🐳 Daily Edition: Crypto Traders Scared of FOMC While TradFi Buys Their Coins

Today’s FOMC meeting sent ETH under $4,000 once again as traders perceive Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s statements on the coming months to be uncertain, which is pretty reasonable considering everything going on in the country. Despite Bitcoin and Ethereum feeling some heat, ETF flows for both are still significant this week so far. This is really a continuation of the trend since the ETFs launched of TradFi eating up the coins that crypto natives are rotating out of, which I see as quite bullish in the long run. It’s a sign of a maturing industry for the majority of our holder base to come from outside of our niche corner of the internet, no matter how much I enjoy being part of it.

In fact, TradFi is participating in much more meaningful ways than simply buying our coins. Just today, rumors began circulating that Mastercard is in late-stage talks to acquire stablecoin settlement provider Zerohash for nearly $2B, while Consensys (company behind MetaMask, Linea) appears to have picked JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs to lead its IPO. The wave of DATs we saw were certainly good for prices, however to see titans of industry like the names above getting this involved is another level entirely. The big fear for crypto used to be that the existing dominant players would see the blockchain infrastructure we’ve all built, then build their own isolated version rendering ours useless. With events like the Zerohash acquisition, it’s clear they see the value of being part of the crypto ecosystem on a public ledger as being greater than running their own.

What a shame 😭

The Beluga intern has been hard at work gathering all the most important crypto news stories so you have them in one place!

The Majors

• How dollar breakouts have nailed Bitcoin peaks: Is another top in the works?

• Ethereum set to debut ‘key to layer-2 scaling’ as Fusaka upgrade clears final test

Alt Coins and Stocks

• Mastercard poised to acquire crypto startup Zerohash for nearly $2 billion, sources say

• Visa adding support for four stablecoins on four unique blockchains, as spend quadrupled last quarter

New Launches

• Lit Protocol launches LITKEY token

• MegaETH launches ICO

• Monad launches airdrop reveal portal

Interesting Reads

• Crypto perps are easier to access than ever before — is that a good thing?

• Solana event cut short as China’s stablecoin warning sparks unease

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