Crypto News: Crypto Bulls on Firmer Footing as Rate-Hike Risk Recedes — Bitcoin Up 6.5%, SOL Surges 17%, UNI Gains 11% on Robinhood L2 Deal

Crypto is ending the week in a healthier position than it started, with Bitcoin at $61,600 — up 6.5% from Tuesday's near two-year low of $57,750. The recovery was driven primarily by Thursday's weak June nonfarm payrolls data at 57,000 versus a 110,000 forecast, which meaningfully reduced expectations for a Federal Reserve rate hike. Solana led the major asset recovery with a 17% weekly gain to $80. Uniswap added an independent catalyst, gaining more than 11% after confirming its role as the primary automated market maker for Robinhood's new layer-2 blockchain. CoinMarketCap's Altcoin Season indicator sits at 46/100 — still firmly in the neutral zone it has occupied for the past month. Bitcoin's Recovery and What Still Needs to Happen Bitcoin's 6.5% gain from Tuesday's $57,750 low to Friday's $61,600 is the most constructive weekly price action since the correction began — but the broader market structure remains bearish across the majority of crypto tokens following a succession of lower highs and lower lows. For Bitcoin to reverse the downtrend structurally, it needs to reclaim $67,000 first and then take out $81,000 — the local high set in May — before a confirmed trend reversal can be declared. Friday's gains were muted relative to Thursday's 2.6% advance, reflecting normal consolidation after a data-driven spike rather than a loss of momentum. The 200-week SMA at $62,660 remains the immediate technical reference point — Bitcoin closed the week just below it, meaning the level that analysts from Fidelity's Jurrien Timmer to Ali Charts have identified as the bull-bear dividing line has not yet been reclaimed on a closing basis. Solana Leads the Majors With a 17% Weekly Surge Solana is the standout performer among crypto majors this week — up more than 17% to trade at $80 after dropping as low as $68 the week before. The recovery confirms the relative strength that Bitfinex analysts flagged earlier in the week, noting that altcoins tend to sell off first and recover first relative to Bitcoin. SOL's 17% weekly gain against Bitcoin's 6.5% is consistent with that historical pattern and with the fundamental demand layer that tokenized RWA transfer volume — up 120% to $8.53 billion on the Solana network — has been providing throughout the correction. The CoinMarketCap Altcoin Season indicator at 46/100 — neutral, not altcoin season — contextualizes SOL's outperformance as token-specific rather than a broad rotation into altcoins. Capital is not yet rotating across the altcoin complex in the way that a genuine altcoin season reading above 75 would indicate. SOL is benefiting from specific catalysts while most of the altcoin market remains under pressure. Ethereum's Short Squeeze — $160.8 Million in Liquidations Ethereum replaced Bitcoin as the biggest token for 24-hour liquidations, with $160.8 million in ETH futures positions liquidated against Bitcoin's distant second-place $97 million. The scale of Ethereum short liquidations — driven by ETH gaining 11.5% since Tuesday and 2.6% on Friday alone — reflects how heavily bearish positioning had become in ETH relative to Bitcoin throughout June's correction. ETH's three consecutive days of gains represent the most sustained bullish price action in the altcoin complex since the correction began. Ethereum futures open interest stood at 14.31 million — the highest since June 10 — with annualized funding rates of nearly 10% and the highest 24-hour cumulative volume delta among majors. The combination of rising OI, positive funding, and the highest CVD among major tokens points to growing genuine demand for bullish ETH exposure rather than short covering alone. The Broader Derivatives Shift — Bulls Leading Most Tokens The derivatives picture has shifted materially from the bearish configurations that characterized the correction. Most tokens now show positive CVD — bulls leading price action via market orders. DOGE futures open interest reached 14.13 billion tokens — the highest since May 16 — with growth running consistently since June 28, reflecting renewed demand for leveraged bullish exposure. Bitcoin and Ethereum 30-day implied volatility indexes are both sliding, reversing June's spike and signaling market calm — a condition that historically precedes grinding upswings in spot prices. On Deribit, the most actively traded BTC options over 24 hours are calls at strikes ranging from $60,000 to $70,000. Block flows featured a large BTC long call condor betting on Bitcoin trading between $66,000 and $68,000 through July 17 — suggesting sophisticated traders see consolidation rather than a sharp breakout as the near-term most likely scenario. The exceptions to the bullish derivatives picture are HBAR and ZEC, which show the most negative 24-hour CVD among majors — bears still more aggressive in those specific tokens. Uniswap's 11% Gain — The Robinhood Layer-2 Catalyst Uniswap led altcoin gains following Thursday's confirmation that it will serve as the primary AMM for Robinhood's new layer-2 blockchain. UNI gained more than 11% in 24 hours with daily trading volume doubling to $320 million — still benefiting from the July 1 announcement. The Robinhood L2 selection of Uniswap as its primary AMM is the most significant DeFi-TradFi integration announcement since Coinbase launched Base on the OP Stack. Robinhood's retail user base and aggressive push into tokenized assets gives UNI exposure to a distribution channel that DeFi protocols have historically lacked. Volume doubling to $320 million confirms the market is treating the announcement as structurally meaningful rather than a headline trade. The Altcoin Season Reading — Neutral, Awaiting Risk-On Confirmation CoinMarketCap's Altcoin Season indicator at 46/100 is the cleanest single-number summary of where the market stands heading into the long weekend. The reading has held in the neutral zone for the past month — not altcoin season, not Bitcoin season — reflecting a market that is neither rotating broadly into risk nor experiencing the Bitcoin dominance surge that accompanies genuine risk-off panic. The neutral 46/100 reading is consistent with a market in the early stages of stabilization: enough improvement to stop the bleeding, not enough to confirm the recovery. A sustained move above 50 — crossing into altcoin season territory — would signal that capital is beginning to rotate more broadly beyond the specific SOL, ETH, and UNI catalysts that have driven this week's outperformance. The Setup Heading Into July Crypto enters the July 4 long weekend with the week's most important macro development still processing through rate markets and the next major catalyst — June CPI data — still ahead. Warsh's Sintra comment that inflation risks have already eased gave risk assets a preliminary positive signal. A June CPI print softer than May's 4.2% would validate that signal and provide the sustained macro permission that whale accumulation, ETF inflow reversal, options market normalization, and derivatives CVD improvement have all been building toward — but have not yet been confirmed by price recovering above $62,660 on a sustained weekly closing basis.