the cryptobull market is delayed huh it’s delayed
the cryptobull market is over it’s over or the cryptobull market is on schedule but will continue
to be Bitcoin only the consensus view of the crypto market seems to be a mix of these takes to
find out which view is correct all we need to do is look at the upcoming catalysts assess whether
they could be bullish or bearish and how that could affect crypto prices today we’re going to do
exactly that uh look at all the macro and crypto catalysts set to occur over the next few months to
figure out what comes next for the market my name is Nick and this is a video you’ll want to watch
until the end let’s start with the macro and the first macro catalyst to watch is the one that’s
on everyone’s mind and that’s Trump’s tariffs and this catalyst is the primary reason why the
prices of most assets including crypto have been struggling in recent months uh to recap Trump’s
tariff threats began at the start of February these tariff threats hit their apex though at
the beginning of April almost exactly 2 months after they started and if you look at the prices
of stocks or cryptos you can clearly see the crash that occurred during this period and this begs
the question of why assets have crashed so hard and the short answer is uncertainty the tariffs
have made it difficult for investors to figure out how their investments could be affected rather
than wait to find out many have decided to sell and sit on the sidelines until there is more
certainty in other words most investors have been selling first and asking questions later
the tariffs have also made it difficult for companies and consumers to plan and as a result
many companies have decided to do things like pause hiring and many consumers have decided to do
things like save money in case they get fired by those affforementioned companies at the same time
many companies and consumers have been stockpiling goods ahead of the tariffs to minimize the cost
they’ll have to pay in the future and this is evidenced by the surge in US imports from China in
March and the multiple reports of Americans buying cars ahead of the associated tariffs another
example is Apple importing a staggering 600,000 kg of iPhones earlier this month to avoid Trump’s
tariffs that’s over 1.3 million pounds for uh any Americans watching it stands to reason then that
this will be enough iPhone inventory to last Apple for at least a few months if not longer this mass
stockpiling of inventory could therefore have the paradoxical effect of causing inflation to fall
sharply in the short term especially if the recent drop in consumer sentiment starts to reflect in
actual consumption as basic economics dictates a greater supply with less demand would mean lower
prices in theory this is bullish because it would increase the chances that the Fed would lower
interest rates to stimulate the economy and juice the markets in practice however it ultimately
depends on whether the uncertainty around Trump’s tariffs continues something that the Fed has
also underscored as a concern if uncertainty around tariffs does continue then investors
will continue to sell and sit on the sidelines companies will continue to do things like pause
hiring consumers will continue to save rather than spend and the Fed won’t lower interest rates
out of fear that tariffs could lead to higher inflation the good news is that we’re starting
to see early signs of capitulation from both the Fed and the Trump administration a couple of
weeks ago the Fed confirmed that it would step in to support the bond market if there was too much
volatility and the Trump administration has been implementing pauses and exemptions for certain
countries and industries again it’s been almost 3 months since this all started and this means
that we’re hopefully closer to the end of this period of uncertainty than the beginning but the
fact of the matter is that nobody knows for sure with luck most of the tariff uncertainty will be
gone by the time the current 90-day pause expires something that’s expected to happen by early July
and you can learn more about what’s been going that is easing by the Fed be it in the form of
lower interest rates or QE as most of you will know lower interest rates are bullish because
they result in more borrowing which is the main thing driving the economy and the markets what you
may not know though is that quantitive easing or QE has a similar effect and that’s because QE is
when the Fed buys government bonds and the more bonds they buy the higher the bond prices go and
this causes yields on those bonds to fall which lowers long-term interest rates by extension now
it’s getting interesting uh historically speaking the Fed would only start doing QE after rates
were at or close to zero in recent years however the Fed’s interest rate policy and balance sheet
policy have operated independently namely with the Fed lowering rates while continuing to do QT
now for those unfamiliar QT stands for quantitive tightening and it’s when the Fed refuses to buy
more US bonds after they mature this lowers demand for US bond prices which results in lower bond
prices higher bond yields and higher long-term interest rates by extension and if you’ve been
keeping up with our coverage of the Fed you’ll know that it basically stopped doing QT in early
April when it lowered it down to just $5 billion per month meanwhile the Treasury Department
hasn’t been able to issue additional bonds because of the debt ceiling being hit in January
this has restricted the supply of new bonds all while the Fed has increased bond demand by slowing
its pace of QT and when you combine this with the money the Treasury is spending from the Treasury
general account what you get is an increase in liquidity in theory this should be bullish for
the markets in practice though it hasn’t been and that’s essentially because uncertainty
around things like tariffs has resulted in this liquidity flowing into safe assets like
gold rather than risk assets like crypto again this will probably continue so long as the tariff
uncertainty continues however this doesn’t change the fact that the macro catalysts related to the
Fed are looking better by the day now the fact that the Fed announced that it would stabilize the
bond market in the event of volatility effectively confirmed that it will do QE if necessary and
something similar could happen sooner the Fed’s next policy decision will be announced on May 7th
and though investors aren’t expecting any rate cuts the Fed’s recent concerns around bond market
volatility could result in them stopping doing QT completely which would be supportive of liquidity
conditions around the margins it’s also important to remember that the Fed’s most recent interest
rate forecast notes that it will be lowering interest rates below 4% by the end of the year and
if inflation comes in lower than expected and the economy continues to weaken in the coming months
the Fed could cut rates even sooner which would likewise be supportive of liquidity conditions
around the margins and this ties into the third macro catalyst to watch and that’s stimulus coming
from other central banks as some of you may have heard the Chinese government is reportedly
considering pulling forward its stimulus plans to try and offset the effects of Trump’s tariffs
obviously this would increase liquidity as some of you may also have heard Germany is on the brink
of spending €500 billion on various initiatives and this spending will reportedly begin in the
coming months after the new government has been formed of course this will also increase liquidity
uh that money will inevitably find its way into the markets if you need evidence of that look no
further than the reaction from European markets when Germany initially announced this stimulus
they skyrocketed particularly the companies that will benefit most from this stimulus other
European countries could announce similar stimulus measures too and we’ve covered this in depth in
a separate video over here for you by the way now this relates to the fourth macro catalyst to
watch and that’s big announcements related to AI uh believe it or not but most of the rally we’ve
seen in stocks over the last couple of years has come from a handful of tech companies and the
main reason why these tech companies have been rallying is AI for context these companies are
Alphabet aka Google Amazon Apple Meta Microsoft Nvidia and Tesla they refer to as the magnificent
7 or MAG 7 for short and account for more than a third of the S&P 500 index and a staggering 45% of
the NASDAQ 100 index they are literally the stock market and it goes without saying that the crypto
market is highly correlated to the stock market what’s fascinating is that many analysts believe
the top of the stock market was marked by the launch of Deepseeker the Chinese open-source
AI model that started to gain traction in late January they believe that the launch of DeepSeek
practically showed the world that the Mag 7 were insanely overvalued given these facts it stands
to reason that the stock market will rally if the Mag 7 rally and the Mag 7 will rally if there’s
some AI related announcements that prove that Deep Seek isn’t the end of the story at the time
of shooting there are at least three catalysts that could meet this criterion in the near term
the first is the launch of OpenAI’s GPT5 now to refresh your memory the launch of Chat GPT in late
2022 was the catalyst that kicked off the biggest rally in the MAG 7 and the rest of the stock
market by extension the launch of GPT5 could have a similar effect if it gives investors the
impression that open AI has achieved artificial general intelligence or AGI which is what many
believe GPT5 could be close to there is currently no launch date for GPT5 but it’s expected to
be released in the coming months the second AI catalyst to watch is the release of Tesla’s
quote unsupervised full driving in June which could be more similar to GPT5 than you think and
that’s because many AI researchers believe that the only way you can have full self-driving is
if you have an AI capability that approximates AGI just like GPT5 might do and the third AI
catalyst to watch is the one that nobody seems to be paying attention to and that’s an Apple
AI now for reference Apple has been lacking in AI features compared to its peers and this could
change in the coming months now that the company has begun gathering user data for AI training
purposes other AI catalysts to watch out for are Meta launching AI agents after the recent launch
of its Llama 4 model which is made for AI agents amazon working on custom AI chips and data centers
google potentially launching quantum computing chips for AI and Microsoft integrating whatever
OpenAI launches with GPT5 due to their close relationship and that would cover all of the MAG7
stocks now this pertains to the crypto catalysts to watch and the first one is one that everyone
seems to have forgotten about and that’s the 11.4 billion that will be returned to FTX institutional
creditors starting at the end of May and chances are that some of this capital will find its way
back into the crypto market and this ties into another overlooked catalyst and that’s a surge in
DeFi borrowing using less programmable cryptos as collateral including BTC and XRP now for reference
crypto whales will often borrow stable coins against their large cap holdings to speculate on
other cryptos most DeFi borrowing was historically done using more programmable cryptos like Ethereum
as collateral and using less programmable cryptos like Bitcoin as collateral in the past required
CFI lenders like Celsius and BlockFi which went bankrupt because of all their crypto leverage
during the previous cryptobull market but if you watched our video about wrapped Bitcoin however
you’ll know that the proliferation of new forms of wrapped BTC such as Coinbase’s CBBTC has made
it easier to use BTC as collateral in DeFi and this sets the stage for significantly more DeFi
borrowing against BTC which could benefit altcoins and if you’ve been keeping up with our XRP updates
you’ll know that it’s in the process of launching an EVM compatible side chain that will make it
possible for XRP Wales to borrow stable coins against their holdings borrowing against BTC and
XRP could create tens of billions of dollars of cryptonative liquidity that would find its way
into altcoins in connected ecosystems such as Ethereum Salana and indeed Cosmos on that note the
third crypto catalyst to watch is the approval of spot altcoin ETFs and in case you missed the
memo there are around a dozen spot altcoin ETF applications pending the recent confirmation of
Paul Atkins as the SEC chair could speed up the approvals of these and subsequent applications
and as we’ve seen with Bitcoin spot ETFs will make it easier for tradins pumping up their
prices and boosting their respective ecosystems these secondary effects of the altcoin ETFs are
likewise something that many people seem to have forgotten some of these secondary effects are
likely to be direct like increasing the price of soul which will likewise cause altcoins on
Salana to pump and result in more borrowing against soul to speculate on other Salana altcoins
other secondary effects will be indirect such as speculation that similar cryptos like Suie will
be next to get ETFs speaking of which the fourth crypto catalyst to watch is more clarity from
the SEC regarding things like NFTts and onchain activities such as DeFi and airdrops one thing
that we’ve highlighted in our other videos about the crypto market is how more and more people
are engaging with crypto onchain take the Phantom wallet for instance it’s crazy to think that it
flipped the Coinbase app in app stores last year it’s even crazier when you realize that this
happened at a time when there was still lots of restrictions around onchain activity imagine
how much crazier it will be when there’s clarity at first glance you might think that this will
require regulations around crypto market structure to be passed by Congress upon closer inspection
however it looks like the crypto market could have next to no restrictions in the interim consider
the following quote from SEC Commissioner Mark UA quote “A timelimited conditional exemptive relief
framework for registrants and non-registrants could allow for greater innovation with blockchain
technology within the United States in the near term.” Now uh perhaps we’re mistaken but this
sounds like there will be virtually no regulation on crypto in the short term and some would say
that Donald Trump launching a memecoin should have made that clear enough and that reminds me
the fifth crypto catalyst to watch is Congress passing stable coin regulations something that
could reportedly come as soon as May and in case you missed the news mega banks like Bank of
America and asset managers like Fidelity are planning on launching stable coins once this
happens with payment processors like PayPal and crypto companies like Ripple looking to expand
their stable coins too this will result in a surge in onchain activity for the networks that support
these stable coins mainly Ethereum Salana and Bass and when you add spot altcoin ETFs into the mix
it’s easy to see how the FOMO could take large layer ones like Salana and Ethereum higher despite
all of the FUD other crypto catalysts to watch include central banks officially adding BTC to
their balance sheets governments accumulating BTC and altcoins through things like staking
and mining and major countries using crypto in international trade all of the above already seem
to be happening to some extent and the only reason they have had zero impact on prices is because
of all the uncertainty around tariffs and macro the crypto market in the short term the answer
seems to be more uncertainty at the macro level and this means that we’re likely to continue
to see more of what we’ve seen in recent weeks specifically choppy price action from BTC and
larger altcoins while small altcoins continue to grind lower as retail investors continue throwing
in the towel in the medium-term the answer seems to be volatility in either direction because of
the upcoming macro and crypto catalysts such as the Fed’s interest rate decision in early May and
stable coin regulations which could come later in the month and these catalysts could be bullish or
bearish or neither the outcome could be another month of chop and grind while investors try to
find their footing by the summer however there should be much more clarity on the macro front
related to things like tariffs inflation and unemployment if most of the tariffs are settled
inflation is still falling and unemployment is rising from mild economic weakness the Fed could
respond with big rate cuts conversely if most of the tariffs are still being negotiated inflation
is still sticky and unemployment isn’t showing any signs of deterioration the Fed could stay put
or it could even raise rates the former scenario would result in more chop and grind whereas the
latter could result in another big leg lower but let’s say we do get much more clarity on the macro
front by the summer this could create a macro setup similar to what we saw last autumn when the
Fed was cutting rates out of caution in response to falling inflation and rising unemployment what
followed was a multi-month rally in the markets as we learned there are lots of catalysts that
could incentivize capital to flow into stocks and cryptos against this accommodative macro backdrop
however it’s worth keeping in mind that these macro and crypto catalysts could be delayed
by market participants if the macro backdrop isn’t accommodative enough and I’ll reiterate that
there’s no guarantee we’ll see such conditions but if we do and we start to see a recovery sometime
over the summer this could result in investors doubling down on both asset classes going into the
autumn and that’s simply because the end of the year has historically been a very bullish period
for stocks and crypto many crypto investors would likely interpret the rally over the summer as
being the leadup to the classical cycle top rally in the autumn however there is a risk that the
macro conditions could be deteriorating again by that point and that’s because there’s a risk that
the finalized tariffs will cause inflation that starts to feed into the economy and you’ll recall
this effect may not be felt at first due to all the inventory stockpiling in recent months if the
economy is still weak or getting weaker we could end up in a stagflationary recession that central
banks and governments will have a hard time getting out of and if you want to know what that
could mean for the economy well you can check out our video on that right over here and if you’re
not subscribed to the channel yet well you can do that right over here that’s me for now thank you
very much for watching and I’ll see you again soon
