💸 I Smell Freshly Printed Money. Is QE Back?

🗞 Market commentary.

GM, do you enjoy the discipline of macroeconomics?

In our case it’s more akin to “larponomics”, but even then, we, as the ones who lived through the stimmy check era of the Covid time, can detect the scent of good old quantitative easing from afar.

So, just as we experienced the first truly scary dump of this bull run during this week, Powell stepped in to save the day by leaving current interest rates as they are (FOMC summary here). More intriguingly, the US Treasury followed up and announced plans for its first treasury buyback operation since 2002. Is the liquidity situation so dire that it's necessary to provide it for the deepest and most liquid market in the world?

Additionally, Powell is now hinting that it might be appropriate to slow down the pace of quantitative tightening. And would you look at this good old M2 chart, which tracks the US money supply: it just flipped back into year-on-year growth for the first time after an 18-month contraction.

We’ve reached our long-awaited $58K area on Bitcoin. The Japanese Yen is literally breaking down so severely that it has already required three emergency interventions, and the “FED economy” seems like it needs an injection after a long, painful withdrawal.

We’ll keep watching this as we go, and if you enjoy these kinds of rants, definitely watch all the Exit Liquidity episodes on our YouTube channel, where we have actual experts diving into this stuff.

📊 Luke’s Chart of the Day

NEAR/USDT Binance 1D Log Chart

NEAR has had 2 moves up and a 3rd drive higher looks to be in the making. The last run took us from the $2.70 area to $9. The 2.618 fib extension for a new run tops out at the Jan. ‘22 all-time high of $20.60, which would be ~3x from the current price. RSI has just made a new higher low, riding a long-term trendline that dates back to October ‘23. An all-time high would be a logical place to take some spot profits. It’s likely we will consolidate there before price discovery.

NFA as per usual, please always do your own research.

Come by the Lucky Luke Discord channel for comments, to roast my picks or to pump your own bags. All banter is welcome any time!

🔥 Degen corner.

Friend Tech is dead. Long live Fantasy.

Friend Tech V2 seems like an obvious flop, as all the Sybil accounts dump their tokens today. Fantasy on Blast, on the other hand, chose a perfect time to launch and vampire attack the renewed SocialFi attention.

Lots of big accounts that previously farmed FT are now pumping massive amounts of ETH into Fantasy, specifically into its cards and card packs.

If you want to play and level up your cards, farm the upcoming token, and earn Blast gold, just follow these steps:

And that’s it! I have to say this new SocialFi thingy is fun and already has massive engagement from small and huge accounts as well. New Friend Tech season, but on Blast? This time I’m playing…

👀 DeFi insights.

The important bits.

• Eigenpie (LRT) - Reaches $430m TVL at $3M market cap - read

• Drift (Perp. DEX) - Airdrop eligibility dropping soon - read

• Kamino (DeFi) - Airdrop claims are live - read

• Aave (DeFi) -  Debuts V4 roadmap - read

• Elixir (Modular blockchain tech) - Elixir is now dominating orderbook liquidity - read

• Vertex (Orderbook DEX) - Integrates with Skate Chain - read

• IntentX (Intent-based DEX) - Complete Galaxy quests to win INTX token - read

• Smilee Finance (DeFi) - New Impernament Gain vaults opened (rewards) - readMantle (L2) - Integrates with Karak - read

📰 DeFi news.

Even more important bits.

• EYWA Protocol raised $7MM led by Michael Egorov - read

• Logos inscribes its manifesto on largest-ever Bitcoin block - read

• FriendTech's token price plunges over 90% after launch - read

• Bitcoin to go above $70,000 amid 'stealth money printing’ - Arthur Hayes - read

• Dutch authorities arrest ZKasino team member - read

• Hong Kong’s spot ETFs experience decline in bitcoin inflows - read

• Coinbase's Q1 earnings jump to $1.6 billion - read

🫠 ICYMI.

Life gets busy so here’s what you’ve missed.

How To Find Solana Memecoins/Shitcoins Early (Without Being an Insider)

Podcast

Grant has filmed a walkthrough of exactly how to go about finding new shitcoins, including wallet set-up, spotting red flags, and, more importantly, the formula of picking early winners.

Tune in YouTube →

🐥 Tweet of the day.

To save you doom scrolling.

I’m not sure if this is funny, or actually very scary Arnaud. But listen to the Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers explain how money printing works…

What are we doing here?

🦍 And finally…

I’ll be watching the Celestia chart. I have a feeling we have a little modular hype coming back by the end of this month.

And what’s connected to that kind of hype? That’s right, Berachain. We’ll keep you posted.

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