The Wolf Of All Streets - "America" Will Support Bitcoin, Fiat Is Hopeless | Macro Monday
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Transcript
Discussion (0)
Well, good morning, everyone.
It is time for macro Monday.
Scott is in a hotel room with two sick kids.
And so today we are joined by Peter cheer, but let's get right to it.
Bitcoin's in a trading range.
Not a whole lot happening as far as market movement goes, but there's a lot of stories pack. Let's go.
Well, good morning, everyone. So today you notice we have Mike and James, we have Peter as our special guest. Scott is off-ish,
wanting to be on, but couldn't figure out how to take care of sick kids at the same
time as doing the show. So here we are. So as usual, Mike, why don't we start with your
Bloomberg morning meeting? And can you do me a favor when you talk about it? Did anyone
mention the move in the pound, which seems hard to fathom given what's going on there,
but it seems to be, you know, I don't know if anyone's talking about how the pound has broken to the upside.
It seems weird to me. I mean, given what the dysfunction in that government, I'm curious if anyone's talking about that.
I know one in our morning meeting did, but our regular FX strategist, Audrey Chilfreedman was off.
We had someone else today who usually talks
about emerging markets.
The key thing I want to start with is,
first off kudos to Scott.
There's one thing that those of us,
certain you and I Dave,
who are nearing major adult children
is you don't get those days back with your kids.
And so if there's any time, sometimes, it's true.
I mean, if there's anything I can ever go back and do is just spend some time with my kids when they were
kids. So kudos to you, Scott. Markets will always be there. Take care of those kids.
So first we had Chris Collins filling in for Anna Wong's point out. Obviously the data
on unemployment was a little bit stronger. Most of it was from state and local government
hiring expects employment to continue to move higher by the end of, in 2H,
and expects the Fed to cut only once in December.
To me, that's a substantial statement,
because if you cut the last month in the year,
you know the tilt's not good for next year,
but that's what they're thinking.
Gina Martin Adams was hitting pretty hard.
She says, stocks are in extremely elevated valuations
despite slowing growth prospects.
Her model, the market mania model is quite extreme.
It says the last time it was this stream was beginning of this year before we had the decent
little downdraft.
And she doesn't see how we're going to really see higher equities without the decent amount
of Federal reserve ease.
So Ira Jersey, our interest rate strategist, came on and pointed out that
expects obviously a lot of bill supply as we got through the big beautiful bill, giving some
leeway to the deficit spending. And he doesn't think the Fed is going to even cut in September,
he thinks, but when they do cut, they're going to be aggressive, which I fit with being an ex-fed
bond trader, fit with that pretty well.
I pointed out some of the unique things are happening in crude oil and corn.
Crude oil is a pretty significant bear market.
It's bounced, it's heading lower.
I checked hedge fund positions are still long, way long for a typical rally.
So it could go lower.
Corn is similar, but they're short.
And then I pointed out some of the significant ratios
that are really unique this year.
For instance, how different commodities are.
If you look at just the amount of the barrels of crude oil
per one ounce of gold,
right now it's about 50 barrels of WTI crude oil.
We go back a hundred years in this data
and the highest end of the year ever was 39 in 1933
and about the same in 2020. So here we are, where are we gonna be by highest end of the year ever was 39 in 1933 and about the same in 2020.
So here we are, where are we going to be by the end of the year? Can something pressure go lower?
I don't know what it'll take other than the stock market just blasting off and Bitcoin blasting
off and can something pressure crude oil higher? I don't know what it's going to take other than
the supply shock. So that's how unusual things are. Similar, I pointed out how unusual
when we got to that 20 ratio
and the amount of ounces of silver per one ounce of gold,
it was a couple of months ago, about 105.
Right now it's about 91.
That's still the highest ever from 1991.
It's just a question of how much we can stay there.
And another key thing is can we stay there by the end of the year
as I point out, price of copper to me
is one of the key markets I think is a potential
hammer, a nail to beta's hammer along with Bitcoin if beta goes down because if we close
here right now, it'll be the highest year-end close ever for copper traded on the LME.
Now, the CME is already distorted by tariffs, which means me to believe that this stock
market has to go up or we're going to just do what we normally do, revert lower.
And what, you know, me, I'm from a commodity guy.
I'm always worried about auto correlation
when people's prices get really expensive. Back to you, Dave.
So before I don't want to degenerate into our beta this, beta that, you know,
he said, she said conversation, we all know.
I think anyone who watches the show knows what I think.
But, Peter, you we're out with a note this morning that describes and talks about the
And I swear I'm hoping this is the last time I ever have to mention these three words big beautiful bill
But you know effectively this year's budget which you know the tone of for those who?
Follow it the tone of Academy's note was,
my TLDR, Peter, tell me if this is right,
is most of the tax cuts are extension of what we have today.
Most of what is additional are for basically goosing,
spending, things like no tax on tips, et cetera.
So it's pro growth in the short run
and all the histrionics about what it's adding
to the budget deficit and of course Peter drops
Because we wouldn't be a day without glitching
but most of the the changes to the budget deficit are
Predicated upon the press digitation of Washington which is well
We were going to see these tax cuts expire and now we're not
Kind of thing as opposed to changes to what
we currently have today. And that's the thing that drives everyone crazy if you talk to people
on the street and I was surveying a few Democrats who were complaining about the bill and I said,
oh you are aware that north of 90 percent actually north of 90 percent of the tax cuts
that you're complaining about are exactly the law today and have been since 2017.
They go, no, it's not. And I said, maybe you should read instead of listening to the talking
points of your heroes. And they go, that can't be. I'm like, well, just read it. And if you want to
get mad at me after you've read it, that's fine. So anyway, Peter, now that you're back before you
drop again, you know, what do you elaborate on on you know, what you guys are seeing, because
it seemed to me that your idea is, you know, considering where we're at, it's modestly
pro growth and front loaded, which by the way, would dovetail with Mike's statement
that the Fed is unlikely to ease even in September. And I got the same
tone from you. So what have you?
Yeah. And I think we come to similar conclusions, different approaches. I didn't even bother
reading this, but I don't think reading it's that important. I think the big bulk of this
is extension of what's already going on. So that was important. But to me, the most important
thing is we actually had the house the Senate agree on something
It got signed into an actual law and that's the first thing under the Trump administration that hasn't been executive order
so whether you like it or not exactly what's gone on we now can start planning and
We've been living in such an era of uncertainty that I just think something getting done
Trump being able to corral people, push something through,
we can all argue what's right, what's wrong about the bill.
I don't care that much right now.
I think it's gonna be slightly pro-growth in the near term.
And to me, just the fact that we actually have some,
actual law passed by this administration,
we can take some degree of certainty,
we can work around these things,
companies can start planning on their spending,
given the tax cuts.
So I think, animal spirits, so to speak, have been way ahead of the mark in the market side,
right? The markets have been taking off and the economy is still sluggish. I think this is a step
in the right direction that people and, you know, CEO suites can sit there and say, hey, here's what
we now know. How do we take advantage of this? I think tariffs is the last big thing that's,
you know, blocking it. Unreasonably comfortable. this is good. And then you hear all this talk about the deficit,
this deficit, that, and I will not disagree that there's a chance that this does increase the
deficit over time. But one, the CBO projections, it's for the next seven, 10 years, whatever,
they're wrong all the time. Who knew we'd have COVID five years ago? There's a lot of reasons not
to trust on those projections. And whether
we like it or not, and I'm kind of anti-tariff, I think we're kind of at about the maximum sustainable
level of tariffs before it really starts hitting the economy hard, we are generating tariff revenue.
I think it was almost 40 billion last month, which is roughly the monthly deficit over time that would
be added during this bill. So I think people have been carried away on the fear side of things. And
if you just look through it, big positive is we actually got something organized, people can work with that and stop overestimating what the deficit is. And let's see how this plays out over the coming months, because right now, I think it's actually going to be positive for growth, and maybe not deficit adding.
So James, obviously, you know, I've seen some of your posts over the you know, etc
Is the train gonna stop
So I'm having internet issues here we've got people doing a lot of work around our houses so
Our neighbors so I think they keep knocking out the power lines. Um, so
Well, hey Peter good to see you live.
We've interacted a few times on Twitter, I think that's about it.
Yeah, you too, Joe.
So, well, the deficit, I mean,
the first is let's unpack the CBO, right?
The Congressional Budget Office.
The issue with the CBO is that every single time
we get some sort of estimate from them,
you peel back the layers and you realize that they don't
include any recessions in their estimates. So if you look out 10 years and assume there's no recessions, that's kind of
ridiculous. That's number one.
Number two, they don't, they use a very attractive low interest rate over a long period of time. So that impacts our interest expense. Now, that used
to not be that big of a deal. It's a pretty big deal now when you're spending over a trillion dollars of interest every
single year, and it's become the second largest budget item behind Social Security, that's a big deal.
It's even larger than defense.
So we have a saying, obviously,
a lot of people have this saying
in different kind of industries,
but in Wall Street, you're looking at models
and you say, whatever the model is,
garbage in, garbage out.
And the CBO is pretty much garbage in
and you're getting garbage out.
And the estimate of the of
the debt to GDP, even as extreme as it is, is still extremely optimistic. And so that's just long term. The real the real
issue is like Dave just said, is, you know, as we all quote Lin, Lin Alden, is that nothing stops this train. It's just
math. The, the spending is going to continue. Fiscal deficits are going to continue. And that's just reality. I love
that the, that Doge Commission was trying to do the best they could to, to curtail unnecessary and illicit spending, but there's only so much you can do when the math is extraordinarily against you.
Well, on that topic, there's obviously a lot to talk about. I don't know how macro-y it is, but I think it's important.
So Congressman Davidson, who has been on Crypto Town Hall and has been a big supporter of our industry and is, you
know, I wouldn't, I don't know who leads who, but in terms of small government Republicans,
he's certainly one of the more outspoken, you know, he's been piling on to Elon Musk's
comments recently saying that the reason that Doge couldn't succeed is because there are
Republicans who are in on the grift of getting the pipeline of federal funding,
and Trump wasn't able or willing, probably able, to push them into line.
And so there was a limit to what they could actually accomplish.
And anyone who's watched this show, dial back to January, February,
you'll hear a certain person who wears an orange shirt a lot, namely me,
I said exactly the same thing would happen. Now,
you don't need to be Nostradamus to make that prediction. This required an IQ of basically a hundred, which is, you know, bog standard,
you know, bog average, you know, mine may be higher, lower, whatever,
but the fact is it was damn obvious that that was going to be the case.
There was no way, if anyone listened to Mike Benz or anybody else understanding how the whole NGO stuff has
been spun up over the last 30 years, it was both parties. It's always been both parties.
And so yeah, the Democrats, yeah, there's more. There are more NGOs that lean left than
lean right. So okay. But there there's what six votes swings the house.
You know, there's no way it wasn't a third or more of the Republicans. So
you know, there was never so every time Mike would say, well, Doge is going to
you know, cut spending and do all this stuff and get it back. And I would make
my frowny face and say, you know, my version, you know, of you know, Mike,
don't be a dumbass. And obviously, he's not a dumbass, he's a smart guy. But if I
make those sorts of faces, it was because I knew there was no way they were going to be able to do anything other than things
that were targeted. And that's where we are. So here we are today, we have spending is unchanged. And the ultimate irony of
the bill, and I won't say any, use those three words. The ultimate irony of the bill is the criticisms
on both sides are large. The criticism on the Republican side is it doesn't cut spending enough.
The criticism on the Democrat side are it cuts spending too much. Think about that for a second.
Neither side, neither side, you know, you know, it looks this
as as well, you know, government spending, structural spending needs to come down.
There's no no talk about it. No one's even talking about entitlements. The only thing that people
talk about is, you know, if you look at every Republican that talks as well, we didn't make,
we didn't cut enough spending. every Democrat you cut spending too much
That is literally what what you hear on this bill
So when you hear that and you know that that barring a major sea change in politics, this isn't going to change
We have structural deficits now as far as the eye could see
Is there the only way you get around this is if we get to GDP growth of what 6%?
I mean, is that the number you tell tell me, what's the number, James?
Oh, it's higher than that.
And then, you know, the problem is,
even if you do that, you're talking about nominal GDP.
You're just talking about nominal GDP,
which is expansion of the money supply,
expansion of credit, expansion of liquidity.
That's what we're talking about here, you know?
There's no way to get
that productivity up that much without it being nominal. Unless, Mike, unless you've got some
sort of path to that that I'm not seeing, I just can't make that math work. I would love a
productivity miracle, but I just don't see it happening.. I would love a productivity miracle,
but I just don't see it happening.
Well, let's just remember the thing about productivity.
It's really hard to measure until benefit of hindsight.
You have to really look back five years sometimes
to really measure the productivity of the advent of PCs
and the phone and AI kicking in.
So the key thing I want wanna bring in into the debt argument
is what really matters?
If I enjoyed posting something I wrote a few months ago
on X this week and it's a stock market cap to debt
that is near that peak from 2021.
It was almost two times.
Right now it's 1.82.
That's a stock market capitalization to
debt. It shows you how high the stock market debt it's the elephant in
the room when you talk about things like that. What's been pushing up the stock
market for all this deficit spending before it was very easy monetary policy
now that's shifted and we've seen examples from countries when they do
have high debt what they do they buy their debt They buy off-the-run bonds and they do whatever they can to make that debt lower now
We have a government focus on that here
So I think that's what gold is figuring out and that's what I think
Under-performing Bitcoin and cryptos are figuring out that this is the endgame
The Fed can't ease and we're all pointing out if they do ease they're gonna do what they did last year
Probably they spike risk assets too much create inflation and just essentially just add fuel to the speculators. It's not a good idea
So to me what's indicative of that happening is gold being up 30% than the year despite the S&P 500 still up 7%
Now if we can end up the year 10 10 percent, that's wonderful
But just imagine the world if it ends up down 5%, a normal backup with tariffs and everything, that's the Bloomberg Galaxy index telling you the risk.
It's down 10% the year.
So to me, the risks are that we tilt towards this deflation hedge that, yes, maybe it's
wonderful if the stock market stays lofty, but it's so much has to.
And this argument about debt to me is now it's, I'm looking right now at CNBC, Bloomberg,
and CNBC and it's top of the headline now.
We're talking about it nonstop.
That's usually when it reaches an apex.
I'm not saying say you're going to fix it right away, but it means what it means for
markets.
First of all, tariffs.
They're going to be completely emboldened in tariffs, partly because the stock market's
going up.
There's only one factor that created that 98 day pause is because we are down almost
20%, which by the way is about $13 trillion, which by the way was about 40% of GDP, the most in
history for about a 20% correction. So here's where I think we're going to now is the only thing
that's going to stop tariffs being at least 15% or more in the rest of the world if the stock market
goes down and pushes that backwards. Debt is becoming somewhat insignificant because it's a
potential recession that's the risk. And is becoming somewhat insignificant because it's a potential
recession that's the risk. And I keep pointing out that it's the elephant in the room is how
the stock market has to stay lofty to keep this game going. And to me, that's what the deflating
crypto market is figuring out. So the funny thing about that is there's causality and there's
correlation. And I always point out that, you know, whenever
James, you know, talks about the whole nominal thing, you know, in terms of GDP, etc. Let's
go to first principles for a second. Does any of the three of you think that the government
isn't interested in creating monetary inflation for assets? Is there anybody who thinks that the government's goal isn't to see asset prices go up, whether that be bonds or stocks? Mike, you always talk about stocks, and James always talk about bonds.
So that's interesting. It's interesting that you say that because, like, going back to the, you know, you have to go back another step to get to that first principle. And the first principle of our government, which
controls the spending. So we can talk about the Treasury, we can talk about the CBO, we can talk about, it's Congress that
controls the spending, right? So they have to pass bills. They pass bills to gain the confidence and votes from their
constituents. So if you go to the first principle of all first principles, it's, What do I need to do to get
reelected? That's it. That's it. That's the only first principle we have. What do I have to do to get reelected? I
don't care about anything else. I just want to be reelected. Period. Full stop, to quote Dave, full stop. That's all
they care about. And so when we start talking about, you know, term limits, and the reality that some
of these people can finally kick the fuck out of D.C., then you have something to really talk about. But until then, the
only thing that matters is what do I get to do to get reelected? That's why you hear this nonsense out of Elizabeth Warren
this nonsense out of Elizabeth Warren 24-7, 24-7-365. Because all she cares about is spewing whatever she needs to spew to get whatever is going on in Massachusetts to get her reelected. That's it. That's all that matters. So what's
gonna get them reelected? Spending. That's it. Spending on their constituents. And that means that if they have pharmaceuticals that donate to their
campaigns, they're gonna, they're gonna spend pharmaceutical money. And if they have manufacturing that's gonna get
them reelected, they're gonna spend manufacturing money. If they have, if they have technology that's gonna get them
reelected or new technology or clean energy, that's what they're gonna do. Period. That's all that matters. So that's
the first principle, Dave, and until we fix that, you know, and this is not a politics show, but do, period. That's all that matters. So that's the first principle, Dave,
and until we fix that, you know,
and this is not a politics show, but it's reality.
That's the only thing that's gonna work.
So, and this is what's so funny about this,
is I wrote my senior thesis at Yale
as a political science major back in 1993,
that we need term limits, and here we are,
still not really talking about it.
Yeah and I would just pile on there like the debt ceiling is the gift that keeps on giving. They
all get to talk about oh the debt ceiling, oh blah blah blah and it's just a money grab right.
Both sides get to spend more, run up the debt ceiling. If the debt ceiling was actually
anything real they would not be allowed to pass a law that is projected to push us above the debt
ceiling anytime but that's not how it works. It's this ongoing
thing every few years, it comes up, everyone gets to make their nice talking points. And
then both sides reach into the piggy bank and spend more. I think you're exactly right.
It's like become bread and circus. Why would you spend more if it gets reelected and there's
nothing to stop you from spending more? It's kind of insane. But that ceiling is what was
described by Dr. Jeff Ross one time on a show. He said It's kind of insane. But that feeling is what was described by
Dr. Jeff Ross one time on a show. Monday's program. It's absolutely the complete
to get reelected. It's a complete focus of the parties in power to keep the Ponzi scheme,
you could call it, to keep risk assets elevated. The difference with this very clever current
administration is they figured out if they focus on crypto, it can help get them elected. Now they
have a vested interest
in the crypto market going up, not just Bitcoin.
Yet it's going down.
I mean, it's down 10% in the year.
Now the stock market keeps going up.
That's the major thing that really matters.
But the point is, have we reached the end game?
And to me, that's been my point since Trump's been elected
is yes, you're right, absolutely.
They have to keep the Ponzi going.
But at some point,
when you tilt over to the wrong asset for the wrong reasons with unlimited supply, you might be at
elevated risk. And this is where history is starting to kick in. That's why I still stick with
the day that Bitcoin reached 100,000. That was a sell signal for broad cryptos, partly because
people are tilting over to the digital version of gold, although they're missing the fact that it
does have unlimited competition. And they're tilting over to analog gold version of gold, although they're missing the fact that it does have unlimited competition.
And they're tilting over to analog gold.
Like, there was a headline in FT this week, and I enjoyed reading that said, now, what
was the headline?
Central, gold overtakes zero as a global reserve asset.
So I stick with gold as the main thing that's going to benefit in this space.
And when we do find, which I think we're at the end game of risk and creating wealth for everybody. I mean, the housing market is the most expensive
ever in this country. The stock market is the most expensive in a hundred years versus GDP in the
rest of the world. I think we're reaching that end game. That's why I'm tilting towards gold.
And then I look at all my analysis, I see this rock, it's beating stocks almost four years now, that kind of sucks,
I don't like that, but it is. It's so expensive versus T bonds, that's why I keep tilting over
to gosh, I hope I'm wrong, I don't get this deflation, but all the lessons of history point
that we've reached the end game, there's way too much optimism for this administration, which we
all know that happens, you only get that in the beginning administration and towards the end,
you always get a blip, at least maybe we'll just only get a blip, but then you have things tilt lower,
certainly for the polls for a current administration. And we get to what's been the way over due
recession, which now there's a good catalyst with tariffs. I mean, what do tariffs do? They hit
corporate earnings and make things expensive for consumers. That to me is the next big trade. I'm still sticking with it. Gold to me is pointed out in things like gold-silver ratios
rallying and things like the US bond yields being like 200 base points
above kind of the average of the similar bond yields in the rest of the world.
The signs of where's the value? Where's the next big trade? I still think
it's not Bitcoin, it's not stocks,
it's Ben Gold, it might still be what James Loebs, T-Bonds.
Yeah, so Dave, I'm gonna let you unpack the Bitcoin thing
because I know you're chomping the bit on that.
So just hold that for a second.
But just to talk about the bonds for a second, Mike,
what happens if and when we do get a liquidity meltup and this stock market doesn't stop here? What
happens if we go 20, 30, 40, 50% higher or even more?
We did. That's my point. We did.
No, what happens if we do it again? This has not been a meltup. This has been an escalator up. What if we have an
elevator up? Okay. And then what happens to interest rates at
that point?
That's a hypothetical. I love the hypothetical, James, but we did. I just point out we're at the most expensive versus
the rest of the world, even versus debt, where still stocks are very expensive. And people say, that's high. Well, how
about stocks versus debt? My point is,
you're missing what we did. We did that in the back of the biggest money pump in history. We still haven't had that normal reversion. Now China's getting it. We haven't had it yet. Well, why do
you, what do you attach? And this is where maybe you and I differ on this. What do you attach the
reason for our interest rates on our long bonds being 150 to 200 basis points higher
than the average developed country?
Well, number one reason is, from a true market standpoint, is inflation, inflation expectations.
That's part of it, but you look at the reality of history for the world's global reserve
currency, inflation is a one on a scale of one to 10 of what really matters for bond
yields. And then you look over at the most indebted countries in the world one to 10 of what really matters for bond yields.
And then you look over the most indebted countries in the world, China and Japan, they have the
lowest yields. So I do love that argument. I think you were going to go there. But yes,
that's a problem. But I compare it to versus the market cap and stock market cap of US
stock market cap. It's actually very low.
Right. So we also there's also the component of, you know, the, you're talking about duration risk, you're talking about interest rate risk, there could be an issue with the amount of debt that we're going to have to pile on in long term, 10 to 30 year yields, right? Because we have been, we've been kicking this can down the road for so
long now that we've got almost $10 trillion of T-bill debt that's going to be refinanced
between now and a year from now, plus all of the additional deficit spending. So we're
going to have $12, $13 trillion of debt. Where are we going to put that? Are we going to just
continue to float T-bills ad nauseum, or are we going to actually move out on the yield curve? And you can't move
out on the yield curve as a, as a Treasury, right? Because remember, the Treasury's just doing Congress's bidding.
They're just enabling Congress to spend, you know, endlessly. So,
how are they going to get a,
how are they going to spread this out, or are we just going to continue to
finance all of our deficits with T-bills? Because that is an
extraordinarily dangerous game to play for longer than we've already played.
So, we've been doing that for a long time.
We see, like I mentioned, that other countries are doing the same, much worse than us. So then how do you explain the fact
that the U.S. government, 10-year notes, 4.36 this year, despite ending the year at 4.56, it's lower,
despite we all know the deficit is going higher. Doge, I guess you can say it wasn't cutting. Well,
I know a lot of people lost their jobs, so I think's cutting stock markets up, inflation's up. Why are 10 year
notes, yields lower? Because the rest of the world's collapsing.
Why are 10 year needs lower from when? What point are you talking about?
And the last year.
Yeah, but they started out at 3.5% when we started cutting rates and then they went up to 4.5%.
Agreed.
We all agreed on that one.
The Fed cut rates and yields went up.
That was the bond market telling the Fed, stop easing.
You're wrong.
Stock market is too elevated.
You're creating too much speculative excess.
You're adding fuel to the punch bowl.
It was the wrong thing to do.
They're still saying that, but right now, now it's a tilt.
It's been almost a year.
And I'm just pointing out, we still have the stock market up 7%.
It was only down a little bit in the year.
What happened to yields?
Everything was down in the beginning of the year.
That's my point is, you will be right as long as stock market stays elevated at two
times GDP, and there's only two times in history of any market reaching that, 1929
US and 1989 in Japan.
And I will also be right if and when
the stock market does collapse, all right,
because the Fed remains stubborn
and keeps rates elevated too long,
and we do have some sort of credit event.
If that does happen, and we've seen spikes
in the repo
rate and repo usage recently, not the rate, repo usage recently, and so if that does happen,
what is the market going to expect? Massive printing again, a la COVID, a la great financial crisis.
And so rates will spike higher again.
And so either way, you're getting to a point
where the market, this is the whole,
this is the point of the first principles.
The incentive is to keep spending.
The incentive is to keep nominal GDP high.
The incentive is to keep the stock market high
because we are so financialized as a system. We need the stock market to keep going, which means we need liquidity.
It's, this is, this is like trying to take a patient, you know, off a ventilator, you know, or trying to, like, are you going to, are you going to, are you going to stop giving the patient the drug it needs to stay alive?
So here's the axiom or in with that statement to expect the stock market to go down and
rates to go up.
Good luck.
No, I expect rates to go down first and then to explode higher when we print, you know,
the fate when we do have a face melting print, which is larger than the print we had in 2020 21.
You're trading the last big trade, we've already had it, we learned the lessons of deflation. My point is,
inflation, inflation, my point is when that happens, the next time it's time to start printing, there'll be major
pushback, and it'll be much more delayed. And I'm just talking about a really good trade, which means probably a decent correction of risk assets, at least 50% in things like Bitcoin,
and maybe a 50% drawdown in the US stock market. Way overdue.
What do you think would happen to the constituents if we do allow for a 50% drawdown?
It's not so much allowing. What are you going to do about it?
You're going to print. Exactly. So my point is, but we've done that.
We've learned the lesson.
So we can go on from this.
The point is.
I know.
But Mike, here's where you and I differ.
You think that we've learned a lesson.
I think that there's no way to learn that lesson.
We're way past it.
It's over.
Inflation and.
And that's why Lynn Alden says, every single day,
nothing stops this train. because there is no lesson
to be learned, it's suicide for us to do that.
Let's understand this as a dichotomy here.
This time is Yellen clearly had no concept of markets,
I don't think whatsoever.
She clearly was the only person in the entire country
who didn't decide to borrow long
when yields were incredibly low, right?
Corporate America did, individuals did.
I do think that's it.
And for all Latinx potential issues on some things, understanding and
moving bond markets is something he actually does understand.
So I think there will be a much more concerted effort to keep a lid on bonds.
I think they will do things we haven't seen.
We'll probably kick and scream and say, this is crazy. Why are they doing this? But I do think this administration will work the
bond market probably better than Yellen ever did or could. You know, this is best. So that's the
one thing I think you're probably right, but it might take longer to get there. I think this group
will be better at hiding the bubbles and things like that. And for example, called it last time,
I'll say it again,
I think coming to these auctions, I am sure they are calling
foreign governments that are friendly to us and saying,
buy as many bonds as you can, because everyone's watching to see
the indirect bids and if the indirect bids are low, we're going to sell off.
So I think this is why they're changing the SLR rules.
Right. So they are trying to do all these things to suppress it
and probably like everything else, one, if they're the longer they try and suppress it, the worse it becomes
at the back end. I just think they might be better and more successful at suppressing
it for a period of time. That's kind of, yeah. So let's make one point before control and
it's additional liquidity. Exactly. Yeah. I was going to tee you up for that, James.
And I still will because I want people to understand what you mean by SLR will do that. But just the reason I framed the question the way I did to start this was the government wants certain things. They want to go back to decades of policy, which is explicitly to funnel monetary inflation into assets and away from consumers.
And the way you do that is there's a few things.
The first thing you hope for more productivity, more technology, which with AI is actually
happening.
The second thing you do is you don't do things, which was the one don't from the greatest
money pump in history, Mike says.
Yeah, there was a big money pump, but there was also monumentally stupid behavior, which
is giving stemmy checks
to people.
So now you guaranteed consumer inflation.
And that was massively inflationary.
And the other monumentally stupid thing they did was not address supply chain issues.
And in fact, they made them way, way worse, especially at the state level with the idiotic
Democrat response in many places.
I mean, we laugh about it now, but you know, I'm never
going to ever, ever forget the fact that to get a year of my life back, I had to move to Florida. Right. But what did
that mean? You know, the quote, essential workers were delivering stuff, not manufacturing stuff. And so our supply
chains were crushed. So what we learned out of the pandemic, the only thing the economists
writ large have learned is don't give money, put it in the hands of the people anymore, and don't fuck up supply chains. And that's why they backtracked so fast on tariffs. And by the
way, this past weekend, they backtracked again. Instead of July 9th, it's like, well, it's really
August 1st. I mean, honestly, in foreign policy,
this administration is smart enough
to know that a red line is a red line.
In economic policy, it seems like all their lines
are very, very fuzzy.
And honestly, it's because it's all negotiations.
And these things are for the press.
They're not for anything else.
But I think it really does matter,
because the SLR is a perfect example
of how this government understands
what they need to control.
And that's why I said they want assets to go up
and they understand that they're gonna create
monetary inflation.
And there's one more point I'll make,
but I'd rather, James, you really should explain to people
what the SLR is and why it matters.
Yeah, the supplemental leverage ratio is it's a ratio
that the Fed puts on the banks to make sure that they don't have too much leverage on their balance
sheets and they remain low risk, right? So for our major banks. One of the issues is, and this is why
And this is why ISDA, the International,
what is it, the Settlements Derivatives Association, Swapdular's Association, Swap.
Swap and Derivatives Association.
ISDA, and they wrote a letter basically to the Fed saying,
hey, look, you ought to scrap treasuries
from the leverage ratio, allow banks to own as many
Treasuries as they want. So the Fed turned around and looked at that and, and decided, OK, well, we're not going
to take them completely out, but we're going to lower the, the, the ratios to allow for banks to, to hold more
Treasuries, you know, going to change the ratios to allow them to hold more Treasuries, you know, gonna change the ratios to allow them to hold more treasuries.
And why would they do that?
They'll do that because, you know,
treasuries are supposed to be risk-free.
We talk about this all the time.
You, what's the risk-free rate with the US, you know,
the US treasury rate?
Well, it's not risk-free if it's included in a risk ratio.
And so it doesn't fit any narrative
that they're talking about.
But the real, the real problem is they need banks to buy more
treasuries. The banks are like, we're kind of full up. You got to give us some room here so we can buy more. And then
they're going to buy them. It allows them to expand their balance sheet. It allows for more liquidity. And that's
basically what the whole purpose of it is. So they're going to change the ratio to allow the banks to hold more US Treasuries. And so that gives them more liquidity. It allows for them, it prevents disruption in Treasury markets because it allows the non-participating dealers to even buy more Treasuries. And so that's...
more treasuries. And so that's, yeah, I would, I, I partly agree. I think that's their vision. You know, I've been a market maker for a long time,
market maker and credit products.
And what I think this tends to do is in normal markets,
it reduces volatility, right? Okay. I buy a hundred million.
Someone else has a hundred million. So I'll buy that a hundred million.
Then finally someone comes around and wants to sell a hundred million. Right.
So you can trade around,
but what it does
is tend to create much larger moves
when stuff starts breaking.
Because instead of just owning a billion
of 10 year treasuries, you now own two billion,
and it's going the wrong direction
and management tops you on the shoulder
because SLR and capital ratio is important,
your P&L is far more important.
And I think there's always this vision,
oh, if I just, you give the dealers more liquidity,
they can have bigger balance sheets,
they just make more money and it's easy.
And I think that tends to, you know,
deamplify small moves because they can step up
a little bit more, but when things break,
it tends to break uglier and faster
because everyone's now limit long,
everyone's looking for the door at the same time.
So I feel like that's one of those things
that on paper sounds perfect. I see what they're
trying to do. I think they actually increase that sort of tail risk and that sort of day, you know, where we have some sort of, you
know, jump move in treasuries to either higher or lower yields, when all of a sudden the entire street is running much bigger
inventories than their P&L really lets them get stopped out one way or the other.
really lets them get stopped out one way or the other. Right. Yeah. Yeah. That's the issue. That's their drive, the motivation. And again, it's their first principle. It's simple.
I mean, it's really interesting because that's the bond market side. Look, it is undeniable
that they want lower bond yields. There's no question about it.
But the real thing and the point that where I was gonna push
back on Mike and there's two places I wanna push back on
Mike, we all know Bitcoin is the only asset that is a
finite supply.
We had yet another story this weekend about a big asteroid
with so much more gold than we basically made a golden
asteroid.
And if you think of the next hundred years,
we're not gonna be able to mine an asteroid successfully,
then look, I used to look out over the Brooklyn Bridge,
I'd be happy to sell it to you.
But Bitcoin is unlimited, it is not unlimited.
There's other crap that's out there
that has nothing to do with Bitcoin as a store of value.
And we could litigate this a million times,
but I'd get a lot of crap from all the our our loyal listeners if I didn't continue to point out it is limited supply and I will give you gold as limited supply and I think gold will do well but when you compare gold to its competitors it's I think extremely important and I always talk about gold versus platinum etc. We could go down that rabbit hole but I'd
rather focus on something else. The other thing that you said that was fascinating
is you said that we're coming to the end of a process of the administration. Now I
maintain that I was a hundred percent correct in what I said six months ago
and I'm gonna repeat it again. This administration doesn't give a crap about
the economy right now compared to they give a crap a year from now. It matters a lot. And so every policy that they're putting in place is to try to goose the economy going into the midterms. And they want a peak of the economy around now next year. So just remember that. So all the crap was going on with tariffs. If you think that there's backpedaling now and pro-growth policies now, now that the budget's concerned, watch to see what they do. And I think what you're going to see
is things to goose what people care about. Now, what do voters care about? Well, the middle class
cares about their 401ks and their retirement accounts. They do. So if we get a pullback
this year, you know, in the fall, if we get a nasty correction in the fall, which is essentially what you're calling for, Mike, the liquidity that will come into
the market will be massive and markets are gonna start to anticipate that.
That's the interesting thing. So like in, you know, when we've had massive nasty
pullbacks in the past, Bitcoin's correlation and beta was high. This last
time Bitcoin's correlation was reasonable, but its beta was really low,
and its beta is getting lower still. So, and that's for a reason. That's because people
are anticipating it. We know, like for example, we don't have to guess. Here's a news event
that you can sell the news if you want. Powell is not going to be the Federal Reserve Chairman
a year from now. He won't be. There will be a new one, right?
And that new one is going to be handpicked to be bringing rates and to try to emulate Switzerland,
or as close as we can to whatever they can get away with with the bond market.
And that's the point, right? I mean, James, am I missing something here? I mean, you know,
from the short end to the long end, I mean, it's pretty clear what they want to try to accomplish.
Whether they'll be able to do so is Mike's point,
and it isn't easy, and that's why Mike's smiling,
but that's what they're going to try.
Let me, go ahead, James.
No, what I was going to say is that the point,
and to reiterate, to keep a lid on yields,
on long-term yields, it's going to require
some sort of yield curve control.
That's the point.
Mike, and that's liquidity.
That's expansion of liquidity.
What I'm hearing a lot and from some of you is what I have heard in the past and read
about peaks that happen in pretty extended bull markets.
You come up with excuses for
it to keep going up. Anybody who's been in Bitcoin for at least 10 years, certainly since
2010 when Michael Saylor discovered this Bitcoin because his company was not doing well, has
done very well. And then you get to certain levels you're supposed to not double down,
you're supposed to lighten up. What human nature typically does is what Peter mentions,
you get extended at extremes.
We're extending the extreme.
The market's showing every sign of that
by its underperformance versus gold is one good example.
And by just the fact that S&P five arms up 7%,
Bitcoin's up only double that issue.
There should be up triple.
It's signs of the end.
So you have to have these things to continue.
To me, this is the end game and also it's the optimism for Mr. Trump. Great. The point is,
it's not going to get much better. You have to find out where things are peaking and where
they're supposed to be selling when they're yelling. I still look at Bitcoin at a hundred
thousand is signs of a selling when they're yelling market. You see that signs in the
Bloomberg Galaxy crypto and index down 10%. You've seen that in
signs of gold going up. You've seen that in many other points. It hasn't even started. I'm calling
for one of the biggest moves of my lifetime. It's barely started. So I can't expect it to be easy.
But that's my point is have to be careful what you're saying about this is a number on a screen.
It's not anything. I mean, at least gold tracks, it's a number of screen attracts physical gold. You're talking about Bitcoin,
it has 18.3 million competitors now. I loved it at 10 grand, I loved it at five grand when there's
thousands of competitors and now there's just too much. Just remember this, okay, you call them
whatever you want, but they're cryptocurrencies. Okay we're getting to this space, we're getting real assets in this space.
Completely advocate of and point out the technology is awesome.
You've seen that in, I call them crypto dollars, people call them stable coins.
Now we're getting things on chain like treasuries.
Obviously, we're getting assets and stock market on chain.
What's going to happen to all these other things like Dogecoin?
I just short bait.
To me, that's happened.
It's already melting.
It's dropped from 50 billion last year down to 25 billion.
To me, this is the beginning of the end that I remember feeling very strongly.
I started in business in 88 with Japanese and of course, I felt that well.
I remember what happened in 1999.
So this is why it's so important to keep this elevated again.
But we're at peak optimism for Mr. Trump.
We're at peak strongest stock market ever.
And there's been these alternatives that are doing well.
So I just point out good luck.
And I think the prudent investors are pointing out
to good where there's value.
And it's certainly not in cryptos.
And I can see the pile on in Bitcoin, which to me is very
scary. I love it when people hate it and I just hate assets when people love it. Of course,
that's my commodity background.
So here's the problem with what you're saying. The most important piece is the crypto community,
the holders of Bitcoin as if it is a stable asset are actually have been agreeing with
you for months now and they've been selling it and you saw that
Although last few weeks not so much, but I mean it but in general they've been selling it and who's been buying it new
People who are coming in and saying well, wait a minute
Why isn't Bitcoin trading at the price of the monetary value of gold? That's where Larry Fink is
That's where lots of others are that's where I am
And so that's the difference. And when you
look at it as a mature commodity, of course, you're going to have that community. So 100,000,
we're seeing exactly the same thing play out at 100,000. We saw it play out at 10,000. We're
seeing people who are saying, you know, at 10,000, there's people who bought it at 100 bucks. It's
like, well, wait a minute, I got life-changing wealthier. Well, at 100,000, we're seeing the
same thing. We'll see the same thing at a million. And that's what you're going to see. And so you're seeing, you know, when I look at the Bitcoin versus gold chart,
it's almost a flat line. I mean, you know, it was the Bitcoin and price of gold was in 21 or 30.
It's four years. It's like a flat line. And that actually makes sense for a while until
Bitcoin goes on its next big up move. And you're going to see a flat line until the big up move. You're going to see little squiggles up
and down, but that's what you'll see. But it's a different thing. This competitor stuff you keep
saying, I mean, there is a massive difference. It's called Bitcoin. We see it in Bitcoin
dominance. There are two, they are both cryptos, right? If you look at Bitcoin and Ethereum,
but they're very different apart from a few lunatics. And yes, I will call you lunatics if you think Ethereum is going to be a store of value. And sure, Tom Lee is saying, yeah, they want to do Ethereum Treasury Company. What he's basically saying is accumulate the stuff that people are going to use, not accumulate the stuff that people are going to use as the valuation metric. And those are very different things. And so it just is different.
It's not-
And there's a reason that there's $135 billion
in spot Bitcoin ETFs.
I mean, they're not in the 10,000 other cryptos.
And oh, by the way, not only is it not in other cryptos,
but this money is new money.
And it is the
most profitable, it is literally BlackRock's most profitable product.
You just remember some of us when Galaxy came out and said that they would be $15 billion
in the first six months that we might get, I think they said as high as $50 billion in
the first 18 months or whenever it was.
And we're at more than double that.
Some of us were saying, yeah, it could easily be larger.
And others said, no, no, it's not possible.
It's just a big number.
It's so important we need to disagree for our viewers
and our audience.
But one thing that I do like when you point out one thing
I'll say and push back on, there's one key thing you said,
Dave, that might go in my book someday is you said when Bitcoin reach a million not
if and I will say one thing I just want to push back a little bit on Dave and
again we're looking at crypto I think it's a much better regulatory
environment what scares me is these Treasury companies the fact that you can
effectively mint free money by creating a Treasury company right that's what I
think Tom Lee is trying to do with an Ethereum treasury company.
It has nothing to do with where the value is.
It's somehow right now you can milk yourself mint free money.
And I think that has to get squeezed out.
It's very hard to tell too,
how many people are say short some of these treasury
companies versus owning the cryptocurrency under Bitcoin,
whether ETF warm or not,
trying to capture some of that ARB
to see if that goes away.
And the fact that more and more of these treasury companies are coming out, it reminds me a
lot of kind of what was happening at the end of subprime in 2007-8 where I don't say we're
going to have anything.
Once these things start cracking and that premium goes away, I think it drags those
stocks way down.
It probably drags crypto down a little bit from there because people have to unwind those kind of attempts at arbitrage.
And then I think you have a much firmer base, right?
I think so long as people can pop up every day or week creating some new treasury company
and minting billions and billions of dollars for themselves, they're going to keep doing
it and the market's going to get tired of it, they're going to see it and you're going
to start seeing an erosion in that premium.
As it turns back, I think to me, I don't see any way it just comes back without Bitcoin
coming down a little bit.
And that to me would be when I would get really, really pounding the table.
This is now the right time because you've taken out this kind of bubbly mentality.
And I don't think the bubble is in the crypto itself.
I think the bubble is in these treasury companies because you should not be able to mint free
money and it's become too easy, I think the bubble is in these treasury companies because you should not be able to mint free money and it's become too easy
I think and everyone's kind of riding that
Thing and you know Tommy's gonna create an ethereum treasury company specifically because it's free money
so I
James go ahead. Yeah, look we
We invest in these companies and you know in in my hedge fund, the Bitcoin Opportunity Fund. And so I, I want to be
clear, I don't think these things are going up forever. But I think we're nowhere near nirvana for them. And so
will they, will there be a big bubble? I believe there will be, in that you'll have companies that are printing this money that you're talking about meaning there. They're basically just
they're using the the the security markets to
financially
engineer their balance sheets in order to buy Bitcoin and
Some of them shouldn't be doing that and that and that is where they'll get tripped up and you'll have like this
that. And that, and that is where they'll get tripped up. And you'll have like this watershed moment. But we're, I believe we're nowhere near that yet. We're still going to have this, you know, we're going to have liftoff for that. But I want
to be clear, I don't think this happens forever. There is going to be a moment where, where it does turn. And, you
know, so we're careful about that. But there are two different types of companies, right? There's the
companies that are financial engineering with leverage and companies that are doing it without leverage. And the ones
that are doing it without leverage are going to be just fine, in my personal opinion.
And it will be almost all companies at some point, until there is proof that the, that putting money in, leaving money that
is cash, the real question is what has a higher expected value, higher performance?
Buying back your own stock, putting money in, you know you're going to lose it because
it can't keep up with inflation asset like treasuries or putting it in a potential future reserve asset. I mean never
forget when you had the United States, and by the way this is the other
argument on that I wanted to make before before I tee you off Mike because I knew
that was going to get you. Negative returns negative returns.
Remember when every time you talk about competitors, the administration did denote Bitcoin and Bitcoin alone is a strategic asset.
And they did so for a reason. And that phrasing is exactly what gets you to what I'm talking about.
And so, yes, that's why it's a treasury asset for it. It just is a treasury asset for companies to consider just like it's a trade.
It's an asset in portfolio. So we haven't even talked about the RIA stuff that we were talking
about last week, which is a very big deal in terms of asset allocation. So it's that rotation
is what's going on from the older crypto guys who might have mined stuff on old laptops
at a dollar a Bitcoin and they're selling it now to become fabulously wealthy so they
can buy stuff, right? To the others, which are newer entrants into the market that clients,
whatever. So anyway, Mike, I have teed you up. There you go. Volleyball is now up above
the net.
You did it intentionally,
and maybe I'll just get it spiked into my head
or spike it back in.
But just give you the facts of history.
We have a pile on.
For everybody saying the same thing
that you and I, we really figured out
in this program a long time ago,
there's time to buy an asset
that's becoming a global reserve currency
when the world's inflating
and we're adding the most liquidity in history,
had COVID and all that fun stuff.
And then there's a pile on trade
when it's the wrong time to buy that asset
for that reason of the past tense.
We're at that now.
I see it everywhere.
And when people I speak to,
sometimes I love some of the young people,
no, recessions are not happening anymore.
You have to buy this,
you have to cover for that melting currency.
Every single time you hear this in history,
I mean, I've been through a few cycles in my life only being in markets for 40 years is when you look for alternatives
And that's the cycle we are now when people can't even conceive of Bitcoin going lower and that's just one asset and I point out
Well, okay
This is the time you're supposed to focus on what almost always happens in history when you have what's been melting is
Bloomberg Galaxy crypto answers cryptos are melting.
Finally, Doge is down to 21 billion.
Once it gets down to maybe 2,100 total market cap, then I can't wait to get bullish to space.
My point is this is just the purge getting started, but it's happening where everything's going up.
You just have to, it's every time you see that pile on that, oh, it's a currency melting.
The point is every time in history we get these massive inflationary periods,
you always get deflation.
That is my point is on a global basis,
the best asset right now potentially protect the bench.
Normal deflation is a US treasury long bond
potentially going to the same yield as in China,
which is 1.64%.
This has happened before, we saw it happen in Japan.
I remember trading those things.
Is it different this time?
No, what's different is risk assets are most expensive ever and we have a US government that really supported this crypto asset
but now they're at risk of potentially at peak optimism and peak in their polls. It just
This is the time not to be jumping on that. Can I ask you a question?
Do you think
that the democrats going into the midterms
Do you think that the Democrats going into the midterms are going to elevate and continue to push the Elizabeth Warren anti-crypto army stuff or do you think they learned their lesson?
I hope they learned their lesson.
I want to appreciate this, people need to understand space and this space is you really
need a great antagonist and Elizabeth Warren is perfect.
She might go down in history similar to Aaron Burr.
I mean, thank you very much for pointing out the dark side. We'll see the bright side. Now
cryptos and Trump figured that out. Remember Muten right before he left his treasury sector
and pushed way back on cryptos and finally they saw the light, things we spoke about. But now
it's peaked. I think we've asked the peak point. And again,
exists that correlation of Bitcoin to the stock market is almost the highest ever.
All I could tell you is the one experience that I have and James has, and that's the reason James
and I look like sour, like we tasted sour milk every time you say that is because we both run
companies in the crypto space. So Coin routes, we had to put take a
four year hiatus on our business plan, because essentially administration, I can say bad words on this thing, the
administration fucked us. And when I explained to Democrats why it is that I hated the Biden administration, and they, they,
after they actually listen, the ones that are willing to listen are like,
okay, I can understand why you have this point of view.
We had a literal moronic financial policy
in the face of a new transformational technology.
And it matters.
It was literally the opposite of Bill Clinton.
And so just to understand,
this shouldn't be a Democrat-Republican thing.
Bill Clinton in the face of the internet said, you know what, this, and I'm not going to do the accent because I can't.
He figured it out. He said, listen, and he pushed and we had that neutrality and he pushed on every button he could to enable the United States to dominate in the internet era.
internet era. That internet era caused a bubble, followed by a crash, followed by a sustained grinding increase where the entire, where the market cap of the world is dominated by US internet companies. Biden, faced with exactly the same
situation with crypto and digitalization of finance, said, listen to Elizabeth Warren. I don't know that he listened. He
was eating ice cream, and he let Elizabeth Warren talk. And she was the literal dumbest person. She will go
down. Aaron Burr, if you actually know the history, there's, yes, he died. And, you know,
maybe she'll be similar to that. You know, I don't wish death on anybody, even her. But
honestly, he wasn't, she is way stupider than he was. What she was doing was on behalf of the banks basically and behalf of financial inclusion
and is literally doing the exact opposite.
I can't hold any human being in more contempt than I hold her.
It's almost literally impossible because what she did to everyone who runs a company was
say you can't be a broker.
So think about this, a company that wanted to have and use US broker-dealer standards,
which are the best in the world at protecting investors.
She literally had the administration tell all the broker-dealers that wanted to offer those services,
you can't. You can't. Meaning that the only ones who could were ones who didn't have the DNA of protecting investors. So when I live with that for four years,
don't say one year after that sort of going away, we're at peak Nirvana.
No, we're peak Nirvana when we actually have rules, when the stock goes off.
Boom.
And Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs can offer full crypto trading services.
And they beating down our doors at coin
routes and say, OK, we need your algorithms to deliver good services to people.
That hasn't happened yet.
Those companies don't have those plans yet because it hasn't happened yet.
So we are nowhere near peak Nirvana.
We still have the Federal Reserve saying they're going to pull back, but talk to Caitlin Long
someday and see if in fact the banking rules have changed to be freely competitive, to be able to put non-fractional reserve banking up against fractional reserve banking and see if in fact the banking rules have changed to be freely competitive, to be able
to put non-fractional reserve banking up against fractional reserve banking and see who wins.
We're not there yet.
So two quick things.
One is I think our firm is looking at this.
I think it's a much more interesting environment.
We want to figure out how we can be more involved in the crypto community.
And I'll come back to James.
I think your first principle is people want to get elected.
How Democrats have not figured out that getting the crypto community on your side might be the best source of funds
There is when I look at that
There is no other group that has immense amount of wealth spread across, you know
All these things who even if you're not aligned you're all kind of aligned with one interest, right?
Everyone wants crypto to do well. It seems like that is the base of money that every politician should be
Striving to get I think you're seeing it at the state and local.
You obviously saw President Trump get it.
I mean, if I was trying to run for office,
whether I love crypto or not,
that would seem to be a very good community
that you want to get on your side
because I think the amount of wealth
that's there right now is very high.
The amount of passion is incredibly high, right?
It's like, there's a passionate community and they're all roughly the same direction. I always come back.
Three pharmaceutical companies might want to donate money, but each might have their own agenda.
That's not quite aligned. I think the crypto community, it's shocking to me Democrats haven't
figured that out to the extent that they do. I would think that will mean that there will be
more and more crypto friendly legislation. So that part Dave I think we're nowhere near done where crypto will be in terms of being ease of use and how
Different firms can you know work with it take advantage of it figure out how to make it part of their overall corporate strategy
James last words because they're at 10. Oh five or about to be
Yeah, look, I agree that we are nowhere near peak Nirvana.
Mike, I agree that we will have drawdowns.
I do.
I just don't think that we're in that spot right now.
I think that liquidity is going to continue
to expand for a while here into next year, at least,
and that we're going to continue to see hard assets,
like gold and like Bitcoin, continue to benefit from it.
And, you know, the one major point of contention that I continuously have with you on this argument is that Bitcoin does not have 10,000 competitors.
It actually has zero. There's nothing that can compete with it in a digital asset space.
There's just, there's nothing.
And so we just differ in opinion on that.
I understand that you're coming from a POV,
a point of view of the retail investor
that sees all these other things that they can invest in,
but I don't look at Bitcoin as just as an investment. And that's why long term I'm so confident in it. And
the word is not even bullish. I'm just confident in it. And I have, you know, more conviction in this asset than any
asset I've ever owned in my entire investing career that's been over 30 years.
Okay, well, I think we are at a good point unless Mike you want a quick rejoinder or are you okay with where we're at?
I let it leave with extreme optimism for Bitcoin.
It keeps it instills my bearishness.
Long term, long term.
Oh, sure.
Okay.
Long term.
Yeah, but we've already had a lot of long term.
Okay.
Well, it's all it always you know, there are many places we could go, but it is 10.05.
So we will see you all next week for macro Monday at nine o'clock on Monday morning. Peace out,
everybody. Let's go.
