Plus: Charts turned red

GM. Think of this newsletter as your 5-a-day fruit portion.

Here's what's on the menu today:

🕵️ US regulators are going after insider trading;

🍍 Crypto dip;

🍋 Top Bitcoin exchanges, South Park goes after prediction platforms + more

🕵️ US regulators are going after insider trading

This year, there's been this trend going on in crypto: small companies you've prolly never heard of announcing they're raising hundreds of millions to buy crypto.

This whole thing started with Strategy, when it turned itself into a Bitcoin treasury company - and its stock went through the roof because of it.

Smaller companies saw that, and went like, "Ok, now me next! 🥰"

SharpLink started buying Ethereum. Upexi did it with Solana. Then there's this farm-tech company called Agriforce that rebranded itself as AVAX One just this week and announced plans to raise $550M to buy AVAX tokens. Just to name a few.

And they keep doing it, because here's the thing: it works. A company announces that they're going crypto, stock price goes up.

Easy W.

But regulators noticed something fishy.

In tons of these cases, stock prices were already moving upward before the crypto announcements went public.

Almost as if... somebody knew it was coming 🤨

That's why the SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) and FINRA (another Wall Street watchdog) are now grilling 200+ companies that announced crypto treasury plans this year.

They're looking into whether company insiders - like executives, staff, or certain investors - shared the news privately before it was officially announced.

That kind of early leak, if true, is a form of insider trading. Very much illegal.

And this should matter to you, because if you're a regular investor, you're prolly the one getting played.

Imagine you see a crypto treasury announcement, think you're early, and buy the stock.

But plot twist: someone else already bought it yesterday because their cousin's friend's brother works in the company's accounting department.

That dude sells at the peak while you're stuck watching your investment tank.

Which is exactly the kind of unfair advantage regulators are trying to stop.

About damn time 👏

🥝 Memecoin harvest

FOMO is sending you a friend request 🪪

Data as of 04:10 AM EST.

Check out these memecoins and plenty more here.

🍍 Market flavor today

The crypto market is going through a bit of turbulence right now.

And by turbulence I mean: if you're looking at the charts today, maybe keep a napkin nearby - might shed a tear or two 🥲

Soo, what's going on? In short: optimism got a little too far ahead of reality.

Over the past few weeks, traders had built up large leveraged positions, assuming crypto would keep going up - mostly because they expected the Fed to cut rates.

The cut did happen, which on its own is bullish for crypto.

But then Fed Chair Jerome Powell started sending mixed signals about what comes next. He hasn't committed to being aggressive with future cuts, and that uncertainty makes markets nervous.

Prices started decreasing, all those leveraged positions started hitting their limits, which triggered billions in liquidations and dragged the whole market even lower.

That's why US economic data matters so much rn.

Yesterday, strong GDP and jobless claims numbers showed the economy is holding up well - which gives the Fed less reason to rush into more cuts.

And today brought two more important updates:

1/ PCE report

Aka the Fed's favorite inflation measure.

👉 Headline PCE came in at 2.7%, exactly as expected, but slightly higher than last month's 2.6%;

👉 Core PCE, which excludes food and energy, remained at 2.9%, also right on forecast.

Translation: inflation isn't getting worse, but it's also not cooling off either.

2/ Michigan consumer data

Basically a check-in on how US households feel about the economy rn and where they think it's headed.

It matters because consumers drive about 2/3 of US economic activity - if people are confident, they spend more and support growth; if they're nervous, they pull back and slow things down.

And the latest results showed that:

👉 People feel less confident about current conditions;

👉 Expectations for the future fell, too;

👉 The only bright spot was inflation expectations - people believe inflation will ease a bit over the next year.

Put it all together:

👉 GDP and jobless claims said: the economy is strong;

👉 PCE said: inflation is steady, not cooling further;

👉 Michigan survey said: consumers don't feel great, but they do expect inflation to ease a bit.

For the Fed, this could mean no urgency to cut rates ASAP - the economy isn't weak, and inflation hasn't cooled enough. But we'll see.

For crypto, it explains the sideways action. But weak consumer sentiment and softer inflation expectations keep hopes alive that cuts will eventually come.

Overall, this combo of liquidations and macro worries means the market is likely to remain volatile.

🍋 News drops you can't miss

🔍 Still googling "where to buy Bitcoin"? This one's for you - we've done the homework and listed the top Bitcoin exchanges for you.

🎲 South Park goes after online prediction platforms. The latest episode, Conflict of Interest, is about people using apps like Polymarket to bet on real-world events.

📰 OpenAI dropped a new ChatGPT feature called Pulse, which gives you daily summaries without you asking. It looks at your past chats and preferences so the updates are stuff you actually care about.

🚔 Interpol ran a global operation that recovered $439M from criminal networks. About $97M of that was in crypto and physical goods.

🎵 Spotify's putting in new rules around AI in music: songs have to say if AI was used, spam uploads won't get through, and AI voice copies aren't allowed.

🍌 Juicy memes