Here’s what you’ll find in today’s edition:

• Rome wasn’t built in a day, and crypto securities laws weren’t written in 3.5 hours. 

• Ben chatted with Ledn CIO John Glover about where we are in the bitcoin bull run.

• We have a quiet start to the week before PCE data drops on Friday. Read what else we’re watching.

Inaugural crypto roundtable shows ‘clarity’ is a long way off 

The SEC’s new crypto task force gathered Friday to hear from 11 crypto attorneys and legal experts. 

It was the group’s inaugural roundtable discussion, lasting two hours and followed by 90 minutes of public Q&A. The meeting was dubbed the “Spring Sprint Toward Crypto Clarity” and had a focus on “defining security status.” 

Spoiler: To the chagrin of much of the crypto industry, roundtable attendees were not able to reach agreement on the very question that has plagued the securities regulator for 5+ years. 

Of course, answering the question of how to determine whether a crypto asset is a security wasn’t the primary purpose of the meeting. And, given that the SEC is operating with three commissioners and doesn’t currently have a permanent chair, we’d be shocked if the agency even hinted at passing formal rules around crypto. 

All that aside though, even if Friday’s meeting on the surface seemed to be a nothing burger, we’d argue that the conversation was still telling when it comes to what we could expect from the agency in the next few years. 

Here are our top takeaways: 

Howey is still king 

All roads, for better or for worse, lead back to Howey. 

The panel on Friday spent almost the entire time debating how and if cryptocurrencies fit into the four-pronged Howey test. Until a formal crypto-specific rule is passed (which we don’t expect until the commission is full and a new chair is in place), don’t expect the Howey talk to die down. 

The guestlist was striking 

I can’t prove this, but I have a feeling that Friday’s meeting was the largest gathering of crypto-native lawyers inside the SEC, ever (well, save for the depositions and settlement meetings that undoubtedly have taken place over the years). 

Attendees included a16z crypto general counsel Miles Jennings and Delphi Ventures general counsel Sarah Brennan. 

Commission “interpretation” is just that 

Speaking of Howey, lest we forget that the SEC’s cherished securities framework is the result of a landmark Supreme Court ruling. 

The industry talks a lot about legal wins, like the district court ruling that secondary XRP sales were not unregistered securities). But until a crypto case makes it further up the appellate ladder, we aren’t going to have meaningful legal precedent. 

Yes, commissioners can pass rules and staff can issue guidance, but I’m still a believer that we’ll need to see more judicial opinions before crypto fits neatly into the current securities landscape. 

The guidance we’ve seen from the SEC in the post-Gensler era is even less permanent. 

Acting Chair Uyeda himself on Friday said these “staff statements” have no legal backing. In other words, as of now, there’s nothing stopping the next chair from coming in and reversing everything that’s happened since Jan. 20. 

Of course, the next chair is widely expected to be Paul Atkins, Trump’s pick who heads to the Senate on Thursday for his nomination hearing. We don’t currently foresee any major hurdles to his confirmation, and we certainly don’t expect him to walk back any of Uyeda’s pro-crypto statements. Still, we’ll be monitoring the situation closely. 

Keep an eye on your inbox.

— Casey Wagner

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The number of BTC the company formerly known as MicroStrategy now owns. That’s after Strategy — it dropped the “Micro” — bought 6,911 BTC last week for $584 million in cash.

Strategy’s half-million milestone means it currently owns roughly 2.4% of all the bitcoin that will ever exist.  

The average price it paid for all that BTC is $66,608 per coin. Michael Saylor said he expects bitcoin to rise to $13 million per coin by 2045.

I’ve been getting Ledn CIO John Glover’s bitcoin price technical analyses by email for a while now. 

But I was finally able to catch up with him in person at the Digital Asset Summit.

Glover, ex-managing director at TD Securities and Barclays, uses Elliott Wave Theory — examining price patterns related to changes in investor sentiment and psychology — to predict BTC price. 

Essentially, the theory goes, a deeply liquid market will move in the main trend direction in five waves (three “motive” phases pushing price up, with two downward “corrective” phases in between). There are then three waves that go opposite that trend. 

Traders sometimes use this alongside other technical analyses to identify possible entry and exit points.

Last week, we perhaps neared the end of Wave 4 (the way down) in this broader BTC price uptrend that began in 2023 at around $16,000, according to Glover. The market, he noted, was not moved by the pro-crypto remarks that Donald Trump recorded for last week’s Blockworks conference.

But BTC saw a boost over the weekend. Its price of $88,370 at 2:10 pm ET Monday was 2.6% higher than 24 hours prior.

Regardless of whether Wave 4 has officially ended or not, Glover expects Wave 5 to lead to a BTC price rally to between $130,000 and $135,000 by Q1 2026.

Taking the convo beyond specific price levels, I asked Glover about how bitcoin is perceived — as a safe-haven to some, and a risk asset to others.

“Even though we have deep liquidity, there’re not enough participants in [bitcoin] that have a complete understanding of what it is yet and have formed that view,” he said.

Those believing BTC is “digital gold” (and an inflation hedge) might be bulking up their bitcoin ETF positions, for example, as the price has come down. Those fearing that BTC’s rise to roughly $109,000 was just the result of a “Trump pump” might be exiting in panic. 

“To me, [bitcoin] is digital gold, and once more and more traditional finance players get in, it will start tracking gold much more closely,” Glover added.

Nearly one-fifth of surveyed financial advisers with no crypto allocation for clients planned to add that exposure in 2025 (more than double the previous year’s 8%). But those who haven’t yet likely want to see BTC start moving up again before they do, Glover said.   

Those tend to be stickier positions. 

“If people have it in their portfolios, I don’t think they’re going to freak out if it’s correcting,” Glover said. “I think they’re going to say OK, it’s only 1% of my portfolio, I’m happy to hold that for the long term.”

— Ben Strack

Happy Monday! 

Markets closed out last week relatively subdued. With a quiet week ahead on the data front, we imagine the next few days will be more of the same. But with new inflation data dropping on Friday, the end of the week could bring some excitement. 

Here’s what’s on tap: 

• The Q4 GDP second revision is due Thursday. The growth figure for the last three months of 2024 is expected to remain unrevised at 2.3%. Models are still giving mixed predictions for Q1 2025 GDP. The Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow tool is calling for a -1.8% while the newer NY Fed Nowcast is projecting growth of 2.7%. Quite the discrepancy. The first reading for growth in 2025 will be released on April 30. 

• We’ll be keeping an eye on Thursday’s initial jobless claims report, which is expected to tick up for the week ended March 22. First time filers have been on the rise in recent weeks, reflecting government layoffs. Private sector layoffs have been low, although job openings are dwindling. 

• The data highlight of the week will come on Friday when February’s PCE report is released. It’s the Fed’s preferred inflationary measure and analysts are expecting little change from January’s report, which isn’t great. Considering beginning-of-year price increases are reflected in the January report, elevated inflation is to be expected, but should taper off in the months to follow.

— Casey Wagner

• Digital asset investment products brought in $644 million last week after five weeks of net outflows, CoinShares data shows. Bitcoin funds led the recovery, notching $724 million of inflows after seeing $5.4 billion exit the products during the outflow streak.

• Ben’s at an ETF conference in Las Vegas talking to some of the firms focused on (and not so focused on) crypto. Casey is in DC chatting to sources.