Crypto people, we are serious, we love you.  We got it bad for you, can't help but carry that torch.   Our drink bubbles up when you walk by.  Your every click on the Jorge Luis Borge infinite library that is the Publish0x lifts humanity to the stars.  Both in our hearts and in the metaphysical certainty of an improved reality above fiat. . 

Thanks to the FT for recently giving the Artic Monkeys a four star review & reminder they are the current king of Brit Pop!! All hail!! After Leeds they did up the Electric Picnic, reports were good.  To us it's all fake tales of San Fransisco, but really this one 

Crypto in the FT!!  Hey it's Friday, we get the CryptoFinance newsletter YAY!!!!!!

Checking print first: Ah, it's all the Queen, all the time.  She tried to give up her Corgis but then she got back into them.  Love for the Queen, she should have hit 106!!

The ECB did another 75 bips.  Powell "keeping at it" will as well.  Still WAAAAYYYYYYYY BEHIND the actual Taylor rule.   What was the Citi quote, a fundamental incongruity in the analytical framework!! Poetry in motion.  Stimulating while depressing demand - it's a financial goofball !!!

Here's our man Kwasi having LIz's back.  Informative Goldman projection:  The measure of inflation will cap out sooner but then swing back up later when fiat is printed to freeze energy bills.   Dear readers know we are all in favour cuz the IMF and the BIS told us not to be.   Projections like that are always hilarious.  Wall Street chestnut # 987:  It's our FINANCIAL forecasting system, we predict the future to 12 sig digs!!!  But the idea is clear and being replicated all over the world.  Hope it's only that bad.

Brussels trying to grab more power, change the rules on state aid cuz THIS crisis!  More centralized power what could go more wrong?? 

India and China, as FORECAST, will continue to buy Russian oil.  You can buy it off them for a markup if you like, though. The Rouble is riding high.  

Helen writes a great bit about how noone knows what the energy cap really means.  We DO know ONE funny - in the last three days, the price has gone from 80bn to 100bn to now 150bn in "estimates."  In reality, there is no cap to the cost of the cap!!! 

But no CRYPTO in the FT print - oh wait, one mention!! In an article about North Korea selling ammunition to Russia - what's the ONE crypto phrase making dead trees today?  "arms, narcotics, and cryptocurrencies."  Thanks for nuttin, FT. We are FEELING that print cold shoulder. 

But ONLINE we are a different target market, ha ha!!!  First, we get (always funny) the Mooch!! TLDR:  Sammy Fried will boost Sky Bridge, Mooch will hold some of the $$$ in crypto (which ones??)   SkyBridge was all fund of funds, but now pivoting to crypto.  One Mooch fund with 15% exposure to crypto suspended withdrawals, so the Mooch is hurting.  He had kissed up to Sammy before, calling him JP Morgan - now he is proving it's 1907 all over again. 
The Mooch and Sammy are pals from doing the SALT conference and Crypto Bahamas. Rehash numbers go down, Sammy helping / not helping blockfi, Celsius, etc and (actually helping) GameStonk. 

The REAL story:  Dear readers know the Mooch is a barrel of monkeys all by himself, famously using trading floor tan profanity to a New York Times reporter, who quickly ratted him out.  We never liked hedge funds of hedge funds cause they don't spend ($#*&$(@&. on technology.  We hope and bet Sammy is not wasting his money on SkyBridge. 

Now, the main event!!! TGIF!! the CryptoFinance newsletter yay!! Thanks FT!! TLDR: First up - Crypto is decentralized freedom man.  But here is Binance acting like the MAN.   Binance will convert any USDC, USDP and TUSD currently held on Binance into BUSD, plus they will kill some spot trading pairs from Tether and Paxos, forcing more traffic through BUSD on the world's dominant exchange. 

Binance told Circle and others before announcing.  Circle says Binance could never do this under Gary, but paradoxically it could make Circle more attractive on Binance.  ????  Ilan from Tagus sez it's Binance ringfencing.  Crypto skeptic Liron say's decentralization is an idealistic goal that sounds good but doesn't matter.  

The REAL story: Ilan is an ex Fed and ex IMFer, but for all that he's OK. Tagus does crypto deals.  Thanks Illan, for also kicking back against the attempts to conflate Luna / Terra ($#(#$*& up with pretty damn solid, 9 billion in cash refunded on demand Tether.  Dear readers know WE can't let that go, wee radge Joe.  

Liron on the other hand says all crypto is a scam, but he's not  giving back all the $$ he made as an early angel in Coinbase!!!  Web3 is a hollow abstraction, and crypto is only good for crime, so we are NOT hearing HIM usually. 

Liron’s  kinda right about functional decentralization - anyone trying to DO anything sacrifices it a little bit pretty quickly. The power of BTC being 100% unstoppable changes the whole picture.  SInce you COULD have your own wallet, you can SORT OF trust Bitstamp. 

 The entire Binance value prop is that Binance is decentralized ENOUGH - things don't get hacked, they are fast and cheap and quick to market.  If you want full holy roller religion, stick with BTC, maybe ETH.  Worse yet, ETH PoW.  There's no need to get huffy, this is what Binance is.  Hell Binance are decentralized enough to survive being 100% banned where they started.   Now working with nations everywhere.  Binance keeps trying to make BNB a blue chip crypto, they WILL succeed. 

Above all that, a hilarious consolidation power play by BUSD.  It won't matter THAT much, withdrawals in all stablecoins are still allowed.   Smart money doesn't STAY on Binance anyway, it comes and goes after doing biz. 

Funny how BUSD ain't touching USDT.  The Asian stablecoins strike back!! USDP and TUSD only have like a billion each in market cap.  Now the race is ON!  USDT still in the lead with 67, but USDC closer n closer now at 51 billion in market cap!! BUSD is just short of 20 bn in market cap, why not make a play, this is one of them winner takes all games.  Wahey!!  We get it!!

In other stories - the FT misprinted Moelis and co as Mole and co, alas we did not snapshot it fast enough.  We only noticed cause we were looking up WHERE the Celsius auction would be held, and we don't know ANY Mole & Co I-bankers.  The answer is 399 Park, a fine midtown address kitty corner from Blackstone.  In the honor of Alphaville jumping on Tether's typo, blah blah blah... 

In another story, the FT said CANADIAN regs are hammering Celsius, then printed a story on Vermont reg hammering Celsuis. Which is pretty funny.  TBF, Vermont is further north than a lot of canada ,and very socialist.  Here's the correction on that: It did say Moles & Co, and now instead of Canada, we get US*.  Shoulda played it off, FT.  Do non sequiturs like us:  Canada is probing Celsuis, AND NOW Vermont joins the fun.  

A POINTLESS story that yum yum fudge takes btc in Suffolk.  Why?? 

Merge update sort of.  Bellatrix hard fork is in.  Merge 13-15 target. 

A cheezy neggy dig at Mercado Bitcoin related layoffs. Rehash of earlier ones.  Dear readers know layoffs are good, digging for negative only crypto is bad. 

Gary Gensler of the SEC lays out his case - really, most crypto ARE securities, and whitepapers should be liable if lying.  Link below, we started out disagreeing but now we kinda see his point.  Even the SCARY "no honest corporation fears the SEC." 

Overall, two thank yous!!    We got our corrections,  can't go nuts about one pointless and one ridiculous negative article.  And the FT even gave a fun graph - lookit how USDC pairs were BOOMING on Binance!! The word auspicious is a meme on the rise. In the FT and the 0x.  Will ETH PoW be auspicious? 

There's another crypto tonic out!!  YAY There's a TRANSCRIPT!  

Jemima fights her anti crypto corner like a pro.  She even steelmans the anti-fiat argument that was missed!  She does bring in a lot of haters to make very neggy points.  Number one, crypto is like a shaved head cult, cutting you off from the world.  Yeah OK. 

On the plus side, she does a tour of the big mythology of crypto, Satoshi's sacrificed wallet. The big fun arguments, sort of.  The REAL story - steelman a bit harder there, or get a real current non apostate crypto voice to do it for you.  At least mention modern monetary theory and more importantly Cantillon positioning if trying to capture HALF of the real crypto argument.  Throw in the eternal war followed by decline of the Roman, later the British ( & many others) Empire where fiat drives war for fiat to drive wars.  

They back off on the cult hatchet job a BIT, but they can keep that IN by us  if they would just talk more about fiat. 

Still, respect, well played, no FU's, thanks for at least appearing to TRY to steelman.  

Peace out, 

Love

Dave