Plus: What do SBF and Al Capone have in widespread?
GM. The one factor getting squeezed tougher than this lemon is that poor altcoin down 40%.
📰 Updates on the OM crash scenario.
🍋 Information drops: SBF will get transferred, Coinbase addresses memecoin points + extra
🍍 Market taste right now
Fed Chair Jerome Powell spoke yesterday – and when he does, markets normally listen.
Crypto ain’t no completely different – Bitcoin began wanting prefer it may make a run at $86K… till Powell opened his mouth.
What did he say? Nothing a lot. And that is the issue.
He mentioned that the brand new tariffs introduced by Trump had been approach bigger than anticipated, and warned that the uncertainty surrounding them may trigger long-term hurt to the economic system.
That is as a result of they’re setting us up for a troublesome combo:
Slower progress,
Rising unemployment,
And sooner inflation.
All occurring on the identical time. That’s a mixture the Fed hasn’t needed to take care of in about fifty years.
This issues as a result of the Fed has two principal targets: retaining inflation low and serving to the job market keep sturdy. Tariffs are actually threatening each.
And whereas the US economic system seems fairly okay for the second, Powell mentioned they’re gonna wait to see how issues play out earlier than doing something.
Translation: rates of interest are more likely to keep excessive for now
This implies crypto received’t be getting a lot assist from financial coverage until inflation actually begins to fall – and that prolly received’t occur earlier than summer time.
On a separate be aware, we additionally obtained new information on US retail gross sales – in March, they rose greater than they’ve in over two years.
That type of information must be good for crypto. When individuals are spending, it normally means they’ve obtained additional money and really feel assured = bullish.
However this time, it wasn’t about confidence – it was about panic. Folks had been shopping for stuff like automobiles and electronics earlier than tariffs ship costs by way of the roof.
And as Comerica Financial institution’s chief economist Invoice Adams mentioned, “It is onerous to be ok with People panic shopping for automobiles as client confidence craters” – as a result of as soon as the panic fades, demand will in all probability drop.
So yeah, the economic system’s in a bizarre place – shoppers are panic buying, tariffs are creating uncertainty, Powell’s on standby, and the crypto market is…
Confused.
🥝 Memecoin harvest
Shitposting their option to the highest:
Information as of 05:00 AM EST.
Try these memecoins and lots extra right here.
On Monday, we coated the wild story of Mantra DAO’s OM token crashing by 90%.
(If you happen to didn’t learn that version 🤨 or weren’t subscribed to us but 🤨 – go catch up right here.)
Now for the sequel: the Mantra workforce issued an announcement yesterday.
TL;DR: “We’re nonetheless right here, we’re nonetheless constructing, and no, we didn’t do it.”
Additionally they mentioned they didn’t promote a single OM throughout the entire thing and blamed the collapse on a wave of compelled liquidations. The idea: some large OM holders on centralized exchanges obtained worn out when the value dropped too low for his or her borrowed positions to remain open.
The workforce additionally introduced their plans shifting ahead:
Ask exchanges to assist clarify wtf occurred;
Launch a public dashboard exhibiting real-time balances of all the foremost token allocations (principally to show they’re not secretly promoting);
Purchase again and burn some OM tokens (and FYI: token burns = provide goes down = worth goes up possibly).
Now, this assertion got here after Mullin had a chat with YouTuber and crypto investigator Coffeezilla.
And, this submit just about sums it up:
Mullin doubled down: the workforce didn’t promote through the crash, they usually weren’t liquidated both.
However.
He did admit they’d beforehand bought $25M – $30M price of OM tokens – simply not on the open market.
As a substitute, they did what’s referred to as an OTC (over-the-counter) sale – that’s while you promote tokens on to buyers or establishments. Often, there’s a “lock-up” interval, which means these consumers can’t promote the tokens instantly.
If these consumers had dumped their tokens, that might’ve crashed the value. However Mullin insists the tokens are nonetheless locked, in order that could not have been the trigger.
Oh, and Mullin additionally mentioned they used about $10M from that OTC cash to purchase OM tokens again from the market.
Coffeezilla was then like… “umm, so that you had been pumping the value?” However Mullin denied that.
Anyhow, the issue now could be that these OTC tokens will unlock ultimately. And once they do, we’d see extra promoting stress.
Mullin was requested what occurs then – like, what if these buyers determine to dump all the pieces?
His reply: “We’ll proceed to construct out the ecosystem and help as a lot as we will so that folks have a cause to stake, maintain it, and proceed to see it as an asset.”
Total, there are nonetheless a ton of open questions – together with the largest one: what really prompted the crash within the first place?
However a minimum of now, we’ve obtained just a few extra items on the desk.
Now you are within the know. However take into consideration your folks – they in all probability don’t know. I’m wondering who may repair that… 😃🫵
Unfold the phrase and be the hero you might be!
🍋 Information drops
🚚 Sam Bankman-Fried obtained a brand new jail tackle – he’s now at Terminal Island in LA. Enjoyable reality: this is identical place the place Al Capone and Charles Manson did time.
😬 Coinbase says it had nothing to do with the “Base is for everybody memecoin” that blew as much as $17M after which crashed 90% in 20 minutes. They clarified that Base solely posted on Zora – a platform that turns posts into tokens – however the coin wasn’t official, they usually didn’t create or promote it.
💰 DWF Labs invested $25M in World Liberty Monetary (WLFI), a DeFi challenge backed by Donald Trump and his sons. The Dubai-based market maker says it plans to affix WLFI’s governance.
⏸ A US choose paused a lawsuit from 18 state attorneys basic and the DeFi Training Fund in opposition to the SEC. That’s as a result of the case may change into pointless when the SEC will get new management, because the authentic beef was about them going approach overboard with lawsuits in opposition to crypto corporations.
🚀 Bitwise dropped 4 new crypto ETPs on the London Inventory Change, overlaying Bitcoin and Ethereum. One even helps you to earn rewards by staking ETH.