💥 The Last Rundown — and What’s Next

This will be the last weekly rundown for Crypto is Easy. Everything‘s moving to Milk Road! You’ll get me, my content, and everything Milk Road has to offer. Free subscribers get a free Milk Road subscription and option to upgrade. Premium subscribers pay the same as they pay now (some will see a discount).

Get the details and watch the introduction video in the Special Announcement.

Though my Crypto is Easy content will move to Milk Road, I might post occasional commentary on Medium. Get your free account and tap the “Follow” button on my Medium profile.

If you want to chat with me, schedule time on Calendly.

🗓️ What you missed last week

🚀 Chart of the Week

Do you want a visual representation of how whales and insiders use Bitcoin treasury companies to cash out?

Here it is:

This probably does not apply to Strategy฿ because you can't find enough whales and insiders to fill those bids when Saylor needs to purchase a new round of sats.

For the smaller companies, I have heard from a trusted source that they are self-dealing quite a bit. The people who run these companies and their close associates created can sell their equity at a premium over spot the Bitcoin price. They move the Bitcoins from their personal wallet to the company’s wallet, shift the risks to investors, and shift the cash to themselves.

It’s a huge scheme among insiders to cash out without looking like they’re cashing out.

Because I’m moving to Milk Road this is the last Chart of the Week from me…

But don’t worry — you’re about to get way more coverage from the Milk Road Crypto crew.

Their lead researcher, Martin, is a total chart fiend. The guy runs on candlesticks and caffeine. He’s the type to cancel plans because a new moving average just crossed.

You’ll now be getting their newsletter 7 days a week, and it’s full of charts and market analysis.

But if you want to go even deeper…that’s what Crypto PRO is for. 

Each week the team drops PRO Reports that cut through the noise and actually explain what’s driving the market. 

You also get their “Where Are We in the Cycle?” indicators which are basically a cheat sheet for knowing when the bull run is peaking, so you don’t get caught buying the top.

And on top of that, you’ll be added into a private discord community where you can shoot the shit with Martin and the rest of the Crypto PRO research team.

If you’re interested, the guys are offering 25% off as a special ‘welcome to Milk Road’ discount. But you have to nab it before Wednesday!

Or, if you want to take things to the next level, and unlock a full 360 investing toolkit, the crew at Milk Road also offer All Access passes to their other PRO subscriptions.

With PRO All Access you can get Crypto PRO, Degen PRO and Macro PRO in one bundle.

And for the next 3 days, to welcome you to the Milk Road fam it’s 25% off.

😎 Finance industry bodies call for changes to crypto rules for banks

Bottom line: Banks want their top advisory body, the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, to abandon new standards that limit the amount of crypto exposure they can have. They wrote a letter about it. They say the market’s big and mature enough for banks to take on more exposure.

My take: The crypto market looks cleaner because we have better regulations and more players from traditional finance, but liquidity is still shallow and systemic risk hasn’t gone away. Banks will still have a hard time getting out of large positions in times of crisis, and crisis can come from many sources.

It’s nice to see banks finally realize they can make money off of crypto (and us). Do we really want their lobbyists edging into our business? Isn’t the point to replace banks with superior technology and open financial protocols so that we—not legacy finance—can make money for once? Shouldn’t we want stricter standards for banks?

Why you should care: Because if Basel loosens the rules, banks will shrink your bull market profits and leave you holding the bag when liquidity dries up.

🤩 The Financialisation of Having Opinions 

People fawn over the value of prediction markets. It's one of crypto's killer apps, a use-case that has mainstream appeal.

Is there substance behind the hype?

This Token Dispatch article looks into the matter further.

The real story isn’t that prediction markets reveal truths and make decisions more efficient. It’s that they turn opinions into trades, and attention into liquidity. Humans innately love this.

Keep an eye on projects in this space.

Today, Polymarket’s the only one with any traction, though Gnosis is still kicking. Use DefiLlama’s Prediction Market Dashboard to see which markets have volume and topics you care about.

Let’s connect! 

You can schedule a call with me. Use Calendly to book your time.

Relax and enjoy the ride!

— Mark