🚀 WWIII FUD: Return To Chop Or Continue Higher?

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It’s wild how fast full-blown market euphoria can flip into black-swan panic. BTC got stopped in its tracks yesterday, with Israel and Iran once again preparing to obliterate each other. Will Israel push the button? For reference, here’s a list of all the other times Netanyahu threatened to send the nukes. Nothing ever happened.

Back to BTC: If we are still bullish, we want to see a strong bounce pretty soon. Perhaps this will be caused by de-escalation in the Middle East or something else. Nevertheless, if we see BTC close back below $106-104k, we might enter yet another choppy period. Let’s not get hasty, though. For now, everything still looks good.

A little bit of a warning flag is gold, which will likely rise as long as this war FUD goes on.

Nevertheless, the other side of the coin is that if Israel calms down, multiple bullish factors will come into play:

Trump is saying that the final deal with China “is Great.” USDT dominance still looks bearish. The indices just showed a historically accurate bull print, signalling a continuation higher for at least six months. The US PPI came in soft, once again cooling the inflation fears.

In summary: yes, there’s a chance we enter another frustrating crab phase. But zooming out, everything still points higher, and 2025 is certainly not shaping up to be a bear market year.

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The important bits.

• Giza is now the official sponsor of Nolas, read details here

• Altitude is preparing for its DeFi protocol public launch, read and prepare here

• Newton provides bonus Kaito rewards until the end of June, join here

• INFINIT lets you verify your DeFi agents, try out the new upgrade here

• Mira Network explains how it solves a $68b problem, read the thread here

• Fomo app upgrades and adds new functions, download and try it here

• Upside Season One is live, join here and learn how to bet on X

• Hyperlend implements Chainlink oracles, details here 

• EtherFi announces deployment on Avalanche, full announcement here

• GammaSwap explains the upcoming ETH yield tokens, details here

• Sky (Maker) announces the SPARK airdrop, learn more here

Even more important bits.

• $11.5 trillion BlackRock looks to become the world's largest crypto asset manager by 2030

• Plasma doubled its stablecoin deposit cap to $1B, filled in under 30 minutes

• Strategic Bitcoin Reserve bill in Brazil passes 1st committee

• Bank of America announces its own upcoming stablecoin

• Scott Bessent predicts the U.S. stablecoin market could exceed $2 trillion

• Stripe is acquiring crypto wallet startup Privy

Charts and stats of the day.

• ETH ETF inflows continue to rise

• Arena on Avalanche reached a new all-time high TVL

• Ethereum futures open interest hits all-time high of $20B

• There is now a 0% chance of an interest rate cut at the June FOMC meeting

• ETH/BTC 3D close looks very bullish

• Total altcoin market cap chart still looks very promising

• DeFi TVL (USD) on Solana fell 64% QoQ to $6.6 billion

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ZEXUSDT 3D Bybit Log Chart

$ZEX is Zeta Markets (~$120m FDV), now going by Bullet. It’s a Solana perps DEX, but this is not your grandma’s perps trading (Drift - $500M FDV, SUI’s DeepBook, $1.5bn FDV). These guys have upset Toly and are building what is effectively an L2 rollup (call it a ‘network extension’ if you must).

Bullet is in testnet, working to squeeze all the performance juice possible out of the Manlet Chain. Competing with Hyperliquid is obviously the competitive yardstick for every perps DEX, now and for the foreseeable future.

There’s currently no way to build a technically equivalent Hyperliquid competitor on the Solana L1, and it might not be for some time. For now, the market might satisfy that ‘next HYPE’ hunt by buying Bullet. MegaETH has some interesting horses in this race too. I have a small bag of $ZEX, but as per usual, wait for a pullback (purple box above) and add to it is my playbook.

I’m still balls deep on the HYPE trade. $50 is the next psychological level. Here’s a low-timeframe playbook for how I’m running my $HYPE trading bag here.

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!

Interesting uptick in DePIN mindshare. Perhaps it’s GRASS and IO season soon?

• Degen (Ethereum mobile gaming)

• Tectra (NFT) - Join mint here

• BAWS Foundation (Berachain NFT)

To save you doom scrolling.

Solid proof we really are living in a simulation.

Etherealize is properly fueling the Ethereum war mode narrative. Here’s a nice little breakdown of how bullish ETH really is. Let’s see if it can live up to its potential. My bet is it can.

stay safe homies,

Hix0n 🫡