A $400 million rug-pull on MonkeyPoxInu. The
honeypots… and the pump-and-dumps.

DeFi problems (to put it bluntly) are becoming larger in scope and more
frequent in nature, as shown in the chart below which you can view on Comparitech:

Throughout all of it, though, most participants in DeFi would probably
agree that there’s been far more talk than action. 

It’s time to stop keeping score
and start making plays.

If you’re old enough to remember the “I’m a Mac / And I’m a PC”
television commercials that ran beginning in 2006, you’ll likely recall the one
that implied that Mac computers didn’t get viruses.

The dirty little secret? Macs were
vulnerable to viruses, but Apple’s share of the personal computer marketplace
was so low in 2006 (just 4.8%) that it wasn’t worth the effort to
exploit them.

Today, we know differently.

And the point is that talk is cheap.

When we first conceived of the idea that led to the Bridges Exchange, we did so with a view
towards helping clean up the “Wild West” nature of DeFi. In fact, Bridges is a
first of its kind (although we hope—not the last): it is the first anti-scam,
dividend-paying, decentralized hybrid exchange-aggregator.

We created the Bridges Exchange because “business as usual” in DeFi has meant
nothing more than the proliferation of tokens—and with them—theft. Like others, we’ve grown tired of
seeing honest investors left penniless and innovative developers whose ideas
are copied at will. For DeFi to realize its full potential, it has to evolve
from being a safe haven for scammers to becoming an ecosystem where every
participant has a legitimate chance for financial freedom and security.

Here’s how we did it:

Public
Listing Criteria: To get
good projects in, we have to keep bad actors out. Bridges has fairly stringent project listing criteria, and
they’re publicly available for all to see.

Thorough
Vetting Procedures: The
time from application to listing can take several weeks which, while long,
is simply a necessary evil. The reputation of Bridges is only as good as
the last project that we approved for listing, and while we can’t
guarantee positive returns or even complete, 100% safety, we do promise
that our vetting procedures are carefully and thoroughly implemented.

Requirement
of Innovation: Safety
means different things for different people. For holders, it means the
avoidance of scams, but if you’re the project developer, it means the
protection of innovative ideas. We require that approved projects bring
some form of innovation to the space, and we reject those that are pure
copycats of others’ ideas.  

Anti-Whale
Caps: To promote overall
stability in the price of Bridge$, the native token of our Exchange,
anti-whale caps prevent any single investor from holding more than 1% of
the total supply, equal to 1 million tokens.

Regardless of whether you’re a holder or a developer, a novice
participant in DeFi or a seasoned veteran, we invite you to join the mission that Bridges represents and to be part
of the action—and not the talk—about cleaning up DeFi.

You can learn more about the work of Bridges at https://bridges.exchange.

This article was written by ForexLive at www.forexlive.com.

Beijing will reopen primary and secondary schools for in-person classes. Senior and middle high schools were allowed to return to classrooms from June 2, now all are reopening. Beijing shut its schools in early May and moved to online learning.

It’s a mixed bag still in Shanghai. The city’s Communist Party chief spoke on Saturday, saying his authorities had „won the war to defend Shanghai“ against COVID. Meanwhile in Shanghai,

• most students have not been allowed to resume in-person classes
• dining indoors is still banned
• mass PCR testing for its 25 million residents continues every weekend until the end of July

In Shenzhen on Saturday an announcement that it would shut all cinemas and parks, and all public events have been suspended in one district after 6 local cases were found. 50% capacity constraints were set for restaurants in the district

Shenzen residents must show a negative COVID-19 test to enter public venues & transport taken within the last 24 hours (from 48 hours previously).

–

There are signs of improvement in China, but also setbacks. Volatility in reopening will continue, thus in the economy also.

China is struggling to emerge from 2020:

This article was written by Eamonn Sheridan at www.forexlive.com.

US first quarter growth was flat and the Atlanta Fed tracker for Q2 is currently at 0.0% so it will need to be a strong second half just to get to 2.9%.

In any case, these forecasts offer a sense of where the official consensus is.

• 2023 1.7% vs 2.3% in April
• 2024 +0.8%
• 2025 +1.7%
• 2026 +2.1%

As for monetary policy, they called for an ‚assertive and rapid‘ withdrawal of stimulus. 

In her comments, Georgieva also hints an global frustration with the intensity of US domestic demand and how it’s boosting prices everywhere. She said misjudgements by the Fed will result in negative outward spillovers to the global economy.

This article was written by Adam Button at www.forexlive.com.

Markets are pricing in a 27% chance that the Fed only does 50 basis points, so she might consider being careful here. And a big reason  the market is pricing that in is because that’s what the Fed guided. You can’t tell the market what you’re going to do and then say you’re only doing it because that’s what the market has priced.

In another sign of the mess the Fed finds itself in, Daly cited the UMich inflation expectations survey for the 75 bps hike rather than 50. Today that number was revised back down. She acknowledged that today, saying the revision ‚got my attention‘ while still saying that long-term inflation expectations have ‚ticked up‘.

She also laid out a strategy, saying that if they front load rate hikes they might not have to do as much. This commentary is a bit of a departure from the unrelenting hawkish talk lately.

This article was written by Adam Button at www.forexlive.com.

• UMich final 5-year inflation expectations 3.1% vs 3.3% prelim
• US May new home sales 696K vs 588K expected
• Fed’s Daly: We don’t need to think about the end-point for the balance sheet yet
• Fed’s Daly: We want to bring down inflation without crippling growth
• Baker Hughes US oil rig count 594 vs 584 prior
• ECB’s Centeno: Flexible PEPP reinvestments are a powerful tool
• US Supreme Court overturns Roe V. Wade
• BOE’s Pill: Elevated UK inflation stems largely from external shocks
• Belgian June business sentiment -1.8 vs +1.8 prior
• ECB’s De Guindos: Economy losing momentum according to PMIs

Markets:

• S&P 500 up 115 points, or 3.0%, to 3914
• US 10-year yields up 6.8 bps to 3.14%
• WTI crude oil up $2.79 to $107.66
• Gold up $4 to $1826
• AUD leads, JPY lags

After hiking by 75 basis points instead of the 50 bps he long-ascribed to, Powell cited the jump in inflation expectations in the UMich consumer sentiment survey as a factor. Well, he might have waited until the final data was out, as the numbers were lowered.

The market jumped on that and the odds of just a 50 bps hike in July roughly doubled to 27%. That sentiment weighed on the US dollar and boosted stocks as well with some particularly large moves in the commodity currencies.

CAD was doubly boosted by a rebound in oil that left crude down just $2 on the week — a far cry from the mid-week crash. After touching 1.3000 in Asia, USD/CAD finished on the lows at 1.2880.

AUD/USD was similarly strong and found some breathing room above the double bottom 0.6833 in a climb to 0.6937.

The growing problem is the push-and-pull in bonds. The better tone on risk assets took 10-year yields from a low of 3.03% to 3.14%, with less worry about a recession starting to mean a shift back to worries about inflation. That’s a tenuous dynamic that leaves a narrow window for an extension of this price action.

The US dollar was broadly weak but made some progress against the yen.

Curiously, the pound was able to find few bids despite the positive risk tone. Some of that relates back to worries about growth in the eurozone. For its part, the euro managed to climb 30 pips on the session.

Have a great weekend.

This article was written by Adam Button at www.forexlive.com.

On the day:

• S&P 500 3.0%
• Nasdaq +3.2%
• Russell 2000+3.0%
• DJIA +2.6%

On the week:

• S&P 500 +6.4%
• Nasdaq +7.5%
• DJIA +5.4%

Last week was the worst one for US stocks since March 2020 but this week all those declines were wiped out.

This article was written by Adam Button at www.forexlive.com.

• If supply continues to fall short and inflation stays high, we will need to do more, if not we can do less
• Likely to be some slowing in economy but not a recession
• We have the tools to bring down inflation, it’s our number one priority
• How much additional tightening depends on factors beyond the Fed’s control

This article was written by Adam Button at www.forexlive.com.

The S&P 500 has extended to its best levels of the day as trading winds down for the week. It’s been an impressive rebound in a holiday-shortened US trading week.

Today’s gain has pushed the index into the mid-June gap.

This article was written by Adam Button at www.forexlive.com.

WTI crude oil climbed $3.35 to settle at $107.62 while brent finished the week at $113.12.

Both are lower compared to last Friday’s close and that’s the second week in a row of declines but it follows a streak of seven consecutive weekly gains.

Overall, crude is right in the middle of the range since the outbreak of the Ukraine war and the bulls should be encouraged by that given the recession fears, the OPEC+ increase and the SPR release.

As for OPEC+, they will meet again on Thursday but a report this week citing five sources indicated the status quo. A bigger question is what happens beyond August when the scheduled increases run out. Nigeria has been underproducing but said it hopes to have its oil online quickly. Libya’s production is inconsistent. Hopes for an end to the Iran nuclear deal are nearly non-existent.

For me, the dominant feature on the chart is the series of higher lows that’s intact so long as crude stays above $95. The buying interest today shows ongoing tightness in the physical market but a sharp economic slowdown could reverse that in the months ahead.

This article was written by Adam Button at www.forexlive.com.

• Lower growth, higher inflation will follow in the months ahead
• Inflation to start declining in Q4 this year
• Main concern is second round effects of inflation
• A wage price spiral will be very detrimental for the economy

Just some token remarks there by de Guindos but once again it just reaffirms the narrative that central banks are continuing to kick the can down the road when it comes to the timeline of getting inflation „under control“.

This article was written by Justin Low at www.forexlive.com.