Wednesday, Dec 20, 2023

conflict zones, crypto retail interest, EU vs US on rates

“It’s not what’s under the Christmas tree that matters, it’s who’s around it.” – Charles M. Schulz ||

Hello everyone! So sorry this is really late today, had a series of tech issues…

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 ($12/month as of January), with a free trial.

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

Programming note: Time for a short break! Since the news flow will hopefully be quiet over the next few days, and since I still have a lot of Christmas prep to do, this newsletter will take a week-long break starting tomorrow. Back in your inboxes on Thursday 28th! And, of course, sooner if anything big happens. HAPPY HOLIDAYS TO ALL!

(photo by Nik, via Unsplash)

IN THIS NEWSLETTER:

• Intro, again

• Egypt: a new entrant into the list of conflict zones?

• Europe vs US on rate expectations and growth

• Crypto retail interest – are we there yet?

WHAT I’M WATCHING:

Intro, again

Since many of you are new here (hello! welcome!!), I’ll introduce myself again.

I’m Noelle Acheson, and I’ve been researching and writing about crypto since 2014. In 2016, I joined CoinDesk to launch their newsletters and then, as Managing Director of Research, to focus on institutional interest in the crypto ecosystem. In July 2021, I moved to sister company Genesis Trading as Head of Market Insights, and left there in September 2022 to focus on the project you see before you.

To be honest, I’m not interested in short-term trading, and you’ll never see investment advice here. What I care about is the bigger picture impact of the crypto ecosystem, and how it will influence the macro economy. This newsletter is about the forces driving crypto markets, and it is also about how crypto is making itself felt around the world. It’s about adoption, experimentation, technological leaps, regulation, acceptance and understanding. It’s also about geopolitics, budget deficits, polarization, the energy transition, market mechanics and financial technology. And every now and then I’ll throw in links totally unrelated to crypto, because why not.

If you’re a premium subscriber, THANK YOU! I couldn’t do this without you, and what I really want is to focus just on this. The macro/crypto intersection matters, more now than ever.

If you haven’t yet subscribed, I hope you’ll consider doing so? Until the end of the year, it’s only $8/month or $80/year, with a free trial. On January 2, it’ll go up to $12/month or $95/year, but since I’ll be taking a week off starting tomorrow, you may want to wait until the end of December to lock in the old annual price.

As of the end of December, I’ll be stepping back from the CoinDesk Markets Daily podcast that I’ve been hosting since September. It’s been a great experience, and I have nothing but the highest praise for the CoinDesk podcast team, but a daily podcast about markets is so time-consuming, and not really in my wheelhouse. My plan is to broaden my crypto/macro research, write more, finally launch a website, and dive into some consulting projects. There are some new newsletter features coming, and I’m excited about what’s ahead.

For now, as I mentioned above, I’ll be taking a week off starting tomorrow to do some Christmas shopping, baking and tidying up. If anything major happens, I’ll hop back in, but otherwise, this newsletter will be back in your inboxes on Thursday 28th.

I wish you all HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!! You are all the best, and I’m so grateful to be on this journey with you. ❤❤

Egypt: a new entrant into the list of conflict zones?

There’s another conflict brewing that could soon make the running list of global “hot spots”. This list is significant as its expansion highlights the need for “insurance” assets that could hold value as escalating geopolitical uncertainty boosts general market and currency volatility.

I wrote about this in the December 6 newsletter – to briefly review, the list for now includes: