OVERVIEW

Have Yourself A Merry Little Rate Cut, Let Your Longs Be Right 🛷

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

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

NEWS
Fed Cuts Rates, Then Basically Says "Don't Get Used to It" ✂️

The Fed cut rates by 25 basis points today - no surprise there. What's notable: three dissenters, the most since September 2019.

The dot plot tells the real story. Median projection? Just one cut in 2026. Some members want four cuts; two actually want a hike.

Powell acknowledged the elephant in the room: tariffs. Strip them out and inflation sits "in the low-twos," he said. But tariffs aren't going anywhere, and the Fed knows it. They're flying blind on trade policy while trying to stick the soft landing.

The bright spots? Consumer spending remains stubborn, AI investment is propping up business activity, and unemployment isn't expected to spike. GDP growth projections actually bumped up to 2.3% from September's 1.8%.

How’s Crypto Doing?

As of 1615 EST, price action is all over the place. But let’s check Stocktwits’ Sentiment and Message Volume scores for some tickers.

$BTC ( ▼ 2.94% )

Users are ‘meh’ and, also, they don’t want to talk about it. 😐️ 

$ETH ( ▼ 4.48% )

Stocktwits users are bullish and there’s only slightly more chatter here compared to Bitcoin. 😃 

$DOGE ( ▼ 7.5% )

PETA’s about to show up to rescue this dog and not even people who don’t like PETA care if it happens. 😶 

$SOL ( ▼ 5.53% )

Users are bullish, just a few points from Extremely Bullish - but they don't want to talk about it. Not I'm-ashamed-to-talk-about-Solana not talking about it. More like I'm-not-going-to-openly-share-this-one not talking about it. 🙂 

NEWS
OCC Confirms Banks Blacklisted Crypto As Policy 😡 

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency just released it’s Preliminary Findings from Its Review of Large Banks’ Debanking Activities.

But first, because not everyone knows what the OCC is, here you go:

What is the OCC?

• Stands for Office of the Comptroller of the Currency

• Independent bureau within the U.S. Department of the Treasury

• Oldest federal bank regulatory agency in the country, established in 1863

• Charters, regulates, and supervises all national banks

• Oversees the largest banks in America: JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citibank, Wells Fargo, US Bank, Capital One, PNC, TD Bank, BMO

• Conducts on-site examinations and reviews bank policies

• Ensures banks operate safely, comply with laws, and provide fair access to financial services

• Has real enforcement power: can issue cease-and-desist orders, levy fines, remove executives, and refer cases to the Department of Justice

So they’re kind of a big deal.

Back To The Findings

You can read the preliminary report yourself, but here’s a quick summary of what the report found.

Oh, and it’s so bad that they’re preparing referrals to the Attorney General. It’s that bad, like 1984 Big Brother bad. Scary as hell to be honest:

• Banks restricted legal industries based on optics, not financial risk

• Banks flagged sectors receiving "activist or political scrutiny"

• Banks denied services for legal activities "contrary to the bank's values"

• Banks surveilled customers for feds based on political transaction patterns

• Banks restricted crypto companies industry-wide

• Banks cited "polarized" gun rights debate as justification for firearms restrictions

• Banks forced gun manufacturers to follow bank-defined "best practices" or lose access

• Banks flagged customers simply for appearing in negative news coverage

• Banks escalated accounts that might generate bad press

• Banks labeled coal financing a "social risk"

• Banks admitted Arctic restrictions were part of climate activism campaigns

• Banks flagged customers involved in protests or labor strikes

• Banks restricted private prisons over philosophical objections to profit motive

• Banks restricted lending to PACs and political parties

Let’s see if anything happens. 🤷

RWA TOKENIZATION
Abstract & Open World Tokenize... Everything 🪙

Look, I've seen a lot of ambitious press releases in my time, but Abstract and Open World released one that made me double-check I wasn't reading science fiction. 👀 

I mean it’s not exactly a novel idea, but it’s the first time some big wigs decided to write their ideas and outlines out like this. Here’s what they want to do:

Build a "national-scale tokenization engine" to put AI megacenters, oil fields, energy grids, and sovereign reserves onto a quantum-resistant blockchain anchored to Ethereum.

We're talking about assets that have historically been locked behind institutional velvet ropes - now theoretically accessible via compliant fractional ownership.

The tech specs are impressive on paper: 10,000+ TPS, $0.001 per transaction, zero-knowledge privacy, and backing from Founders Fund (Peter Thiel's outfit). They're positioning this as infrastructure for "Internet Capital Markets".

Open World claims $65 billion in tokenized crypto assets already under their belt. Russ McMeekin of mCloud Saudi Arabia is involved, talking about deployment within sovereign data centers where "no foreign entity can freeze transactions." I mean, unless they storm the building with police/military/big bombs.

Tthe vision is genuinely massive - they're talking about reshaping how nations and enterprises handle their most strategic physical assets. Tokenizing a treasury bill is one thing. Tokenizing a nation's energy grid is playing an entirely different game.

File this under "watching closely." 📁 

NEWS
CFTC Does Something Useful 👍️

Acting Chairman Caroline Pham launched a digital assets pilot program allowing BTC, ETH, and USDC to be used as collateral in derivatives markets.

They also issued guidance on tokenized real-world assets - including U.S. Treasuries and money market funds - as eligible collateral.

The practical implications may not seem like a much at first - but if you’re a trader, this is a yuge deal. FCMs (Futures Commission Merchants) can accept these assets as customer margin collateral under a structured framework with weekly reporting requirements.

This means 24/7 trading becomes a genuine reality in U.S. markets - something that's been available overseas but regulatory ambiguity kept stateside.

Pham also withdrew the outdated 2020 staff advisory that restricted virtual currency as customer collateral, citing the GENIUS Act's passage as making it irrelevant.

The industry response was predictably enthusiastic - Coinbase, Circle, Crypto.com, and Ripple all issued glowing statements. But strip away the PR polish and there's real substance here: regulatory clarity, defined guardrails, and a framework that actually encourages innovation rather than punishing it.

After years of regulatory hostility, seeing a "yes, and here's how" approach feels almost disorienting. More of this, please. 🥺 

NEWS
ETHZilla Wants to Tokenize Mobile Home Loans. What Could Possibly Go Wrong? 🤔

I genuinely don't know how to feel about this one. 😐️

$ETHZ ( ▼ 13.76% ) announced a 15% stake in Zippy, a digital lending platform for manufactured homes. The plan: tokenize mobile home loans as on-chain real-world assets. The deal's worth $21 million in cash and stock, and they're targeting what they call "one of America's most underserved credit markets" - a $14 billion sector.

• Manufactured housing is legitimately one of the few affordable homeownership paths left.

• Zippy has institutional-grade infrastructure with AI underwriting and transparent reporting.

• ETHZilla brings the tokenization rails.

Together, they want to make these loans accessible to investors who've historically been locked out of this market. And yet…

• We’ve seen this movie before.

• Bundling loans from financially vulnerable borrowers.

• Slicing them into investment products

• Selling them to yield-hungry investors? That storyline didn't end well circa 2008.

The press release uses phrases like "on-chain securitization framework" and "programmable yield" that simultaneously sound innovative and set off alarm bells.

The transparency angle could genuinely be different this time - blockchain make the underlying assets more visible than traditional securitization ever did. Or it could just be new plumbing for old problems.

Whether this is a legitimate way democratize finance or just digitizing predatory lending with extra steps... let’s check in a few years what happens. 📆 

LINKS
Links That Don’t Suck 🔗

🎮️ VanEck Shifts Focus From Gaming To Degen Economy In ETF Overhaul

😆 Trump Coin Attempts Comeback With Play-To-Earn Game After 90% Drop Since Debut

😶 Fundstrat’s Tom Lee Warns ‘Too Many DATs’ Are Chasing Too Little Trading Volume

🐧 Pudgy Penguins Token Gains After Going Live On BNB Smart Chain

🤖 Tesla Optimus robot takes a suspicious tumble in new demo

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Author Disclosure: The author of this newsletter holds positions in AVAX, ADA, PUDGY, WLC, IMX, XTZ, NEAR, HBAR, ALGO, INJ, LTC, LINK, ZEC, XLM, and FET. 📋