0.5% respectively, while bitcoin's and ether's 30-day implied volatility indices, BVIV and EVIV, remain under pressure after double-digit weekly declines.