Morning Minute: Bitcoin Falls After Powell's Likely Final FOMC

Morning Minute is simply a regular newsletter written by Tyler Warner. The investigation and opinions expressed are his ain and bash not needfully bespeak those of Decrypt. And check retired our new regular quality show covering each of the apical stories successful 5 minutes oregon less, downloadable connected Apple Pod oregon Spotify.

GM!

Today’s apical news:

• Crypto majors autumn 2-3% aft FOMC and complaint chopped likelihood spell to 0; BTC astatine $76k
• Big Tech net beat, CapEx thesis pays off; GOOG +7%, AMZN +3%
• Meta launches stablecoin payouts for creators utilizing USDC
• Sky posts its champion 4th ever, token inactive falls
• MegaETH debuts its MEGA token, reaches $2B+ FDV connected open

👋 Jerome Powell’s Final FOMC

Jerome Powell held what is apt to beryllium his past property league arsenic Federal Reserve seat Wednesday aft the FOMC voted 8-4 to clasp rates dependable astatine 3.50-3.75%. Notably determination were 4 dissents—a pointed awesome to incoming Chair Kevin Warsh: Don’t presume this committee volition travel your lead.

The astonishment from the gathering came from Powell, who announced helium volition stay connected the Fed’s Board of Governors beyond May 15 for a play helium described arsenic “to beryllium determined,” citing the Trump administration’s ongoing investigations into the Fed. “We’ve been having to edifice to the courts. We’ve been palmy truthful far. But that’s not over.”

As for the system and the Fed’s adjacent actions, Powell said the Fed faces an unusually hard situation—four proviso shocks successful speedy succession (pandemic, Ukraine invasion, tariffs, and Iran war), each susceptible of driving ostentation and unemployment higher simultaneously. Odds of a complaint chopped successful 2026 fell to 1% aft his comments (down from ~25% past week).

💰 Big Tech Earnings Don’t Disappoint

Amazon, Alphabet, Microsoft, and Meta each reported Q1 2026 results Wednesday aft the close. The wide summary is that AI capex is opening to warrant itself, unreality maturation is accelerating, and the ROI statement that has hung implicit large tech each twelvemonth is tilting constructive.

The 1 objection is Meta, whose banal fell 6-7% successful after-hours trading contempt beating connected gross aft raising its already-enormous 2026 capex guidance by different $10 billion. Meta besides missed connected idiosyncratic maturation and blamed “internet disruptions successful Iran.”

Alphabet (Google) was the standout. Google Cloud grew 63% year-over-year to $20.1 billion, its fastest maturation since 2022. CEO Sundar Pichai said endeavor AI solutions became the superior unreality maturation operator “for the archetypal clip successful Q1.” All 4 bushed earnings, though the stocks of each had varying results.

Key Details:

• Alphabet: Google Cloud +63% to $20.1B, nett income +81%, AI endeavor solutions “primary unreality maturation operator for the archetypal time”; capex raised to $180-190B; banal +7%
• Amazon: AWS gross $37.59B (+28%), bushed statement by astir $1B, fastest unreality maturation successful 3+ years; operating income +23% to $14.16B; AI gross tally complaint confirmed astatine $15B+ for archetypal time; banal +3%
• Microsoft: Azure +40%, bushed expectations; combined with Alphabet and AWS, unreality AI monetization is broadly connected track; banal -2%
• Meta: revenue $56.31B (+33%), bushed connected EPS, beardown advertisement metrics - but capex raised $10B astatine some ends to $125-145B; blamed Iran disruptions for idiosyncratic maturation miss; shares -9% AH connected the capex raise

💸 Meta Launches Stablecoin Payouts for Creators

Meta has quietly begun paying prime creators successful USDC on Solana and Polygon, marking the company’s instrumentality to crypto payments 4 years aft shutting down its Libra task nether aggravated regulatory pressure.

The rollout is presently constricted to creators successful Colombia and the Philippines, who tin nexus a MetaMask, Phantom, oregon Binance wallet to their Facebook payout relationship and person net successful Circle’s USDC. Stripe handles the backend infrastructure and crypto-specific taxation reporting.

Meta is wide it is not issuing its ain stablecoin; it is plugging into USDC, and is not offering an off-ramp, meaning creators indispensable person to section currency done a third-party speech themselves.

📈 Sky Protocol (MakerDAO) Posts Its Best Quarter Ever

Sky Protocol (the rebranded mentation of MakerDAO) posted grounds Q1 2026 fiscal results Tuesday. The $13 cardinal protocol generated astir $124 cardinal successful gross gross and astir $61 cardinal successful nett gross successful the archetypal 3 months of the year, the highest income since MakerDAO launched successful 2017.

Institutional involvement successful on-chain output products continues to grow, and Sky’s real-world plus collateral model, which generates gross from indebtedness stableness fees, liquidation fees, and peg stableness module fees, is benefiting straight from that demand.

Despite the bullish results, the SKY governance token fell astir 2.4% connected the news. It serves arsenic a achy reminder for token holders, that gross records don’t automatically construe to token holder worth (unless the tokenomics dictate it via buybacks oregon different routes).

🥩 Steak ‘n Shake’s Bitcoin Strategy Is Actually Working

The 91-year-old burger chain began accepting Bitcoin payments successful May 2025 crossed each U.S. locations. Since then, same-store income roseate “dramatically.”

Payment processing fees dropped 50% compared with recognition cards via the Lightning Network. The institution routed each customer-paid Bitcoin straight into a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve alternatively than converting it to cash, formalized a $10 cardinal treasury acquisition successful January, added different $10 cardinal successful April up of the Bitcoin 2026 conference, and conscionable launched a Bitcoin-themed milkshake . In March, it began paying hourly employees a 21-cent-per-hour Bitcoin bonus funded from the reserve.

COO Dan Edwards describes the exemplary arsenic a self-reinforcing cycle: customers wage successful Bitcoin, income rise, Bitcoin gross funds edifice upgrades and worker bonuses, and amended stores pull much customers. With 210 BTC successful its treasury and counting, and income increasing, Stake ‘n Shake is turning into 1 of Bitcoin’s biggest user occurrence stories.

🌎 Macro Crypto and Markets

• Crypto majors fell aft FOMC and likelihood of a complaint chopped successful 2026 went to 0; BTC -2% astatine $76k; ETH -3% astatine $2,260; SOL -2% astatine $83; HYPE -4% astatine $39
• LUNC (+3%), POL (+2%), and TRON (+1%) led apical movers
• Oil +2% astatine $105; Gold +2% astatine $4,640
• Stock futures are greenish aft net beats from Big Tech and Eli Lilly
• Jack Maller’s Twenty One Capital surged connected Wednesday after bulk proprietor Tether projected merging XXI with Strike and Bitcoin miner Elektron Energy, uniting treasury, mining, payments, and superior markets nether 1 nationalist company; XXI holds 43,514 BTC (~$3.3B), 3rd among nationalist companies
• Visa expanded to 5 much blockchains on Wednesday, adding Base, Polygon, Canton, Circle’s Arc, and Stripe’s Tempo to its stablecoin colony pilot; the programme has deed a $7 cardinal annualized tally rate, up 50% from past quarter
• MoonPay acquired Israeli steadfast Sodot for $100 cardinal successful banal and utilized the woody to motorboat MoonPay Institutional, a caller part for banks and plus managers led by erstwhile CFTC Acting Chair Caroline Pham
• Alex Mashinsky was permanently banned from crypto under a $10 cardinal FTC colony connected Wednesday; a $4.72 cardinal judgement was entered but mostly suspended

Corporate Treasuries & ETFs

• The Bitcoin ETFs saw different $138M successful nett outflows on Wednesday; the ETH ETFs saw $88M successful outflows

Meme Coin Tracker

• Meme leaders were very red; DOGE -3%, SHIB -3%, PEPE -5%, PENGU -6%, TRUMP -4%, BONK -4%, SPX -7%, FARTCOIN -7%
• WISH (+71x), Bio (+33%) and testicle (+15%) led notable movers

💰 Token, Airdrop & Protocol Tracker

• MegaETH’s MEGA token debuted this morning, opening astatine $0.18 and a $200M marketplace headdress ($1.8B FDV)
• Pump Fun launched Charity Coins as a mode to lick the contented of charity-related memes not getting proceeds to the close places
• Hyperliquid published the interest structure for HIP-4 Wednesday, its prediction marketplace connection that lets users commercialized binary result contracts wrong the aforesaid borderline relationship arsenic their existing perps; nary open-position fees, costs use lone astatine adjacent oregon settlement

🚚 What is happening successful NFTs?

• NFT leaders were greenish led by Bored Apes; Punks adjacent astatine 30.9 ETH, BAYC +10% astatine 10.8 ETH, Pudgy +1% astatine 5.34 ETH; Hypurr’s adjacent astatine 350 HYPE
• Azuki Elementals (+25%), Kodas (+22%) and MAYC (+12%) led notable apical movers