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At a conference in Manhattan last week, a few hundred people gathered to hear luminaries of the cryptocurrency industry and executives from the likes of BlackRock and Fidelity discuss Bitcoin’s march into the investing mainstream this year.However, it was another token that kept coming up in the conversations: a newer cryptocurrency best known for its logo featuring an image of a dog wearing a knit hat. The billionaire Michael Novogratz, chief executive officer of Galaxy Digital, jokingly lamented that he doesn’t have a position in the coin called dogwifhat.“I don’t, as much as I want to,” he said to laughs from the audience. “I just fear if I tweet ‘God, I love dogwifhat like Arthur Hayes does,’ I will literally be investigated two days later by the CFTC.”The proximate cause of this year’s revival in digital-asset markets is the arrival of long-awaited US exchange-traded funds that are delivering Bitcoin into investors’ traditional brokerage accounts. Yet much like with the conversations at this Bitcoin Investor Day conference, the crypto community’s more whimsical impulses are stealing the spotlight in the market, pushing some of the most-pointless tokens — known as memecoins — to even bigger gains than Bitcoin. By now, even a normie – the industry’s nickname for non-crypto people – probably knows a thing or two about memecoins, the tokens most-famous for their cute logos featuring dogs or frogs or pop-culture references rather than any hint of blockchain innovation. Still, the silliness currently on display among self-described “degens” in this corner of the crypto market may come as a surprise.A website called pump.fun allows anyone to create a memecoin through an automated process. Simply enter a name, an introductory description and an image that represents the token. Others browsing the website can “ape” – crypto slang for buying without doing much research – into whatever memecoins they like.Spending just a few minutes on the website is mesmerizing, with dozens of new memecoins created — and swiftly pumped in value by traders. There are tokens like BoomerCoin. (Ticker: BOOMER; description: “Sell and Grandma dies.”) among memecoins in almost any pop-culture, or crypto-culture category one can imagine. There’s even one mocking a caricature of a risk-adverse traditional-finance worker named Jared, with the description: “memecoins? Sounds too risky, I will never touch them.”https://x.com/tarunchitra/status/1769136015128584361?s=20Elsewhere, a new wave of bots based on messaging platform Telegram is fueling popularity for blockchain platforms that are cheaper and faster than Ethereum. Tornado Blast, a Telegram bot on blockchain platform Blast, makes gambling on tokens as easy as chatting with ChatGPT. Anyone with a digital wallet and Telegram can buy, sell, and transfer tokens with Tornado Blast. The bot also has new functions such as “Gem Finder,” which purports to use artificial intelligence to find coins “that could have a nice risk/return ratio for your degens plays,” according to the website.Yet, while the latest craziness has breathed new life into the crypto world’s promo artists, the retail traders they rely on to “ape” into the coins have been slow to return. Global retail trading activity on Binance in February only returned to levels seen in mid-2022, which was the end of the last bull market.“There are definitely more retail users returning, but not to the volumes of what we saw in 2021,” Andy Goldin, global head of data and analytics at Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange, said in an interview. “Some of this memecoins stuff is a little bit more the purview of experienced traders.”Still, on the Solana blockchain, the memecoin frenzy is picking up steam. More than $122 million worth of Solana tokens were raised from so-called presales of new coins before they were launched, according to data compiled by crypto sleuth ZachXBT.https://x.com/FTI_DA/status/1773423840988668204?s=20“The memecoins are so naturally speculative, there’s no expectation that they will make real products,” said Zaheer Ebtikar, founder of crypto fund Split Capital. “It’s just people fighting for liquidity and attention. People, especially retail investors that got blown up from last cycle, are so eager to win it all in one trade.”Several incidents recently have served as a reminder of how risky the hype can be.??A developer of a sloth-themed memecoin claimed they accidentally burned a large amount of the tokens after the project raised $10 million — essentially losing all the money raised. While this could have become a major legal problem in any traditional market, the token, called Slerf, started trading nevertheless and now has a total market value of $340 million, according to tracker CoinGecko.“The biggest casino on Earth seems to have re-opened its door,” crypto blog Rekt said in a recent newsletter on the Slerf incident. “The odds are against us, and yet we ape don’t seem to learn. What does this say about us?”Back at the Bitcoin Investor Day event in Manhattan, it was time for BlackRock’s head of digital assets, Robert Mitchnick, to speak. The firm’s iShares Bitcoin Trust has been at the top of the league table of the new ETFs, gathering more than $17 billion in assets in less than three months. The event’s organizer, the crypto personality Anthony Pompliano, asked Mitchnick what’s next for BlackRock. And also, of course, what he thought of Novogratz’s take on dogwifhat.“I think that crypto Twitter would love to believe that a dogwifhat ETF is coming next,” Mitchnick said to laughs, before indicating that no one should count on that: “I actually don’t know what dogwifhat even is.”

New Work: Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell repeated that the US central bank isn't in any rush to cut interest rates. "We don't need to be in a hurry to cut," Powell said Friday at an event at the San Francisco Fed.Fresh inflation data released earlier is "pretty much in line with our expectations," he said. But Powell reiterated it won't be appropriate to lower rates until officials are confident inflation is on track toward their 2% goal."It's good to see something coming in in line with expectations," he said, adding that the latest readings aren't as good as what policymakers saw.The Fed's preferred gauge of inflation cooled last month after an even larger increase than previously reported in January, government data released Friday showed. The core personal consumption expenditures price index - which excludes volatile food and energy costs - rose 0.3% in February after climbing 0.5% in the previous month, marking its biggest back-to-back gain in a year.Powell said officials expect inflation to continue falling on a "sometimes bumpy path," echoing remarks he made following the Fed's last policy meeting earlier this month.Fed officials held short-term interest rates at a more than two-decade high at that meeting, and a narrow majority penciled in three rate cuts for 2024. Powell said at the time that it would likely be appropriate to ease policy "at some point this year." But he and other policymakers have made clear they're in no rush given the underlying strength of the economy and recent signs of persistent price pressures.Inflation CoolingInflation has eased substantially from a 40-year peak reached in 2022, decelerating at a particularly fast clip last year. That progress appeared to stall in January and February, with a pickup in consumer price growth.Meanwhile, the US economy has remained resilient despite high interest rates. Inflation-adjusted consumer spending topped all economists' estimates in February, and employers are still hiring workers at a robust clip. Data out earlier this week showed economic growth in the fourth quarter was stronger than originally thought.Although Fed officials' median projection for three rate cuts this year was unchanged from December, nearly half forecast two or fewer rate reductions in 2024. Most policymakers have said they want to see further evidence that inflation is coming down toward their 2% goal before making their first move, which investors now expect in June.Powell said Friday an unexpected weakening in the labor market could warrant a policy response from Fed officials, but said he doesn't see the possibility of a recession as elevated at this time.Governor Christopher Waller, an early proponent of raising rates to contain price pressures, said Wednesday that disappointing inflation data from the start of the year means policymakers may need to keep rates elevated for longer than previously thought or even reduce the overall number of rate cuts.

President Joe Biden joked about being away from the plane doors manufactured by Boeing, a company recently plagued by mid-flight mishaps, the New York Post reported."I don't sit by the door," quipped the 81-year-old president, followed by a quick disclaimer, "I'm only kidding. I shouldn't joke about that." His remarks came during a high-dollar campaign fundraiser at Radio City Music Hall.The quip came in response to a question from CBS "Late Show" host Steven Colbert about whether Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg had tightened the bolts on the presidential plane before Biden's trip to New York City.Boeing is one of two highly customised Boeing 747-200Bs. However, Boeing has faced scrutiny following a series of mid-flight incidents. The troubles began with a door blowout on a Boeing 737 Max 9 operated by Alaska Airlines on January 5th, leading to the grounding of all 737 Max 9s by the Federal Aviation Administration. Investigations revealed missing bolts from the rear door of the Alaska Airlines jet, adding to concerns about Boeing's safety protocols.Shortly after, a Boeing aircraft had to make an emergency landing in Japan due to a crack in the cockpit window, further denting the company's reputation, according to the New York Post.In another incident, a Delta Airlines-operated Boeing 757 lost its front tire as it was preparing to depart Atlanta International Airport for Bogota, Colombia. These incidents raised alarm bells about the reliability of Boeing's aircraft.Adding to the string of mishaps, a UK passenger noticed pieces of tape on the exterior of a Boeing 787 during a flight to India, raising further concerns about maintenance standards. Then, a United Airlines Boeing 777-300 experienced a midair fuel leak, necessitating an emergency landing on March 11th. Amidst these challenges, Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun announced his decision to step down at the end of the year, reflecting the company's turbulent period.Biden's playful remark about avoiding the door on Air Force One brought a moment of levity to the fundraiser, but it also underscored broader concerns about aviation safety and Boeing's ongoing challenges, New York Post reported.

The Biden administration on Friday revised rules aimed at making it harder for China to access U.S. artificial intelligence (AI) chips and chipmaking tools, part of an effort to hobble Beijing's chipmaking industry over national security concerns. The rules, released in October, seek to halt shipments to China of more advanced AI chips designed by Nvidia and others as Washington cracks down on Beijing over concerns its advancing tech sector could help boost China's military. The new rules, which run 166 pages in length, go into effect on Thursday. They clarify, for example, that restrictions on chip shipments to China also apply to laptops containing those chips. The Commerce Department, which oversees export controls, has said it plans to continue updating its restrictions on technology shipments to China as it seeks to bolster and fine-tune the measures.