🐻 Blood in the streets

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Good Morning!

After the monthly closed above support, we saw May start with Bitcoin and Alt coins tumbling. Bitcoin dropped down to levels last seen in February, as ETF outflows continue.

We’re still in a bullish trend on the monthly charts, so the question currently remains, what price do we bounce?

Markets

Bitcoin Trades Around $57K, Crypto Market Drops 7% in Run-Up to Fed Decision (3 minute read)
Bitcoin is feeling the heat, dropping to $57,000 this morning, its lowest since February. BTC nosedived 7.5% in just 24 hours, crashing through the $60K support. Alt coins aren’t doing much better, with the CoinDesk 20 Index shedding nearly 9%.

Why the gloom? Well, the U.S. economy is flirting with stagflation—slow growth meets stubborn inflation—souring the mood and dimming hopes for a Fed rate cut. All eyes are on the Federal Reserve’s rate decision today. And it’s not just Bitcoin that’s bruised. Ether has stumbled over 8%, falling below $3,000. Dogecoin, Solana, and Avalanche? They’re all in the red, with Doge leading the pack with an 11% drop.

Spot bitcoin ETFs saw $344 million net withdrawals in April as flow reversal continued (2 minute read)
The buzz around spot bitcoin ETFs has fizzled out. After a strong three-month streak raking in billions—$1.5 billion in January, $6 billion in February, and $4.6 billion in March—inflows hit the breaks in April with a net exodus of $343.5 million from these funds.

The downturn mirrors Bitcoin's own struggles, plunging 18% from a dizzying all-time high of $73,836 in mid-March to a less glamorous end of April. Leading the pack in outflows was Grayscale’s GBTC fund, shedding a hefty $2.5 billion, while Ark Invest’s ARKB and Valkyrie’s BRRR also felt the sting with respective outflows of $86.3 million and $0.3 million.

Trading volume took a nosedive too, from a record-breaking $9.9 billion on March 5 to a more subdued $2.9 billion by the end of April.

Binance founder Changpeng Zhao sentenced to 4 months in prison after plea deal (2 minute read)
Binance’s billionaire boss Changpeng Zhao, aka CZ, just got slapped with a four-month prison sentence, a soft landing compared to the three years the feds wanted, for letting money laundering slide on Binance.

While the defense hoped for a mere five months of probation, the sentencing guidelines were eyeing 12 to 18 months behind bars. CZ was in court yesterday, admitting his failure in setting up a robust anti-money laundering framework and recognizing the gravity of his oversight. This courtroom appearance wraps up a multiyear probe into Binance, one of the largest global exchanges, leading to CZ stepping down as CEO.

Despite hanging up his executive hat, he’s still heavily vested with a 90% stake in the company. Binance, meanwhile, faces $4.3 billion in fines and forfeitures, with Zhao personally fined over $50 million.

Airdrop Alpha 🪂 

Since most projects that we were previously farming have now all launched their tokens. There has been little that has interested us enough to consider farming.

However, things have changed with the release of Sanctum Wonderland.

If you’re already holding Solana, I think that Sanctum is definitely worth looking at.

Firstly Sanctum is a liquid staking project, where you can swap sol that you’re holding for an LST which means you’ve essentially staked your Solana but still have a liquid token to hold.

Sanctum has raised $6.1M from DragonFly Capital, Sequoia Capital, CMS Holdings, Solana Ventures and others.

If you want to participate, go to the Sanctum website and connect your wallet. (You can enter our referral code JXMWHP if you feel like supporting us).

Next, you want to swap some of your SOL to INF (a liquid staked version of Solana). You can do this by clicking the infinity tab on the right.

Sanctum wonderland allows you to earn experience points which level up your pets. You gain experience based on the amount of INF and other Sanctum LSTs that you hold.

If you want to dive further, click the points tab and have a look at which other projects you can support.

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Misc

Samourai Wallet matters more than your memecoins (3 minute read)
Last week, the co-founders of the Samourai wallet got arrested, accused of funneling over $100 million in dirty money, and now they're staring at a long prison sentence. This smackdown by the US Department of Justice, which also shut down Samourai and grabbed its websites, paints it as a laundromat for crooks dodging sanctions and washing cash.

With this action, we're seeing the screws tightening: developers might start second-guessing their innovations, fearing the legal hammer. Could this lead to more centralization and push tech innovators out of the US? The broader battle against crypto mixers isn’t new. Bitcoin Fog's founder just got his guilty verdict, and Tornado Cash has been in the hot seat since last year. It's clear—the crypto's original anti-establishment promise is under threat, as the powers-that-be are not just after the shady transactions, but also targeting those who dare to build the tech.

Roger Ver Charged With $50 Million Tax Evasion (2 minute read)
OG Bitcoiner Roger Ver, once dubbed "Bitcoin Jesus," has been arrested by Spanish authorities on U.S. charges of dodging a hefty $50 million in taxes, engaging in mail fraud, and filing shady tax returns.

According to a freshly unsealed indictment, Ver lied to the IRS, lying about the Bitcoin stash he and his companies hoarded. Despite owning a whopping 131,000 Bitcoins, he allegedly fed false info to a law firm and an appraiser involved in his bid to renounce his U.S. citizenship.

When he cashed out some Bitcoin in 2017, he conveniently forgot to tell the IRS about the windfall, despite these assets being tied to U.S.-based companies he ran.

Our Recommendations:

💻️ MEXC - Where we find and trade new coins with low fees
📈 TradingView - Software we use to chart Crypto.
🔐 Trezor - Our favorite hardware wallet to keep our Crypto secure.
🦑 Kraken - Where we buy crypto with cash / withdraw profit to our bank.

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