First Mover Asia: CBDCs Are the Hottest Issue in Florida Politics; Bitcoin Falls Slightly

Good morning.

Here’s what’s happening:

Prices: Meme coins soar as crypto giants stumble amid mixed market signals in AsiaInsights: North Carolina and Florida have both voted to ban CBDCs. Welcome to the wedge issue of the 2024 election.PricesBitcoin Sinks Slightly

Good morning Asia.

As the East begins its trading day, crypto is confused.

Bitcoin is down 0.5% to $28,869 and ether is down 1.45% to $1,878. Meanwhile, the frog-themed PEPE coin is up almost 80% in the last 24 hours, though we’ll see how long that lasts as clouds of a bear sentiment are forming over the frog coin.

Nobody can make much sense of this market. CryptoQuant data says that there’s both high selling pressure because of an uptick in exchange reserves. But at the same time, there’s both a high Coinbase premium and a high Korean premium indicating a lot of buying pressure.

Meanwhile, over in the world of macroeconomic signals, China’s economy looks like it’s slowing down.

Thursday’s (Asia time) release of the Caixin China General Manufacturing PMI, which measures the performance of the manufacturing sector, showed things dropping – but not looking grim.

Caixin’s PMI metric fell to 49.5 in April 2022, marking the first contraction in factory activity since January due to a property downturn and global slowdown fears. Input prices decreased for the first time in seven months, causing the steepest drop in selling prices since December 2015 as firms sought to attract new business, according to a release.

Singapore’s QCP said in a recent note that the market is “confused and rangy” because it’s caught between two minds.

“This lack of direction has led to an absolute crushing of implied volatility across asset classes,” QCP wrote on Telegram.

Conflicting narratives of a hawkish Fed and strong employment with sticky inflation are holding back breaking to new highs, while positioning in the USD is heavily skewed to the short side, the trading firm wrote.

Friday’s job numbers will likely be a good test as to what side of the narrative equation wins.

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