Speaker 1: Hey, it's Alex with the Token Metrics Daily Pulse for
Speaker 1: March twenty ninth, twenty twenty six. Got a lot to
Speaker 1: cover today. The macro story just flipped. Ethereum is back
Speaker 1: below two thousand, and there's a fee war brewing in
Speaker 1: bitcoin ETFs that you need to hear about. But first
Speaker 1: a quick word from our sponsor. Okay, So here's what's happening.
Speaker 1: So here's where we are. Bitcoins sitting around sixty six thousand,
Speaker 1: ethereum back below two thousand dollars. And the reason both
Speaker 1: of those numbers matter today isn't the prices themselves, it's
Speaker 1: why they're there. Markets are starting to price in rate
Speaker 1: hikes again, not cuts hikes. That's the flip. For the
Speaker 1: last six months, the whole crypto bowl case leaned on
Speaker 1: the FED cutting rates, lower rates, risk assets go up,
Speaker 1: Bitcoin benefits. That story just got turned on its head.
Speaker 1: Inflation is staying sticky, oil is elevated because of Middle
Speaker 1: East tensions, and the Fed's hands are tied. Polymarket is
Speaker 1: giving eighty six and a half percent odds that the
Speaker 1: Fed doesn't move at all in June. That's not panic,
Speaker 1: but it's not the soft landing trade. Anymore either. And
Speaker 1: here's the uncomfortable part. When markets genuinely go risk off.
Speaker 1: Bitcoin doesn't act like digital gold. It acts like a
Speaker 1: tech stock. That's the setup we're walking into. So where
Speaker 1: does that leave everything else? Pretty much in the red? Honestly,
Speaker 1: Solana is down a few percent. The total crypto market
Speaker 1: cap is sitting around two point four trillion. Nothing collapsed,
Speaker 1: but nothing is holding up either. The one number worth
Speaker 1: flagging is Bitcoin dominance, which is taking up toward fifty
Speaker 1: six percent. That's the classic risk off signal within crypto.
Speaker 1: When things get uncertain, capital rotates toward bitcoin and away
Speaker 1: from alts. You can see it in the alt stack
Speaker 1: XRP down, Cardono down, Bitcoin cash down, sharply DeFi total
Speaker 1: value locked is basically flat near ninety three billion, which
Speaker 1: tells you liquidity isn't fleeing yet, but it's not growing either.
Speaker 1: And then there's the narrative data, which is honestly the
Speaker 1: most interesting thing in today's numbers Deepen. That's decentralized physical
Speaker 1: infrastructure networks, think things like wireless networks and sensor grids
Speaker 1: built on crypto rails. Deepen is up over twenty six
Speaker 1: percent in seven days meme coins up over twenty three
Speaker 1: percent in a week where the broader market is read,
Speaker 1: that's not organic adoption. That's capital chasing high beta narratives
Speaker 1: while the blue chip layer ones bleed. Make of that
Speaker 1: way you will, Okay, So here's the bigger picture on
Speaker 1: what's actually moving the needle today. First story, the macro shift.
Speaker 1: I already touched on this, but let me give you
Speaker 1: the second order read. Crypto spent the last cycle being
Speaker 1: sold as a rake cut beneficiary. That narrative is now wrong,
Speaker 1: and wrong narratives unwind messily. The thing that makes this
Speaker 1: tricky is that traditional safe havens are also faltering. Gold
Speaker 1: is getting complicated, bombs are complicated, which sounds like a
Speaker 1: crypto opportunity. But in a genuine risk off move, Bitcoin
Speaker 1: doesn't catch the flight to safety bid. It catches the
Speaker 1: sell everything bid. The sixty five thousand dollars level is
Speaker 1: the one to watch. Polymarket is already giving better than
Speaker 1: even odds that Bitcoin hits that level before the end
Speaker 1: of the month. We've got two days left in March.
Speaker 1: That's not a friend scenario. Second story, Ethereum is trying
Speaker 1: to fix its fragmentation problem. Nosis and Zisk just announced
Speaker 1: something called the Ethereum Economic Zone, a roll up framework
Speaker 1: co funded by the Ethereum Foundation, with ave Titan and
Speaker 1: Centrifuge already signed on. Here's what that means in plain English.
Speaker 1: Ethereum has dozens of layer two chains that all call
Speaker 1: themselves Ethereum, but can't really talk to each other. It's
Speaker 1: like having forty different ATM networks that each only work
Speaker 1: at their own machines. The Ethereum Economic Zone is trying
Speaker 1: to build the shared infrastructure underneath all of them so
Speaker 1: capital can actually move freely. The tell here is the
Speaker 1: Ethereum Foundation co funding it. This isn't a startup moonshot,
Speaker 1: it's the mothershit. Acknowledging the fragmentation problem is real. Abby's
Speaker 1: participation matters, specifically because if the biggest lending protocol in
Speaker 1: DeFi is building around this framework, liquidity will follow. Ethereum
Speaker 1: total value locked is already near fifty three billion dollars
Speaker 1: sitting across these siloed chains. Whether that capital starts moving freely,
Speaker 1: that's the whole bet. Third story, the Clarity Act. This
Speaker 1: one is quieter, but it might be the most consequential
Speaker 1: thing on this list for DeFi. Specifically, an analyst at
Speaker 1: ten x Research is flagging that the Clarity Act could
Speaker 1: effectively ring fence DeFi token yields, meaning the revenue that
Speaker 1: flows from protocols to token holders might need to route
Speaker 1: through a regulated intermediary instead. Why does that matter, Because
Speaker 1: a lot of DeFi tokens derive their value from exactly
Speaker 1: that yield. You hold the token, you earn a cut
Speaker 1: of protocol fees. If that mechanism gets legally complicated, the
Speaker 1: token still exists, but the value proposition changes. The analyst
Speaker 1: frames it correctly. This isn't a ban, It's a slow squeeze,
Speaker 1: and slow squeezes are actually harder to trade around because
Speaker 1: the timeline is uncertain. The stable coin bill is already stalled.
Speaker 1: If Clarity also bogs down, you just get regulatory uncertainty compounding,
Speaker 1: and that's its own drag on dfive valuations. Fourth story,
Speaker 1: and this one is actually good news. Morgan Stanley just
Speaker 1: set the fee on its spot bitpoint etf at point
Speaker 1: one four percent. That undercuts every competitor currently on the market.
Speaker 1: Blackrocks ibit charges point twenty five percent. GBTC still charges
Speaker 1: one point five percent, which at this point is basically
Speaker 1: a loyalty tax on people who haven't noticed. What this
Speaker 1: signals is that Morgan Stanley isn't tree eating bitcoin exposure
Speaker 1: as a niche product anymore. You don't price aggressively to
Speaker 1: win market share in something you think is a fad.
Speaker 1: You price aggressively when you want volume. Morgan Stanley has
Speaker 1: roughly fifteen thousand financial advisors that distribution network pointed at
Speaker 1: a point one four percent, bitcoin ETF could move meaningful
Speaker 1: institutional capital. The question isn't whether this is good for bitcoin,
Speaker 1: it is the question is what it means for every
Speaker 1: other ETF provider who just got undercut and a few
Speaker 1: quick hits before we get to risks. Sam Altman's World
Speaker 1: Foundation sold sixty five million dollars in world Coin tokens
Speaker 1: via over the counter deals while the token was hitting
Speaker 1: all time lows. A foundation selling at the bottom either
Speaker 1: signals desperation for runway or confidence the price doesn't matter
Speaker 1: either way, existing holders are absorbing that supply. Senator Warren
Speaker 1: is targeting bitmain over Trump Family Ties in a letter
Speaker 1: to the Commerce Secretary, using the connection as a political
Speaker 1: pressure point, which adds regulatory scrutiny to the mining sector.
Speaker 1: Nys's parent company Ice finalized a one point six billion
Speaker 1: dollar investment in Polymarket. Tradfi's largest exchange operator, now owns
Speaker 1: a piece of crypto's biggest prediction market, which gives poly
Speaker 1: Market institutional legitimacy that competitors can't easily replicate. And GameStop
Speaker 1: is apparently exploring a Bitcoin covered call strategy, which is
Speaker 1: either sophisticated treasury management or a sign that just holding
Speaker 1: bitcoin isn't generating enough narrative momentum for the memestock crowd.
Speaker 1: All right, before we get into the risks, quick word
Speaker 1: from our sponsor. Okay, we're back. Let's talk about what
Speaker 1: to watch for. So what should you actually be worried
Speaker 1: about right now? Three things? First, macro repricing rate hike
Speaker 1: expectations are creeping back in Crypto was positioned for cuts.
Speaker 1: That positioning is now wrong, and wrong positioning unwinds messily.
Speaker 1: Watch the next inflation print. If it comes in hot,
Speaker 1: the rate hike narrative intensifies fast. Second, the leverage overhang
Speaker 1: in alts XRP has rising funding rates into weak price action,
Speaker 1: which is the setup that ends badly for longs. Bitcoin
Speaker 1: cash is down sharply. Cardano is down. Solana is down
Speaker 1: a few percent if one major alt breaks support and
Speaker 1: triggers a cascade of liquidations. Contagion spreads faster in a
Speaker 1: risk off environment. That's not a prediction, that's just how
Speaker 1: leverage unwinds. Third, the Clarity Act. If yield restrictions pass
Speaker 1: as written, defy token value a crule gets legally complicated.
Speaker 1: It's a slow structural squeeze, hard to trade around, easy
Speaker 1: to underestimate. The net read here is cautiously bearish until
Speaker 1: macro data softens or the Clarity Act yield provisions get
Speaker 1: amended or dropped. Both of those things could happen. Neither
Speaker 1: is guaranteed. Looking ahead, here's what's on my radar for
Speaker 1: the next week US inflation data. The PCE or CPI
Speaker 1: release is coming in early April, and with markets already
Speaker 1: prized for rate high risk, a hot number would validate
Speaker 1: the hawk as shift and push Bitcoin toward that sixty
Speaker 1: five thousand level. The Clarity Act goes to Committee markup
Speaker 1: this week. Whether the yield restriction provisions survive will determine
Speaker 1: if DeFi tokens face a structural repricing or get a
Speaker 1: near term relief rally. And Morgan Stanley's Bitcoin ETF launches
Speaker 1: this week. The first week of flow data will tell
Speaker 1: us whether fifteen thousand financial advisors can actually move institutional
Speaker 1: capital at scale, or whether advisor adoption is the bottleneck
Speaker 1: not cost. Three catalysts all landing in the same window.
Speaker 1: It's going to be a busy week. By the way.
Speaker 1: If you want daily market signals and weekly question and
Speaker 1: answer breakdowns, check out token metrics Signal. It's our entry
Speaker 1: level premium plan. Head to tokenmetrics dot com to learn more.
Speaker 1: This is educational content, not investment advice. Always do your
Speaker 1: own research. I'm Alex. See you next time.