The Return of Feudal Markets

Under the Feudal system, most land in the Kingdom belongs to the King and some to the Church.

The U.S. has effectively moved onto an S&P standard, where policy, liquidity, and institutional incentives are increasingly optimized to prevent a meaningful drawdown in asset prices, producing a stable-looking index, and an unstable society.

You can run an economy for different outcomes
One of the most useful ideas in a conversation I had earlier was that, an economy can be “run” to maximize different objectives, low inflation, full employment, middle-class wages, export competitiveness, or asset prices.

The claim here is I’ve chosen asset prices.

Because the modern system’s feedback loops punish the alternatives:

Wage growth → inflation risk → higher rates → duration assets + real estate wobble

Equity wobble → wealth effect + tax receipts wobble → fiscal stress → policy reaction function activates

Result: “do enough so Main Street doesn’t fall off a cliff, but not enough to let it truly win.”

X: https://x.com/arndxt_xo/status/2003124113943261227

FULL Article: https://threadingontheedge.substack.com/p/the-return-of-feudal-markets

one of the best performing tokens this year

₿elieve

https://x.com/arndxt_xo/status/2003341365086945666

We Read 500+ Pages of Reports So You Don't Have To: The Ultimate 2026 Crypto Outlook

https://x.com/Eli5defi/status/2003481972635762801

an incredible read by @Eli5defi on the overview but i wanted you to ask yourself one question going into 2026, who owns the flow?

i strongly believe that winners will:
> not be who has the best tech.
> not be who has the loudest narrative.
> its who controls distribution,, and can be trusted at scale.

in these 500 pages of 2026 outlooks, the consistent insight is showing that crypto is getting absorbed into finance and finance is a flow business.

my 4 strong themes:

1) the 4-year cycle is no longer a strategy, its a lagging indicator.
too many new exogenous drivers (ETF plumbing, stablecoin velocity, regulatory regimes, AI capex/liquidity) dominate the old miner-supply narrative. If your mental model is still halving → alt season, you’re trading a meme.

2) tokens are being forced to grow up.
“ownership coins” is changing how we view tokens. if a protocol behaves like a business (fees, margins, product distribution), the asset that represents it can’t be a vibes-based governance token forever. either it evolves into something with explicit, durable economics (fee share, buybacks, burns, rights), or it gets repriced as what it functionally is: a speculative instrument with weak linkage to fundamentals.

3) agentic finance is real, but what about KYA
we’re moving from trustless execution to trust-minimized delegation. if agents become persistent economic actors, crypto rails make sense because they’re always-on, programmable, and natively composable. the hard part is that once agents transact, finance stops being “human intent + click” and becomes delegated, machine-executed authority.

the winners will be whoever builds the missing middle layer: agent identity + permissions + policy enforcement + monitoring + rollback / recovery

4) super-app consolidation is inevitable
crypto today still looks like an ecosystem of tools, ro the market compresses to equilibrium. so the end state looks like:
- a few consumer + capital aggregation surfaces (super-apps)
- with many interchangeable protocols behind them
- and stablecoins as the interface layer

distribution will consolidate into a few surfaces and everything else becomes backend.

own the flow because if you don’t, you’re exit liquidity for someone who does.

https://x.com/arndxt_xo/status/2003879260453507338

I think @arndxt_xo thesis is sharp and uncomfortable:

The U.S. has effectively moved onto an "S&P Standard."

In this modern feudalism, asset prices are the protected class (the Lords), while labor and the real economy function as the shock absorbers (the Vassals).

The system’s feedback loops have been rewired so that wage growth is punished as "inflationary," while asset price wobbles trigger immediate policy rescue.

Why this matters now:

— Volatility Suppression
Policy isn't designed to stop recessions; it's designed to stop disorderly asset repricing. This keeps the index stable but makes society brittle.

— The AI Paradox
As highlighted, the AI boom is currently benefiting hardware and supply chains first. For the numbers to work long-term, we may see massive labor compression, expanding margins while thinning the consumer base.

— The Crypto Hedge (and maybe why I am still bullish on crypto for long-term)
Amidst this "feudal" stagnation, the crypto market acts as the only distinct exit valve.

Last week, we witnessed significant shifts in institutional behavior:

- Visa settled nearly $3.5 billion in $USDC
- @SoFi launched a bank-issued stablecoin
- Bhutan held $1 billion in BTC.

These moves indicate that capital is constructing parallel financial pathways.

Long live Crypto and DeFi.

https://x.com/Eli5defi/status/2004417411672617098

This is the most crowded bull market setup of the cycle.

I caught the last local top with this signal.

Alt OI > BTC OI is a local-top signal, not a start of a bull.

Here are the obvious signs:

- Alt OI > BTC OI = leverage migrated down the cap curve

- Thin spot liquidity + perp positioning = small shock → forced de-risking.

- 2025 ≠ 2021
2021: liquidity expansion → broad beta bid.
2025: fiat erosion → selective flows into quality + attention.

- FOMC is the catalyst

Some tell tale signs right now

- BTC $88.9k, still 30% below the Oct peak ($125k).
Price is holding up while positioning risk has been rebuilding.

- Spot BTC ETFs have flipped to net outflows into year-end.
They remove incremental demand and make price more sensitive to macro volatility (because there’s less passive absorption when sellers show up).

- US 10Y ~4.15%
High risk-free yields raise the hurdle rate for everything that’s effectively long-duration / long-liquidity (most alts).

- Stablecoin supply is huge (~$308–310B), but their flow matters more.
But if supply is flat/down near the highs, it often means we’re seeing rotation within crypto rather than fresh fiat inflow. The real green light is re-accelerating net issuance + rising velocity (stablecoins actually moving)

https://x.com/arndxt_xo/status/2004438013217329572

Genuine question:

Can you still say "Merry Christmas" although it's over?

https://x.com/arndxt_xo/status/2004851070594642400

impressive share by @DeRonin_ on how to grow your first 10k on X.

most small accounts die because they’re tweeting into an illiquid market, unsexy but it works:

- route flow into liquid venues (big threads/communities)
- convert with a credible profile
- retain with consistent niche + repeatable formats
- accelerate trust via Spaces

tldr: boring market = cheaper attention

https://x.com/arndxt_xo/status/2005157802520740192

I’ve been reading a lot over the last few days about how it’s supposedly a no-brainer to short LIGHTER right now.

https://x.com/KittaKitka/status/2004921970224246918

The Dumb Money System That Forces Us to Buy the Top

It’s the system doing exactly what it was designed to to make us deploy capital into risk assets right as the economy and labor market starts to crack.

This is the market doing what it always does in late-cycle easing:
- policy compresses cash returns → flows go risk-on
labor weakens → recession probability rises
- but earnings (concentrated in tech) stay hot → the index keeps levitating
- valuation becomes a decade headwind, not a one-year timing tool
- the endgame looks more like 1999 than 2008 — until something breaks
- $20B just flowed into the Vanguard S&P 500 ETF. $125B has gone into the index this year.

At the same time: 1.2M job cuts, unemployment up to 4.6%, and the “recessionary” Sahm-rule-style alarm is starting to blare.

Twitter: https://x.com/arndxt_xo/status/2005631994663940315

FULL Article: https://threadingontheedge.substack.com/p/the-dumb-money-system-that-forces

Crypto + Macro Stuff I'm Looking At Today

https://x.com/rektdiomedes/status/2005384318684672099

study @the_smart_ape‘s polymarket bot, backtested with +86% roi in just a few days

most ‘arb bot’ threads are just PnL screenshots. this one is has undergone a through a research methodology

tldr:
@Polymarket
arb is a parameter + execution game.

this is a case study in microstructure + parameter design:

- the same both show 2 vastly different results with diff parameters: conservative +86% (fees+spread), aggressive –50% in 2 days
- the strategy is exploiting temporary orderbook dislocations early in each 15-min round, then engineering a hedge where UP + DOWN < 1 (after costs).
- so he did the correct thing by building a first hand dataset (6GB of 1s best-ask snapshots) and replay deterministically
- record more stress slippage/latency, model fill probability, and define kill-switches.
- then optimize infra (colocation/VPS, Rust, dedicated RPC) only after the strategy is robust.

the bot is the easy part.

the hard part is building a repeatable calibration + risk framework.

https://x.com/arndxt_xo/status/2005809072453640406

➥ Three On-Chain Signals That Triggered the $JOJO 30x Pump

https://x.com/cryptorinweb3/status/2005978417531953387

Watching Theses 2026 on DeFi: Perps & Equity Perps, Prediction Markets, Stablecoin Yield w/ @MessariCrypto Alumni.

Top narrative: equity perps.

The thesis: Equity perps are hitting an inflection point where the infrastructure is finally good enough (60-70% complete) that novelty alone drives adoption.

The numbers back this up -
@tradexyz
reached $6B volume and became the 8th largest perp DEX by open interest after just one month of launching equity markets.

Why this works:

• Crypto natives want higher leverage on familiar assets (stocks > memecoins when returns compress)
• TradFi retail wants cleaner directional exposure than 0DTE options provide
• 24/7 trading with no brokerage accounts needed is genuinely novel
• Onchain platforms have structural regulatory advantages over traditional exchanges

The critical insight: This isn't just a crypto trend. It's where ALL trading is heading - people want more asymmetric returns. Perps deliver clean levered exposure better than short-dated options.

But the skepticism is valid:

• Perp DEXes were the ONLY DeFi metric that wasn't "down only" in 2025
• Hyperliquid already proved product-market fit for crypto perps
• The question is whether equity perps expand the TAM or just fragment existing volume

Prediction: Equity perps will be bigger than anyone expects (like stablecoins and prediction markets before them), but 2026 is the execution year - whoever gets from 60% to 80% product completeness first captures the market.

https://x.com/stacy_muur/status/2006022520559001841

shedding some $LIT airdrop stats

people are not selling their airdrops (75% still holding) and some have been accumulating $LIT instead.

price have been holding up $2.5 to $2.7 very strongly

the perp meta is not dead but going to get more competitive from here on

https://x.com/arndxt_xo/status/2006244101277331615

Prediction: @arbitrum ’s RWA ecosystem 3X in 2026

Not because RWAs are trendy -but because distribution + compliance are converging.

Today:
• ~$850M RWA TVL
• Highly concentrated → top 3 protocols drive ~77%

That's a sign of early institutional consolidation

The real signal wasn’t just TVL growth → it was Robinhood and Exodus choosing Arbitrum to tokenise stocks & ETFs

Stocks are just the start

The next phase is multi-asset RWAs:
equities → ETFs → metals → structured products

The real RWA race isn’t L1 vs L2 or app-specific chains - it’s who institutions trust to settle value.

https://x.com/thelearningpill/status/2006002396695351783

Been spending this past week with family, but I wanted to share an update on the bets I’m taking going into the next year

https://x.com/Rafi_0x/status/2006130773888553167