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• 📰 Is the US Turning Oil Into a Policy Weapon, and Does That Mean Easier Rate Cuts?

• 💎 Altcoin Liquidity: Unlocks, Wicks, and the Rotation That Wrecks People

• 🐸 MEMEoirs of a Degen!

• 💭 Banter’s Take

GM Degens,

Happy New Year! I hope you all had a marvelous holiday season.

The market’s got that weird vibe today where prices look calm, but the backdrop is getting rewritten in real time. Bitcoin is showing signs of life again, macro data is lining up for volatility, and the biggest “risk-on catalyst” might not even be a crypto headline. It might be oil.

Because if oil stops being a free market and starts acting like a policy lever, then inflation, rates, and liquidity all start behaving differently. And when liquidity shifts, crypto eventually feels it.

Let’s dive in!

🌍 Market Catch-Up

Top 100 coins Daily Performance - Banter Bubbles

Source: CoinMarketCap

📰 Question of the Day

Is the US Turning Oil Into a Policy Weapon, and Does That Mean Easier Rate Cuts?

Something massive just happened in the macro narrative, and it has nothing to do with a chart pattern or a funding rate. The US has made a decisive geopolitical move in Venezuela that gives it significantly more influence over how the world’s largest proven oil reserves are developed and routed into global markets, and at the same time, oil is already trading near multi-year lows. That combo matters, because it changes what oil is. It stops being purely a market-driven commodity and starts behaving like a lever that can be pulled for policy outcomes.

Zoom out and think about what oil really does in the system. Oil sits at the core of inflation. It flows straight into headline CPI through energy, and it bleeds into core CPI through transportation and basically everything that needs to get shipped from A to B. It also shapes expectations. If people feel fuel and energy are going to stay high, they act differently, businesses price differently, and policymakers get cornered.

Now flip the script. If the US can expand effective supply and force prices lower, inflation falls mechanically, without needing the Fed to stay restrictive. That’s the key. It is not “stimulus” in the traditional sense, but it can achieve similar outcomes: lower inflation pressure, less need for tight rates, and a smoother path toward cuts.

The Venezuela timeline has been flooding feeds, from the operation visuals to official messaging, but the core takeaway is simple: this was framed as a move that allows oil to “freely come out”, explicitly with the goal of getting prices down, and framed as good for the US economy. Trump’s comments about wanting viable neighbors and wanting oil to flow were pretty blunt, and the intent was not subtle when he said getting prices down is “good for OUR country”.

And if you want the market translation, it is this: cheaper energy pulls inflation lower. Lower inflation gives the Fed cover. Fed cover increases the odds of cuts. Cuts loosen financial conditions. Looser conditions feed risk assets.

That chain reaction is why this feels like the beginning of a regime change, not just another headline. If added supply and policy pressure can keep a lid on major oil price spikes, the effective inflation ceiling that has limited risk assets gets higher. Suddenly, the obstacle is not that the economy is too hot, it is that inflation is easier to tame. That makes rate cuts easier to justify, and it accelerates the transition away from tight conditions, even if nobody stands at a podium and calls it stimulus.

We have a bunch of supporting signals stacking around the same time.

Bitcoin, for one, just broke back above the 50-day moving average for the first time since October, and historically when BTC has reclaimed the 50D MA, the follow-through has tended to be meaningful.

At the same time, there’s a clean behavioral explanation floating around: tax loss harvesting is finally over, and that pressure release is being noticed on the charts. Even the seasonal stats for December tax loss harvesting on down years suggest Q1 is green about two-thirds of the time.

But it’s not a straight line. The $93k to $95k zone is still acting like a problem, and price is visibly treating it as a hurdle again.

Now layer in the week-ahead macro.

We have the ISM today, and the market is watching it closely because Chicago PMI tends to lead ISM Manufacturing PMI. Chicago PMI already beat expectations a couple of days ago, which adds fuel to the “better ISM” narrative. And Tom Lee’s point is simple and aggressive: Bitcoin is highly sensitive to ISM, and when ISM moves back above 50, it has historically aligned with super-cycle moves in BTC, as discussed in the below clip.

Then you’ve got the institutional angle heating up again. Bank of America has reportedly started recommending clients allocate up to 4% of portfolios to Bitcoin and other crypto. The context on why that headline hits is the scale: BofA had $4.3T in wealth management client balances as of last year-end, per its annual report. Even a small allocation trend changes flows.

Now back to oil, because oil is the hinge.

The energy component is literally part of headline CPI, documented directly by BLS.

Oil also feeds into transportation inside core CPI, and the household energy and motor fuel breakdowns show how this transmission works, which you can read and review here. When oil moves first and inflation follows, the market starts pricing the follow-through before the Fed ever admits it. That oil-to-inflation relationship is the reason this Venezuela move matters more than the headline drama.

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And the scale is wild. Venezuela holds the highest oil reserves in the world, as per Statista.

With oil around ~$57 a barrel, the math pegs Venezuela’s reserves at a notional $17.3T in value, but the realistic recoverable value would be far lower once costs, discounts, underinvestment, and politics are factored in.

If the US can influence the flow of that supply into global markets, then oil becomes less about marginal producers and more about policy. And if oil is capped, inflation is capped. If inflation is capped, the Fed’s job gets easier.

Markets are already watching the cut path. Fed expectations are floating around roughly two cuts with a possibility of three, per the CME FedWatch tool.

Final Thoughts

So what do we do with that as crypto degenerates with a macro brain?

We start treating energy as the lead domino. If oil is the lever, the repricing happens downstream: inflation prints, then rates, then liquidity, then risk assets. That means the oil story can be the reason the macro backdrop turns supportive, even while the surface narrative still feels chaotic.

And once liquidity starts loosening, Bitcoin, equities, and crypto become the beneficiaries, not the starting point. Miss the oil story, and you miss why conditions can flip without anyone ringing a bell.

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💎 Degens’ Den

Altcoin Liquidity: Unlocks, Wicks, and the Rotation That Wrecks People

Altcoins do not move on hope, they move on liquidity, and right now the market is basically screaming that liquidity is the main constraint. You can see it in the weird disconnect behavior, you can see it in execution problems, and you can definitely see it in how fast narratives rotate without follow-through.

Julius (@jv_finance) puts Bitcoin’s fair value around ~$188k, but this is just one aggressive global-liquidity model rather than an objective or guaranteed target. Whether you buy that number or not, the point is this: if liquidity mean reversion is real, beta assets eventually catch up, and that’s where alts either shine or get destroyed.

But there’s a catch: alts need clean liquidity, not just “macro easing vibes”. And the market is still showing scars. For example, things are being said about exchange execution, with calls of illiquid wicks that wreck traders. When liquidity is thin, stops do not behave the way your brain expects them to behave.

Now add the other slow-motion altcoin killer: unlocks.

Unlock season is where your favorite charts go to die. Even if you love a project, you have to respect supply schedules, because spot demand needs to absorb that flow. If macro liquidity is improving but alt-specific liquidity is still fragile, unlocks can keep alts pinned while BTC looks fine.

Then there’s the buyback illusion. People love buybacks as a narrative crutch, but the market reminder is blunt: buybacks alone did not protect price, as noted below by Tindorr.

In low-liquidity environments, buybacks can soften a fall, but they rarely change the regime. Real regime change comes from sustained inflows.

So where do we actually look for signs that alts will return?

Two places in this dump.

First, payments and real activity. Visa crypto card spending reportedly surged 525% in 2025, rising from $14.6M to $91.3M in net spend. That kind of data matters because it implies usage is expanding even when timelines feel choppy. It doesn’t instantly pump your bags, but it supports the “base layer of demand” that helps alts survive.

Second, the on-ramp signal. The Coinbase premium is recovering. The idea is familiar: when US spot demand picks up, it often expresses there first. If that continues alongside easing macro conditions, alts tend to get their window later.

Final Thoughts

If the oil-driven macro shift really does make cuts easier, we likely get looser conditions, but altcoins still need execution-safe liquidity and supply awareness to actually outperform. Respect unlocks, respect thin books, and do not confuse a macro tailwind with instant altseason.

🐸 MEMEoirs of a Degen!

💭 Banter’s Take

This whole setup is basically a reminder that the biggest trades rarely start where the crowd is staring. Everyone wants to front-run Bitcoin, but the leading domino might be oil, because oil feeds inflation, and inflation feeds rates, and rates feed liquidity. If that Venezuela move really does turn crude into a policy tool, then the ceiling that’s kept risk assets on a short leash gets higher.

At the same time, crypto still has its own plumbing issues, thin liquidity, ugly wicks, unlock pressure, and narratives that move faster than real inflows. So the opportunity is real, but the market will still punish impatience.

If you want to learn more, catch today’s episode of Crypto Banter.

None of this is financial advice. Do your own research.

See you all tomorrow!