Fill or Kill
Key Takeaways
- Digital assets sold off precipitously on a market wide AI tech selloff
- Periods of uncertainty & low liquidity often claims crypto as the first victim
- An FOMC meeting & earnings should bring more volatility this week
Digital Asset Commentary
A market wide tech selloff started the week following Friday’s data release which revealed DeepSeek, a low cost, efficient Chinese open source AI model, was outperforming US big tech AI models. Despite this news being released on Friday, digital asset markets had no reaction until US futures markets opened for the week on Sunday night. Cryptocurrency markets are never closed, with lower liquidity on weekends, so when uncertainty grips risk markets, crypto is often a casualty.
Nevertheless, Bitcoin and other digital assets are no strangers to rapid selloffs leading to eventual higher highs throughout the bull market. Many such occurrences in the 2017 bull run helped field the multi-month rally. This week also brings a slew of earnings and a Fed meeting with a 0% chance for rate cuts.
Expectations for Powell’s FOMC presser likely include a mixture of the following; cooling inflation data that has yet to reach the target goal of 2.0% and an unemployment rate that has held at the lower bound with some ancillary employment data only looking mildly concerning. Based on the totality of the data, no rate cuts or hikes are expected any time soon unless labor data worsens or the inflation picture changes dramatically. Even with Trump prodding Powell to lower rates, the Fed is likely to remain independent, at least as long as Powell has the job.
