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Yet another thrilling week for crypto comes to pass 🙌 From banking collapses to meme coin run-ups, we have a lot to cover this week. So, without any further delays, let’s get straight in!

This week in crypto 👇

1. Millionaires with memes - Price of $PEPE continues to soar as speculators feel the FOMO 🙈 

2. Unflinchingly Hawkish- FED raises interest rates by 25bps to 5-5.25% 👀 

3. Bhutan’s big Bitcoin bet - The Himalayan nation plans to raise $500 million to mine $BTC in the Himalayas ⛰️ 

4. Wobbly foundations - Regional banks in the USA continue to feel the heat of quantitative tightening 🏦 

5. Big Bite! - Newly launched Apple Savings Account attracts $1 Billion in deposits in the opening week 🚀 

6. To the moon - Oridnals frenzy takes bitcoin hash rate and daily transactions count to new all-time-highs ❗️ 

PEPE to the moon 🌕️ 

Move over Dogecoin, there's a new meme in town, and it's making a splash in the crypto world! PEPE, the three-week-old meme coin, has hopped its way to a market cap of nearly $600 million in just under a month- that's a lot of flies for a frog 🐸

With over 82,000 holders and 540,000 transactions executed already, this meme coin that has had traditional fundamental analysts scratching their heads once again.

$PEPE has entered the list of top 100 cryptocurrencies by market cap and is now the third-largest meme coin, after Dogecoin and Shiba Inu.

We cautioned our readers that meme coins have no underlying utility and are often pump-and-dump schemes, acting as exit liquidity for whales. Always do your own research and manage your risk effectively before investing in such tokens! (Wise men say only fools rush in 😀 )

Quantitative Tightening continues 👀 

On May 3rd, the central bank raised its benchmark overnight interest rate by 0.25% to the 5.00%-5.25% range, as expected by the markets.

While it may not rule out further rate hikes in June, Fed Chair Jerome Powell said that the end-point of the hikes is close, and it's uncertain whether further increases are warranted in an economy still plagued by high inflation and credit risks.

Powell expects that inflation will come down slowly, so don't expect any rate cuts anytime soon 😢 The Fed will now take a data-driven approach and assess how the impact of monetary policy is accumulating in the economy.

The FED also expects a mild recession sometime in the near future, with unemployment levels rising but not as high as the previous recessions. It's like the FED is predicting a "recession light" - fewer calories, but still not great for you 🤐 

Bhutan X Bitcoin! ⛰️ 

A series of events and new information related to Bhutan’s foray into the world of Bitcoin came to light this week, and the crypto community is welcoming them with open arms!

In an initiative to diversify the nation's economy and decrease its reliance on hydropower revenues, the nation’s investment arm, Druk Holding & Investments, is partnering with crypto miner Bitdeer to raise a fund worth up to $500 million to develop green crypto mining 🌊 

The fund-raising campaign targets institutional investors and will start at the end of May. The investment arm also revealed that they had already been mining Bitcoin for many years when the price of $BTC was just $5k!

With the banking system on the verge of a collapse in the USA and countries like El Salvador and Bhutan embracing Bitcoin, the future of Bitcoin seems brighter than ever before ☀️ 

Banking Recap 🎥 

Regional banks in the US felt the heat from short sellers and deposit outflows. Higher interest rates are making it challenging for them to keep up.

In the past week itself, shares of regional banks like PacWest and Western Alliance dropped ~70% each. Meanwhile, JP Morgan played a superhero by rescuing the troubled First Republic and acquiring the defunct bank.

In the FOMC meeting on May 3rd, Jerome Powell tried to assure market participants that the US Banking sector was resilient, sound and stable. However, it seems that the market has had enough of his antics 🤡 as the move backfired, with shares of multiple banks collapsing in double digits thereafter!

With banks failing left, right and centre, but bitcoin holding its value and appreciating ~70% YTD, investors are finally waking up to understand the need for a better monetary system ❗️ 

Apple has entered the chat 🍎

Apple's savings account looks like a billion-dollar idea, with almost a billion dollars in deposits in just four days. Who knew high-yield savings could be so app-pealing 🤑 

The company has hit the sweet spot with its new high-yield savings account, which reportedly attracted a whopping $990 million in just four days, with $400 million deposited on launch day alone!

The 4.15% annual return attracted roughly 240,000 new accounts in just one week, that too at a time when regional banks in the country were seeing record deposit outflows!

With that level of traction, its really safe to say that the Apple-Goldman Sachs partnership is off to a flying start 😅 

Important All-Time-Highs 😎 

Bitcoin is on fire! The Bitcoin hash rate hit a new high, reaching 439 exahashes per second, showing that the blockchain network is becoming more secure!

Also, the Ordinals craze has helped push the total number of daily Bitcoin transactions to a new all-time high of over 682,000 transactions. In just a single day on May 1st, over 350,000 ordinals were inscribed, taking the total number of inscriptions well over 3 million!

In fact, The mempool, or the “waiting area” for incoming transactions before they are confirmed, is so busy that the cheapest transaction fee sits at ~8 satoshis per byte, or about $0.30, which is relatively higher than the average fee of ~1 satoshi per byte!

So, join the frenzy and hop on the Bitcoin train – but make sure you're not left behind in the mempool!

Meme of the day

The FED : Raise interest rates to curb inflation

Also FED : Prints trillions of dollars to protect defaulting banks 🤔😂 

Fun Fact of the week 😄 

Did you know that Bitcoin miners have generated over $50 billion in total revenues since bitcoin's inception?

The cost of mining these bitcoins was $36.6 billion, resulting in a $13.6 billion dollar profit for miners!

And that's a wrap for this week's crypto recap 🎬 We hope you found the recap informative and engaging. Don't forget to subscribe to our social media handles to stay up-to-date with all the latest crypto highlights. Until next time, keep hodling, keep trading, and stay informed!

Disclaimer: This newsletter is for educational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice or an offer to buy or sell assets. You must exercise caution and conduct your research before making any financial decisions.