Crypto Equities: One of the Most Overlooked Sectors (The Pomp Letter): We call them “blockstocks,” but the idea is the same. Public stocks that are tied to blockchain, such as:
- Coinbase (COIN)
- MicroStrategy (MSTR)
- Silvergate Capital (SI)
- Hut 8 Mining (HUT-CM)
- Riot Blockchain (RIOT)
Investor takeaway: Since you can’t buy bitcoin in your retirement fund, consider investing in “block stocks,” which are well-correlated with crypto markets. (Remember: diversify, diversify, diversify).
Correlation between top “Block Stocks” and overall crypto market.
(Higher = more correlated.)
From top left: COIN, MSTR, SI, MARA, HUT, RIOT, HIVE, BITF, BRPHF, ARBKF. (Courtesy The Pomp Letter)
By now we’re all pretty familiar with how phishing scams work, at least I hope we are. …
A would-be scammer creates a website that looks authentic, like an Amazon or PayPal login page, then sends the user a link telling them that a certain action is required.
Once the target enters their username and password into the fake page, they’re basically at the mercy of the hacker.
Well, it appears that built-in browser wallets such as MetaMask are also susceptible to this type of attack.
In this thread, famous tech mogul Preethi Kasireddy explains how hackers are watching Etherscan for your pending transactions and then will hit you with a pop-up telling you your transaction was rejected, only to serve you with a password request once you try the transaction again.
Since MetaMask uses your own browser to store your private keys, there seems to be any number of ways that hackers can potentially get access to them.
Indeed, in researching for today’s newsletter, I found several other similar phishing schemes that involve duping even the most advanced users.
As a general tip, I would recommend minimizing the number of open tabs on your browser while accessing any online wallets.
Any website you have open while logging into MetaMask can potentially access your private data.
Additionally, try not to store large amounts of crypto in online wallets. My personal tendency is to only store small amounts when using them for utility purposes.
Taper Time
As I write to you today, we do have a bit of breaking news from the U.S. Federal Reserve.
In short, the Federal Open Market Committee has stated that they will reduce their monthly injections into the bond market by $15 billion. Going forward, they will be buying only $105 billion per month.
They were also careful to say that they will react to the data and will increase the amount again if necessary.
Needless to say, investors were extremely impressed by these ultra-dovish tightening measures, and stocks shot to all-time highs on the announcement.
We also saw bitcoin take a dip, presumably from investors who saw the tightening but are not seasoned enough to understand the nuance of a Fed who is walking in two directions at once. Notably, bitcoin made a full recovery of the move within a few minutes of the announcement.
Here we can see the short-term reactions of bitcoin on the left and the S&P 500 stock index on the right. Each candlestick is set to one minute.
Now ether is marking a new all-time high. Simply beautiful.
For further consideration
Countries around the world are working on central bank digital currencies (CBDCs). The latest high-profile release involved the eNaira, which is Nigeria’s CBDC.
Analyst Wonder Godzo recently interviewed the CEO of FinTech company Bitt Inc., which contributed to the development of the eNaira.
To read more about this matter, click here.
Stuff like this is why it’s crucial to do your own research.
What a good doge. Click to watch the birthday video.
