TL；DR

Market Outlook

• Bullish Sentiment on Crypto Market: Jeff is optimistic about the current market, citing Bitcoin’s stability at $108,000 earlier in 2025 leading to an all-time high. The altcoin index reached 70 last week, signaling a bull market, though it has since dropped to 40.

• Resilience to Negative Events: The market remained unaffected by a whale moving 80k Bitcoins after a decade or potential trade deals with China and Europe, indicating strong investor confidence.

• Macroeconomic Factors: The upcoming CPI data and Federal Reserve’s potential September 2025 rate cut are key uncertainties. While a rate cut is uncertain (5-to-3 split among major banks), conditions may improve in 2026 with a new Fed chair.

• Ordinals and Runes Potential: Runes may lead a revival in Bitcoin Layer 1 assets, with BRC-20’s appeal tied to cultural narratives rather than technology. Projects like Node Monks ($9,000 floor price) and Puppets ($6,000) show renewed Ordinals activity.

Merlinchain Developments

• BTCFi Staking Opportunities: Merlinchain offers Bitcoin staking with 8-21% annual yields (average 16%). Merlin token holders can stake in a daily vault (15% APY, 7-day cooldown) or a 6-month vault (45% APY).

• Wizard AI Product (Version 0.3): Wizard enables cross-chain trading, such as using 0.1 Bitcoin to buy $ANI tokens on Solana without needing gas fee assets. It supports taker orders and will add portfolio management features.

• Advanced Data Analysis: Wizard provides on-chain analytics (e.g., top wallets holding CAKE on BNB Chain) and social media sentiment analysis, with features like tracking top buyers/sellers in the past hour, set to launch after Wednesday, July 30, 2025.

• Future DeFi Enhancements: Plans include support for debit/credit cards and Apple Pay-like payment methods for future DeFi products to simplify token and NFT purchases.

Market Expansion

• Exchange Listings: Merlinchain was listed on Kraken, CoinOne, and Bithumb in July 2025, with Upbit as the next target. Bithumb’s altcoin volume is comparable to Coinbase but below Binance and OKX.

• Korean Market Engagement: Korea’s crypto enthusiasm (40% of adults trade) drives Merlinchain’s plan for five offline events during Korea Blockchain Week (late August to early September 2025), including university hackathons and a Bitcoin-themed event with CoinNess.

• Global Event Presence: Merlinchain will attend Japan’s WebX Festival (August 24, 2025) and a Bitcoin summit in Hong Kong (August 28, 2025), targeting institutional investors, contrasting with last year’s lively Hong Kong Web3 summit.

• Cultural Narrative Shift: In Korea, Merlinchain aims to reshape Bitcoin’s narrative through partnerships with Babylon and Solv, leveraging the active community and high trading volume.

Market Outlook

Bullish Sentiment on Crypto Market

JEFF：I feel a lot of pressure because in the past, we did lots of prediction and I think we are right most times, right? When Bitcoin was kind of staying there, I think 108K, I say if you can stay here for a couple of days, it will definitely go up. And then we saw the all-time high. And I’m definitely bullish because you see lots of moves on Bitcoin and altcoins as well, which is new because I think the altcoin index barely reached the alkaline bull market index last Tuesday. That’s the first time in three years because even last year the altcoin index is still very low, about 40, 50 something. But I think last week we reached 70 at one point, let me check right now. I think right now it’s 40, which is right? Because altcoins kind of got hurt last week, but I’m very bullish.

Resilience to Negative Events

JEFF：I don’t think anything will tank the market even the whale who didn’t move his Bitcoin for 10 years and sold 80k Bitcoin didn’t hurt the market. I don’t think the trade deals with China, with Europe will be bad at all. Macroeconomic FactorsJEFF：The only thing left is the CPI and if the Fed will lower the interest rate in September. But I’m pretty bullish at this moment. I don’t think in July or August, definitely, I think before it was eight banks, they predict the interest will be lower in September. Right now three of them are saying it’s not gonna happen. So it’s 5 to 3 right now. I mean, 5 to 3 right now. So I don’t know, I think the chance still good, but if it doesn’t happen, next year when the chairman resigns, definitely could be much better.

Ordinals and Runes Potentia

**JEFF：**I think Runes probably will be the first one to get a chance because BRC-20 definitely had a lot of attention that time. So it’s already on Binance basically every exchange. So it had a chance and it’s not doing very well right now, but Runes, they never had their chance before, but now it’s on Kraken and possibly on more exchanges as well. So let’s see if Runes actually take the chance and do something great. And then we probably will see rotation to other Bitcoin Layer 1 assets. But I don’t know, I think BRC-20 is a good thing, but I’m always honest, I don’t think so every time I say that, the truth in my mind because I think Bitcoin assets are always about the narrative, the culture. It’s never about the technology because if you want technology, go to Solana, go to Ethereum. So I think Runes actually get that, the Runes community gets that. So they’re pushing everything with culture, with narrative, not technical narrative, but Puppets, Wizard, MIM, DOG. But I’m still glad there are lots of people still building BRC-20, which is good. Unisat is probably the very few companies who are still working who are still building with Merlin.

Merlinchain Innovation

BTCFi Staking Opportunities

JEFF：You’re able to stake your Bitcoin over there and earn insane yield between 8 and 21%. I think it’s an average of 16%. It’s absolutely insane. If you have the Merlin token, you can stake it for 15% in a day-to-day vault. You have to wait 7 days for it to cool down or you can stake it in a long-term 6-month vault for 45 APY. Absolutely insane. Really excited for what they’re building on Merlin.

Wizard AI Product (Version 0.3)

JEFF：Basically it’s a chain section so you don’t need to have the assets’ gas fee on BNB chain, Ethereum, anymore. You can use your assets from different chains to trade on different chains. So that’s something we encourage users to do, just hold Bitcoin and then use Bitcoin to do risky investment, buying ANY tokens. And when you’re done buying that, you have some profits or you have some loss, doesn’t matter. You can sell that token and change back to Bitcoin. Right now, we don’t support all the maker, but we only support taker because most right now, most tax, they only accept a taker and we are trying to support that in the future, but with DEX, the hard part is you cannot do exact for example, 30% profits. You cannot exactly do that because we can only tell you, okay, right now the price is about 30% higher than what you bought, but when you sell first, there are lots of transactions on second, the liquidity you will know. So sometimes with slippage, you probably only have 25%, 28%, or, in the worst case scenario you could even have a loss. So right now we only do tapers, so you want to buy, you can buy, you want to sell, you can sell. So the time you sell, you can see the P&L on that trade and in the future, when you add more features, you can see portfolios and stuff. But right now we don’t want to do too complicated.

Advanced Data Analysis

**JEFF：**That’s going to be the easiest question you can ask. So the question we are trying to roll is, okay, who is buying any token in the past hour, who is buying the most or who is dumping the most any tokens in the past hour? Because sometimes you see a huge pump for the token. So you want to say, who is buying and you can see that information on any other platform, but you can definitely see that on the Wizard and sometimes you see the price going down, what the hell? Who is dumping the token? And it will give you the top five address, top 10 addresses, who is dumping the token? So these kind of questions and answers are the ones that we’re trying to bring users? We’re using different solutions to get the data from the chains, APIs, RPC. For Conflux, basically three parts: first is overview, tell you the brief information. The second part is about the price and performance, who is buying, the volume liquidation on chain OI, and the third part is going to be the social media sentiment, so who is talking about that token because sometimes you see a token going up or going down, the mantra thing, the story, the crazy news every day with OP, just because OP got listed on Upbit, the Korean people are buying right now. So, when you see some token going crazy up or crazy down, you should ask the Wizard because it will tell you what’s going on. And I think the social media sentiment part is my favorite part because you can see many people, they’re talking about this, what’s the pros, what’s cons, what is the good news about this? And you basically can get an overview of what’s going on today in just one second.

Future DeFi Enhancements

JEFF: I think definitely, but probably not Merlinchain. We are chain, right? But on different DeFi we’re going to have in the future, definitely debit card, credit cards, all this using home pay, all of that can be supported and we want users to buy tokens or NFTs easier, of course.

Market Expansion

Exchange Listings

JEFF：I think last week the biggest news is probably getting listed on Bithumb. I think we covered this in the past months that we’re trying to get listed everywhere. July is pretty good for us because we got listed on Kraken, on CoinOne and on Bithumb. So in Korea there are three regulated exchanges in Bithumb, CoinOne and Upbit. So Upbit is probably the next one we need. And the Korean market is kind of crazy, always active.

Korean Market Engagement

JEFF：We got lots of messages from the Korean community and we’re going to have at least five offline events in Korea in late August and early September. And the Korean market is kind of crazy, always active. They don’t like Bitcoin narrative that much, to be honest with you guys. But that’s something we need to change. So we are planning to have offline events with Babylon, with SolRock, trying to change the narrative there. So basically KBW is the event that young people like to go, every event is crazy. The latest one started at 4 a.m. and 9 a.m. and I don’t know how these people can still work, actually. And last time, every time I was trying to sleep at 4 a.m. in the morning and they say, oh, come on, the party just started, just join the event.

Global Event Presence

JEFF：We’re going to have at least five offline events in Korea in late August and early September. We’re planning to have offline events with Babylon and Solv, trying to change the narrative there. The first one we are working with three to four major Korean universities, hackathons, but with college students. So we’re going to have some adapt their product manager. They’re trying to build something for Bitcoin, and there’s another one we’re doing with CoinNess, which is the biggest media in Korea. So we’re going to have a BTC Bitcoin theme event. And we’re going to Japan, their biggest crypto event, WebX Festival, around August 24. Also, on August 28, in Hong Kong, there’s going to be a Bitcoin summit held by Bitcoin Magazine, so that one is probably more facing institutions because there are lots of companies in Hong Kong trying to do something with Bitcoin, Nasdaq companies. But the only difference here is Nasdaq companies can actually get money from market to buy Bitcoin, but in Hong Kong it’s not legal yet, so the Bitcoin summit will be pretty good too, but not crazy like last time. We have the all in all summit in Hong Kong.