Monday, Feb 19, 2024

the ETF debate, China markets reopen, an interesting tokenization experiment, a key geopolitical shift

“I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies.” – Thomas Jefferson ||

Hello everyone! I hope you all had a great weekend. If you’re celebrating President’s Day (in other words, if your weekend is still going), then the above quote is for you.

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 I don’t give trading ideas, and 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! You’ll get a ~daily newsletter that goes deeper into some of the things I’m looking at, mainly how crypto fits in to the broader economic landscape, why it matters, and where this is all heading. With audio! Most days, anyway.  

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

---

**Interested in promoting a webinar, report, event or service to the Crypto is Macro Now community? Drop me an email at noelle@cryptoismacro.com and I’ll send you more information.**

---

IN THIS NEWSLETTER

• China gets back to work

• The other side of the ETF coin

• A Citi tokenization trial raises some interesting ideas

• Why Chinese geopolitical moves are worth watching

WHAT I’M WATCHING

China gets back to work

After a refreshing break from thinking about Chinese markets during the Lunar New Year holiday, we can once again start keeping an eye on official moves to stimulate demand. Wonderful.

This morning, we learnt that China’s state-owned banks have earmarked at least 60 billion yuan (~$8 billion) to lend to the beleaguered property sector.

And the central bank chose to not cut a key policy interest rate while injecting the smallest amount of cash into the system since last August. Perhaps the plan is to wait and see if demand picks up organically after the recent celebrations, but Chinese stock market performance today was somewhat lackluster.

Official statements continue to signal that the government is getting increasingly concerned – in the first day back at work, Premier Li Qiang called for “pragmatic and forceful action” to boost consumer and business confidence.

This is almost certainly enough to keep hopes alive that more stimulus is coming, some of which should seep into the crypto market as a speculative bet as well as a potential hedge against further currency depreciation.