OVERVIEW

It's Raining Red 🩸

If modern history has taught us anything, it’s that Middle East unrest causes risk markets to retreat. With Iran reportedly gearing up to attack Israel this weekend, it’s no surprise that traders rushed to protect their portfolios before the traditional markets closed for the day. 🛡️

Everything seemed ‘ok’ across all markets today until reports of missiles launched from Lebanon hit the news, and everything tanked.

Nonetheless, in today’s Litepaper we cover: a quick Technically Speaking on the selling taking place, Senator Warren’s challenger, a fix for SOL soon, tracking government BTC holdings, and the Japanese Yen.

Before we dive in, here’s today’s crypto market heatmap: 

And here’s a look at crypto’s total and altcoin market cap YTD:

TECHNICAL ANALYSIS
Technically Speaking - April 12, 2024

The shit has hit the fan in the late afternoon, let’s look at what’s happening. 👀

The chart below shows a baby Robin's trajectory when the momma Robin kicks the baby Robin out of the nest, but it still doesn’t know how to fly.

Look at $ADA, $DOT, $INJ, $APT, $ALGO, and pretty much any altcoin, and it’s probably down -20% or more (as of 4:00 pm ET).

The weekend, if anything, should be interesting. 🧠

NEWS
Crypto Heavyweights Support Against Elizabeth Warren Opponent 🥊

Several leading figures from the cryptocurrency sector are backing John Deaton's campaign against Senator Elizabeth Warren. 🗳️

Crypto bigwigs like Anthony Scaramucci and the Winklevoss twins have contributed the maximum allowable to Deaton, who is challenging Warren in Massachusetts.

If you don’t know who Deaton is, he’s a big name in the $XRP community. A former Marine and an attorney, he’s actively represented the broader XRP community alongside Ripple in their fight against the SEC.

Despite being a long shot, the crypto community sees this as a strategic effort to influence policies affecting their industry. Deaton's campaign, buoyed by significant crypto contributions, highlights the increasing intersection of cryptocurrency and politics in shaping future legislation. 🏛️

NFTs
Solana Fix Soon? 🔧

Solana's network faces growing pains with significant congestion issues, prompting urgent updates from developers. 🛠️

With high transaction failure rates currently plaguing the network, SOLs users are looking for fixes. The Anza team has released a new version of its validator client to address these challenges and wants them to upgrade ASAP. ⚙️

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ON-CHAIN ANALYSIS
Arkham Unveils Real-Time Government Holdings Tracker 🕵️‍♂️

Arkham's latest data reveals that the U.S. government, along with the U.K. and Germany, holds some of the largest $BTC caches globally. 🌍

According to the newly launched tracking tool, the U.S. tops the list with 212,847 BTC. Arkham's dashboard provides transparency and live updates of wallets known to be held by state actors. 💰

FOREX FUTURES
We Need To Talk About The Yen

Want to know what the scariest friggin chart out there is? It’s not Cocoa Futures. It’s the Japanese Yen Index: 😱

It’s at all-time lows. But if you really want to see how poor the Yen is performing, here’s a multi-decade chart of USD/JPY:

The Yen is at a 34-year low against the USD. And because the Yen looks like it fell down the punch-me-in-the-face tree and hit every branch on the way down, all of Japan’s important people, from the Ministry of Finance, the Bank of Japan, and even the Prime Minister, have spent the last few weeks doing ‘verbal intervention’—using language and the media to try and stop people from shorting the Yen.

But the FX and Futures markets have basically told Japan: you’re all talk.

Let’s also look at one more piece of information that really shows how bearish the yen market is—the Commitment Of Traders Report.

The Commitment of Traders (COT) Report is like having a cheat code because it reveals how the big players are positioned. By showing whether these market movers are long or short, the report gives traders insights into potential price movements before they become obvious to the crowd. It's like getting a sneak peek at the dealer’s hand.

If the Bank of Japan decides to use its USD to support (buy) the Yen - expect some crazy fireworks across all markets. 💸

Links That Don’t Suck 🔗

🎈 Original Trump NFT collection trading volume plunges 99% in past 30 days ahead of criminal trial

🪨 Investors in BlackRock’s new tokenized assets fund can now transfer their shares to circle for stablecoin USDC

💦 XRP ETF debate is heating up as Ripple CEO joins the conversation

💂 UK competition and markets authority raises alarms over big tech’s AI dominance

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