This week Bitcoin tried to have a nice time and the news wouldn't let it. Monday and Tuesday started promising — a softer US inflation print had BTC pushing toward the low $65,000s and ETH poking its head above $1,900, everyone doing their best "we're so back" impressions. Then the US widened its strikes on Iran for a sixth straight night, oil went vertical, the US dollar firmed up, and risk assets everywhere — crypto included — got frog-marched out the door. By Friday, BTC had been flogged down under $63,000 and the AI-chip-stock selloff (their worst week in over a year, apparently) was busy dragging the whole risk-asset barbecue down with it.
Here's the bit that actually matters for a Bogan who didn't panic-sell on Friday: by Sunday close BTC had clawed its way back to roughly $64,700 and ETH to about $1,870, and the total crypto market cap finished the week higher — near $2.28 trillion, up about $60 billion on where it started — even though the Fear & Greed Index cratered into "Extreme Fear" (22) midweek before crawling back to 28 — "Fear" by Sunday. Bitcoin dominance sat around 57%. Translation: everyone got scared at the same time, and the market went up anyway. Write that one down.
The coins that brought a plus sign to the party as the week closed out:
| # | Coin | Price | Move | Poida's take |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | LDO (Lido DAO) | $0.3531 | +16% | The whole market's in "Extreme Fear" and this thing still put on 16%. Absolute unit. |
| 2 | PUMP (Pump.fun) | $0.00204 | +13% | A coin called Pump actually pumped. Truth in advertising — never thought I'd see the day. |
| 3 | VVV (Venice) | $11.55 | +12.3% | Still the one AI token carrying the sector while actual AI stocks got flogged. Bloke who brought the good snags. |
| 4 | ZEC (Zcash) | $538.69 | +9% | Privacy coin having a very public good week, riding hype into its Ironwood upgrade. |
| 5 | LTC (Litecoin) | $47.14 | +8% | Your uncle's Commodore of coins — nobody talks about it, it just keeps starting. |
Pour one out — then check none of them are in your 2%-sized positions without a stop (Chapter 4 exists for a reason):
| # | Coin | Price | Move | Poida's take |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | CASHCAT | $0.0757 | −72% | Up 28% a fortnight ago, down 72% this week. That's not a chart, mate, that's a cry for help. |
| 2 | LIT (Lighter) | $2.208 | −16% | Lighter got heavier on the way down. |
| 3 | HYPE (Hyperliquid) | $60.26 | −9% | Hyperliquid. Now just liquid. |
| 4 | ARB (Arbitrum) | $0.0883 | −7.4% | Token unlock and an exploit in the same week — Arbitrum really said "hold my beer". |
| 5 | BONK | $0.0000028 | −5.8% | Still limping from last month's governance exploit. Rough month to be a dog. |
Not tips. Not targets. Just three established, still-heavily-used networks trading a long way below their best days — the kind of thing a Chapter 6 DCA-and-hold Boganster researches while everyone else doom-scrolls. Do your own research, size by the 2% rule, and remember: cheap can always get cheaper.
Quietly the strongest major of 2026 so far (roughly +40% year-to-date by some counts), and still most of crypto's actual plumbing — DeFi, stablecoins, NFTs, half the coins in both tables above — runs on Ethereum or its L2s. Yet it still trades at a fraction of its 2021 all-time high near $4,900. The bear case is real (fee compression, L2 competition) — but you're buying the road network under the whole suburb, not one shop on it.
Still one of the busiest chains by users and transactions — it's the actual home address of half this week's winners and losers table (PUMP, BONK and friends all live here) — yet trading at a fraction of its old highs near $260. Usage hasn't left; the price hasn't caught up. That gap is either an opportunity or a warning, and that's exactly what "do your own research" is for.
The boring plumbing that feeds price data to nearly everything in DeFi, plus a growing pile of bank and institutional pilots, still sitting well under its 2021 high near $52. In a week where a $70B systemic flaw got quietly patched before anyone noticed, "boring infrastructure that quietly matters" is looking like a feature, not a bug. Nobody brags about holding LINK at barbecues. That's kind of the point.
Market data: Liquid markets snapshot at time of writing. News & context: AMBCrypto — weekly winners & losers (Jul 19) · CryptoPotato — weekend watch gainers & losers · CoinDesk — BTC below $63K on AI selloff (Jul 17) · CoinDesk — US-Iran escalation weighs on BTC, oil climbs · FynSight — Fear & Greed Index, 28 (Jul 19) · TradingView — CLARITY Act's make-or-break week · My2Coins — MiCA full implementation status · CoinDesk — Aptos $70B flaw disclosure · Forbes — 2026 crypto hack totals. Prices are snapshots and move constantly.
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