04 August Bitfinex alpha | BTC integrates and leverages drops as the market is waiting for a catalyst

Bitcoin has crucially destroyed local range support at $115,800, reaching its $112,210 low after multiple retests over the past three weeks. This failure coincides with the wider risk across the entire crypto complex, especially in altcoins where leverage was actively constructed. The other indexes represent the broader Altcoin market, but they excluded the top 10 coins by market capitalization, resulting in a drawdown of 18.7% over the last 10 days, eliminating nearly $59 billion in market capitalization before rebounding on Sunday.

This surrender phase peaked on August 2nd, with daily liquidation exceeding $1 billion. BTC and ETH were leading the liquidation volume, but Altcoins experienced a deeper drawdown in 2025 with a total crypto liquidation marking one of the most offensive rewinds. Despite the high betty nature of Altcoins, even key assets like ETH reduced the week by 9.7%, while the Broader Others Index fell 11.4%. Just a few names like ENA and Pengu highlight how limited capital turnover has turned amid increased macro pressure and reduced risk.

Structurally, BTC still holds a relative strength position with a market capitalization of over $2.2 trillion. This postpones the 2021 cycle peak, but ETH and Altcoins are below previous highs. This difference highlights the role of BTC as an institutionally driven asset for macroresidents, in contrast to the speculative vulnerability of the broader market. As ETF flows cool, Fed policies turn into more takis and risk appetite declines, consolidation or further downsides are expected, unless aggressive spot buying is re-emerged. The technical bounce from the $112,000 area is plausible, but the broader recovery could be dependent on facility flows or updated demand via clear macrocatalysts.

Latest economic data from the US highlights the growing vulnerability under seemingly resilient headline figures. The June inflation report revealed enduring price pressures driven primarily by new tariffs that reduced the costs of goods, such as furniture, clothing and recreational items.

Personal Consumption Expenses (PCE) rose modestly, but actual consumer spending was hardly moving. This indicates that inflation is undermining purchasing power. Wage growth has softened, with GDP rising by 3% in the second quarter, much of which is due to a sharp decline in imports, increasing weak domestic demand.

Excluding trade and inventory, actual GDP rose by just 1.2%, referring to a stagnant business investment and slowing consumer activity. Meanwhile, the July employment report has been added to the darkness. Employment slowed to just 73,000 new jobs, unemployment rates tickled at up to 4.2%, and workforce participation continued to decline. Despite the seasonal tailwinds, sectors such as construction and hospitality had declined in performance, but the decline in foreign-born workers reflected resistance to tightening immigration policies. These trends collectively complicate the Federal Reserve policy outlook. With the stickiness of inflation and declining labor force, the Fed is likely to slow down speed cuts, waiting for a more clear signal before adjusting its stance. In parallel, the crypto industry has experienced a strong revival of institutional engagement, characterized by bold Treasury allocations and reorganisation of regulatory authorities. Sharplink Gaming has created headlines with ETH’s $295 million purchase, increasing its total holdings by over 438,000, establishing it as the world’s second largest corporate holder. The company’s aggressive capital deployment and staking strategy, supported by Ethereum co-founder Joseph Lubin and former BlackRock executives, reflects the growing institutional convictions as a financial asset for ETH. Meanwhile, regulatory momentum has also been built. SEC Chairman Paul Atkins has launched Project Crypto, a drastic initiative to modernize the US digital asset framework. The initiative, which moves away from the highly-enforced agency past, promises clarity in token classification, enables authorized cryptography to “super apps,” encourages traditional tokenized finance, and recovers the potential of US leadership in digital innovation. Finally, DeVVStream, a NASDAQ-registered carbon credit company, has announced a $10 million allocation to Bitcoin and Solana as part of its Sustainable Cryptocurrency Program. Funded by the $300 million Convertible Notrease, the move combines financial strategy with environmental impact, highlighting Crypto’s integration into an increasingly diversified corporate finance model. Together, these developments demonstrate mature digital asset spaces that are increasingly aligned with both facility capital and forward-looking regulatory frameworks.

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By Pranesh Anthapur, Chief Human Resources Officer of Kraken

As one of the most trusted cryptographic platforms in the world, we employ innovation not only in cryptography, but also in the way we manage and support our employees, Krakenites. AI is an element of HR strategy, making more data-driven decisions, enhancing candidate experience and continually improving crakenite engagement.

Let’s take a look at how you use AI in your recruitment process. The future of recruitment is in line with our belief that AI should be embraced, but not determined by it.

AI-powered employment: efficiency without losing human touch

First of all: Kraken uses AI to not make “yes” or “no” decisions regarding employment. You will not be hired or rejected based on AI decisions. What AI does is to get rid of the noise. This will allow you to focus on the best talent.

Our recruitment and recruitment team continues to review each applicant individually. Attracting and recruiting the world’s top talent (Krakenights who live in over 70 countries) is important in the fast mobile industry like cryptography. AI helps streamline this process without sacrificing the personal touch, an integral part of Kraken’s culture.

AI during screening: Help us find the best, faster

If you’re the best candidate, don’t worry because AI works for you, not against you. This approach not only improves efficiency, but also removes bias from the process. Free our team to allocate more time to White Glove recruitment practices, improving both recruiter productivity and the overall experience of candidates (if you’re going through the recruitment process at Kraken, you’ll find it really is a 6 star).

Crypto jobs are in high demand, and Kraken is flooded with thousands of applications for all open roles. Instead of slipping through the cracks on good candidates, use AI to enhance the screening process. ai helps us:

• Quickly spot top candidates by analyzing skills, experience and qualifications
• Craft fair job descriptions that attract diverse talent pools
• Free recruiters and focus on high-five, personalized recruitment

result? Merit-first adoption machine that will get the right people at the door without unnecessary delays or bureaucratic nonsense.

AI during interview: No exchange, strengthening

What uses AI:

Deart Transcription and analysis of interviews for deep insights
Optimize job description to attract top talent
Comperive Identify key capabilities and trends for fair employment decisions

Those that do not use AI:

Make a yes/no employment decision
Conducting an interview

Be authentic – bad hiring processes waste everyone’s time. AI reduces inefficiency and allows recruiters and employment managers to focus on what’s really important.

Instead of dropping notes or missing key moments, interviewers are now fully present. AI helps transcription and analyse interviews, find trends, highlight key capabilities, and ensure objectivity and fairness.

AI helps Kraken recruiting teams not waste their time. Or theirs.

Using AI to identify key capabilities and trends can help ensure that your recruitment process is fair, consistent and focused on finding the best talent. Our goal? An efficient, unbiased, and fast, truly merit-based hiring process. The employment process takes more than three months to finish? no thanks.

AI for employee engagement: Keep Krakenites happy

At Kraken, we don’t believe in reactive HR. We believe we get through real-time insights, positive improvements, and corporate noise and understand what really matters to people.

Through AI-driven research analysis, we gain real-time insights into how team members feel about their work, leadership and overall experience at Kraken. Rather than relying solely on human-sorted research, AI allows for faster digestion of trends and emotional changes, ensuring that concerns are addressed actively and without bias.

By leveraging NLP and sentiment analysis, you can extract meaningful patterns from open-ended feedback, surveys, anonymous forms, chat, and more, improve policies, strengthen happiness initiatives, and foster a positive workplace culture. There are no point in findings that collect dust in a spreadsheet.

Future: ai x hr = smarter kraken

AI is not slowing down, and we are not slowing down either. We are already looking ahead:

• Personalized learning, development and career support with AI
• Predictive analysis that predicts employment forecasts and informed decisions
• Faster, fairer, more attractive HR process

But let’s be clear: people make Kraken, not ai. AI is another tool for our Arsenal. This makes us sharper, faster and more innovative.

At Kraken, we do not use AI to enhance human decision-making and replace it. This is because the future of HR is not something that robots will take over. It’s about using the best technology to build the best team.

And we don’t do that otherwise.

Robinhood has launched a dedicated prediction market hub that will allow users to trade contracts based on the outcomes of key global events.

According to a March 17 statement, the platform’s initial offerings include contracts tied to the Federal Reserve’s target interest rate for May and the men’s and women’s College Basketball Tournaments.

The firm explained:

“Each contract represents an approximate probability between 1% and 99%, with each cent effectively representing a 1% probability that the event will occur. For example, if a contract is priced at 53 cents, this can be interpreted as a 53% probability that it will occur according to that market.”

The service will be available to eligible customers across the US through KalshiEX LLC, a regulated exchange overseen by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).

Over time, Robinhood plans to introduce contracts covering various topics, including financial markets, politics, and sports.

J.B. Mackenzie, Robinhood’s VP and GM of Futures and International emphasized the company’s commitment to innovation and highlighted the importance of prediction markets in capturing insights across finance, news, and culture.

The firm further explained that building a standalone prediction markets hub allows it to better serve its customers looking to engage with events that align with their interests.

Robinhood’s prediction marketplace efforts

Prediction markets allow traders to place financial bets on future events, incentivizing accurate forecasting. While these markets faced regulatory hurdles in the US, interest has grown recently.

During the 2024 US presidential election, event-based betting platforms like Polymarkets saw increased participation and correctly predicted Donald Trump’s victory.

Robinhood briefly entered this space during that period, offering election-related contracts. The company later tested a Super Bowl betting market but withdrew it due to compliance challenges.

Robinhood asserts that its latest initiative follows all necessary regulatory guidelines this time. The company said it has engaged with the CFTC to ensure compliance, with Mackenzie stating:

“We’re excited to offer our customers a new way to participate in prediction markets and look forward to doing so in compliance with existing regulations.”

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