GM Legends,

Bitcoin is getting uncomfortably close to falling off a cliff whilst Ethereum is actually holding up fairly well ahead of the final Goreli testnet on March 14th.

Another wild week in crypto as Silvergate goes for liquidation, the Kava network gets its day in the spotlight and Shibarium will finally be launching this week.

Today we look at Senator Elizabeth Warrens's attack on Jerome Powell as she subtly hints at “Fire the Fed chair!”

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Here's what's inside today.

🔥 The big topic. Elizabeth Warren calls out Jerome Powell, “FIRE THE FED!”

🗞 Hot crypto news. The Mt Gox deadline moves again, US Gov moves $1bn BTC… ready to dump? Is Grayscale beating the SEC? AND MORE.

👀 Updates across the bloc. DeFi Llama’s new Google Chrome Extension, Perpy Finance updated public sale details + Level Finance Partnership, SEI Network airdrop alpha AND MORE.

🛡 Chart of the day. It’s REKT or RICHES for $BTC, which is it?

🧵 Thread of the day. ERC-what-a-ma-bob?! Rohan_0g simplifies what the Ethereum ERC-4337 means for us normies.

🔥 The big topic.

Warren calls out J Powell during Testimony

Fire the FED and do it with haste!

That was Senator Elizabeth Warren’s (Warren) implied message this week as she laid into Fed Chair Jerome Powell (JP) during his testimony in front of the Senate Banking Committee.

She said: “You cling to the idea that there’s only one solution: lay off millions of workers. We need a Fed that will fight for families. And if you're not going to lead that charge, we need someone at the Fed who will.”

Here are the important bits you need to pay attention to.

The TLDR of JP’s testimony

March was always going to be a bump-and-grind kind of month but I don't think investors were quite expecting how hawkish JP was going to be.

The key takeaways from his speech were:

1. Economic data is too strong, which means;

2. The job’s not finished and;

3. We aren’t afraid to pick the pace up because;

4. The goal is STILL 2% so;

5. We are still focusing on boosting unemployment 🤦‍♂️

Steady, folks… we’re in for a bumpy ride (again) and 50 basis points might be on the cards.

It looks like “easing”, “soft landing” and “disinflationary” were all just memes. Kinda like “inflation is transitory” and “Bitcoin is a hedge against inflation.”

It’s a PvP world out there, wield your strong set of armour and weapons and be prepared.

Enter Senator Elizabeth Warren

Warren absolutely ripped into JP and rightly so, with his job-killing rate hikes, lack of remorse and economic plan that might not actually be working.

Right now, JP sees only one solution. That’s to get the American workforce fired and do it with haste.

Ideally, we would need to see unemployment increase by a full 1% which means 2 million hard-working Americans are left without a job.

Warren then point blankly asks JP: “what he would say and how he would explain to these 2 million people that being laid off is a necessary evil?!”

JP responded the only way he could by saying: “Will working people be better off if we just walk away from our jobs and inflation rebounds?”

Wait a minute, zoom out. The world is still at war, there are still supply chain issues and big players are still gouging prices. All of which, increasing rates won’t help fix.

Not a position I’d like to be in anytime soon!

What did he say about crypto?

JP did have some words to say about our darling crypto industry.

Saying: “despite the mess of the industry right now, we don’t want to strangle crypto innovation” and “somewhere in there, is some good tech that can make people's lives better.”

Duhhhh that’s what we’ve been preaching since the first Satoshi was created.

JP went on to talk about how banks to proceed with caution when dealing with crypto after Silvergate’s mass exodus of clients and subsequent chart that now looks like a rug pull.

He touched on stablecoins and how congress needs to provide a legal framework for banks, exchanges and issuers to work within. It’ll be interesting to see how the BCB group plug the gap Silvergate has left and what The Bank of Kraken actually looks like.

Our Take

Volatility… lots of volatility this month.

Expect a lot of chops, limited hopium and a market that is riddled with uncertainty as we wait for JP’s decision on how high the next set of rate hikes are after “softening the blow” during Wednesday's testimony.

🗞 Hot crypto news.

🐮 Bullish News

“Wallet as a Service” by CoinBase is a new business and concept that will allow companies to customise their wallets for their customers. If customisation and onboarding become truly seamless this could be a way to onboard the “next hundred million customers into Web3.”

Mt Gox deadline moved… again. Originally set for March 10th, the registration and repayment dates have been pushed back until April 6th. Hopefully, this gives Bitcoin a breath of fresh air for the rest of March.

Grayscale takes the lead as the SEC gets grilled by Judge Rao for the lack of explanation as to why the GBTC trust “cannot be converted into an ETF” and how it views the “relationship between bitcoin futures and spot price.” It’s quite possible the Judge tells the SEC to back to the drawing board.

🐻 Bearish News

Silvergate to voluntarily liquidate whilst shutting up shop and bringing its operations to an end. According to its liquidation plan, all deposits will be repaid but didn’t say how it plans to resolve the claims held against the business.

Bidens bid against tax loss harvesting might become a thing as Biden’s latest budget talks, revealed today, will include a provision to close the “crypto tax loss harvesting loophole" for investors. Another blow for the US crypto scene if approved.

The $1bn Bitcoin move by US Government tracked wallets. On Tuesday Glassnode and Peckshield report that of the 40,000 Bitcoin being moved, 9,861 was deposited onto CoinBase but is it with the intention to sell? If so, market dump or OTC?

👀 Updates across the bloc.

Project Updates

DeFi LLama has released its official Google Chrome extension which helps protect you against phishing scams, an enhanced etherscan experience and improved token prices.

Eth Denver has been and gone but what actually happened? A thread from 0xJim mentions the big topical areas were modularity and interoperability protocols.

FactorDAO has released a step-by-step guide on understanding the power of veFCTR, the driving force behind Factor ecosystem dynamics.

Moonrock Finance is now live on Arbitrum offering users the ability to trade LSETH, JPG and… CPI. Yes, they have actually created a token that tracks CPI. Considered as a “basket of inflation-resistant stablecoins” tracking US price inflation.

Pendle Fi has once again given the alpha in their discord before it hits Twitter. Gains pool, gGAI went live on March 8th.

Perpy Finance has updated its public sale mechanics after receiving constructive comments from the community plus they’re going cross-chain, partnering with one of BSC's hot projects, Level Finance.

Sei Network has been building since the podcast we did back in August with the team and is on track to one of Cosmo’s BIGGEST airdrops. You can gain access to $SEI through testnet usage, being an ambassador, LUNC victim, dYdX trader and ATOM stacker.

Shibarium public beta is coming this week. We spoke about it on Tuesday as a hot narrative to watch.

Spice Finance (aggregated NFT lending liquidity) Prologue Leverage Release is set for March 20th. Here’s a deep dive into Prologue Leverage.

Governance Updates

AaveGotchi is in the final stages of voting to turn off the bonding curve leading into a new era of $GHST. Vote 1 includes delisting Dai from the bonding curve and vote 2 will see the delisted Dai moved to 4 separate multisig wallets.

Trader Joe is in the snapshot phase to open BETS-AVAX Market on Avalanche to capture increased liquidity, voting ends March 10th.

MakerDAO is reviewing a proposal to extend its existing US treasury bond investments from $500 million to $1.25 billion by investing the additional $750 million into a 6-month US Treasury ladder strategy.

🛡 Chart of the day.

It’s rekt or riches for $BTC

It’s been a slow bleed out this week for Bitcoin and the daily chart doesn’t look great right now.

The 200 EMA and diagonal trend have been breached with the $20,000 psychological level potentially in the line of sight of the bears. RSI is still trending to the downside as traders sit sidelined waiting for the FED’s next move.

Bull case. We’re down, but not out as the market digests tomorrow’s unemployment numbers positively giving a short-term rebound back towards $23,000

Bear case. We’re down and don’t stop as the market runs in fear dipping prices down towards $20,000.

Coming up next week.

CPI on Tuesday, PPI on Wednesday. If they go against what the FED is trying to do… it’s probably best to take a vacay for the rest of March.

🧵 Thread of the day.

ERC-what-a-ma-bob?! Yeah that ERC thing that was in the news the other day was a pretty big deal. But with a name like ERC-what-were-the-numbers-again?!

Oh yea, ERC-4337 is a highly important update that will impact normies like you and me. Rohan_0g breaks down in simple terms what it actually means.

And on that note, thanks for reading, catcha apes in the next edition!

blocmates team 🫡

🤝 A final word.

A quick word from our super awesome sponsors who help us make this all possible...

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