The canary in the coal mine?

plus: more tariff craziness, ICO season, CPI and more

In the long run even the most expected of futures tends to arrive late and in completely unexpected ways. – Paul Saffo ||

Hi everyone, I hope you’re all doing well! As a European who looks forward every year to the summer slowdown, I must protest about this frenetic pace of progress. Ok, not really, it’s exciting. But also disconcerting.

---

PUBLISHED IN PARTNERSHIP WITH: ✨ALLIUM✨

Allium provides blockchain data and analytics for institutions and fintechs, helping teams generate key insights from on-chain activity. Leaders like Visa, Stripe, and Grayscale rely on Allium to power mission-critical analyses and operations.

For more information: www.allium.so.

---

Some news!

• I’ve started writing a regular op-ed for American Banker, here’s the link to the first one, titled: “Are stablecoins money? What does that mean for payments?” It’s paywalled and I can’t share a gift link, nor can I reproduce it here – but I’m letting you know in case you’re interested and have a subscription.

• Also, tune in tonight for the livestream of Bits & Bips, when Steven Erlich and I are joined by Austin Campbell for a chat on markets and macro (gee, whatever will we talk about??).

IN THIS NEWSLETTER:

• Coming up: Crypto Week, CPI, Q2 earnings, G20 and more

• The canary in the coal mine?

• Macro-Crypto Bits: more tariff craziness, ICO season?

If you’re not a premium subscriber, I hope you’ll consider becoming one! You get ~daily commentary on markets, tokenization, regulation and other signs that crypto IS impacting the macro landscape. As well as relevant links and music recommendations ‘cos why not.

WHAT I’M WATCHING:

Coming up:

This week could be a big one for the crypto industry, as we head into what the US House of Representatives has dubbed “Crypto Week”. The House is back in session and scheduled to debate the GENIUS Act, hopefully even putting it to a vote – if passed, the stablecoin legislation then heads to the President’s desk for a signature. Also on the docket for debate are the crypto market structure CLARITY Act and the Anti-CBDC Surveillance State Act.

Later today (tomorrow, Asia time), China releases a series of key economic data points including retail sales, the unemployment rate and Q2 growth, which economists expect to have decelerated slightly to 5.3% from 5.4%.

On Tuesday, we get the big economic event of the week: US CPI for June. Consensus expectations point to a month-on-month acceleration in the core index (ex-food and energy) from 0.1% to 0.3%, with the year-on-year growth accelerating for the first time since January, to 2.9%. Confirmation of this, even though in theory “priced in”, could jolt markets waiting for an excuse to wobble.

(chart via Bloomberg)

Tuesday is also a big deal in that it kicks off Q2 earnings season with reports from JPMorgan, Citigroup, BNY Mellon, Wells Fargo, BlackRock, State Street and more.

And, crossing the ocean, on Tuesday foreign ministers of Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) countries meet in China, which holds the rotating presidency this year. The SCO was set up in 2001 as an eastern counterweight to NATO, and currently comprises founding members China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, with India, Pakistan and Iran joining later. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov is already in the country (after spending the weekend in North Korea), and this morning met with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi.

Wednesday brings US Producers Price Index for June, a gauge of wholesale inflation also expected to show an acceleration for both the core and headline indices. And we get the Fed’s Beige Book, which will give insight into local on-the-ground economic expectations from the various Federal Reserve districts.

Q2 earnings reports are due on Wednesday from Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, Johnson & Johnson and others.

Also on Wednesday, NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang will hold a media briefing in Beijing – the timing coincides with the third China International Supply Chain Expo, and it has been reported that Huang is planning to attend for the first time. I have a feeling there’s a political message in there.

On Thursday, US retail sales for June are expected to show a modest 0.2% month-on-month increase after two consecutive months of declines. Again, why do people expect rate cuts this year?

Also, Thursday sees the kickoff of a G20 Finance Ministers summit in South Africa – US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent will not attend, choosing instead to fly to Japan for the World Expo 2025. Further evidence that the “old order” institutions are on the wane.

The canary in the coal mine?

Well, that’s exciting. Or is it?

After a strong run last week, the low-volume weekend and the Asian open pushed BTC even higher, and as I type it is poised to break through $123,000.

(BTC/USD chart via TradingView)

Fantastic news for BTC holders, especially since this kind of momentum tends to breed more momentum as sell blocks between psychological levels tend to be thin.

It’s also good news for crypto in general as this does not feel like froth – there is some jubilation and cute dance memes on X, but not much. Mainstream media is noticing, but not making a big deal of it. And BTC’s market dominance (BTC.D, a gauge of the BTC market cap as a % of the total market cap) has pulled back over the past few days, but so slightly as to be insignificant.

(BTC.D bitcoin market dominance chart via TradingView)

In other words, the absence of widespread mainstream excitement suggests that this run is just warming up – there could of course be corrections ahead, especially if macro markets go haywire, but the trend is what matters.

But…