Speaker 1: Hey, it's Alex with the Token Metrics Daily Pulse for
Speaker 1: March sixteenth, twenty twenty six. Got a lot to cover today,
Speaker 1: and honestly, some of it is pretty wild. We've got
Speaker 1: regulators finally shaking hands, a massive defive mess that cost
Speaker 1: fifty million dollars, and Bitcoin doing something we genuinely haven't
Speaker 1: seen since last September. But first, a quick word from
Speaker 1: our sponsor. Okay, so here's what's happening. So the big
Speaker 1: headline today, the SEC and the CFTC actually signed a
Speaker 1: formal agreement to coordinate on crypto regulation. It's the first
Speaker 1: time these two have ever put a joint framework on paper. Look,
Speaker 1: for years, the biggest risk wasn't just the rules. It
Speaker 1: was the fact that nobody knew which agency was in charge.
Speaker 1: It was jurisdictional chaos. Now they're finally talking. It's not
Speaker 1: exactly a green light for the industry, but it's the
Speaker 1: first step toward a rulebook that doesn't change just because
Speaker 1: you walked into a different building. Meanwhile, Bitcoin is on
Speaker 1: track for its best week since last September, and AVE
Speaker 1: is dealing with a fifty million dollars headache after a
Speaker 1: token swap went sideways. It's a lot to digest. Now
Speaker 1: here's where it gets interesting. The markets were actually pretty
Speaker 1: quiet today in terms of raw price movement, but the
Speaker 1: underlying story is huge. Bitcoin is sitting around seventy two thousand,
Speaker 1: and it's finally starting to decouple from tech stocks. Usually
Speaker 1: when oil prices spike and geopolitical tensions rise, which they
Speaker 1: are right now, Bitcoin drops with the Nasdaq, but not
Speaker 1: this week. It's holding its ground. Ethereum and Solana both
Speaker 1: caught a nice bid today, up about four percent each,
Speaker 1: but the real action is in the narratives. D Pen
Speaker 1: is up nearly twenty five percent this week, and AI
Speaker 1: tokens jumped about fifteen percent. People are moving back into
Speaker 1: infrastructure and they're doing it fast. Okay, so let's talk
Speaker 1: about that fifty million dollars disaster at AVE. Here's the thing.
Speaker 1: It wasn't a hack. It was a swap that just
Speaker 1: went wrong. AVE and COWSWAP are now putting out these
Speaker 1: dueling reports basically pointing fingers at each other. It's a
Speaker 1: major reminder that in DeFi, everything is connected. When you
Speaker 1: plug one protocol into another, you inherit all their risks.
Speaker 1: It's not a bug. It's just how the architecture works. Well,
Speaker 1: while that's happening, the big boys in TRADFI are making moves.
Speaker 1: Nasdek and the owners of the New York Stock Exchange
Speaker 1: are talking about putting the one hundred and twenty six
Speaker 1: trillion dollar equity market on chain. That's fifty times the
Speaker 1: size of the entire crypto market. If they use public chains,
Speaker 1: it's a massive win for DeFi. If they build their
Speaker 1: own private walls, we might get left outside. And look,
Speaker 1: we have to talk about the scandal in Argentina. President
Speaker 1: Milay is being linked to a five million dollar deal
Speaker 1: to promote the libratoken before it collapsed. Forensic phone logs
Speaker 1: apparently show some pretty frantic calls right as the token
Speaker 1: was crashing. This is exactly the kind of ammunition regulators
Speaker 1: love to use in hearings to show why they need
Speaker 1: more control. It's it's a mess, honestly. All right, before
Speaker 1: we get into the risks, quick word from our sponsor. Okay,
Speaker 1: we're back. Let's talk about what to watch for. So
Speaker 1: what should you actually be worried about? First? That bitcoin decoupling,
Speaker 1: it's great to see, but it's fragile. One bad inflation
Speaker 1: report on March eighteenth could snap that correlation right back
Speaker 1: to the hip of the S and P five hundred second.
Speaker 1: The de five failures we saw today between AVE and
Speaker 1: a smaller exploit on Venus protocol show that composability is
Speaker 1: just a fancy word for systemic risk. When one thing breaks,
Speaker 1: the blast radius is getting bigger. And finally, these political
Speaker 1: token scandals are giving the SEC a lot of momentum
Speaker 1: just as they're starting to coordinate with the CFTC. The
Speaker 1: walls are closing in on the Wild West era and
Speaker 1: looking ahead, the big one is the FED decision this Wednesday.
Speaker 1: Prediction markets say there's basically a zero percent chance of
Speaker 1: a rate cut, so it's all about the tone. If
Speaker 1: they sound hawkish, watch out. Also keep an eye on AVE.
Speaker 1: They're rolling out a new shield mechanism to prevent another
Speaker 1: fifty million dollars slip up. If their total value locked
Speaker 1: stay steady, it means users still trust them. If it drops,
Speaker 1: we've got a confidence problem. If you want the full
Speaker 1: written breakdown of everything we talked about, head over to
Speaker 1: the newsletter at tokenmetrics dot com. The link is in
Speaker 1: the show notes, and if you're finding this useful, subscribe
Speaker 1: to the podcast so you never miss an episode. This
Speaker 1: is educational content, not investment advice. Always do your own research.
Speaker 1: I'm Alex, see you next time.