This week, the cryptocurrency market continued to decline: BTC is trading around 56500.00 (–3.5%), ETH is at 2370.00 (–5.2%), USDT is at 1.0005 (–0.02%), BNB is around 505.00 (–1.3%), and SOL is around 129.30 (–4.1%). The total market capitalization by the end of the week decreased to 1.98T dollars, and BTC’s share was 56.18%.

Negative dynamics are developing against falling shares of global technology companies and uncertainty about further actions of the US Fed. Thus, this week, the Bloomberg agency disseminated information that the US Department of Justice suspected the world leader in semiconductor production, Nvidia Corp., of violating monopoly laws and directly preventing customers from switching to other chip suppliers. Officials sent legal requests to several corporations, which is a step towards the start official proceedings. Later, the management denied this data but the negative sentiment of investors remained, which led to sell-offs not only in the stock market but also in the cryptocurrency market. Currently, traders are waiting for the publication of key data on the US labor market for August. Thus, the July unemployment rate increased to 4.3%, causing fears of a recession in the economy. If the trend continues, the US Fed may begin to ease monetary policy, cutting the interest rate by 50 basis points at the September meeting. Some experts believe that the adjustment in the cost of borrowing will lead to an increase in risky assets, including digital ones but others believe that such steps have been taken into account by the market, and cryptocurrencies will not receive significant support. Major players remain cautious, confirming the trend of outflow of funds from the Bitcoin ETF, which has been developing for seven trading sessions in a row, amounting to 536.1M dollars in the last week. Analysts note that small traders are currently continuing to sell their cryptocurrency reserves, which are passing into the hands of whales accumulating assets. According to Santiment, last month the number of wallets containing more than 100 BTC increased by 0.283K to 16.200K, the high for the settlement of 17 months.

Among the news of the week, it is worth highlighting the expansion of support for cryptocurrency services by the payment giant MasterCard Inc. The management announced that as part of cooperation with the European digital payment provider Mercuryo, the corporation intends to issue a new debit card denominated in euros, with support for non-custodial cryptocurrency wallets. Thus, European clients may manage digital assets more conveniently.

We also note the latest comments by Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse, who announced the imminent launch of the RLUSD stablecoin, which is undergoing the final testing stage on the XRP Ledger and Ethereum blockchains, during the Korea Blockchain Week event. The coin will be backed by American dollar deposits, as well as short-term US government treasury bonds. According to Garlinghouse, the token launch is due within the next few weeks, not months, as previously assumed. The businessman also denied information about Ripple preparing for an initial public offering (IPO) in the US since the regulators’ attitude towards the company remains negative.

In general, the situation in the cryptocurrency market remains difficult, and next week, most of the largest digital assets may continue to decline or begin to consolidate.