Weekly Rundown - December 4, 2022
Weekly Rundown - December 4, 2022
In non-crypto news, Ravens win!
The US central bank said it will slow the pace of rate hikes starting in December, and “the market” started yelling “PIVOT!”
Listen closely. For those who still doubt after all these months of saying it, it’s a simple proposition. The Fed will hike until one of two things happens:
The Fed funds rate goes above 4%
Inflation goes below 4%
After that, we can start talking about a pivot—and even then, we’ll have to take it day by day.
With anything more than a 25 bps hike in December, that first condition is met. Most analysts expect 50 bps (the Fed telegraphed this last month).
That is not a pivot.
If all goes to plan, inflation will continue to fall, people will lose jobs, businesses will fail, and we’ll all be poorer, just like the Fed wants, and rates will stay around 4% until the US financial system returns to normalcy.
This seems terrifying but for decades, 4% was considered a “normal” interest rate. What good is seeing the value of your stuff go up if the cost of everything else goes up, too?
Whether that means crypto will suffer? A lot of smart people seem to think so, but a lot of smart people also think not.
Seems crazy that some people have $1 million in stocks, bonds, and cash, yet $0 in crypto. You’re getting the best deal in years and you don’t even realize it.
Complacency kills.
ANYHOW.
Make sure you got my BUY/SELL/HODL alert from December 1, 2022. I also included an update, with another super-brief review of five altcoins and the one I just added to my portfolio.
Scroll down for some fun content and the results of last week’s poll.
In last week’s poll, I asked: how much lower will bitcoin's price go?
About 50% of respondents said $14,000. The next two choices, $8,000 and “only up from here,” split almost all of the rest of the votes.
What do I think?
For the reasons I explained a while ago and will explain again in an update for paid subscribers, $14,000 is a confluence of trends and history. It’s also a popular technical level for traders.
Whether we get that price or not, I’m sticking to my plan.
Let’s revisit this question once bitcoin’s price goes back above the 200-week moving average. It’ll be interesting to see how the results change as the price changes.
Funny thing—almost 7% of respondents said bitcoin’s price will go to $0, which seems odd for somebody who reads this newsletter. If that’s you, perhaps you can explain?
I’ll have another poll next week.
How to Analyze Liquidity Pools and Other Factors to Avoid Being a Victim of Rug Pulls
Bottom line: it’s a bear market so you probably won’t get as many rug pulls as we had in 2020 and 2021, but if you’re new to the space you can easily get roped into some shady business. This article has some tips to help you avoid these shenanigans.
My take: the same technology, strategy, and approach that spawned some of today’s biggest, most legit projects can be used to rip you off. Some of the tips in the article may seem a little advanced and I guarantee they will take you a little time to learn, but it’s worth your effort. They still won’t help you avoid an FTX or similar catastrophe, but they’ll make you less likely to suffer from run-of-the-mill, common scams. Make sure you watch the video embedded in the article.
Why we care: we do what we can to keep our operational risks limited.
This is not a newsletter about politics or regulations, though I mention US legislative and regulatory developments from time to time.
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Jobs Corner
Evmos | Product Manager | Link to position
Outlier Ventures | Head of Legal | Link to position
Interlay | Dapp Engineer | Link to position
ClubRare | Social Media Manager | Link to position
Coinshift | HR Generalist | Link to position
APY.vision | Principle Developer | Link to position
WalletConnect | Rust Engineer | Link to position
Alchemy | People Ops | Link to position
These jobs come from the ToolsForCrypto newsletter. If you’d like to post a vacancy here (for free), email mark@markhelfman.com.
Relax and enjoy the ride!