HAPPY Monday… well as good as a Monday can be. In today’s digest we have ALOT to cover. Let’s not waste time and let’s get into it.

In Todays Digest:

• Last Week In Crypto 🚨

• News of Today 📰

• Crypto Market Outlook 📊

• The Macro Situation In 2023 (So Far) 🌚

• Today’s Crypto PRO Tip 💸

Last Week In Crypto 🚨

• Bitcoin hits one-year high, soars past $31.3K

• FED Chair Jerome Powell sees stablecoins as “a form of money,” promotes a federal role for the digital payment asset class – remains hawkish on inflation during his two semi-annual testimony sessions.

• $1.5 Trillion asset manager Invesco reactivates Bitcoin spot ETF filing

• Fidelity’s exploring a takeover of Grayscale or a Bitcoin spot ETF filing

• Terra (LUNA) founder Do Kwon gets 4 months in prison for fake passport.

• Binance’s BNB Chain launches opBNB, scaling solution based on Optimism (our complete airdrop guide is available now!)

• EDX crypto exchange launches backed by Fidelity, Schwab, Citadel

• SEC allowed the launch of the first leveraged Bitcoin futures ETF

• JPMorgan expands its blockchain-based token to Euro payments

Crypto Market Outlook 📊

BTC has been kinda boring over the past few days so today we want to focus on some very interesting charts and facts that show the STRENGTH of the markets.

In times of uncertainty, it’s helpful to us as investors to remember the bigger picture.

Bitcoin reaches 50% crypto market dominance for the first time in two years.

What does this mean?

BTC dominance shows us the % of the OVERALL crypto market, which is made up of BTC. If the overall crypto market cap was $1000, and the total current value of all BTC was $500 - dominance is 50%.

With this, we can know the overall sentiment of the market. If BTC dominance is trending UP, then we know that the overall market sentiment is looking to move into BTC. This can be for a number of reasons:

• New investors are coming into the market. When someone new joins crypto, the first thing they tend to buy is BTC.

• Investors are seeking “safety”. If you’ve been in crypto for a while, then you will know that BTC is usually the coin which will have the lowest overall % volatility.

• The price performance of BTC is stronger than the rest of the market. This happens in the early stages of a bull market since most investors look to wait to see BTC do well FIRST, then an alt season starts when those gains move into alts, giving us wild % increases in the smaller coins.

So in the current case, we know that investors are moving OUT of alts and INTO BTC. 

1M Whole-Coiners on the BTC network

The number of BTC holders is drastically rising, which adds confluence to the above point too. For the first time EVER, there are now over 1 MILLION WHOLE BTC holders.

This is the best time to accumulate.

BTC Returns Since 2010

The Macro Situation In 2023 (So Far) 🌚

So far, 2023 is off to a much better start than anyone expected. Bitcoin is up over 40%:

There were a couple of crypto-specific narratives that contributed to this surprisingly solid start:

• ETH liquid staking derivatives are gaining in popularity in anticipation of the Shanghai Upgrade.

• There has been much talk of a “crypto China narrative” that led many coins with Chinese teams to pump

• On-chain data and other indicators suggest there weren’t many sellers left at $16K.

But macro data gave crypto a big leg up as well.

The BlackRock ETF, SEC case going down and people's general distrust of traditional banks after the crashes of Suisse and SVB.

We don’t know how much that really contributed to rising prices. But we do know that more liquidity is good for crypto. So it sure didn’t do any harm.

Another reason was that inflation rates were decreasing a bit more quickly than expected. This matters because inflation rates determine what the Federal Reserve does.

Here’s how this works:

Many expect the Federal Reserve to keep interest rates on US Treasuries (remember: debt by the US government) high only as long as it absolutely needs to. The government already sits on a pile of debt. Higher interest rates mean new debt is becoming more expensive to finance. Every quarter percentage point results in billions saved.

That’s why many analysts expect the Fed to “pivot” sooner rather than later and start lowering interest rates.

The Fed promised not to pivot any time soon, but markets don’t buy this story and rallied hard. The rally caught short positions by surprise. The short squeeze was one of the biggest in recent years and acted like a fire accelerant.

The Macro Outlook For The Rest Of 2023

There are a few rules of thumb for crypto and macro:

• More liquidity is good (commonly known as “the money printer”).

• A stronger dollar is bad.

• The crypto market is the first to react in either direction.

So on the note of the second point, the dollar has been weak recently, helping to spur the BTC rally… this is no coincidence.

The push of the dollar will from now be dependent on the development of the crucial macro questions for 2023:

• Will inflation come down to the Fed’s 2% target?

• Will we get a recession?

• Will the Fed “pivot”?

Where prices go will depend on the outcome of these three questions.

Now with the recent questions regarding the use of the US dollar as the worlds reserve, BRICs making alliances to stop using the Dollar and the ever increasing US debt… it’s looking good for BTC.

Countries stop using the Dollar. Dollar weakens. BTC rises.

Sounds like a good deal to me.

Today’s Crypto PRO Tip 💸

Today’s tip comes from @ki_young_ju on Twitter. In the thread below he goes over a very neat trick which will allow you to be able to track the movements of LARGE whales and when they are buying and selling.

Why is this useful?

Well, whales tend to have a number of advantages compared to us little fish:

• Access to industry inside information. Since they hold millions or billions of crypto, they are in the more influential circles, sometimes letting them make better investment decisions.

• They have more experience and tbhhh what they do works. They are whales for a reason.

• Access to better tools. They have more money, meaning that unlike you and I, they can have entire teams of people to do their research. Why wouldn’t we leverage this for ourselves?

It’s clear in the thread that these whales knew something.. just take a look at when they bought into BTC.

Check out the Twitter thread below, it’s definitely a great one to check out!

What to Watch This Week!

• Australian and Canadian CPI, US Consumer Confidence on Tuesday.

• BoE, BoJ and FED chairs speak at the ECB Conference on Wednesday.

• US’ final quarter GDP report, on Thursday.

• US’ PCE Price Index, on Friday.