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GM to all of you nutcases. It’s Crypto Nutshell #872 trottin' in…🦌🥜

We're the crypto newsletter that's more mind-bending than a scientist who built a door to somewhere and forgot the way back… 🚪🌀

What we’ve cooked up for you today…

What’s in the Crypto Nutshell Portfolio?

BREAKING: Bitcoin, Ethereum Dip as Fed Holds Rates Steady for Third Straight Time

The Fed just gave markets a lot to think about.

And Bitcoin wasn’t a fan…

The Federal Reserve held interest rates steady again yesterday, keeping its target range at 3.5% to 3.75%.

That part wasn't a shock.

The messy part was everything around it.

This was likely Jerome Powell's final FOMC meeting as Fed chair before Kevin Warsh takes over.

And instead of handing Warsh a clean path toward rate cuts, Powell handed him a divided committee.

The vote was 8-4, which is unusual.

Three Fed officials agreed with holding rates steady, but didn't want the statement to keep hinting at future cuts.

In plain English, they think the Fed might be getting ahead of itself by sounding too ready to ease.

Another official wanted a cut right now.

So the Fed isn't split between "cut now" and "cut soon."

It is split between cutting, waiting, and removing the promise that cuts are even coming.

That matters a lot for crypto and markets.

Bitcoin and risk assets have been leaning on the idea that Warsh will be friendlier to markets than Powell.

But Powell made it clear that the Fed still has "so much to learn" before changing course.

The Fed statement also pointed to Middle East uncertainty and elevated inflation.

That's not the backdrop markets wanted…

As a result, Bitcoin fell immediately after the announcement, briefly slipping below $75,000.

Ethereum, Solana, and XRP also moved lower.

Higher-for-longer rates aren't great for speculative assets.

They make cash and bonds more attractive, drain excitement from risk trades, and make every rally work harder.

The big takeaway is that Warsh may still be more crypto-friendly.

But he's not walking into an easy job.

He's walking into a Fed that's divided, an inflation problem that hasn't gone away, and a market that wants cuts faster than policymakers may be willing to give them.

For crypto, that means the macro tailwind is still possible.

But it's not here yet.

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Michael Saylor just did something this April that should fundamentally change how every investor thinks about Bitcoin's price.

In April alone, Strategy acquired 52,962 Bitcoin. In that same month, only around 11,250 Bitcoin will be mined.

That's one company absorbing 4.7 times the entire net new supply for the month.

Read that again. Strategy bought nearly 5 times more Bitcoin than was created.

This isn't a hedge fund taking a position. This isn't a treasury rotation. This is a single entity, using STRC and other capital instruments, vacuuming up almost 5x the daily issuance rate.

Day after day. Week after week.

And here's where it gets serious:

At this scale, Bitcoin's price stops being a function of new supply hitting the market. It becomes a function of capital flows competing for a fixed asset. The math is simple.

When demand exceeds supply by this magnitude, something has to give.

That something is the Bitcoin price.

And Strategy isn't alone.

BlackRock is buying through the IBIT ETF. Fidelity is buying through FBTC. Sovereign wealth funds in Abu Dhabi, Kazakhstan, and beyond are quickly accumulating.

Corporate treasuries are following Saylor's playbook. Morgan Stanley is adding institutional infrastructure. Schwab is opening the doors for 40 million more retail investors.

Hundreds of institutions are now competing for the same fixed supply.

The supply squeeze hasn't fully hit yet. The price hasn't reflected what's actually happening on the demand side. But that gap doesn't stay open forever.

When you have a single buyer absorbing 4.7x the entire supply, while dozens of other major buyers are doing the same, the only question is when the math catches up.

There will only ever be 21 million Bitcoin.

Roughly 19.7 million already exist. The remaining 1.3 million will trickle out over the next century.

And institutions are buying them up faster than miners can produce them.

This is what a structural supply shock looks like in slow motion. And when it finally accelerates, the move won't be gradual. It'll be vertical. 🚀

Time for check in on Ethereum’s supply side dynamics.

To do that we’ll be focusing on the amount of Ethereum currently being staked.

Quick Note: Ethereum staking involves locking up ETH to support the blockchain’s security. In return, users earn rewards for staking.

If you’d like to learn more about staking, check out this article.

32.63% of all Ethereum is now staked.

Nearly one in every three ETH in existence is locked up, earning yield, and completely removed from the tradeable market.

39.38 million ETH. Up 3.39 million since January. At current prices, that's roughly $7.75 billion voluntarily taken off the table in 2026.

And the acceleration is what makes this worth watching.

The jump from 32.46% to 32.63% in two weeks might sound incremental. But staking at this scale has a compounding effect on available supply. Every percentage point locked is a percentage point that can't be sold, can't be lent, and can't hit an exchange during a panic.

Stakers aren't hedging. They're not trading the range. They're making a long-duration commitment to the network at the exact moment most participants are questioning whether to hold at all.

Price will do what price does. But when a third of the supply is voluntarily locked and that number keeps climbing every two weeks, the case writes itself. 🚀

Canada proposes crypto ATM ban over scams and money laundering. Ottawa says Bitcoin ATMs have become a key tool for scammers, as regulators move to tighten oversight of high-risk parts of the crypto sector.

Computershare Taps Securitize to Tokenize Thousands of Company Stocks on Wall Street. The BlackRock-backed firm was recently selected by the New York Stock Exchange as a tokenization specialist.

Celsius founder Alex Mashinsky reaches $10 million FTC settlement with lifetime crypto industry ban. The FTC banned Mashinsky from future crypto and financial-services dealings while most of the larger judgment was suspended.

JPMorgan hires former Goldman Sachs exec for Kinexys. Here is why he believes tokenization is only half the battle. JPMorgan's new crypto head Oliver Harris has warned that tokenizing assets is not a magic fix for liquidity, but says the technology is ready to replace parts of finance's legacy back end.

Want to get even smarter? Check these out.

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Select your answer below and you’ll be redirected to the results page. (answer explanation can be found after “Meme Corner”)

Because what would the crypto world be without its share of memes?

Trivia Answer: Penalising validators by destroying a portion of their staked tokens for malicious or negligent behaviour 🥳

Slashing exists to keep validators honest. If a validator double-signs blocks, goes offline for extended periods, or attempts to attack the network, the protocol automatically confiscates part of their stake. It's the economic stick that secures proof-of-stake chains.

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DISCLAIMER: The content of this newsletter is not financial advice. This newsletter is strictly educational and is not investment advice. Please be careful and do your own research.