Friday, Nov 17, 2023

dogecoin as a market signal, more funding news, what's coming for CiMN, too much FOMC agreement...

“In fact, the mere act of opening the box will determine the state of the cat, although in this case there were three determinate states the cat could be in: these being Alive, Dead, and Bloody Furious.” – Terry Pratchett  ||

Hello everyone! Oh man, am I glad it’s Friday, it’s been a week… I hope you all have some time set aside this weekend to touch grass and hug people.

You’re reading the daily premium Crypto is Macro Now newsletter, where I look at the growing overlap between the crypto and macro landscapes. There’s also usually some market commentary, but NOTHING I say is investment advice. For full disclosure, I have held the same long positions in BTC and ETH for years, and have no intention to either buy more or sell in the near future.

If you’re not a subscriber, I do hope you’ll consider becoming one! It would help enable me to continue to share what I learn as I work on figuring out where we’re going. It’s only $8/month for now, with a free trial.

And if you find this newsletter useful, would you mind hitting the ❤ button at the bottom? I’m told it boosts the distribution algorithm.

Also, I’m now host of the CoinDesk Markets Daily podcast – you can check that out here.

IN THIS NEWSLETTER:

• Coming up on Crypto is Macro Now

• Dogecoin as a market signal

• More funding data

• Argentina’s woes multiply

• Too much agreement at the FOMC

WHAT I’M WATCHING:

Coming up on Crypto is Macro Now

As the end of the year approaches, I’m going to resist the urge to write 2023 reviews and 2024 forecasts, I figure you’re going to get so many of those from other sources that a couple more from me won’t add much to the narrative. There’s always plenty of noise in December as it is.  

I will be doing deeper dives into key developments that so far I’ve only either mentioned in passing or had to put on my “look into” list for lack of bandwidth, I’m excited about that. For instance:

• Why are big banks experimenting on public blockchains?

• How does the US move to T+1 settlement impact the tokenization drive?

• What is being overlooked in the busy CBDC experimentation?

• Will bank tokenized deposits displace private stablecoins?

• What else can “money” become?

And much, much more…

There’s so much I want to get into in order to understand how blockchain technology and crypto assets can impact broader markets and economies. Not just how they can, also how they will.

If these topics as well as regular market commentary are of interest to you and you’re not already a subscriber, I hope you’ll consider becoming one! It’s only $8 a month for now. To be honest, I will be taking some time off in December (not sure when yet, probably between Christmas and New Year with a few other days beforehand), so if you want to wait until January, that’s of course fine! But the price will be going up to $12 a month in January, which is still only a cup of coffee per week. I do hope you’ll think about it, I would love to have you with me on this journey. This field matters, especially now.

Speaking of time off, this newsletter will be taking a break over the Thanksgiving holiday – I know I’m not American, but it’ll be a quiet few days, I could use some time to touch grass, and there’s much planning to be done.  😁

Dogecoin as a market signal

I’ve been fighting this all week, but here goes: it’s time to take a deep breath and mention dogecoin. Yes, it’s a meme coin, and no, it is unlikely to make a significant impact on the macro landscape. So, why am I bringing it up? In part, because it’s a key part of the original crypto ethos. Also, it’s an intriguing market barometer, and its numbers are starting to tell a disquieting story.

(chart via TradingView)

To start with, I have to disclose that I hold a very (very!) small amount, that I bought years ago at my husband’s urging. He comes from a tradfi background, definitely not a “crypto native”, but he’s always liked dogecoin because, as he says, “it’s unpretentious”. It doesn’t do anything, it just is.

This raises the question of why anyone would want to hold it, and truthfully I have yet to find a compelling fundamental reason. But that’s not the point, and therein lies the elegance of dogecoin.