Phew, okay, where do I start…

Last time we checked in on Wednesday, Bitcoin was at around $117K, Ethereum was at $3.7K, and the other top altcoins were higher as well…

And yeah, we skipped two days of the newsletter – but it’s just a coincidence. We had nothing to do with the downturn.

So… wtf actually happened?

Well, traders went risk-off. And you can see it not only in crypto prices but in ETFs too:

Bitcoin ETFs ended last week with $927.1M in outflows;

Ethereum ETFs lost $152.3M on Friday alone.

Still… why?

Stop looking at me like that – I SWEAR I didn’t do anything.

Macro stuff is to blame here. Let’s walk through it

1/ The Fed meeting

The Fed kept interest rates the same.

No surprise there – markets were already 98% sure this was gonna happen. So this wasn’t that big of an issue.

The real drama came afterward, when Fed Chair Jerome Powell spoke at the post-meeting press conference. Markets were hoping he’d sound more relaxed – maybe drop hints about rate cuts starting in September.

Well… he didn’t.

Instead, he said the Fed is ready to cut rates if needed, but didn’t give any clear signs it would happen soon. His comments were a bit more cautious than people wanted.

That disappointed the market – and it showed.

Earlier last week, traders thought there was a 65% chance the Fed would cut rates in September. After Powell’s press conference, that dropped to 43%.

Still, a lot can change before the next Fed meeting on September 17.

Specifically, the Fed’s watching two things:

Inflation;

The job market.

If inflation cools down or the labor market weakens, a rate cut becomes more likely.

Which brings us to…

2/ June PCE data

The day after Powell’s speech, we got new Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) numbers.

PCE tracks how much Americans are spending on goods and services – and it’s the Fed’s fave way to measure inflation.

Here’s the logic: If people spend more → demand rises → businesses struggle to keep up → prices go up = inflation.

And… the latest numbers came in hotter than expected:

June PCE inflation: 2.6% (vs. 2.5% expected);

Core PCE inflation: 2.8% (vs. 2.7% expected).

That’s two months in a row of inflation rising.

So yeah, not ideal if you’re hoping for rate cuts.

But then, something else happened.

3/ July jobs report

On Friday, we got the July jobs report, which revealed that the US added only 73K new jobs.

That’s much lower than the expected 106K.

But that wasn’t the part that had everyone shook – it was the fact that the May and June numbers were heavily revised. Like, really heavily:

May: from ~144K jobs down to just 19K;

June: from ~147K to only 14K.

That’s a total of 258K jobs erased from the record. That’s a huge downward correction – and it’s a sign the job market is slowing down.

And that changed market sentiment almost instantly – traders are now pricing in an 83.7% chance of a rate cut in September.

Because, like we said, the Fed needs one of two things to justify cutting rates:

Lower inflation (which we’re not seeing yet), or

A softer job market (which just showed up).

If hiring continues to slow, the Fed may have no choice but to cut rates – even if inflation stays elevated.

So, the next jobs report will be critical.

We’ll have to wait and see.

Netflix (NFLX 0.92%) stock gained 11% in June, according to data provided by S&P Global Market Intelligence. It received several analyst upgrades, it made some celebrated announcements, and it also seems to be rising on the coattails of Apple‘s success with its hit film F1: The Movie.

The Trillion-dollar stock

Netflix has been having another moment. Despite tons of new competition and a changing streaming landscape, it has remained in the top streaming spot, which is a real feat. It speaks to the company’s excellent management and foresight, and it bodes well for the company’s future potential as it successfully adapts, changes, and leads.

In the 2025 first quarter, revenue increased 13% year over year, and operating income was up 27%. Operating margin improved from 28.1% to 33.3%, and earnings per share (EPS) increased from $5.28 to $7.03. The company has stopped reporting subscriber count, but it had more than 300 million paid subscribers at the end of 2024.

Image source: Getty Images.

Ad revenue from its relatively new ad-supported tier is still a small portion of total revenue, but management is expecting it to double this year. It’s also guiding for “healthy” subscriber growth and some price increases, and it maintained its full-year guidance despite continued pressure in the environment, boosting market confidence.

The strong results and improving streaming have led to several recent analyst upgrades, and the stock is rising as a result. It’s also benefiting from an overall improving market, with the S&P 500 index up 5% last month.

Toward the end of June, Netflix stock surged on the day Apple’s new hit film, F1:The Movie, hit theaters. That suggests that streaming tech giants can produce theater-level quality films that can be hits at the box office. Netflix has had some limited theater runs, but it doesn’t seem to have plans to make this a major part of its model.

To top off the month, it got another round of applause after NASA announced that it would stream rocket launches on Netflix starting this summer.

Can Netflix stock go higher?

Management recently boasted that it believes it can reach a $1 trillion valuation by 2030. That implies nearly doubling — which may or may not happen — but Netflix has demonstrated resilience and innovation over many years, and it’s likely to keep changing with the times and offer value for shareholders.

Shares of Meta Platforms (META 0.73%) were moving higher again in June as the social media giant benefited from the broader uptrend in the stock market, and investors reacted to Meta’s deal to take a 49% stake in Scale AI, a data-labeling start-up, for $14 billion.

By the end of the month, Meta stock had finished up 14%, according to data from S&P Global Market Intelligence.

As you can see from the chart, the stock gained in two separate stages, in the beginning and end of the month.

META data by YCharts

Meta pushes deeper into AI

Meta’s ambitions in AI became clearer last month as the company made a splash with the Scale AI deal. The move gives the company near-50% ownership of a promising AI start-up, and also brings Scale AI founder Alexandr Wang into the Meta fold. Wang will head up a new research lab working on superintelligence.

Additionally, other news reports emerged about Meta’s poaching AI talent from OpenAI, and it also reportedly tried to buy Perplexity, the AI search-focused start-up now valued at $14 billion, as well as Safe Superintelligence, another AI start-up. Finally, the company is considering raising $29 billion to fund its data center expansion push as part of its AI ambitions.

Early in the month, Meta also signed a 20-year power purchase agreement with Constellation Energy, showing its commitment to securing an adequate source of energy as AI needs grow.

On the device front, the company also introduced Oakley Meta glasses, which it called a new category of Performance AI glasses, featuring a built-in camera, open-ear speakers, and water resistance.

Meanwhile, the stock also benefited from cooling tensions around the trade war, as well as solid economic data showing the job market continuing to expand and inflation remaining in check.

Since nearly all the company’s revenue comes from digital advertising, the business is sensitive to the broader economy, so signs of continued growth are good for Meta.

Image source: Getty Images.

What’s next for Meta?

Meta’s price-to-earnings ratio has risen to 28 following last month’s gains, but that still looks like a fair price to pay for a stock that dominates the social media sector, has a huge competitive advantage in digital advertising, and is investing heavily into its strong AI division.

We’ll hear from Meta at the end of the month when it reports second-quarter earnings. Analysts are expecting another strong quarter, with revenue increasing 14% to $44.55 billion and earnings per share rising from $5.16 to $5.84. If Meta can maintain that kind of growth, the stock should continue to move higher.

While overall capital raised in 2024 fell 22.1%, the number of Bitcoin startup deals jumped by nearly 32%, with pre-seed activity alone increasing by 50%.

The report defines “Bitcoin-native” companies as those fundamentally aligned with Bitcoin as a monetary asset and protocol stack, building products that directly benefit from Bitcoin’s growth and functionality.

Unlike broader crypto ventures, which often span various blockchain platforms, these startups are committed to the Bitcoin ecosystem from the ground up.

Bitcoin Startups See Consistent Growth Across All Early Stages

The number of Bitcoin-native pre-seed deals in 2024 was more than seven times higher than in 2021, showing a big rise in new startups and ideas.

Seed and Series A deal volumes also saw year-over-year increases of 30% and 60%, respectively.

Image Source: Trammell Venture Partners

Total capital raised may have dropped, but deal count and new company formation continued to rise. This points to growing confidence in Bitcoin-native startups. TVP notes four straight years of growth as a sign these startups could soon capture a bigger share of crypto venture funding.

Big-Name VCs Back Bitcoin as Ecosystem Matures

Backing this momentum is a growing list of institutional investors. In 2024, firms like Founders Fund, Ribbit Capital, Y Combinator and Valor Equity Partners participated in Bitcoin startup rounds. Their involvement points to rising confidence in business models built on Bitcoin’s protocol layers.

Bitcoin holds over half of the crypto market’s total value. Yet in 2024, it received only 2.3% of venture funding, the report notes. Researchers see this gap as an opportunity to rebalance, as the Bitcoin ecosystem expands beyond mining and asset holding.

Backed by simple business models, clear focus and growing investor interest, Bitcoin-native startups are quietly shaping a new path for crypto innovation.

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