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The news from Planet Ruby—Friday, May 24, 2024

• Signal: ETH
• Noise: Fed

It's been another big week for the markets, both crypto and TradFi.

In the TradFi world, the S&P made new all-time highs, while the DXY continued in its downward trend. Gold hit a fresh ATH on Monday at $2,450.

Nvidia released its Q1 earnings on Wednesday. These are seen as a critical bellwether for the wider markets, and any sign of slowdown would have had significant implications. In the event, the company smashed analysts' expectations with a 600% increase in profits over Q1 2023, sending its shares soaring almost 10% to over $1,000. With a $2.6 trillion market cap, the chip maker is the third-largest company on the planet.

Things were looking bullish until Thursday, when markets started to digest the idea that the Fed wasn't ready to cut rates just yet. The result was a broad sell-off across all risk assets, as the DXY turned back up over 105. We don't expect a major rally in risk until that turns down again.

In the UK, Wednesday's inflation figures for April showed a marked decline from last month: Down from 3.2% to 2.3%, though still slightly above the Bank of England's forecast of 2.1%. This discrepancy has delayed the chances of an interest rate cut for June.

Crypto's Watershed Week

It was a huge week for crypto. Bitcoin staged a strong recovery last week, kicking off what looks like the next major leg of the bull market. BTC slammed back through $70k on Monday, though dipped on Thursday along with everything else, despite a raft of good news for the digital asset industry.

Craig Wright Is A Fraud

On Monday, Justice Mellor finally dropped the full written judgment on the Craig Wright/COPA case. It comes in at 231 pages, though this includes the evidence seen in the trial. It's a banger, containing phrases such as "not nearly as clever as he thinks he is", "a most serious abuse of this Court’s process", "the deliberate production of false documents to support false claims and use the Courts as a vehicle for fraud", and "the case that Dr Wright is not Satoshi Nakamoto is overwhelming".

Words used to describe Wright and his evidence include "mendacious", "clumsy", "laughable", and "technobabble". It remains to be seen whether there will be perjury charges.

The SEC Does A Swift 180

On Tuesday, ETH soared 20% on rumors that the SEC would approve the ETF after all. The agency's lack of engagement with ETF providers had meant most analysts had written off the possibility that this would happen by the Thursday deadline. A near-overnight political shift occurred as dozens of Democrats realized that crypto is a major election issue, and sided with Republicans in a key vote to thwart the SEC and allow banks to custody crypto. Pressure on the SEC from the same source also seems to have resulted in that 180-degree shift in stance on the ETH ETFs, which were duly approved on Thursday.

One of the key reasons for this sudden interest by Democrats seems to be Donald Trump making overtures to the crypto world: A substantial bloc of voters. As yet, we have no firm commitments from him, other than that he will accept crypto for donations.

Out With The Old

That wasn't all, though. Grayscale CEO Michael Sonnenshein stepped down, as did the anti-crypto FDIC Chair, Martin Gruenberg, who resigned after a workplace harassment probe. Gruenberg was a pivotal figure in Operation Choke Point 2.0, which targeted the digital asset industry.

All in all, it's been a remarkable week for crypto. Despite the sell-off, there are certainly "and then you win" vibes in the air.

What's New In The SKALEVERSE?

Wen marketing? NAOW! The SKALE Foundation has hired Andrew Saunders, former CMO of Arbitrum, to head up their marketing and growth efforts. Colonel Saunders, we salute you!

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