Calm Market, Ethereum's Anniversary, and a Blow to Durov: What Made the Week

The past week was quiet on price but rich in events. Ethereum celebrated a birthday, the Gram coin came under pressure amid problems for Telegram's founder, and the US Federal Reserve made a decision on rates. Let us break down how crypto investors reacted to all of it and what to expect next.

Bitcoin: Sideways Under Macroeconomic Pressure

The price of bitcoin barely changed between July 24 and July 31, 2026. The largest cryptocurrency by market cap traded all week in a narrow range between $62,700 and $65,700, never posting a daily move greater than 2.5%. For a market used to sharp swings, such quiet was itself news. Low volatility usually means that large players have taken a wait-and-see stance and are awaiting an external trigger — be it a regulator's decision or a political event. In such periods the market seems to coil before a sharp move, and experienced traders watch volumes closely.

The main event of the week was the Fed's meeting on the key rate on July 29. The head of the US central bank, Kevin Warsh, announced that the rate would remain unchanged, in the 3.5–3.75% range. The decision was not unanimous: the final vote came in at 9 to 3 in favor of those who wanted to leave rates as they were. Notably, all three dissenting votes were cast for raising the rate, not lowering it. This is an important signal: part of the central bank's leadership still considers inflation risks high and would prefer tightening rather than easing. For the crypto market, this means that the quick rate cuts awaited by risk-asset investors should not be expected just yet.

Warsh declined to reveal the regulator's further plans and explained that he wants to get a "direct and unfiltered reaction" from the market. Initially, bitcoin reacted negatively: in the first hour after the decision was announced, the price dropped 1.39%. But then it almost fully recovered, which points to buyers' readiness to buy the dips. Such a reaction is typical of a mature market: short-term speculators dump assets on the news, while larger players use the drop as an entry opportunity. A quick recovery after negative news is usually considered a sign of strength rather than weakness.

Another factor holding back growth is the midterm elections to Congress scheduled for November. Historically, bitcoin often forms a bottom precisely in such periods of political uncertainty. Too much is at stake: the composition of the House of Representatives, a third of the Senate, and the governors of several states will change, and the balance of power largely determines the fate of the presidency as well. In the previous two cycles, the market began to rise right after the midterms, so the current lull may well give way to growth. The logic here is simple: before the vote, uncertainty persists and weighs on risk appetite, while afterward clarity emerges and capital returns to risk assets. That said, history does not guarantee a repeat, and relying on seasonality alone would be naive.

The inflow of institutional money, meanwhile, is not drying up. Spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded inflows for a fourth week running — this time $203.84 million. The lion's share, $209.56 million, went to the BlackRock fund, while some other funds, by contrast, lost assets. This shows that large capital continues to enter the market even during a price lull. The divergence of flows between funds, however, indicates that there is no consensus on the market's direction even among institutions. Some are locking in profits, others are building positions, and the net balance so far tilts in favor of buyers.

From a technical-analysis standpoint, bitcoin remains sideways. The indicators give mixed but close signals: the price is holding just below the 50-day moving average, which formally favors sellers, while the RSI has approached the 50 mark, where neither side gains the upper hand. Support and resistance levels on the daily chart are unchanged: $57,735 and $67,253. The Fear and Greed Index fell three points over the week, to 25 — meaning moderate fear has given way to more pronounced, though not extreme, fear.

Ethereum: Eleven Years and a Staking Record

Ether looked livelier against this backdrop and added 1.58% over the week. In Monday's trading on July 27, ETH reached $1,980 — its highest in the past 55 days. Volatility, meanwhile, stayed low: on none of the seven days did the closing price move by more than 4.5%.

Far more important is the symbolic date: on July 30, Ethereum marked its eleventh birthday. The second cryptocurrency by market cap arrived at that milestone with a record volume of coins in staking — 40.2 million ETH worth over $63 billion. That is about 33% of all coins in circulation, and such a figure speaks eloquently of investors' belief in the project for the long term: people are willing to lock up a third of the supply to participate in the network rather than to speculate. The more coins go into staking, the fewer remain on exchanges to sell, which, all else being equal, supports the price. In addition, a high percentage of staked assets increases the network's resistance to attacks, since an attacker would have to control a huge share of all coins.

But there was unpleasant news too. The on-chain security platform Blockaid released a report on hacking attacks for the first half of the year, and Ethereum's lead here was not in the best sense. The most funds, $332 million, were stolen precisely from its network, and in most cases the culprit was fraudulent schemes rather than vulnerabilities in the code itself.

The single episode that analysts classified as user error is telling. On the decentralized exchange CoWSwap in March, a user lost $50 million due to slippage while trying to convert a large sum of aEthUSDT into AAVE. Such a lead in the volume of thefts hurts the network's reputation and somewhat undermines the trust of some investors, though it has nothing to do with the blockchain's technical condition. The paradox is that Ethereum's very popularity makes it the main target: the more money and users on the network, the more attractive it is to fraudsters. Analysts emphasize that most losses stem not from protocol errors but from the human factor — phishing, fake websites, and users' own carelessness.

Institutions, however, view ether with optimism. Spot ETFs on it recorded a weekly inflow for a fourth week in a row, this time $18.39 million, with the bulk, $36.62 million, invested into the BlackRock fund. Technically, ether is sideways too: it has yet to break the psychological $2,000 mark, and the trend's weakness is confirmed by a low reading of the ADX indicator. The initiative, though, is rather with buyers — the price is holding above the 50-day average, and the nearest support and resistance levels are $1,800 and $1,980.

Altcoins: A Blow to Gram and Growth for Aptos

The loudest story of the week came not from the charts but from the courtroom. The Russian authorities brought criminal charges against Telegram founder Pavel Durov and added him to the list of terrorists and extremists of Rosfinmonitoring. The news instantly affected sentiment around assets linked to him.

At the same time, lawyers hastened to reassure the market: Russians can still legally use the messenger itself and the Gram cryptocurrency, with no direct bans introduced on that score. Formally, the claims concern the entrepreneur's person, not the technology. Nevertheless, in the eyes of some investors the line between the creator and his brainchild is blurred, and any news about him is automatically transferred to related projects. That is exactly why the reaction to such headlines often proves stronger than the real state of affairs warrants.

Yet the market rarely separates a founder's figure from his project. Given the tight link of The Open Network blockchain with the messenger and with Durov personally, the authorities' decision could not but affect the price. Over the week, the Gram coin, formerly Toncoin, dropped 3.75%. Investors took the legal risks around the entrepreneur as risks for the entire ecosystem. The reaction was almost instant: as soon as the news spread, some holders rushed to lock in positions, fearing further pressure. That said, the 3.75% drop itself can hardly be called catastrophic — the market rather priced in uncertainty than reacted to a specific threat.

This episode is a vivid example of how, in crypto, one person's reputation can move quotes. When a project is firmly associated with a single prominent founder, any of his personal troubles turns into a factor of pressure on the price. For holders, this is a reminder: when investing in a "one-person coin," it is worth factoring in such non-market risks too. History knows plenty of examples where a founder's problems brought down entirely viable projects, and vice versa — a strong team without a public face proved more resistant to such storms. Diversification here, too, remains the best defense against unexpected shocks.

It was not only high-profile names that defined the week. The Aptos blockchain continued to show serious throughput achievements: on one of the days the network processed 13.2 million transactions. The total number of operations since its launch in October 2022 exceeded 4.51 billion, which points to genuine demand for the network among developers.

There were negative signals too. The decentralized protocol AAVE decided to wind down its deployment on the Aptos network: the team is reducing its presence across a number of blockchains to lower economic and technical risks under new risk-management and asset-listing systems. The departure of a major protocol is an alarming sign for any ecosystem, even a growing one. The presence of well-known DeFi platforms largely determines a blockchain's appeal to users and developers, and their departure can trigger an outflow of liquidity. On the other hand, AAVE's decision is tied to the protocol's overall strategy of concentrating on key networks rather than to problems with Aptos specifically, which somewhat softens the negative signal.

All of this weighed on the price. The APT coin continues to trade near its all-time low, around $0.55, and over the week from July 24 to July 31 it lost another 6.63%. The network's strong technical metrics are still poorly converting into the token's price — a situation typical of the market, where fundamentals and quotes live apart. Investors often assess not current metrics but expectations of future growth, and if the market does not believe in a coin's prospects, even record throughput does not save its price. For long-term holders, such a divergence sometimes becomes an entry opportunity, but it requires strong nerves.

What to Watch Next

The overall picture of the week is contradictory. On one hand, prices froze, institutions are building positions through ETFs, and the fundamentals of Ethereum and Aptos look strong. On the other, macroeconomic uncertainty, political risks, and a wave of hacking attacks hang over the market.

The coming months will largely be determined by a pairing of two factors: Fed policy and the midterm elections. If the regulator shifts to easing and the post-election period repeats prior scenarios, the market will have a reason to rise. For now, the sentiment index is in the fear zone, and crypto investors prefer caution. Tellingly, even with a steady inflow of institutional money, retail participants remain tense — both the hacking attacks and the political turbulence take their toll. Such a divergence between the behavior of large and small players is often observed before a trend change, though its direction cannot be predicted in advance.

The bottom line is simple: a week without price shocks does not mean an absence of movement. Ethereum's anniversary, the legal risks around Durov, and the Fed's decisions show that the market lives not only by charts but by the news backdrop. Investors should watch macro data and politics, resist panic on sharp headlines, and remember that behind loud stories there is always the cold calculation of capital. The week showed the main thing: even in the absence of price storms, the market remains a living organism that reacts to politics, technology, and reputation no less than to the dry figures of quotes.