Bitcoin continues to trade above the $118,000 mark, holding steady after a week of significant institutional developments and a landmark milestone in on-chain metrics. According to CoinDesk Data, BTC was last up 1.45% over the past 24 hours, bringing its 30-day gain to 10.42% and lifting its year-to-date performance to more than 26%.
Blockchain analytics firm Glassnode highlighted in its latest “Week On-chain” report that July has brought one of the strongest upside breakouts of the year. After dipping to around $105,400 earlier in the month, bitcoin surged to an all-time high of $122,700 before settling into a consolidation phase just below that level. The report noted that this price rally triggered substantial profit-taking from long-term holders while also drawing in new buyers, leading to a sustained inflow of capital into the asset.
The result is that bitcoin’s realized capitalization — a measure of the total value of coins based on the last time they were moved — has now surpassed $1 trillion for the first time. Unlike market capitalization, which reflects current price multiplied by total supply, realized cap tracks the actual liquidity deployed into bitcoin over time.
Glassnode says this milestone reflects growing conviction among both long-term holders and new entrants, and signals a deepening of the asset’s liquidity base. The on-chain analytics firm also claims that this points to bitcoin’s growing role on the macroeconomic stage, with the ability to absorb and settle ever larger volumes of capital.
On Friday, Mike Novogratz's Galaxy Digital (GLXY) announced in a press release “the successful execution of one of the largest notional bitcoin transactions in the history of crypto on behalf of a client.”
Galaxy said that it had executed a more than $9 billion bitcoin transaction on behalf of a legacy investor from the early days of the network. The 80,000 BTC sale is one of the largest of its kind in crypto history and was reportedly part of the client’s estate planning.
Meanwhile, on Friday, CNBC resurfaced a detail from Tesla’s second quarter of 2022 earnings filings, which disclosed that the company had converted approximately 75% of its bitcoin into fiat currency during that quarter.
With bitcoin hovering around $118,000 on Friday morning, David Faber, a “Squawk on the Street” co-host, estimated that had Tesla held onto its full bitcoin holdings, the value of its BTC holdings would now exceed $5 billion — four times higher than its reported valuation of $1.25 billion as of the most recent quarter.
Of course, this is the same kind of criticism that has been aimed at the German government for selling its bitcoin holdings too early.
In June and July 2024, the German authorities liquidated nearly 50,000 BTC seized from a film piracy case, netting roughly $2.9 billion at an average price around $57,900 per coin. At the time, officials justified the move by citing legal obligations to avoid potential loss in value and quickly liquidate seized assets.
However, in hindsight, this strategy has come under fire as the value of bitcoin soared in the following year. On May 19, crypto market intelligence platform Arkham noted on X that those same coins would have been worth more than $5.24 billion had the German government held on to them, meaning it missed out on over $2.35 billion in potential gains. Critics argue that the sale not only left a fortune on the table but also contributed to short-term price pressure on the entire bitcoin market.
Technical Analysis Highlights
- According to CoinDesk Research's technical analysis data model, during the 23-hour session ending July 26 at 14:00 UTC, the digital asset rallied more than 3%, carving out a $3,300 trading range between $114,937 and $118,237.
- Support has remained firm in the $117,140–$117,330 zone, while resistance appears to be consolidating just below the $118,200 threshold.
- The final hour of trading saw modest gains of 0.07% as BTC climbed from $118,095 to $118,183, with tight-range consolidation suggesting continued buying interest just below psychological resistance.
Disclaimer: Parts of this article were generated with the assistance from AI tools and reviewed by our editorial team to ensure accuracy and adherence to our standards. For more information, see CoinDesk's full AI Policy.
