GM friends,
The R-word is back again.
Recession fears crashed the markets this week. Crypto investors everywhere are scrambling to find yet more fiat scam coins to buy the dip…again.
Here’s what’s in today’s issue:
- Rebecca shares her thoughts on the US economy’s struggles, crypto’s Q2 earnings results, TON and Telegram expanding & the California DMV adding car titles to Avalanche.
- Altcoin alpha by David.
- This week’s airdrop by Jesse.
- Sam has an NFT report on Doodles moving from PFPs to media and entertainment.
Is This The Final Capitulation?
Bitcoin finally broke out…to the downside!
Over $312 million was liquidated from the crypto market within 24 hours as Bitcoin slid to $62K.
Bitcoin’s Bollinger Bands promised volatility and we got it. Just not in the direction we were hoping for. The dump was part of a broader market sell-off due to recession concerns.
This week has seen a string of concerning data points for the US economy:
- poor Q2 earnings results
- more job layoffs announced
- weekly jobless claims up to 249,000
- unemployment rate up to 4.3%
- ISM manufacturing index drops to 46.8
But still, no interest rate cut for the US.
It looks like the interest rate hikes that have already happened are finally impacting the labor market.
So you’d think the market would welcome Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s announcement about a possible September rate cut. Yet, the opposite happened.
Concerns are that the Fed has overdone it with the hikes and left it too late to cut. By the time the cuts filter through into the market, who knows the damage that will have been done?
Typically, the US would be the first market to cut rates, with the rest of the world following its lead. But with GDP growth up, the Fed has stuck with the higher for longer narrative.
Even the UK finally pivoted this week and cut rates from 5.25% to 5%. So the US is quickly becoming the lone wolf.
Let’s hope the US isn’t about to head into a recession…we’re in the middle of a bull market here!
All we can do now is hope unemployment doesn’t spiral and pray for enough money printing to resume the rally. There’s now a 69% probability of a 50-basis point Fed rate cut in September!
Do you think the Fed has everything under control? Reply to this email and let us know.
Crypto’s Q2 Earnings Results
Q2 earnings season for crypto companies has been a mixed bag—record profits, stinking losses and a bullish Bitcoin promise. Here’s the rundown:
Tether’s Record Profits
USDT issuer Tether has announced $5.2 billion in record profits for the first half of 2024. Tether’s total amount of US Treasury Bills also hit a new all-time high of $97.6 billion.
Whilst Tether’s Bitcoin balance dropped in Q2, this appears to be due to Bitcoin’s falling price not because Tether’s been selling, which is reassuring.
MicroStrategy’s $2B Bitcoin Promise
It’s no surprise to hear that MicroStrategy bought another 169 Bitcoins for $11.4 million in July, taking its total holdings to 226,500 BTC.
Let’s skip over the Q2 losses due to Bitcoin’s drop in price and cut straight to the mother of all Bitcoin promises… MicroStrategy plans to raise $2 billion to buy more BTC. That’s insane!
With this in mind, MicroStrategy expects its Bitcoin holdings…
