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Gold Hit New ATH on Friday, Bitcoin Did Not: Which Has Performed Better in 2024?

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The precious metal has had a highly impressive year, having surged by about 27% and tapping a new all-time high just on Friday.

However, does this impressive YTD increase mean that it has done better than bitcoin, which is far from its ATH?

Gold Dominates 2024

Perhaps driven by the overall macroeconomic situation, with a few wars breaking out, uncertainty about numerous election cycles, purchases from emerging market central banks, or other reasons, the yellow metal has been at the forefront of price rallies in 2024. It entered the year at $2,065/oz, but it quickly started appreciating against the greenback.

The culmination came yesterday when it skyrocketed to $2,622 to tap a new all-time high, which meant that it had gained 27% of value since January 1. Its price movements against other currencies like the euro or the British pound are quite similar.

XAUUSD Year-to-Date. Source: TradingView
XAUUSD Year-to-Date. Source: TradingView

But that’s not all. Experts believe its climb is far from over. Goldman Sachs’ recent research reads that gold could go further, to about $2,700 in the next few months, especially if the US imposes new financial sanctions against other countries following the elections. The US debt burden is another factor that could boost its price.

Gold is our strategists’ preferred near-term long (the commodity they most expect to go up in the short term), and it’s also their preferred hedge against geopolitical and financial risks.” – reads Goldman’s memo.

Citing several other experts, CBS reported that gold is poised to have a bullish October due to the recent interest rate cut by the US Fed.

What About Bitcoin?

Bitcoin has a controversial stand in global economics. Believers see it as the natural replacement of gold, since it has many of its merits but operates in the digital world. Critics claim that it’s too volatile and its short history puts it more toward the side of riskier assets rather than gold, which has existed since the dinosaurs. Or maybe it’s something in the middle.

Nevertheless, BTC has also been on a bull run this year. It traded at approximately $42,200 on January 1 and shot up to a new all-time high less than three months later of nearly $74,000.

Although it lost a lot of ground in the following months, even dipping below $50,000 on a few occasions, it now trades at $63,000. This means that even though it’s more than ten grand away from its ATH in March, its 2024 rally has posted gains of roughly 50% – or nearly double those of gold. So, despite the yellow metal’s highly impressive year, perhaps its best yet, BTC has still performed better, for now at least.

Bitcoin/Price/Chart Year-to-Date. Source: TradingView
Bitcoin/Price/Chart Year-to-Date. Source: TradingView
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Cryptocurrency

Tokenized Assets Arrive on Tezos L2 as Midas Joins Etherlink

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The integration is a showcase of the platform’s ongoing commitment to creating infrastructure for financial systems that anyone can access, by ensuring compliance and offering composable yield products.

This also creates a path for further fusions of Liquid Yield Tokens (LYTs) into Etherlink’s ecosystem, offering various use cases that include collateralized lending, risk tranching, and portfolio management. 

Midas’ New Collaboration

According to a press release shared with CryptoPotato, the institutional-grade asset tokenization platform is steadily developing on Etherlink. The focus is on creating secure, transparent, and efficient structures that allow investors to access the performance of select reference strategies through tokenized formats.

After launching mBASIS, the protocol for tracking the performance of crypto funding rates, and mTBILL, which tracks short-term US Treasuries, two new products were introduced: mMEV and mRe7YIELD.

The former follows a yield strategy by MEV Capital, a digital asset manager, and the latter does the same, but for Re7 Capital, an investment firm specializing in DeFi yield and liquid alpha strategies.

At the time of printing, according to information from Midas’ website, the reported Total Value Locked (TVL) is close to $350 million; however, data from DefiLlama paints a different picture, with nearly $190 million.

Etherlink as The Backbone

The L2 blockchain is non-custodial, Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM)-compatible, built on Tezos Smart Rollups, offering developers favorable conditions in terms of transaction costs and confirmation times.

“Etherlink offers the scalability and composability needed to bring structured, compliant strategies fully on-chain. With mMEV and mRe7YIELD, we’re expanding secure, self-custodied exposure to institutional-grade products.” – Dennis Dinkelmeyer, CEO at Midas

David Relkin, the Head of DeFi at Nomadic Labs, which is the core team behind Tezos, believes this is an essential step toward bringing wholesale finance fully on-chain.

The timing aligns with notable progress achieved by the blockchain, which has grown from $1.45 million on March 1st to over $45 million in TVL as of today, indicated by DefiLlama.

This is just one of the use cases that Etherlink boasts, which also includes gaming & NFTs, cross-chain liquidity through bridges like LayerZero or Bifröst, support for .etherlink domains, and more.

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XRP Price Jumps 26% Weekly as Whale Moves in: $3 Breakout Ahead?

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TL;DR

  • Analyst sees 2017-style pattern forming in XRP chart, supported by bullish RSI crossover.
  • XRP sits 14% below its all-time high as ETF speculation boosts volume and trading interest.

xrp_whales_cover

Large XRP Transfer Sparks Interest

A wallet moved 25.5 million XRP, worth around $73.6 million, to Coinbase. The transfer was spotted by Whale Alert and quickly caught attention across crypto circles. XRP was trading at $2.92 at the time of writing.

Over the past day, XRP has increased by around 2%. The weekly gain now stands at more than 26%. Trading volume remains high, with over $6.2 billion in activity during the last 24 hours. The size and timing of this transfer may suggest positioning ahead of market events.

Analysts Track Technical Pattern

Crypto analyst JD pointed to a familiar setup in XRP’s price action. He said the current move resembles the 2017 pattern that led to a major breakout. JD noted,

“I called the $0.28 bottom; I’m calling the top next.”

Interestingly, the chart shows XRP breaking above a large triangle and consolidating. Stochastic RSI shows a bullish cross, with hidden divergence also in play. If the current structure holds, traders expect a strong move upward.

ETF Launch Seen as Catalyst

ProShares is set to launch its futures XRP ETF on July 18. This has led to more active trading near key price zones. Desks appear to be shifting between $2.85 and $2.93, with $3.00 acting as a key resistance.

Some firms are holding off on full exposure due to regulatory uncertainty. ETF flows are expected to give a clearer picture of institutional demand in the coming days.

XRP’s price is now within 14% of its all-time high, last reached in January 2018 and retested in 2025. Traders expect the next move to attempt to break that level.

RLUSD, an enterprise-focused stablecoin, recently passed $500 million in market cap, adding to XRP’s growing ecosystem.

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No Euphoria in Bitcoin Markets but Warning Signs Are Starting to Appear (Analyst)

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Bitcoin’s record-setting rally may be nearing a crucial inflection point, with on-chain data showing an increase in large-scale Bitcoin deposits to Binance.

According to an expert at the on-chain analytics platform CryptoQuant, this could point to big-money investors possibly preparing for strategic exits or leveraged plays.

Whale Moves Signal Market Shift

BTC reached a new all-time high (ATH) above $123,000 on July 14, before retreating to the $117,000 neighborhood. This correction may appear modest on the surface, but deeper market signals suggest more turbulence could be ahead.

In a recent “quick take,” pseudonymous CQ analyst Crazzyblock noted that the “Binance Whale Activity Score” had spiked sharply following Bitcoin’s latest peak. And it isn’t a minor movement either; it represents a coordinated shift by major players.

According to him, approximately 1,800 BTC, worth more than $210 million at current rates, flowed into Binance deposits yesterday alone. Additionally, transactions exceeding $1 million accounted for over 35% of total Bitcoin inflows to the world’s largest exchange, confirming the presence of institutional-sized wallets.

Just as importantly, CryptoQuant’s age-band data showed that these aren’t coins from recent buyers, but rather older holdings from experienced, strategic investors re-entering the active market.

Given Binance’s status as the world’s largest crypto trading venue, commanding over 25% of global spot volume, such moves warrant closer scrutiny. It implies whales may be positioning assets on the most liquid platform to either secure profits after the historic run or to use the exchange’s deep derivatives markets for hedging and new positions amidst peak volatility.

“Either way, the presence of this much ‘sell-side’ pressure on the market’s primary trading venue increases the risk of sharp price swings,” wrote Crazzyblock. “The smart money is moving, and their actions often precede significant market shifts.”

Euphoria Yet to Kick In

Interestingly, this whale-driven shift is coming at a time when bullish sentiment is dominating headlines. Bitcoin’s rise to a new ATH triggered a wave of price forecasts, with some market watchers predicting the cryptocurrency could be changing hands at $200,000 each by year’s end.

However, behind the optimism lies a more measured market structure. CQ’s proprietary greed indicators remain in neutral territory, and the rHODL ratio sits at just 32%, indicating that broader retail participation still hasn’t materialized, an essential ingredient for true market euphoria.

The latest price movements hint at this brewing tension, with the asset seemingly stepping back from the heat of its last breakout.

Data from CoinGecko shows the number one cryptocurrency is trading at $117,496 at the time of this writing, down nearly 4% in the last 24 hours. Still, it’s up almost 9% for the week and 11.3% across the past month, outperforming legacy markets but falling just short of the broader crypto sector, which gained 9.2% over seven days.

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