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Jerome Powell’s FOMC press conference just wrapped up, and despite all the noise, the message from the Fed was remarkably clear.
This meeting wasn’t about debating the next hike. That conversation is over.
The Fed held rates at 3.5%–3.75%, with a 10–2 vote. Two members favored a cut, zero argued for a hike. Powell made it explicit: “A rate hike is not anyone’s base case.” That single sentence effectively confirmed that the tightening cycle is done.
From here, the policy question has shifted. It’s no longer whether rates need to go higher. It’s how long the Fed can afford to wait before cutting.
Inflation: Still There, But Not the Kind the Fed Fears
Powell acknowledged that inflation remains above target, but the source matters. According to the Fed, most of the remaining inflation pressure is coming from tariffs, not excess demand.
Strip out tariff effects, and core PCE is only slightly above 2%. That’s a very different problem than an overheating economy.
Powell also noted that tariff-driven inflation should peak by mid-2026, with disinflation starting later this year. If that path holds, it creates room for easier policy without risking a resurgence in inflation expectations.
Growth and the Labor Market
Once again, the U.S. economy surprised to the upside. Powell highlighted that growth has been more resilient than expected and that unemployment appears to be stabilizing.
Importantly, the Fed believes current policy is already restrictive enough. There’s no urgency to tighten further because the brakes are already applied.
What Comes Next for Policy?
Powell stuck toE to the standard playbook: decisions will be made meeting by meeting, and no future cuts have been pre-committed. That said, the subtext matters more than the formal language.
Rate hikes are no longer being discussed as a realistic path forward. The Fed may hold for longer, but the direction of travel has changed.
The Dollar, Deficits, and Gold
On the dollar, Powell reiterated that the Fed does not target FX levels. He also pushed back on the idea that foreign investors are aggressively hedging out of dollar assets, saying there’s little evidence of that behavior.
On fiscal policy, however, his tone was noticeably firmer. Powell openly called the U.S. budget deficit unsustainable, adding that the sooner it’s addressed, the better. That comment landed immediately in markets and helped push gold to new highs, reinforcing its role as a hedge against long-term fiscal risk.
Independence, Politics, and Tariffs
Powell emphasized that the Fed remains independent and that he does not believe that independence has been lost or will be lost. Policy decisions, he said, will continue to be driven by data, not politics.
On tariffs, the Fed’s view is that they represent a one-time price level adjustment, not a persistent inflation engine. If tariff effects fade as expected, monetary policy can become less restrictive over time.
Rate Cuts: Not Yet, But Clearly Next
Powell described current policy as loosely neutral or somewhat restrictive, noting that the Fed has already done a significant amount of work on rates.
Crucially, no one at the Fed expects the next move to be a hike.
Government Shutdown Risk
Any impact from a potential government shutdown is viewed as temporary, with effects likely to reverse within the quarter. The Fed does not see it as a structural threat to the economy.
The Big Picture
Put all of this together, and the signal is hard to miss.
The Fed is done hiking.
Inflation pressure is fading, with tariffs the main remaining risk.
Financial conditions are no longer tightening.
The next policy move — whenever it comes — is expected to be a cut, not a hike.
This meeting quietly confirmed something major: the tightening cycle is over.
Now, markets aren’t waiting for more restriction.
They’re waiting for the easing cycle to begin.
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The Federal Reserve is expected to hold rates steady. No drama, no surprise pivot. After three cuts last year, the current level is restrictive enough to keep inflation contained without snapping the economy in half. Inflation remains above 2%, unemployment is hovering around 4.4%, and growth hasn’t collapsed. There’s simply nothing urgent forcing the Fed’s hand right now.
When Jerome Powell steps up, the tone will be familiar: patient, data-dependent, and deliberately non-committal. The message won’t be that rate cuts are off the table — but that the bar to justify them is now much higher. The Fed isn’t hunting for “good signs.” It wants clear, sustained proof that inflation is cooling meaningfully or that the labor market is weakening in a visible way. Without that, serious discussion likely slips into the second half of the year.
The reason for this stubborn stance is simple: cutting too early is the real risk. If inflation re-accelerates, long-term yields jump, the dollar weakens, commodities reprice higher, and inflation expectations spiral out of control. One mistake here would be extremely costly. From the Fed’s perspective, doing nothing is safer than acting prematurely.
A common misunderstanding is that “no cuts” means “no tightening.” In reality, the opposite can be true. As inflation slowly eases while nominal rates stay fixed, real rates creep higher on their own. Monetary policy continues to tighten passively — without the Fed lifting a finger.
Powell will also reiterate the Fed’s independence. Decisions are driven by economic data, not politics. This message is aimed squarely at the bond market and at preserving institutional credibility. Confidence in the system matters as much as any single rate decision.
For asset markets, this meeting doesn’t unlock new liquidity. Equities may see short-term volatility, but they’ll quickly revert to fundamentals and earnings. Bond yields have little reason to fall meaningfully unless the Fed clearly opens the door to cuts. The U.S. dollar has no catalyst to break down. And crypto shouldn’t expect a push from cheaper money.
In short, this is a holding-pattern meeting. No easing, no rescue, no hidden dovish signal. Just patience — and a reminder that the era of effortless liquidity isn’t back yet.
This article is for informational purposes only. The information provided is not investment advice.
#Binance #wendy #Fed $BTC $ETH $BNB

At first glance, the story looks simple. Bitcoin is going nowhere, chopping sideways, while gold keeps pushing into fresh highs. The easy conclusion is that crypto is underperforming and hard assets are winning.
That surface-level read is exactly where many people get left behind.
There’s a recurring pattern that tends to show up during macro-driven cycles, and it’s one that often gets ignored in real time. Gold usually moves first. Bitcoin doesn’t follow immediately — it lags. Historically, that delay has been around six months.
What looks like weakness in Bitcoin is often just compression.
When gold starts breaking out while Bitcoin stays flat, it doesn’t usually signal failure. It signals a buildup. Capital rotates into the most conservative hedge first, tests the narrative, and only later migrates into the higher-beta expression of the same macro trade.
In past cycles, gold leads with steady upside. Bitcoin goes quiet, volatility collapses, and sentiment turns apathetic. Then, once the move in gold is established and confidence grows, Bitcoin plays catch-up — often violently.
That’s why the current setup matters.
Flat Bitcoin alongside accelerating gold isn’t a contradiction. It’s alignment in different phases. If the historical rhythm holds, Bitcoin isn’t lagging because it’s broken — it’s lagging because it hasn’t started yet.
The timing is the key variable. A six-month window from gold’s breakout points directly into Q2. That’s when the “dead” price action often resolves into direction. Not gradually, but all at once.
This doesn’t guarantee upside. Markets don’t owe anyone symmetry. But dismissing Bitcoin here because it looks boring has historically been an expensive mistake.
Compression rarely stays compression forever.
If history is even loosely rhyming, the next few months won’t be quiet — they’ll be decisive.
This article is for informational purposes only. The information provided is not investment advice
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Lately, there’s been a wave of distorted FUD around buy & hold, sparked by comments from Changpeng Zhao.
Earlier, CZ shared a simple observation from years of watching every trading strategy imaginable: very few outperform the sheer simplicity of buy & hold — and that’s the approach he personally sticks to.
This time, though, he felt the need to clarify what many people conveniently misunderstood.
Buy & hold does not mean buying anything and holding everything.
If you bought and held every crypto token ever created, the result would be obvious — a terrible portfolio. It wouldn’t be any different from buying every internet startup or every AI project that exists and expecting success. That’s not investing; that’s noise.
In every industry, most projects fail. Only a small minority survive, and an even smaller group compound exponentially over time. Crypto is no exception to this rule.
The real mistake isn’t holding. The mistake is buying the wrong thing and then holding it blindly, hoping time will fix a bad decision. It won’t.
That’s the core point CZ is making: what you buy matters far more than how long you hold it. If the initial selection is wrong, holding longer doesn’t magically create value — it just locks in opportunity cost.
CZ also ended with a characteristically blunt note. If his posts don’t add value for someone, they’re free to unfollow. If you don’t see it, it won’t bother you.
At the end of the day, buy & hold is a powerful strategy — but only when paired with disciplined selection. Buy wrong, and holding becomes meaningless.
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For a long time, crypto believed buybacks were the cleanest way to “return value” to token holders.
The logic sounded flawless. A protocol attracts users. Users generate fees. Fees become revenue. Revenue is used to buy back tokens. Reduced supply pushes the price up, which attracts more users, more activity, more fees, and even more buybacks. In a bull market, this flywheel doesn’t just work — it feels inevitable.
But once the market turns south, that story starts to break down fast.
Across the board, we’ve seen tokens with aggressive buyback programs — even ones trading at seemingly attractive valuations — fall just as hard as tokens with no buyback mechanism at all. The issue isn’t that buybacks are conceptually wrong. The issue is that buybacks are completely at the mercy of market conditions.
When sentiment flips, users leave. Usage declines. Fees shrink. Buyback volume drops with them. The buying pressure everyone was counting on quietly disappears. At that point, buybacks stop being a growth engine and start looking more like a bandage on a much deeper wound.
If you look at the protocols with the highest daily buyback value over the past few months, a clear pattern emerges. Most of them are still down significantly, with only a handful of exceptions. The presence of buybacks didn’t change the direction — it merely softened the impact.
The deeper problem lies in where buybacks actually come from. They’re funded by revenue or treasury capital, while protocol performance is tightly coupled to the broader market cycle. When conditions worsen, both sides of that equation weaken at the same time.
A good example is HYPE from Hyperliquid. The project itself isn’t failing. Product–market fit is clear, the product is strong, and user growth has held up surprisingly well in a difficult environment. Yet the token is still down roughly 50% from its all-time high.

The reason isn’t insufficient buybacks. It’s supply.
Every day, the market has to absorb more than 200,000 HYPE tokens being unlocked. The buyback program only offsets a fraction of that flow. If just around one-third of those unlocked tokens turn into real sell pressure, the buyback loses the battle on flows alone — even before factoring in retail exits or trader positioning.
In situations like this, buybacks don’t reverse price trends. At best, they slow the decline. At worst, they quietly drain the treasury while fighting a supply wave that’s several times larger.
What’s especially telling is that even some of the most aggressive buyback programs in the current market haven’t been able to change the outcome. That raises an uncomfortable question: is buyback truly a form of value accrual, or has it become a comforting narrative that only works when liquidity is abundant?
If you’re buying a token primarily because “the project does buybacks,” it’s probably worth pausing for a moment. Ask where that buyback funding actually comes from. Ask whether it’s large enough to meaningfully offset upcoming unlocks. And ask whether you’re looking at real value capture — or simply a well-packaged story designed to trigger FOMO.
Sometimes, buybacks aren’t a solution. They’re just a delay.
#Binance #wendy #Buyback $ASTER $BNB

Les rachats de jetons ne sauveront pas votre prix — du moins pas dans ce marché
Pendant longtemps, la crypto a cru que les rachats étaient le moyen le plus propre de « rendre de la valeur » aux détenteurs de jetons.
La logique semblait parfaite. Un protocole attire les utilisateurs. Les utilisateurs génèrent des frais. Les frais deviennent des revenus. Les revenus sont utilisés pour racheter des jetons. Une offre réduite fait monter le prix, ce qui attire plus d'utilisateurs, plus d'activité, plus de frais et encore plus de rachats. Dans un marché haussier, cette roue d'inertie ne fonctionne pas seulement — elle semble inévitable.
Mais une fois que le marché se retourne, cette histoire commence à se décomposer rapidement.
Dans l'ensemble, nous avons vu des jetons avec des programmes de rachat agressifs — même ceux se négociant à des évaluations apparemment attrayantes — tomber tout aussi durement que des jetons sans mécanisme de rachat. Le problème n'est pas que les rachats sont conceptuellement mauvais. Le problème est que les rachats sont complètement à la merci des conditions de marché.
Lorsque le sentiment change, les utilisateurs partent. L'utilisation décline. Les frais diminuent. Le volume de rachat diminue avec eux. La pression d'achat sur laquelle tout le monde comptait disparaît silencieusement. À ce stade, les rachats cessent d'être un moteur de croissance et commencent à ressembler davantage à un bandage sur une blessure beaucoup plus profonde.
Si vous regardez les protocoles avec la plus haute valeur de rachat quotidienne au cours des derniers mois, un schéma clair émerge. La plupart d'entre eux sont encore en baisse significative, avec seulement quelques exceptions. La présence de rachats n'a pas changé la direction — elle a simplement atténué l'impact.
Le problème plus profond réside dans l'origine réelle des rachats. Ils sont financés par des revenus ou du capital de trésorerie, tandis que la performance du protocole est étroitement liée au cycle de marché plus large. Lorsque les conditions se détériorent, les deux côtés de cette équation s'affaiblissent en même temps.
Un bon exemple est HYPE de Hyperliquid. Le projet lui-même ne manque pas. L'adéquation produit-marché est claire, le produit est solide et la croissance des utilisateurs a étonnamment bien tenu dans un environnement difficile. Pourtant, le token est encore en baisse d'environ 50 % par rapport à son sommet historique.
La raison n’est pas un manque de rachats. C’est l’offre.
Chaque jour, le marché doit absorber plus de 200 000 tokens HYPE étant débloqués. Le programme de rachat ne compense qu'une fraction de ce flux. Si environ un tiers de ces tokens débloqués se transforment en réelle pression de vente, le rachat perd la bataille sur les flux à lui seul — même avant de prendre en compte les sorties de détail ou le positionnement des traders.
Dans des situations comme celle-ci, les rachats ne renversent pas les tendances de prix. Au mieux, ils ralentissent la baisse. Au pire, ils drainent silencieusement la trésorerie tout en luttant contre une vague d'offre qui est plusieurs fois plus grande.
Ce qui est particulièrement révélateur, c'est que même certains des programmes de rachat les plus agressifs sur le marché actuel n'ont pas réussi à changer le résultat. Cela soulève une question inconfortable : le rachat est-il vraiment une forme d'accumulation de valeur, ou est-il devenu un récit réconfortant qui ne fonctionne que lorsque la liquidité est abondante ?
Si vous achetez un token principalement parce que « le projet fait des rachats », il vaut probablement la peine de faire une pause un instant. Demandez-vous d'où vient réellement ce financement de rachat. Demandez-vous s'il est suffisamment important pour compenser de manière significative les déblocages à venir. Et demandez-vous si vous regardez une véritable capture de valeur — ou simplement une histoire bien emballée conçue pour déclencher le FOMO.
Parfois, les rachats ne sont pas une solution. Ils ne sont qu'un retard.
#Binance #wendy #Buyback $ASTER $BNB

A developing case is sending shockwaves through the global crypto community. The U.S. Marshals Service has reportedly launched an investigation into allegations that more than $40 million in cryptocurrency was stolen from wallets holding assets seized by the U.S. government.
According to on-chain findings shared by blockchain investigator ZachXBT, the primary suspect is John “Lick” Daghita — the son of Dean Daghita, chairman of CMDSS, a government contractor that has worked with the U.S. Department of Justice and the Department of Defense on managing confiscated digital assets.
ZachXBT’s analysis links at least $23 million in suspicious transactions directly to a broader pool of roughly $90 million in crypto seized by the U.S. government between 2024 and 2025. The flows suggest that funds may have been siphoned from official government-controlled wallets into addresses connected to the suspect.
What has further fueled controversy is that John Daghita allegedly didn’t try very hard to stay low-key. In a viral Telegram clip, he openly flaunted his holdings during a “band for band” flex, sharing a wallet screen that displayed millions of dollars in ETH. On-chain tracing later connected those transactions back to wallets believed to be used by the U.S. government to store seized crypto assets.
If confirmed, the case raises uncomfortable questions about how securely confiscated digital assets are handled — and who really has access behind the scenes. When funds meant to be under state custody can be traced from government wallets to personal addresses, the issue goes far beyond individual wrongdoing and into systemic risk.
For an industry already sensitive to trust, custody, and transparency, the idea that state-held crypto could be mishandled so casually is deeply troubling. In crypto, self-custody is often criticized — but incidents like this remind us that centralized custody, even at the government level, is far from immune to failure.
At the moment, the investigation is ongoing, and no final conclusions have been reached. But one thing is clear: this story is far from over, and its implications could ripple well beyond a single wallet.
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