CNBC’s Tanaya Macheel joins ‘Halftime Report’ to discuss the latest news on the top crypto names in the market.

Bitcoin has achieved a new all-time high, surpassing $118,000 for the first time. This milestone was driven by a substantial wave of short liquidations, with over $650 million liquidated in a single day, and record inflows into Bitcoin ETFs exceeding $1 billion. The rise follows recent Federal Reserve minutes, which acted as a catalyst for market activity.

Institutional demand and favorable regulatory conditions are supporting the upward trend, with investors noting limited downside risk in the current environment. Ethereum has also shown strong performance, outperforming Bitcoin in recent months and attracting significant ETF inflows. Market participants are watching for further developments, including potential ETF launches for other cryptocurrencies like Solana.

Bitcoin hits another all-time high

Let's talk some Bitcoin. Hitting higher highs, traded about 118K for the very first time today. Let's bring in Tanaya McKeel, who's been following that story. What can you tell us? Yeah, Scott, quite different from the May 22 high, which was more of a blip at the front of a two-month consolidation period, as many investors called it, despite a 15% gain. The rise started this week after the Fed minutes on Wednesday. That triggered a massive wave of short liquidations that pushed the price up. I think the biggest wave this year, more than $650 million liquidated in the past 24 hours. Meanwhile, Bitcoin ETFs seeing their biggest day of inflows this year, yesterday at more than $1 billion. Now, investors, of course, expected new records in the second half, given a strong institutional demand and regulatory tailwinds. It's hard in my conversations for a lot of investors to identify downside risk. And historically, July is a strong month for Bitcoin. It'd probably take a macro event to hit or suppress prices. Macro catalysts, of course, are typically fewer in the summer, and investors tend to pare back their risk. I'd watch the Fed meeting at the end of the month, knowing how split Fed officials are and how aggressively to cut. And, of course, ETH coming back to life, so much so that we have this new crop of ETH treasury stocks for investors to play. ETH outperforming Bitcoin in the last two months and really roaring this week. ETH ETFs saw their second biggest day of inflows yesterday. Scott? All right, Tanaya, thank you for that. Good setup, Tanaya McKeel. Josh Brown, what do you think here? I'm long Bitcoin. I don't really have a target or any idea of where it's going. I've been involved for a really long time, since about 3000, I think, and intend to stay. Recently, I've taken a much bigger interest in Solana. Solana probably gets an ETF at some point between now and the end of the year. This will raise awareness and drive a lot more people to learn about what it is and why it matters. The most important thing the viewers need to understand about Solana is if you believe in the tokenization theme, that we're going to start tokenizing everything from farmland to buildings to the stock market, etc. This is the best vehicle because of the amount of throughput, the amount of transactions you can do every minute in Solana is higher than any other layer one. So that's the first thing that people need to understand. The second thing is the more activity in Solana, the higher the amount of burning off tokens, which means decreasing supply. So this is the way that I would think about the opportunity going forward in crypto. Still long Bitcoin. It's hard to believe Bitcoin could 1000x again, whereas some of the smaller tokens have more of a chance to be bigger winners prospectively looking out forward. You feel like there's enough, for lack of a better word, bandwidth, investor bandwidth, to focus outside of the pure play Bitcoin itself. You know, you can't do what I'm describing with Solana. You can't do with Bitcoin. So stable, so stable coins are already a gigantic asset class in and of themselves. They have nothing to do with the things that you can do with Bitcoin. They have their own use case and people are putting money into stable coins for different reasons than they might put money into another type of crypto. So the number one thing that we need to do now that this is a maturing asset class that's got both government support and institutional sponsorship, we need to stop thinking about these things monolithically like it's all one trade. That's a very primitive way of thinking about crypto. Now we need to start thinking about use cases that actually have a chance of becoming real. And again, one of the big drivers of Bitcoin last year was the introduction of the ETFs. There was no Solana ETF. There's a trust that you can buy off market, but you cannot buy this in a brokerage account yet. I think that'll come given the Trump administration's stance toward the asset class.

A preliminary report depicted confusion in the cockpit shortly before an Air India jetliner crashed, killing 260 people last month, after the plane's engine fuel cutoff switches almost simultaneously flipped, starving the engines of fuel.

Ahmedabad

Air India crash report shows confusion over engine switch movement

An Israeli airstrike hit Palestinians near a medical center in Gaza on Thursday, killing 10 children and six adults, local health authorities said, as ceasefire talks dragged on with no immediate deal expected. This report contains graphic and disturbing images.

Jerusalem

Middle East Conflict

Israeli strike kills children near medical clinic in Gaza

Russian strikes against Ukraine persisted overnight and reportedly injured at least nine people and caused damage to a maternity hospital, according to officials. This comes as President Volodymyr Zelenskyy meets with European allies in Rome.

Kyiv

Ukraine Invasion

Russia launches more strikes, damages Ukraine maternity hospital

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is returning to Israel without a ceasefire deal with Hamas despite optimism from the Trump administration. CBS News' Elizabeth Palmer reports.

Tel Aviv-Yafo

Netanyahu returns to Israel without Gaza ceasefire deal

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids in California turned violent after protesters clashed with agents from the Trump administration carrying out an operation at a Camarillo farm.

Camarillo

Protesters clash with ICE agents over immigration operation

CNN’s Isa Soares explains how a crippling 50% tariff on goods from Brazil may not be all about the economy.

Washington

Global Tariffs

Trump targets Brazil with 50% tariff

Volunteers in Texas are searching for flood victims and combing through debris along a 30 mile stretch of the Guadalupe River. CNN’s Ed Lavandera spoke with Texans who are coming together to bring closure to their community.

Center Point

Urgent search operations for flood victims stretch miles in Texas

U.S. President Donald Trump said the United States would impose a 35% tariff on imports from Canada next month and planned to impose blanket tariffs of 15% or 20% on most other trade partners.

Trump puts 35% tariff on Canada, eyes 15%-20% levies for others

Volunteers in Comfort, Texas, are digging through debris with heavy equipment and cadaver dogs, searching for flood victims. U.S. President Donald Trump is set to visit Friday, raising questions about his plan to scale back federal disaster relief.

Texas

Volunteers dig through Texas flood wreckage ahead of Trump visit

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio have held rare face-to-face talks on the sidelines of an ASEAN meeting in Malaysia, discussing the war in Ukraine, as well as developments in Iran and Syria.

Kuala Lumpur

Top U.S., Russia diplomats discuss Ukraine on ASEAN sidelines

Russia has intensified its aerial attacks on Ukraine, using upgraded drones designed to cause more damage and evade air defences. In Kyiv, a young woman captured video of the drones overhead — just before explosions echoed through the city.

Russia’s upgraded drone tactics bring intensified attacks across Ukraine

The Ventura County Fire Department said they responded to calls of people having breathing problems at a farm in Ventura County, California, after federal agents appeared to deploy tear gas canisters into the crowd.

Ventura County

Intense standoff in California between protesters, federal agents

A federal judge has green-lit a class action lawsuit challenging President Trump's executive order to end birthright citizenship and issued a preliminary injunction blocking the order.

Judge blocks Trump's birthright citizenship order

A partial tunnel collapse in Los Angeles temporarily buried 31 workers in Los Angeles, California. CBS News' Carter Evans reports on the rescue operation.

Los Angeles

31 trapped workers rescued after tunnel collapse

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio expressed “disappointment and frustration” over continued Russian attacks on Ukraine and said new sanctions on Russia are a “real option.” Kylie Atwood has more details from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Rubio: New Russia sanctions a ‘real option’

With Russia again bombarding Ukraine with drones, U.S. President Donald Trump says he’s considering sending another missile defence system to Ukraine.

Trump muses missile defence system for Ukraine

Officials in Texas are promising to address concerns about flood warnings in parts of the state, but say the ongoing search-and-rescue efforts must be complete first.

Texas officials to address flood warnings after search complete

Linda Yaccarino is stepping down as CEO of X after two years leading Elon Musk's social media company. Yaccarino's departure comes one day after the company's Grok chatbot began pushing antisemitic tropes in responses to users.

San Francisco

Yaccarino steps down as CEO of Elon Musk's X

Parts of Ukraine were on fire overnight after Russia launched its largest drone attack on Ukraine since the war unfolded. Just hours earlier, Trump directly called out Vladimir Putin for stalled peace talks.

Moscow

Trump calls out Putin for stalled peace talks

The Trump administration branded the event as one of the steps it is taking to reshape its relationship with the African continent.

Five African leaders have lunch with Trump

The search continues in central Texas for the more than 160 people still missing from the deadly floods that hit over the Fourth of July. CBS News reporter Karen Hua has more.

Kerr County

Recovery operations ongoing in Texas as more than 160 still missing

U.S. President Donald Trump announced on social media that he issued tariff letters to Algeria, Brunei, Iraq, Libya, Moldova and the Philippines.

Trump sends tariff letters to six more countries

Video released by the Houthi media center shows the bulk carrier ‘Magic Seas’ being attacked and later sinking in the Iran-backed rebel group’s first attack this year on a commercial shipping vessel in the Red Sea.

Sana'a

Houthi rebels claim responsibility for attack on ship in Red Sea

The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg ruled Russia violated international law in Ukraine and was responsible for the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17.

Top European court rules Russia violated international law in Ukraine

The death toll from the July Fourth flash flood that ravaged a swath of central Texas Hill Country rose on Tuesday to at least 109, many of them children, as search teams pressed on through mounds of mud-encrusted debris looking for scores of people still missing.

Texas flood death toll hits triple digits, tally of missing tops 180

U.S. President Donald Trump pushed back during his Cabinet meeting about a question regarding Jeffrey Epstein. The DOJ claims Epstein had no list of clients, which is drawing criticism from some of the president's supporters.

Trump questioned over report saying Epstein didn't have client list

The copper industry is facing new uncertainty after U.S. President Donald Trump said he will impose 50 per cent tariffs on all copper imports. More than half of all Canadian copper exports go to the U.S.

Ontario

Trump threatens 50% tariff on copper imports

CNN’s Josh Cambell reports on questions over a lack of flood warning signals and lagging investment in river gauges in Kerr County after deadly floods killed over 100 people in Central Texas.

Officials face questions over preparedness for Texas floods

Hundreds of firefighters battled a fast-moving wildfire that reached the outskirts of the southern French city of Marseille on Tuesday, forcing people to stay indoors and the nearby airport to close.

Marseille

France wildfire shuts down Marseille airport

Liverpool's Portuguese forward Diogo Jota was probably speeding when the Lamborghini car he was driving crashed in northwestern Spain, killing him and his brother, police said in a preliminary report.