Last night, the Federal Reserve's FOMC meeting was also uneventful. Keeping interest rates unchanged was expected. Powell's hawkish remarks afterward were also anticipated. Even this kind of confrontational statement against Trump is more favorable for the market, as the market wants to hear from the Fed Chairman to know that the Federal Reserve remains an absolutely independent institution and that dollar assets are still trustworthy. This way, everyone will feel secure holding dollars, US Treasuries, and US stocks, making the entire financial system more stable. So this is positive news. Did the Fed’s decision not to cut rates lead to a rise? This increase is still event-driven. On one hand, the US has untangled from AI chips and made some progress on tariffs. On the other hand, after the first New Hampshire state passed, two more states have successively approved cryptocurrency-related strategic reserves: 1. Oregon SB167 has been signed into law, updating the state’s Uniform Commercial Code to provide urgently needed clarification on how to handle digital assets (e.g., legally recognized as collateral). 2. Arizona HB749 has been signed into law, which, although it does not allow direct investment, transfers unclaimed assets, airdrops, and staking rewards into reserves. 3. Arizona SB1373 is already on the governor's desk, and after passing HB749, it feels like Governor Hobbs is willing to enact legislation supporting cryptocurrency. 1373 is also a strategic reserve but does not utilize pensions. Of course, there are also unfavorable market dynamics, as the expectation for an interest rate cut has been pushed from June to July, suggesting that the market's speculation on the benefits of a rate cut may be delayed until the third quarter. However, before the end of the year, CME still expects 3-4 rate cuts, meaning almost every month starting in July there will be a rate cut. Thus, the cryptocurrency market will still be impacted by the benefits of rate cuts in the second half of the year.
Tonight at 10 PM, Trump said he would announce a very significant message. The market interprets this as having signed a trade agreement with a major country. Since this afternoon, continuous news has been coming from the UK, suggesting that the tariff agreement with the UK has been finalized. This is certainly a positive for the market. If negotiations with China can succeed in a few weeks, then everyone's investment confidence might really return. Additionally, the Ethereum upgrade has also been completed. Today, the price followed BTC's rise. However, from the current technical perspective, BTC is in a strong upward channel, and in the short term, it shows a healthy structure with increased volume breaking through and a bullish alignment of moving averages. However, several indicators (RSI, TD, SMI) have entered the overbought or top warning zone. If there are no other positive factors that drive a volume breakout above the 100,000 mark, then the current surge is likely a bull trap. Speaking of this round of Ethereum's rise, is it related to the upgrade? Not much, it is purely driven by BTC and the US stock market, plus a well-executed washout. Like a spring at the bottom, it directly links to BTC for release. In contrast, this upgrade is definitely a long-term positive, but before and after the upgrade, it has basically had no effect. So there’s no need to attribute this sudden surge to the completion of the upgrade. From another perspective, the staking cap has been raised from 32 ETH to 2048 ETH, which doesn’t provide much benefit for the majority of people, but is more favorable for institutional operations. Therefore, we need to closely monitor the inflow situation of Ethereum ETFs in the short and even long term. Once institutional trading volume increases, it indicates that institutions are gradually accepting this staking model, and the price will also reflect this. However, there hasn’t been a surge in trading volume yet. Since there are no interest rate cut expectations for May-June, we need to pay attention to the upcoming macro events. The first is Trump’s speech tonight at 10 PM, and the second is the dot plot in June. Every time this dot plot appears, it is a turning point. Let’s continue to wait for the profit effect of altcoins to emerge!