What's Hiding Behind a Corner for Crypto?
Spoiler: It's getting spicy and retail doesn't know it yet!
Hi,🙋
Welcome to the weekly CryptoFolks Newsletter—a press review 📰of the crypto world and the current macroeconomic situation, where we explore what lies beyond the right side of the chart. However, our launch procedures 🛫 require us to inform you not to consider this article as investment advice, as it represents solely our personal opinion. Always remember to manage your portfolios independently.💁♂️
Meme of the Week
The Last Week
It’s a return to what we know all too well—stagnation, sideways trend, and boredom. However, it's not all bad news, as we remain above 100k 😎. You know what's even better? This isn't the end, and we're likely to experience this kind of "boredom" again soon, but this time near the ATH. How? Why? Read on carefully, and you'll find out everything!
Cryptocurrency Market Capitalization
Not sure if you noticed, but last week the conductor briefly stopped the train so that everyone who wanted to could hop on—that's exactly how the cryptocurrency market capitalization chart can be interpreted. As you can see in the screenshot, nothing particularly special happened, and this sideways trend is absolutely normal after the recent pump, where $360 billion flowed into the market. Currently, our magical internet money is worth $3.23 trillion, so compared to the recent increase, its value has decreased by 1.5%. However, as I mentioned, this is just a temporary stop, and soon we'll head to the next station, where the stop will last a bit longer so that every tourist can board for a longer journey.
Altcoins
Don't let your eyes deceive you—this isn't another presidential rug-pull; it's the chart of altcoin capitalization outside the top 10, meaning the most volatile and risky projects in the crypto world with the least liquidity. Who would have thought that it only takes a week for last week's nearly 30% altcoin growth to shrink by more than half, ending up at 11%, right? To be more precise, in the last week, altcoins lost 7.6%, and their current value is $252 billion. Well, that's how it is in this niche—those who wanted to fatten their wallets at others' expense have already done so and exited in time, leaving behind capital donors who don't understand the rules of this game and fell for another "gem" offering 1000x overnight. But don't worry, as you can guess, there aren't that many such people in this market, since altcoins outside the top 10 make up only about 12.7%, so nearly everyone entering crypto buys the obvious—Bitcoin.
So, what's up with Bitcoin?
Well... not much, as I mentioned in the introduction, last week was a return to old habits—boredom and images like this, where Bitcoin identifies as a stablecoin. So, we can draw two conclusions from this: one positive, one negative. Starting with the negative, Bitcoin lost 1% since last Sunday. However, the good news is that, for now, there's no sign of a return to its five-digit price, as we remain steadily above 100k, and to be more precise, at 103k. Actually, there's one more piece of news—also positive 🙃. But for that, we need a broader perspective.
Exactly like this. Don't pay attention to those drawings; it's just a fragment of my technical analysis from Satoshi Nakamoto, which, as you can see, predicted the future 😉. Anyway, take a look at that growth on the right side—what does it remind you of? If you don't know, it means you're missing a lot from previous newsletters, which you need to catch up on as soon as possible! Alright, but back to the topic, this growth looks characteristic of Elliott waves, where we're currently waiting for the fifth (final) wave. Here, you can see what it looks like 👇.
As I wrote last time, after the fifth wave, the most probable scenario is an ABC correction combined with a sideways trend that will last until a characteristic trend change moment, which we've seen multiple times in Bitcoin. Take a look at the next screenshot from 2017.
Or another example from 2024 👇.
So, as you can see, right after the end of the last Elliott wave, we're waiting for something like this, which will bring us closer to that breakout point, crucial for further growth (unless a black swan appears). I wrote "something like this" for a reason, as it doesn't have to be exactly the same scenario as in the previous screenshots. The price could just as well continue the sideways trend and slowly approach the trend change moment. Nevertheless, if no black swan appears in the near future, the coming weeks should proceed calmly, without any significant price movements.
Ethereum
Since nothing interesting happened in the entire market, it shouldn't surprise you that Ethereum was also dull. In the last week, ETH lost 1.8%, and its current price is $2,400. However, I think we can agree on one thing—it's better to see ETH at $2,400 than at $1,400 😅. If this continues, we'll be able to complain about boredom at $8k per piece 😎.
XRP
Don't worry, if I hadn't seen the chart, I'd also think that XRP is playing stablecoin. But that's not the case; instead, what you see in the screenshot resembles a rocket that ran out of fuel and returned to base for refueling. Last week wasn't kind to Ripple Labs' project, just like the ones described above, as it lost not much, just 0.73%, but when we look at the chart, it's a return to the starting point and a loss of the gains built two weeks ago. However, it's not all bad, as XRP is bravely holding at $2.35 per piece and is refueling all tanks, preparing for a longer flight than this week's.
Maybe something happened in traditional markets...
S&P 500
Oh, look, there was more action here than in crypto! The S&P 500 grew by nearly 5% compared to last week, once again approaching the $6k barrier, as its current value is $5,958.37, so not much is missing. It's good to see SPX coming back to life after the recent dip. By the way, since the last local bottom, caused by you-know-what and by whom—I think we don't need to point fingers—the index of the 500 largest U.S. companies is up over 23%, which must encourage investors to return their capital to the market, which probably won't hurt and will certainly help us increase our portfolio's value.
Nasdaq 100
As usual, when SPX falls, Nasdaq goes down with it and even further, and the same applies to growth. It's no different this time—NDX gained 6.25%, its current valuation is $21,427.94, which corresponds to a gain of nearly 30% from the local bottom! That's more than some crypto projects recently; maybe it's time to change industries 🤔.
Russell 2000
On the index of small and medium-sized companies, there weren't such big fireworks, as the recorded gain was 3.68%, which compared to the previous ones isn't an outstanding value. The current valuation of RTY is $2,101.5.
Dow Jones
Here, the situation is very similar to RTY—gain: 3.44%, current valuation: $42,654.74.
Let's see what the newspapers are saying about these cryptocurrencies.
Let’s check what the newspapers are saying about these cryptocurrencies.
Another Monument to Satoshi Nakamoto
I’ve seen a statue like this somewhere before… oh right! – in Switzerland. This is quite interesting because both statues are identical and "disappear" in the same way, raising the question: "Is someone behind this?" Maybe it’s Satoshi himself building monuments to commemorate his creation 😂. Jokes aside, upon closer inspection, the most likely explanation is that the identical statues in El Salvador, Switzerland, and Japan are part of an initiative by Satoshigallery, whose owners specialize in various drawings, graphics, objects, and statues related to the history of Bitcoin and Satoshi himself.
Their flagship piece is, of course, the statue of the creator of the hardest money in the world, which is gaining more and more attention. The message of the statue is to emphasize that "we are all Satoshi" – because no one can individually interfere with the Bitcoin network, and it is collectively built by all of us. Meanwhile, the characteristic "disappearance" of Satoshi when viewed from different perspectives symbolizes his anonymity and withdrawal from public life, essentially "handing over" Bitcoin to the people.
You have to agree that it's quite pleasant to see such images—where in yet another country, a new statue of Satoshi Nakamoto is unveiled, contributing to further adoption of Bitcoin and the entire cryptocurrency market, and sparking greater public interest 🔥. So, all that’s left is to keep an eye out for which country will be next, because now that we know who’s behind it, we can safely assume it won’t be the last time we see one.
Now these are real whales!
If you thought that someone who owns 1,000 Bitcoins is a whale, you were mistaken. Sure, that’s still a lot of money, but compared to what you’re about to see, such an investor could be called a minnow 🐟. As shown in the image, Michael Saylor’s firm, MicroStrategy, together with BlackRock—the creator of the IBIT Bitcoin ETF—hold 6 times more Bitcoins in their wallets than Grayscale.
Now we can truly talk about real whales, because if we combine the total number of BTC held by these two companies, we get a mind-blowing 1,196,825 Bitcoins! 💥 If you’re wondering how much money that is, then based on a current BTC price of $103k, the total value is $123,272,975,000 USD!!!
For context, that’s more than the market cap of Solana or Binance Coin, and almost equal to XRP. What’s more, if we look at what percentage of Bitcoin’s total supply this represents, the result is 5.69% – and that is definitely not a small amount.
"Power in the Hands of the People"
If you're thinking now that institutions like the ones mentioned above will take over most of the Bitcoin supply and manipulate the network—you're wrong. In the screenshot above, you can see both the percentage and absolute distribution of all Bitcoins that will ever be mined.
As you can see, 14.32 million Bitcoins, or 68.2%, are in the hands of private individuals – and that’s probably solid proof that Bitcoin is not in danger of being overtaken by institutions or ETFs, whose share is "only" 6.4%, which, as I mentioned before, still isn’t a tiny number.
Meanwhile, Satoshi Nakamoto’s wallet holds nearly a million BTC – more precisely, 968k, which accounts for 4.6% of the total supply. Bitcoins that are lost forever, because someone lost the keys or the wallet itself, amount to 1.58 million BTC, or 7.6% of the supply.
As for the Bitcoins still left to be mined, only 1.14 million remain – that’s just 5.4% of the supply. In other words, 94.6% of all Bitcoins that will ever exist have already been mined!
Alright, but what about sentiment?
We’re doing better and better 😎 because week by week, we’re reaching higher values on the Fear & Greed Index, as you can see in the latest reading on the screenshot. The index itself even looks like a stablecoin, doesn’t it? 😂 No surprise there—after all, the entire crypto market has been standing still lately.
But if we rewind a bit and compare the sentiment level from a month ago—when many in the space were predicting crash after crash and a deep bear market—with today’s situation, we can see that everything is back on track, and we’re on the final stretch toward new highs 🚀.
Moody’s Downgrades the U.S. for the First Time in History
For the first time ever, the rating agency Moody’s has changed its rating outlook for the United States. This happened minutes after Friday’s close on Wall Street. Similar events occurred in 2011, when S&P downgraded its rating from AAA to AA+. In this case, Moody’s changed the outlook from stable to negative. Upon hearing the news, S&P 500 mini futures dropped an additional 25 points 📉.
Why the decision? According to the report, there are several reasons:
Rising public debt: U.S. national debt has exceeded $36 trillion, and servicing it is becoming increasingly expensive, raising concerns about the country’s long-term fiscal stability.
High budget deficits: Ongoing high deficits that are not effectively addressed by successive administrations increase fiscal risk.
Political dysfunction: Inability to reach agreements in Congress and a lack of effective fiscal policy actions are contributing to the deterioration of the U.S.’s credit outlook.
Alright, so what could be the consequences of all this?
Increased debt servicing costs: A downgrade in the rating may lead to higher interest rates on government bonds, which will increase the cost of servicing public debt 💸.
After the downgrade, the U.S. now sits at Aa1, placing it below countries like Canada, Australia, and Germany, which still maintain the highest credit ratings.
Now you might ask, could this be a political decision?
It’s not our role to judge, but the consequences will definitely work against the current Donald Trump administration.
Refinancing debt at lower interest rates, which has been speculated about since the beginning of the year, is becoming more difficult, and the interest rate itself shows no signs of falling.
The “good” — or rather bad — news about bonds is that the yield curve has once again gone underwater.
An inverted yield curve is when short-term bonds have higher interest rates than long-term ones — logically, this makes no sense, because the risk of a country defaulting increases over time ⏳.
However, based on historical data, this situation has almost always predicted a recession in the U.S. economy with near 100% accuracy. ⚠
Okay, recession — great or not — I’ve got a solution for that.
📓 Crypto bull run has a chance to play out before the recession, and that’s the most important thing we came on agreeing with
. If we all manage to exit risky assets in time for cash or rare metals, we can avoid the crisis in our pockets.
That’s why during the exit phase from this market, I’ll be acting quickly and aggressively, against the crowd that's going to be shouting that Bitcoin is going to a million dollars 🚀.
U.S. inflation results surely surprised many experts
Everywhere online we can read how tariffs are already affecting inflation, and how future results will only be worse — we even
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