5. Fed hikes into crisis

With Banks collapsing all around him, Fed Chair Powell delivered another 25 basis points rate hike. This brings the Fed rate to its highest level in 17 years. Powell flirted with the idea of pausing rates at the next meeting but ruled out cuts later this year. Meanwhile in banks

4. PacWest latest bank wobble

With First Republic now safely ensconced in Jamie Dimon’s welcoming arms, and Powell definitely ignoring the banking crisis, the hungry maw of market skepticism has turned to PacWest (PACW) who are now looking to sell themselves after their shares plunged 58% yesterday.

3. Nocoiners (and Hamas) discover blockchain audibility

Terrorist organization-turned-government Hamas recently stopped using Bitcoin for donations because of its traceability. Nocoiners and anti-coiners jumped on the news to score haha points, only to have it pointed out to them that Bitcoiners have long talked about its audibility as, you know, a public ledger.

2. RFK Jr the Pro-Crypto Candidate?

Dark horse Democrat Presidential candidate Robert F Kennedy Jr has criticized the proposed 30% Bitcoin mining tax just days after announcing his candidacy. Kennedy is standing on a platform of anti-establishment positions. Whether his crypto stance is just a part of that contrarian stance or a more deeply held conviction, the crypto crew is glad to see it enter mainstream discourse.

1. Bitcoin Memecoins

The Bitcoin feature that no one asked for has been introduced via Ordinal inscriptions, memecoins. The BRC-20 token standard has hacked its way to a $120M market cap. The tokens don’t do anything and the market is primitive, but BRC-20 minting and trading is driving Bitcoin fees to all time highs. The rise of Bitcoin memecoins is driving (so far healthy) debates around the true purpose of BTC. (BTW if you’re interested in BRC20 - subscribe to Bitcoin Builders — we’re going deep on it this week)

Latest Episode

Thanks for reading -NLW