After today, the Fed will enter a silent period. In the past 10 days, 4 of the 11 Fed members who spoke were hawks, and 7 were doves or dovish. Yesterday, many members spoke for the last time. West was hawkish, and Bowman and Logan avoided any clear policy comments. Many members tend to raise interest rates once more in May, including Bullard, who called for another 2-3 rate hikes. He is not a voting member and does not have voting rights.

Back to the topic:

The U.S. Senate and House of Representatives have begun to work together on a bill to establish new market structure rules around digital assets, which is in parallel with another regulatory initiative to advance a bipartisan framework for stablecoins. The U.S. House Financial Services Committee released a draft version of the stablecoin bill and created a definition of a stablecoin issuer for this purpose. The Ethereum Foundation said it plans to hold the Devconnect conference in Istanbul, Turkey for a week from November 13 to 19 this year. The Japanese International Crypto Summit IS Crypto will be held at Miyako Messe, the Kyoto International Exhibition Center, and the Kyoto Rohm Theater from June 28 to 30. It is seen as a grand event for Web3 entrepreneurs, investors, developers, media, and government agencies. Tether, the issuer of stablecoins, has issued 1 billion USDT on the Ethereum chain.

Hitachi announced that its venture capital firm Hitachi Ventures (HV) has established a new fund of US$300 million to accelerate innovation in the digital field, and plans to focus on strategic investments in startups in the fields of Web3, blockchain, generative AI, etc. iZUMi Finance, a liquidity-as-a-service DeFi protocol, announced the completion of a US$22 million financing. Uniswap's daily active users reached 84,796 for the first time since May 2021. The gas fee in the Ethereum network briefly exceeded 100 Gwei. (The current average fee is about 40 Gwei) BNB Chain released the first quarter technical update, including the launch of the Greenfeld test network, reducing transaction fees, BSC validator self-equity update, MEV research, and Planck hard fork upgrade. It is planned to launch the OPBNB test network in mid-May, the ZkBNB main network on June 1, and complete the BEP-206 proposal. According to Nansen data, the Kraken platform withdrew more than 330,000 ETH yesterday, with 175,000 left. Data from CoinShares shows that about 5% of ETH staking validators are withdrawing funds, and there are 19,500 validators in the exit queue, with a waiting time of about 12 days.

Chris Perkins, an advisor to the U.S. Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), published a regulatory white paper, saying that the United States is at risk of falling behind in cryptocurrencies. Hong Kong has reopened to cryptocurrencies, the European Union has just passed the crypto asset regulatory framework MiCA, and other jurisdictions are opening up to opportunities and moving forward. He pointed out that there is a call for regulation of centralized intermediaries rather than decentralized technology. Robert Kiyosaki, author of Rich Dad Poor Dad, said, "Why do I choose Bitcoin? Because people support Bitcoin, not the Federal Reserve Biden Z government. Bitcoin does not need their rescue because Bitcoin is people's money. Bitcoin will reach $100,000." Tradingview data shows that BTC dominance has risen from 42% in the first quarter to 48%. The indicator has been fluctuating between 38% and 48% for nearly two years. The decline from 46%-48% coincides with the excess returns of altcoins. Markus Thielen, head of research and strategy at crypto service provider Matrixport, said in a client report that Bitcoin's dominance may peak, which will indicate that altcoins will outperform the broader market.

The probability of the Fed keeping interest rates unchanged in May is 16.5%, and the probability of raising interest rates by 25 basis points is 83.5%. The 10 days before the interest rate meeting are a quiet period (the quiet period will begin next week). During this period, the outside world cannot see the Fed's inclination and can only wait for the results to be implemented. Fed Harker: The Fed's interest rate policy is close to the required level. In uncertain times, we should act cautiously. Now the monetary policy may affect the economy more quickly. Bostic: The strategy has entered a restrictive level and there is a lag effect. I am in favor of raising interest rates once more and then pausing. Mester said: It must be raised to more than 5% to achieve the inflation target of 2%. When determining the future monetary policy path, it is necessary to carefully evaluate the bank pressure information of credit and economy. We are currently "closer to the end of the tightening process than the starting point."

The U.S. banking industry increased its emergency borrowing from the Federal Reserve for the first time in five weeks. This week, the Fed provided financial institutions with $143.9 billion in outstanding loans through two support loan facilities, compared with $139.5 billion last week. In March, the Fed reduced the rate hike from the expected 50 basis points to 25 basis points due to banking problems. On the eve of this interest rate meeting, Fed members were also considering the problem of credit restrictions in the banking industry and the potential restrictions on the economic outlook. They believed that economic growth this year would be less than 1%, and it was time to end the path of rate hikes.

When interest rates rise, stagnate, or fall, market sentiment is different. When interest rates rise, the market is looking for a bottom. When interest rates stagnate, the risk decreases. When interest rates fall, the bull market will not turn back. When interest rates stagnate, any risk is only temporary. What follows is a fall in interest rates, liquidity returns, and a new bull market cycle will come. (Other side effects cannot change the trend of interest rate hikes/cuts. Trust the Fed) #BTC #crypto2023 #ETH #Binance #Web3