buidlbee digest: Ongoing banking crisis, the impact of the Ordinals protocol on Bitcoin, and new skyrocketing meme coin

The banking crisis continues

The U.S. authorities allowed JP Morgan to buy First Republic Bank, despite the rule prohibiting one bank from controlling more than 10% of deposits in the U.S. Thus, the Fed formally managed to save First Republic Bank by organizing a buyout, although, de facto, First Republic Bank is another bankrupt in the series. This is the second-largest bank collapse in U.S. history.

Right now, stocks of other U.S. banks continue to fall:

 

• Shares of Pacwest, which has $40.36 billion in total assets, are down about 31% since the open.
• Shares of Western Alliance, which has $67.73 billion in total assets (among the largest U.S. banks), are down 24% since opening.

To understand the magnitude of the problem, 4 major U.S. banks have lost $946 billion in the last 2 months — more than the combined capitalization of BTC, ETH, BNB, and USDT.

And even though US congressmen asked Jerome Powell not to raise interest rates at today’s FOMS, he is projected to raise them (which will cause even more stress in the banking system). Today, we are seeing the biggest drop in commercial bank deposits in the US since the Great Depression of 1934. This means that the U.S. has a real bank run going on right now.

The U.S. macroeconomy is also in trouble; the U.S. credit default swap (the cost of U.S. default insurance) has been soaring to heights not seen in the last 15 years. This means that the market is greatly afraid of a possible U.S. default this summer.

What is the shadow logic of the market?

Summarizing all the data, let’s look at the market:

• So far, the market perceives the probable rate hike as moderately positive, as the Fed has reached a dangerous limit where further rate hikes during 2023 are unlikely (events with the banks confirm this). Therefore, it is likely that we are in the final stages of a tightening cycle.
• This makes it possible to predict an imminent reversal of monetary policy (The Pivot), which is very positive for risky assets like Bitcoin. Thanks to this predictive logic, the crypto market now feels quite confident.

The average transaction fee on the BTC jumped to $7-9

Because of the hype surrounding the Ordinals protocol, a queue of 300,000 unconfirmed transactions has formed in the Bitcoin mempool. Since the protocol’s launch in early 2023, users have issued more than 577,000 NFTs and paid 125.6 BTC in commissions; the daily volume of commissions from NFTs peaked at 9.28 BTC. And the share of block space occupied by Ordinals-transactions at the moment reached 60%.

So far, it is difficult to fully understand whether this is good or bad for the blockchain — miners earn on this extra load on the network, while ordinary users will have to pay more for transfers.

New meme coin takes off like a rocket

The success of PEPE, MEME, BABYBNB, and other coins impressed the imitators. Right now, another shitcoin, Bogdanoff (BOG), is gaining momentum. For the last two days, the “asset ” has been flying up at a rate comparable to the growth of PEPE.

Investing in any coin, of course, is very dangerous, but the growth rate of the price looks fascinating!