The Wolf Of All Streets - Bitcoin Is Front-Running The Collapse Everyone Else Is Ignoring! ( What You MUST Know )

Episode Date: April 27, 2026

The Strait of Hormuz has been closed for over 60 days in the biggest oil supply shock on record, peace talks just collapsed again, and Iran's foreign minister is now in Moscow meeting Putin while Trump's negotiating team stays home. Farmers can't afford fertilizer, high earners are living paycheck to paycheck, and the U.S. government is accepting donations to pay down $39 trillion in debt. Yet Bitcoin keeps climbing — Strategy and BlackRock are still buying, 100+ crypto firms are pushing the Senate to finally pass the Clarity Act, and Kevin Warsh just cleared his path to replace Jerome Powell with a plan to completely overhaul the Federal Reserve. Today we break down why Bitcoin keeps rising while everything around it cracks, what Warsh's "regime change" at the Fed actually means for markets, and whether crypto is front-running something the rest of the financial system hasn't priced in yet. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Bitcoin is front-running the collapse that everyone else is ignoring. We have the situation in Iran deteriorating even further. We're supposed to have peace talks, and now the Iran former minister is actually meeting with Putin instead. Farmers are reporting that they don't have enough fertilizer. We know that there's still a chokehold on the straits of Hormuz, but yet Bitcoin remains resilient alongside many other markets. I don't have the brainpower to unpack this,

but luckily I have amazing guests that do. We've got Mike McGlone, of course, but today Dave and James are gone. So we've got Peter Chier and Noel Atchison also joining for a special amazing edition here of Macro Monday. Let's go. Good morning, everybody. Happy Monday and welcome to the show. I'm just going to go ahead and bring everyone on right now because I don't want to have to parse this.

I'm going to leave this to you in the morning meeting, Mike, to start us off because none of it makes any sense to me. Okay. Well, it was a little clear today. Anna Wong came out and pointed out the next FMC. meeting on Wednesday will be Powell's last. She did point out, Warsh is probably a shoe-in, basically she didn't use that word, but somewhat done. Mr. Senator Tillis has dropped his opposition. Where Powell's stay on, she doesn't think so, right off to the sunset. This is news conference he think will be somewhat nostalgic and point out inflation expectations

are firmly anchored, yet we have strong economic growth and mightn't even mention things about independence of the Fed. So that's going to be important. Don't think he's going to be too much forward-looking. Let that for the next chairman. But she did point out his significant views, a little bit of counter consensus. She pointed out firms are starting to have to reduce hiring, costs, issues, and through attrition and unemployment, she expects unemployment to tick up and expects the Fed to cut 50 base points by the fall,

was their quote. So I suppose that means by end of the year. And Dallas Fed, she's watching very closely. One thing that's really happened is manufacturing pickup is quite strong in this country, exports are strong, particularly petroleum exports, and you can see that also natural gas. Plunging is a good sign for manufacturing. Ira Jersey pointed out Mr. Warsh's views on the balance sheet to reduce the Fed's balance sheet will probably not happen soon. There's a lot of banking issues. It'd be less for repo active. These would be a liquidity issue. He thinks

Worse will get that eventually, but it'll take a while. And you point out there's some supply today, and we're starting to see some cuts being priced back in the markets. again. Chris Kane, our stock strategist, came out and said the last three weeks were some of the strongest was some of the strongest rallies in history, he's ever seen. Small caps of the studs, they're resuming their outperformance for its large caps. His quote is the bottom line, the small caps have relative strength and valuation advantage over the large caps. S&P 500 earnings are running 13.7% above year ago levels. He says that's a bit above expectation, but he's not really so impressed. The key thing he's worried about the bars way too high.

Tech, tech earnings are expected to run 41% above year-over-year levels. That's just wonderful. Audrey Trillard Freeman, our FX strategies point out the, we have facial central bank meetings from most of the central banks this week. Fed, ECB, Bank of Japan, B.O.J, Bank of Canada. She points out she's hard to be bullish a euro because of energy prices, and there's a nice interest rate differential helping out because Europe.

banks more biased towards tightening, but it's just going to hurt their economies, particularly with energies going up. I think the euro stock between 115-120 and says a similar issue with yen doesn't see the potential for strength in euro or yen, despite the hiking higher rates because of energy issues on their economy. And I pointed out the key themes and commodities are elasticity and dependency. By elasticity, I did have fun explaining to an editor last week that the number one bull market in commodities is the elasticity. Just look at natural gas. It's the same price as almost 25 years ago.

It went up and it couldn't stay up. So it went back down. That's U.S. gas. And that was a great indication, 22, 23, when crude oil spiked. Now, obviously it's all still about crude oil. I say crude oil stuck between 80 and 100. Now you're using WTI, partly because it's the Senator U-Verse with Mr. Trump needs lower energy prices by midterms. And I point out that December crude oil future at 78, I expect to be closer to 50 than 100. Can't really predict what's going to happen in the straight, but I full expect, again, it's going to be like a battle the bolts and be somewhat cleaned up. And then I pointed out things like metals that the most dependent, the whole entire sector, even gold on the stock market going up I've ever seen,

and even cryptos, the most dependent as I've seen ever as the stock market going up, which means we know where the risk is. Back to you. Stock market keeps going up, though. It's wonderful. Exactly. I wonder when that shoe is going to drop. Can you explain to me, anyone exactly. I haven't done the deep dive. Obviously, Tillis, as you say, cleared the path for Warsh when the DOJ, I guess, conveniently dropped their probe into Powell in the building. Why is there still debate over whether Powell will choose to step down or not? Isn't his term up? So he... I can take that. He said at the last press conference that no way was he going anywhere until the probe was fully resolved. And even though the DOJ has dropped, it's actually not fully resolved because we still have President Trump muttering about opening up some other probes.

He can stay on as governor for another two years. His term as chair is in a couple of weeks. His term as governor still has a couple of years to run. That would be very unusual for a chair leaving the position to also stay on as governor. But it's certainly possible. He's allowed to do that. But does that leave room for Warsh, even if Worse, So there's no position there.

There's no. It does if Moran steps down. Okay. So yeah. But that's not obviously an ideal panel for President Trump who really wants the, he wants to stack the votes as much as he can. So it's certainly not a guarantee that Warsh will be given a seat or will have a seat available. I mean, what happens if Powell, I don't see it.

But I mean, is there really the chance here that Powell just? is a chance. I mean, Anna, Anna Wong is totally right. It would be unusual and it would take a certain character to want to stick around when you, you know, there's a lot of signs that you're just not wanted there. But Powell does have a stand to make. He doesn't, he wants to make sure they're not going to come after him under some other guys. And he has a very strong card to play here. Warsh would get confirmed. Totally agree with that. And Moran's a team player. He'll step aside if he needs to. Oh, so that's exactly what would happen is basically Warsh would step in, Moran would step down, Warsh would be the chair, Powell would be on the board, and you wouldn't

have as stacked a deck in favor of Trump. Exactly. That's why there's quite a lot writing on this, but gosh, if I were chair, Powell, I just want to go and sip my beer and watch the sunset for a while. Gosh, and to be honest, like, I think he has a reasonable legacy at this point. And he's earned a break. Over the downside. I mean, whatever problems you may have with some of his decisions, he's earned a break. So what is, I mean, there's endless takes on what this, you know, Warsh could mean coming in. Noelle, actually, I think you and I talked about this a bit last week.

You know, but this has sort of been the topic. How different is a Warsh Fed chair than a Powell Fed chair in the current scenario? And how much does the Fed even impact what happens with markets at this point? I'm happy to, Noel, your take first. And then, you know, we've had the endless sock puppet memes. Yeah, and they're happy to take this. I was being quite because I was wondering if Peter wanted to jump in. I'm happy to take this.

There's not going to make much of a difference in the short term, because as, you know, contrary to what we are told by many White House officials and, of course, X, Warsh doesn't get to decide interest rates. He has a vote, and that's about it. And I don't think anyone in their right minds would vote to lower interest rates with just so much macroeconomic uncertain. The rate expectations this morning, one of the charts I was looking at, show pretty much zero expectations of rate cuts this year. Slightly, you know, maybe like points 1% or something like that, but very, very low.

In other words, no rate cuts coming in 2026, most likely. And not just in the US, pretty much everywhere. And this is a big liquidity issue, which I'm sure we'll get into. But one thing we are not talking enough about is leaving a sidewash's view on macroeconomic and monetary. policy, he has often talked about how he just doesn't think the Fed should be talking to the public so much. He has talked about getting rid of forward guidance. This may well be the last FOMC press conference we ever get the privilege of witnessing. I don't think he'll make that radical a change so soon, but he might. I mean, why not? He's probably not looking forward to his

first presser, and so why not make the changes he's muttering about right off? I'm not sure. Forward guidance is something we've gotten so used to. What What star would the bond market follow without it? That's really interesting because the FOMC has become like the Super Bowl of economics every single meeting. So I can see both sides of that. Obviously, transparency with the public is important to whatever degree that's true. But we also don't need to have markets react on every cough, sneeze or, you know, wink. Really interesting.

I mean, Peter, how are you viewing all of this right now? Yeah, I think we are heading towards a more dove-ish fed, regardless of how this place, out they're going to, I don't think they're going to be in any position to cut any time soon. I do think we're going to get a lot more coordination with the Treasury Department in terms of what we're doing on buybacks, what we do on issue, whether we see an Operation Twist type thing, which I still think I could see an Operation Twist fairly early in this because it would not increase the size of the balance sheet, but it would allow them maybe to sell some of the shorter dated bonds to buy longer dated bonds.

And I really think they want to get that tenure under 4%. And it's not going to get there with rate cuts. I think right now if they did a rate cut, bond markets react poorly. So I think they're going to have to look for alternative ways to push that 10-year lower. And so I would not be surprised to see like an Operation Twist type thing and a little bit even more coordination with Treasury Department to see where it goes. And I, for one, I'd be happy if we had less kind of information from the Fed. I feel like forward guidance is one of those things. The first few times you do it, it has a real strong impact.

And now you kind of have to do forward forward guidance to really move the markets because you've already given so much information. And it's hard to surprise. And I do feel Fed policy tends to be more effective when there's a little bit of a shock value to it. As they price us in, yields don't really move the way they would expect because the front end will move because they have to because that's in direct response. But everything else gets so priced in. So I would not be upset to see a little bit more volatility in the markets and less kind of predictability from the Fed. Can I jump in on the end of that? I mean, Peter makes a great point.

It's like taking, you know, kids get used to candy. You take it away for health reasons. There's a tantrum, but the baby is healthy. The kids are healthier in the long run. I totally agree with Peter. We used, I mean, and forward guidance is a relatively new concept. But pulling on the collaboration with the treasury, now this is something very interesting. It's one thing that I still struggling to understand.

And, well, two things, really. One is the swap lines argument. We have the UAE asking for swap lines, Besson confided just late last week, that there are many other nations in the area and elsewhere also asking for swap lines and he's inclined to give them to them. Now, why is the Treasury giving swap lines? That's something the Fed's supposed to be doing. The Treasury does have some mechanisms. They're not as vast or deep as the feds. But this is suddenly a Treasury thing, which I think is very interesting because the Treasury is political. The Fed isn't, or swap lines going to be political now under this administration probably.

Now, that actually says a lot about foreign monetary policy management. And the other is, I don't know if you'll remember, when was it? A couple of weeks ago, the Financial Times wrote a report on how Besant praised in a private meeting the Bank of England system where there is a very tight collaboration between Treasury and the central bank. And Besant apparently said, according to sources that were in the room that he liked this system and would like to see something like that in the U.S. And Bessent hit the roof. I don't know if you saw on his rebuttal on post, but he was calling the FT all kinds of blue and red names up and down the spectrum. It was the most vicious attack I've ever seen on any kind of media, let alone such as the Financial Times. So that was

very telling because what the Financial Times said made some sense and they've stood by their reporting. The article is still up. But Besson was not happy. And I don't really understand why. Peter, quickly, Operation Twist you referred to, is that effectively selling short-term treasuries and buying long yield curve control? I mean, is that accurate? Yeah. Right. It's one step removed from actual yield curve control where they set a specific target for yields,

but it moves you along that path, right? That they can try and pick and choose where on the curve they want to identify the weak spots where maybe they feel they can press. And again, I think it will be more organized than the traditional Fed, where I think Powell and the prior Fed have all been kind of very regimented. I think it will take a little bit more of a trading attitude towards this and look for opportunities when markets are illiquid, look for maybe right after an auction, when markets already have a propensity to go higher, month end tends to have this index buying. So I think there will be more clever about how they do this operation twist if they get there to kind of really take advantage of the situation with a kind of trader's mentality, which Besson does bring to the table. And by the way, I think you were really spot on, Noel, with like the politicization of the swap lines.

You go back, right? I look at Central and South America, at the top part of these, you know, South America, we're kind of using the stick, right? We're using the stick a little bit on Venezuela, using a stick on Colombia. Argentina was the opposite approach, right? At swap lines, it's kind of giving, you know, Argentina the carrot to bring them into the fold. So it seems like it is a natural extension. I'll say one thing that I think is kind of relevant. So the generals I work with Spider Marks, great guy, awesome.

TV all the time and clients occasionally ask him so spider if you were given more money to spend at the military what would you spend it on to be most effective and his answer is the state department and so i have always thought that's interesting and again maybe this is all filling into a better use of our funds or proceeds at all levels targeting an outcome that's maybe better thought out rather than this haphazard shotgun approach that we've often had Mike i mean any final thoughts here on this topic i want to move on to you Iran and the implications there, but the Fed and likely, I guess the relationship between Warsh and dissent really is interesting because I think that they'll be quick friends, much like, you know,

Atkins and Seleague. I think we are getting sort of a coalition of friendly heads at basically every department we can find. What's I think uniquely happening in this country is the despondents for the administration in power, lowest polls ever. And anybody related to that, administration on the, you know, certainly in the cabinet, will be considered maybe somewhat people are not going to want to even deal with them in the future. Remember, Trump's done in two and a half years and worst term is going to go well beyond that. So obviously that includes Scott dissent too. So it's happening. You've seen it in the polls, you've seen it in markets and many other things. Like I just, all these anecdotal stuff I'm hearing and seeing about all these

people trying to go conservative Catholics. It's really weird. People are just getting sick of the hedonism in things. But I want to, if I can, just point out two key things. Peter touched on, that's volatility. If I can just show screen for a minute, point of key themes I'm worried about as things that have never happened is, now we were able to pick out part of this breakdown.

This is just S&B 500 in terms of gold. It broke down from above two. A couple years ago, we were able to pick that out. Is that supposed to stop now? I feel like it'll expect it's going to get to one-to-one. It's balanced. One of the key themes is I'm parable. identify, I like to bring you your attention to the bottom of this chart is this volatility,

180-day volatility between gold and the S&P 500, it's 2.3 times. That's just never stayed that way. It's inconceivable to stay that way. It's never been that high. And the last time it was is when the S&P 500 to gold ratio broke down from above two in 2007. But again, the key theme is what has to keep going up, as I just point out, stock market cap to GDP at all-time high. In this case, I use S&P 500 to GDP because it's a lot of. a good proxy. I can go back to 100 years. I don't have good reliable data going back to

1929 in stock market in stock market cap, but it's running 2.3 times. The actual stock market cap is 2.4 times. That's just not a spot. You want to be, you want to look for, be worried about a little bit of reversion. When you get that reversion, that's what you have to worry about. Then I point out the key theme is, again, drawing your attention to the bottom of this chart, we have, I overlay gold volatility overlay with S&B 500 balance. It's just never been that wide. It never stays that way. It almost leads the way. I don't know what the cattle is going to be, but then I just point out you take out gold divided by crude oil, copper, SMB, 500, breaking down hard versus crude oil, and it should. It's just gone back to the

key support around 44 barrels. That's been kind of what was set in 2020. It was way too high before the war. But is it going to fall in the copper and in the stock market? Now, with one final chart. This one I really like to appreciate it. annual chart of S&P 500 total return. Now it's turned green. It's great. It's a candle. It's a green candle. It was red for a little while, but again, I show you in the bottom. This is something I've just never seen. You have that 180-day volatile. This is an annual measure running at 12.9%. It's just never saved that flat, that low for that long. So I always try to put myself, what's this going to look like at the end of the year? And again, this is gold volatility leading the way.

Stock market policy is hovering like, yeah, we don't care about nothing until it does. And the key leading indicator I've loved to use forever, is that Bitcoin to gold ratio is breaking down. If this stock market can stay green, that's wonderful. I have to give up on my post-inflation deflation view. I might have to start worried about treasuries. But if we just get a bit of normal reversion, this candle goes red. And the later in the year it does it, that's part of that negativity you're seeing about our current administration messing everything up. Trump's war, making inflation higher, making everything costs higher. And people just saying, yeah, fine, shut off the spending. We're kind of done with.

you until we get to the next administration. Peter, Noel, any specific responses to any of that that you're dying to give? Because Peter, he went right to the war at the end. And obviously, I also spoke last week. But it seems to be more nonsensical by the day. As I sort of alluded to at the beginning, we were supposed to get peace talks. The Iran delegation left Islamabad before the United States was supposed to show up. United States didn't show up at all.

and then to my knowledge, the Iranians went to Russia. Yeah, I think they'll close basically for 60 days, right? And the main condition of the ceasefire was supposed to be the opening of the Straits. And now both countries are blocking it in their own way. Yeah, no, I think the whole thing's kind of weird. I think Mike pointed out earlier, too, you know, you watch November, December, oil contracts. They're kind of clicking towards the highest they've been since this conflict started, right? The front end's not as high.

but you're starting to see this kind of push out the curve. I think December WTI has now been above 80 a couple of times in the last few days. And the market's just not responding at all. The market doesn't seem to care. I guess, you know, we're the semiconductor, the high beta momentum stocks, you know, as much as we talked about the semis, high beta momentum did even better. I think it's 18 days in a row and blowing away the semis, which are 18 days in row and 45% up.

So you've seen kind of this flood of money in despite this. So I'm kind of watching to see that. And the only thing that makes some logical sense is the market's just starting to think, Trump's going to pull up the gear and say, okay, we've dealt with all we can. And this is, you know, the rest of the world's problem going forward because we're energy and, you know, energy sufficient. And I don't have the time to deal with this. Because affordability is such a risk right now. I think the affordability crisis, we've been talking about, it's like, to me, it's not this case-shaped economy.

It's almost every week, the number of people kind of getting sucked into living paycheck to paycheck and feeling. stretched with what they thought was a comfortable lifestyle a year or two keeps increasing. I think that's the pressure. It's, you know, people, I think you were scrolling through earlier, you saw some headline people making 500K or living paycheck to payche. I laughed because it made me think of this and I was about to bring it up and then you brought it up. Yeah.

So I think he has to address affordability. And again, I still don't understand why we didn't give some sort of tariff holiday on potash or things that we need for the farm industry. It's, you know, Trump loves farmers. I think he seems to want to help farmers, but this war is doing nothing to help farmers. Their diesel costs is going higher. Fertilizer is going higher if they can get it. So I don't see how we're going to get out of our affordability problem if we keep fighting in that region.

And maybe that's what Trump does. I think it would probably be the best thing for the world if we continue to the fight to the point that Iran changes enough that they are not going to be a threat to the region. More and more, I'm not sure that we have the will to do that. And the affordability crisis has been painful. It's painful even now. It's been painful for the past couple of years, getting worse. Even if Trump were to upsticks, as you say, Peter, you agree, that's looking like what the market is betting on.

That's not going to really help the inflation outlook very much because the oil price is high. I pay more attention to Brent because that represents oil on the move, oil actually on the ocean. and it's up at 106 and hitting higher today. That's really an uncomfortable area for it to be in. Okay, that spot, that's not futures, but the two are going to converge and probably not downwards.

Now, the affordability crisis is going to become political very soon. That's going to lead to a certain paralysis of any kind of policy decisions as well as just the political distaste of impeachment hearing after impeachment hearing. And that surely has to impact market sentiment to some degree, especially if we start to see the trade partners pull back on their agreements to invest in the U.S., etc., etc. In other words, affordability crisis is bad now. It's going to get worse. And then where's the relief coming for the manufacturing base that the United States needs to be cultivating?

Yeah, I mean, Mike. Peter mentioned the Ford, the future contract. I think I want to point out something about that. And he's right. The December contract is the key one I'm fixated. I don't know if I can show a screen on that. This is a chart of December futures. It's hovering around $78 a barrel.

The high was just above 81. We don't show that this is the end of the day closed. But when this December future started trading, the U.S. and Canada was running a net deficit of two million barrels a day. Now we're approaching 7 million barrels a day of as a surplus. This is exactly what Mr. Trump, I think, wanted. Increased that surplus, decreased prices. Hopefully the war won't last tomorrow. but that's the key thing about this December contract.

It's going to be front right before midterms. And yeah, if you can stay here, that's a problem from him for everything, but it's just going to make this supply continue until the higher it goes, the harder it falls. It's usually how it works. Just the question is as it happened in time for him to save his in the elections. But that's the key thing to remember in crude oil and energy prices. Like I mentioned, that Bloomberg All-energy Index,

which includes diesel and, heating oil and print. It's the same price as 2005. It gets high. Maybe it spikes and then it goes back down. And I just don't see what's changed other than like the Wall Street Week program I saw this weekend, really pointing out all the BYDs coming into Paris and London and Singapore. And these vehicles are awesome. I'm jealous. In the U.S., you have to have a 100% tariff because it would crush our lotto industries because they're cheap. They're very well good quality. And they, burn a lot and they charge fast and they burn very little fossil fuels. It's mostly

the hybrid ones. We're talking about Chinese cars because they're living in like 2047 from all the TikToks and Instagrams that people send me of their technology. It's unbelievable what their cities, bridges, tunnels, and cars look like that we don't have access to

in the United States. It's actually quite telling. Pretty shocking. But yeah, I guess that's not the immediate topic of the show. Peter, you look like you're on. Yeah, I would just say You know, you talk about China and what they've been able to do. And, you know, I'm still very kind of excited that the administration's working towards production for security, that they're working on rarest and critical minerals, the process and refining of them,

that they're trying to do things to, you know, goose or electricity production and maybe to even fix the grid. We, I'm shocked how mired we are still in regulation. Like, regulation seems to be our biggest enemy at this point in terms of trying to drive some stuff forward. And you just see that in the things we're looking at. And there's so much environmental or regulatory pressure that I think we could do all the things China does. We might even be able to do them better. We're having trouble. I've been talking to people in the energy industry and they're having more success getting projects done in Mexico because not only is the leadership on board, the provinces are on board,

and I'm hearing you're getting projects done on time under budget. And the U.S. were still kind of mired and individual, how do you get your pipeline through this? How do you get this approved? And it's one thing I think Trump is actually very good at. I think he's less some people who are not bad at it in charge. But he's been so directed on this war that maybe if he comes back to that, we could get, you know, his attention to drive some of those things through. Because I think we're really going to need that if we're going,

I think there's always going to be a little bit of an inflation pressures. We try and onshore as we try and do more as we build it out. But if we can get this regulatory things done faster, maybe it reduces the length of time and we can seize less of a blip there. That was kind of the promise of this administration. right but I think there's only so much you can do at a state-by-state level still right I mean it's I'm not complaining that we have states rights But you know there's certain states that are just never gonna let that pipeline go through Yeah, and I think we're seeing it now and what's interesting to me is you know we've been talking to state after state and you know

The question that's starting to come up is you know red carpet or red tape like states have to make that decision Do you want to bring out the red carpet invite industry and take advantage or do you want to bring out the red tape and I think you're seeing some of the lower per capita income GDP red states are openly into whatever it takes to drag business in, right? They need the income. They want the jobs. They will do that. And I would say probably at the flip side with California, Newsom wanting to go against President Trump potentially next time. All you see is friction. And that's not helpful. So I don't know where this plays out. I do think you are seeing a bit of this return, though, to the heartland of America where access to fresh water, access to reliable electricity, and potentially afford a bit of

around the housing industry makes this appealing. And we might be finally seeing a little bit of this reversal of this multi-year trend away from the heartland into the coast and some of it coming back, a big part of its affordability, access to electricity, and water for companies. So that to me is kind of an exciting trend. And we're looking at position around that for real estate and other things.

Well, you're nodding. Yeah, and I was saying that makes total sense. I mean, Peter, I don't know if you know, but I'm in Europe. So we could talk about the impact of over-regulation, on industries. We could also talk about the impact of depending too much on foreign sources of energy. Unfortunately, Europe doesn't have the political will that the United States has to actually fix some of these issues and so important. I don't think anything's going to get fixed there. We're very much up against the rock and the hard place when it comes to China as well.

Half of the EU members want to make friends with China and become closer. The other half see China as the baddies that want to flood our market with cheap goods. And again, can the Can the European Union hold with all of this? I think yes, but while, as Mike pointed out earlier, dwindling further and further into economic irrelevance. Yeah. Can I just add one thing? You know, I've been on TV lately more and more pounding the table for people to buy BP, Shell and Total. I think we haven't yet kind of seen that, you know, whatever it takes moment in Europe. I think they're finally starting to realize, or at least getting to that point, like, we have to harness our own energy resources. This is ridiculous that we are so dependent on everything else. And I think this production for security and resiliency is replacing ESG as the dominant theme.

I think it's already well on the way to doing that in the U.S. It's going to be harder to this lodge ESG. But ESG was built on a premise, right? The sustainability, we are very altruistic, but everything we need to be truly sustainable, electricity, et cetera, was being coming from China. We can't do that. The U.S. is further ahead of addressing that. Europe hasn't quite got there, but I feel like it's finally starting.

it'll be like, oh shoot, we've been face-planning ourselves for like a decade. Why? Yeah, and it's a reminder of that, unfortunately, are often takes a crisis to really change an attitude. Well, I think that's a key theme that was really started with the Russians invasion of Ukraine and that process of technology replacing fossil fuels clearly in China, like 60% now of new sales are all EVs or EV hybrids and they're wonderful vehicles. Now the rest of the world is just this, you know, the Iran war, just accelerated that process. I just look at every country in the world. Yeah, I know

Germany and Japan has problems with major competitors and that great vehicles from China, but then they look over like, well, we're not energy independent. Vehicle transportation is one of our major demand sources for crude oil and fossil fuels. And by the way, this rapidly, this deflating, this technology coming out of China is awesome. The energy density of batteries, complete bull market, EVs, solar panels, all that stuff, you know, if you don't have a lot of fossil fuels, replace with technology. And to me, this is just going to accelerate their process. So I agree with you, Peter, it should be involved with some of the energy companies.

At least they make money over time, but the actual price of the energy and the hardly ever goes up. And to me, this is a switch, a flip of the switch that was started with Russians of Asian Ukraine. She's kicking in. And a lot of it's going to be, okay, well, you know, I had solar panels in my house 12 years ago. My EV is almost 12 years old. Now I think the rest of the world is going to say that stuff's cheap and it's cost effective. And it's coming from China. Wave it in. Noelle, you made a comment early about the political will to do things in Europe. It's a nice segue to our lack of political

will to handle the United States federal debt and expenditures. So tracking federal expenditures in real time. You can see over here, this is 2026 trending up now as the debt, increases, many expect this to actually accelerate upward from the previous periods there. I mean, we had Doge and we had all this talk of, you know, austerity and now it seems like spend baby spend. And this just ties together also what you were talking about, Peter, even if we deregulate, like, where's the money going to come from to do things at this point, if not just money printing and, you know, injections of liquidity? Yeah, I'll jump in with an observation there. It goes back to what I was mentioning

earlier, much of the money was going to be coming from trade partners who are going to be investing in factories in the Midwest. Well, what if they don't? Yeah. And yeah, I mean, I remember that's funny. It seems like a hundred years ago, the beginning of the Trump presidency when they were parading everybody up on stage, a trillion dollars here, $500 billion there, $700 billion here. I don't even hear about that anymore. But I guess that's just a function of the news cycle, Peter. Yeah, and it's relevant to the UAE that. Go ahead. It's relevant to the swap lines as well because if the U.S. Treasury is giving swap lines to trade partners, then why do they need to invest in the U.S.? What really is the point when they have no longer an issue about getting hold of dollars? Yeah, I think we're seeing a bit of a slowdown in all this.

And I do think, you know, Trump may have turned out to be too successful in his goal to kind of force other countries to do things on their own. Whereas, you know, if you asked, told me a year and a half ago, Europe was going to spend more in defense. I would think they'd be buying predominantly U.S. weapons systems, right? We've got the bet. They're doing everything they can to, you know, buy European weapons systems. You're starting to see the pressure from the French government again, not to use Microsoft going. forward and to use Vizio or whatever, which I guess is a private French company. So you're seeing, I think, this, you know, pushing away and people are turning a little bit more

independent. 40% of you, uh, S&P 500 earnings are global, you know, come from overseas. I don't know whether we will see pressure on that. I don't think we've seen it yet, but it's kind of, it started with tariffs and Liberation Day. Then it went through Greenland, which really kind of impacted Europe. And now you're going through the Iran more, the NATO conversations, this kind of pulling away. So again, I, I, I think. think we have to kind of view Europe very differently, kind of if they can get their act together, they're going to behave very differently. It's not going to benefit the U.S. markets the way it once did. That's my concern. I think it's playing out right now in slow motion, but I think

that's a risk that we haven't thought about. And again, this transactional nature, I think it's very difficult. And I keep looking, get asked a lot about U.S. dollar flows. Equities, the world will continue to buy because you need U.S. equities. We've got the biggest best companies. They're global in nature. Credit, you need it because U.S. corporations have. the broadest array of, you know, industries, sectors, ratings, maturities. So that I think treasuries become less and less interesting, especially as people are spending their own money. They've got to spend their own money, but you can also now get 2% on tens in Japan.

You don't need to go to the U.S. So I think treasuries will kind of suffer globally just because they're kind of very generic. And then I think direct U.S. investment is going to be difficult for a lot of people. Mike, you said treasuries. So that means you have to speak now. Yeah. Well, we have to have some disagreements. I think the number one thing for treasury yields to go down is the stock market going down,

and it's at the highest versus GDP in almost 100 years. So that, to me, I still stick with that. And that five, you know, that 10, I'm sorry, that long bond pushing up against 5%. I think that would still be a gift if we can get that 5%. And most of the rest of the world has three handles on those. Certainly China does 10 units, a little bit less. But again, the whole key thing, keeping yields higher and rates, higher as stock market right now. And with crude oil going up and stock market going up, it's a

wonderful thing, but it's just a question how long that can last. And that's why I point out those disparities in volatility, as obviously you can tell them an ex-option trader, have never happened. It's unsustainable. And that's where I look at cryptocurrencies is a leading indicator for just a bit of a wealth reverse. And that's a key thing that hasn't happened yet. Now, we haven't seen the significant demand destruction from the spike in energy prices. You'll see that, and not just energy food and fertilizer and everything. But, and we have seen the reverse and we haven't seen any wealth reversion at all. That's the big, that's the 10 out of the 10. Everything else is a five or lower for lower interest rates and lower yields. And for me, my next big

trade, I think will be U.S. Treasury yields dropping towards where they are in China. Mike, historically, you may have some context. How long does it generally take for that to move through the system? I mean, you mentioned that we haven't seen it yet, you know, assuming that we first of all is the damage done for you know like oil exports and the issues there or can it be reversed and if the damage is done how long does it take before we really start to feel it because you're seeing these reports like farmers saying 70% of farmers can't get enough fertilizer yeah so let's be careful some of those reports yeah just just to be careful with some of those reports because some of them are sensation i spent a lot of time in the corn bill i used to own a farm

I was at coup conferences recently. The number one thing, let's talk about the U.S. Most of the decisions for U.S. fertilizer means corn, and most of those decisions were made last year. It means anhydrous. The number one source of nitrous ammonia in U.S. is natural gas, and it's plunging. So, yeah, there's things with urea and potash and stuff like that.

For the benchmark in the corn belt in the world, it's not a big issue. And remember, most corn and soybeans are rotated. And when you rotate corn and soybeans, soybeans actually add nitrogen to the soil. It's the way it works. And so it's not a big, Now, for the rest of the world is a problem.

But again, there's workarounds. We have to be careful with what gets headlines because it's sensational what's really actually happening. And that's why I point out that December corn contract has been unable to get above five despite crude oil spiking. That November soybean contracts been unable to get above 12 despite crude oil spiking. And they're all biofuels now. You know, 15% or so of our fuel in the U.S. is from corn. It's ethanol. And that's the biggest problem I find out when I go to Midwestern conferences, they need demand because there's so much supply come out South America.

And the grains and seasons are getting longer. So unless we get a drought, those prices are not going to go up much this year. They've already gone up. And it's also another source of fuel. So that's the key thing from the grains and food. The number one thing is diesel causing transportation costs to get food to the grocery store. But overall, this will be solved soon. If the straight trade stays closed, that's a problem.

most only for the rest of the world for the U.S. Corn Belt, not an issue. And our main competitor now is South America, Brazil. Now it's a bit of an issue for them. I love you, Mike. That is insight we can never get from literally anybody else. Well, I use some farm, and that's the basis of all commodities. I love it's from the classic Kesey and classic economists. It's the most elastic sector.

So, like, why does the price of soybeans right now get guys? and been crushed since 2022 because those price spikes incentivize an existing trend in Brazil to bring on more supply. It was not really so much deforestation, but deposterization. You can take a pasture land and they've been increasing their supply forever. It's just like all that supply coming out of China of deflationary technology, pressuring, you know, for solar panels and everything. We have to have tariffs on them because their technology is. good and cheap, but the rest of the world doesn't care. So thank you very much. One issue is, though, that farming is energy intensive, especially outside of the United States,

very energy intensive. And so what are the countries struggling to get energy going to do about the food production? Are they going to take energy away from some of the industries to keep the farmers okay, or do they let some of the farms, you know, dwindle down their production? What does that do to food production? The United States does import a lot of its food. It's not going to be totally immune to any spikes in food prices. It's not immune to spikes in energy prices with similar reasons. It does import certain types of energy. And it also imports a lot of goods, most of the goods, in fact, it imports from countries that are going to be very heavily hit by the inflationary impact of higher food and energy prices. So the ripple effects. The United

States in isolation will probably, yes, definitely be okay, but it's not in isolation. It was so true. The key thing I saw this weekend is in Brazil, most of their energy fuel now is from ethanol. They can increase the mandate to E30. And you see what it's doing. It's incentivizing the replacing of old gar fossil fuels with other sources. And there's a massive superabundance of soybeans and sugar and in this country, corn and soybeans and soybeans and soybeans and for biofuels. So it's super abundance is a wonderful thing.

But again, you're right. But it's a transition. It's going to incentivize what Russians invasion of Ukraine did. Now, I mean, like I said, the EV I have, if I can get that same one from China, it's half the cost three times more efficient. It can charge it in five minutes. This is great. Yeah, I want to talk about Bitcoin.

So obviously, you know, Mike says they're leading that Bitcoin and Cryptos are leading on the way down. But right now, Bitcoin's holding relatively strong. And so unless the stock market dies today, I think that Bitcoin could have a bit more upside to it. And we have this structural bid, obviously. I mean, we can bring up this story here, but we all know, right? That we've had now a nine-day inflow streak about a billion a week, the last two weeks, into the ETFs. Now it would be disingenuous to pretend that these can't reverse, right?

So we have a chicken and egg problem with price and flows. I don't know which one is leading or lagging. And of course, you got this guy, Saylor, a light week because STRC is still not trading at par yet, but still able to buy $255 million worth of Bitcoin. It seems like there's a lot of built-in demand for Bitcoin right now, the institutional bid. And unless the market absolutely crashes being the stock market, that we could be looking at a break up. I mean, Noel, Peter, what do you think? You know, the one thing, and I'm trying to parse this out, and I'm not 100% sure, but, I've always suspected that Iran has some amount of Bitcoin that they've been accumulating as part of their kind of getting around sanctions, right?

I think they do a lot of business directly in Juan. They probably have, you know, accounts in China that we don't know of. I'm sure they have some amount of Bitcoin that they've been accumulating, whether it's through their hacking or through kind of, you know, flaunting these sanctions. I would suspect if what's going on right now, maybe that is actually one of the reasons we're not rallying quite as much, maybe as would otherwise, given those information. close is Iran might be slowly getting rid of some of their Bitcoin to fund the war. It's hard to prove any of this. It's kind of been speculation. It's been something we talk a lot about how cryptocurrencies have been used to avoid sanctions. So any sort of peace deal would seem them to be very, very strong, not only for markets, but I think Bitcoin might really accelerate

if we're right that any pressure on this is coming from Iran kind of weighing on the market because they may be selling to fund their economy. Don't know if that's true or not. That's been kind of one of our thoughts, really hard to prove. You have seen over time, though, during a lot of these crises, whether it's Venezuela, whether it's Iran, Bitcoin kind of reacts a bit the opposite. You get bad news, and Bitcoin actually goes down instead of higher, like, gold and things. And part of that to me is then there's this potential selling from bad actors in the world. And if we could get through that, you know, maybe we're out. Again, it could be wrong. But that's why I kind of well, I mean, it's been the best performing asset largely, or at least as

of last week, I haven't looked now. But, you know, since the outbreak of war, And further, I mean, Iran has been mining Bitcoin, right? I don't know what the situation is currently, but there's an incredible piece. I can't remember where it was on basically one person in the Iranian government who's fundamental to their sanctions evasion and how passionate he is about crypto and how much it's deeply involved. And the power outage is always when the IRGC turns the Bitcoin miners on in the past. And there's Bitcoin is playing a very serious role in Iran, at least pre-war. So, you know, now, hard to tell if there's an energy crisis. But yeah.

Yeah, and we're seeing anecdotal reports of other nations selling as well, and documented evidence of Bhutan selling. Okay, we're talking a small nation here, a tiny economy. But if they're selling and they're very pro-crypto and they've been mining for ages, we can assume others are as well. And not just nation states. I mean, corporations that have been holding Bitcoin's reserves, well, this is precisely what reserves are for.

So I got to show one chart on the topic, partly because I want to feature an index that I initially created one of my favorite indices at Bloomberg's a Bloomberg Galaxy Crypto Index. Now, was Galaxy the index team at Bloomberg grabbed on with them? This is 10 years ago. I suggested this index. I just showed you the actual performance index for the last five years. It got to near 4,000. It's right near 2,000. And I think it's going to go down to 1,000 before you find that low price cure.

It's not very complicated, but it's the same price as five years ago. It's an index attracts 12 cryptos. It's limited by 35%. So 35% Bitcoin, Ethereum, and then the rest down. Again, but it tracks a space with unlimited supply, the space. But that's why I thought an index has survivor bias. So we want an index of space. We want an ETF tracking.

But the key theme I want to show you on this chart is I overlay this chart, which is clearly a random walk, like a binary I would look at as a bell curve, and the midpoint is right around 2000, high four, low, near 100. but if you overlay this with the S&B 500 divided by its 200-day moving average, it's the same thing. That's the problem. Cryptos have three to four times of volatility. They have a high correlation to beta, and they stop going up five years ago with beta, but they go down more. I don't see why anybody would allocate to this space until proven wrong.

I'd love to be sitting on these risk management meetings as a former risk management point out, yeah, great. You have high correlation, you have poor performance. And yeah, it was great before. And the key thing I like to point out is ETFs, mark the end of the performance. That was the peak glory days, and I'd like to see something change. I haven't seen that yet. So Bitcoin, obviously, I put some numbers on it.

It's above 75, but it's well down in the year still. And I fully expect this index is this. I'd love to get bullish on it. If I can get it signed. But again, we had the stock market pop again, and it's just kind of, man, recovering. Again, I think glory days for crypto is are over for now, and I'd love to see something change until, to me, the key thing is you've got to get to a low price cure and we might. I go back to some good old glory days.

Mike, the Galaxy Bloomberg crypto index, I've just never asked you this, and I've never deeply. You said it's 12 assets. I'm assuming that those evolve, is it monthly? How do they, do they re-bet? It's the same ones as 2016, we'd be talking about. So that's the key thing. It was when you do an index, it's from an index environment,

it's kind of dynamic. The whole idea was to have this index tracked by ETS. I think that was kind of mess. up when the index team, but it was, rebalances every month to the most relevant cryptos. That does not include stable coins, but, and it has to have a cap. So any index, it's more than 30 or 40 percent of one asset, and this is obviously only 12 cryptos, it's not really an index anymore. It's two buys.

So we had a cap at 35 percent. Galaxy agreed with that. And that's the difference from a lot of the other indices. Their market cap weighted, so there's 70 percent Bitcoin. Like, okay, well, why bother? Just look at Bitcoin. So that's to me when I look at the whole space, and there's two indices I really believed in and created 10 years ago. I asked the index team to create 10 years ago.

This was one. The other was the All Metals Index. The difference is crypto's in the bear market based on that index, and it's bouncing. The All Mendels Index is a pretty severe bull market. It just got way too expensive. So I'm bearish both. And that's the key themes I pointed out. Both these indices are completely the most dependent I've ever seen on the stock market going out for just buoyancy.

And that's why I point out, if you're bullish copper or gold or Bitcoin or Cryptos, you got to have that stock market going up. And when it drops 10%, most of these other answers are going to drop, you know, a volatility weighted basis. This probably means 20 or 30%. So far, that's what's happening. Noel, can Bitcoin go up if the stock market goes down? It can do. It would be unusual. I agree with like, I have to be honest.

Simply because it's a risk asset still. I mean, it's many other things as well. It's a dollar of value. It's a new technology. It's whatever you want it to be, depending. on your time preference and your horizon. But what moves the price always is the last trade and chances of the last trade is from someone who sees it as a risk asset. So it will continue to behave as one. And when the stock market's going down, you sell what you can. You raise cash and ask

questions later. So yes, I'm worried about this also. The recent rally you've had in crypto, I think, is very encouraging. But it is nothing even approaching confident yet. There's no signs in the derivative market that froth is coming back basis on the on the offshore futures market is down at like 1% or something historically low even on the CME it's only around 5% you've got skews suggesting there's still very strong short positions you've got the funding rate not negative anymore but not exactly positive either there are no signs in the derivatives markets that investors are feeling confident and what we're seeing now is tentative stepping back into the market because it's been low for a while And because things are getting really weird out there.

So might as well have a hedge. But that doesn't mean it's not going to get walloped when the stock market comes down. And I agree with Mike, it's likely to do that. I just checked funding rates. And I was hoping to see a lot of red that they were still negative. But they're as flat as I've ever seen, I mean, 0.0%.0% Right. So that clearly means that we've hit resistance and no decision has been made from that perspective.

Right. I mean. Now, the thing about momentum is that's, what's needed for people to get confident in the Bitcoin market again. And I say Bitcoin as the en-ramp into the good market. We need momentum because then we'll get the FOMO, then we'll get the flows, and it'll start to be reinforcing. And how do we know when we got momentum?

Well, you know, it's like pornography. You know it when you see it, right? Until then, we're not going to have the confidence it needs, even though it is nice to not be around 60 anymore. Peter, good you. I mean, how do you view Bitcoin in context of everything else here? You know, I don't see it quite as, obviously there's rationale why it's connected to stock. I feel it's kind of moving to its own beat of its own drum.

It's, you know, I feel the people that are most negative on it or concerned about it. And I can understand some of this is, you know, the shifting narrative of why we need to own Bitcoin, right? It went from, you know, monetary use, blah, blah, blah, and, you know, to we're pretty much down to scarcity. Like, that seems to be the number one reason anyone raises a scarcity. And, you know, as Mike points out, there is no scarcity of the number of coins potentially out there. You have sale or kind of continuing to buy Bitcoin and yet we're really not breaking out. So I think the people are kind of skeptical. I think at the end, it's going to take a much bigger move to get people back into that FOMO.

I think the people who are out of crypto right now and have kind of waited this long, they're going to need something different to really believe. because we went through everything this administration did seem to be helpful for crypto, attempting to help crypto. Not all of it got passed, and that's a potential issue. But it just feels like there's not this excitement to participate in that market. And I don't, I think right now you've got people who are familiar with it or trading it. They're trading ranges. They're doing what they need.

I find it hard to believe you're getting a lot of new adoption. I just don't see that anyone who is skeptical to this point sees anything right now to change their mind. So we have these massive inflows, obviously, into largely Ibit. So it is the Bitcoin ETFs writ large, but it's like 70-something percent of it is Ibit. Do you think that's because that's where the options market exists for Bitcoin and maybe this isn't long-term belief buying, but it's a carry trade or something like that? Because I saw that Ibit options just surpassed again, Deribit options, right? And I-Bid options have existed for 17 months or something.

Derbit's been here for 10 years and was the world leader for a decade, you know? And so do you think that this is just people who are basically long iBIT spot and shorting the future somewhere and earning a yield and it's not really real interest? You know, I think I'll go briefly. I do think, one, you've got to be close attention to the options market. We learned that in the high yield and credit markets, right? The options on HYG, you know, we're driving the show. And HYG did much better than JNK because of the relative dollar price.

So people didn't have to buy as many options. But that's always been a big driver kind of in terms of the credit. It makes markets that are less likely to make sense that it's a driver here. And part of this, I think, is, you know, I wrote about it this weekend. I'm kind of eyeing quantum uranium, you know, Bitcoin is kind of the laggards, right? They haven't, you know, quantum's up a little bit, but nowhere near like semis. This has really been a semi market. So I think people are starting to look, okay, I miss semis.

or if I did miss semis, what might pop next, right? And so I think I'm putting some money into that, like, okay, if this market's going to continue to rally, it feels like semi-leadership, that's not where you're going to see the pop. I think you also saw people chasing car, right? You know, the Ava stock or whatever, which went to 800 or whatever it went back to.

So you're seeing people look for things that are underinvested, maybe short interest, things that are like lagging, where if you miss this kind of big rally for the last 18 days, what can you pick up? And to me, yeah, you'll throw a bit of money at crypto. So I think that's what we're seeing. Also, the Ibit, Scott, you hit the nail on the head when you pointed out that the Ibit

ETF has options. And this is a very, very big deal. Not just for investors who want to be able to hedge their positions, their long positions. I bet it's just much easier and cheaper to do that in options. You can get much more sophisticated strategies with the options than you can on just plain old features. It's also market makers. They want their spot and their options on the same platform.

form as possible. You can't do that with Deribit, which is why that's sort of, you know, often its own high volumes, but not relevant for demand for the spot asset. Yeah, not available in the United States either. So, you know, if you're putting these trades on in the United States, you're using the ETFs, not Spot Bitcoin, which is what, you know, I think drives Deribit. So it's interesting. You even look at the proposed Goldman interest Bitcoin ETF from now two weeks ago, I think, and it's going to use Ibit, It's going to buy Ibit ETF, I believe, and then sell calls against it to earn a yield. So that will be more demand for Ibit, but that doesn't necessarily rationally mean more demand for Bitcoin, to be fair, long term.

Right. So it is interesting, but maybe that's the mechanic that's driving these inflows. Mike, I see you got another chart there. What do you want to show us? Well, it's just the average price of Bitcoin since Ibit was launched. The mean is 83. The mode is 68. so it's right between there.

So people are basically underwater. I thought on the launch Bitcoin was like 40,000, went to 45, went to 49. It was right here. It was 40. It was launched on January 11th, but I'm looking at the average price, the average buyer.

But the most, there's still a little money. And that's like most is trade around 60. But the key theme I want to point out is one thing that we talked about when futures were just launched in 2017. That's the whole process of this, this young, you know, revolutionary asset coming in the mainstream. And futures start in 2017.

That's remember when volatility started getting crushed when I talked to hedge funds who could arbit it and they're asking me about ways to do it and things. I mean, I'm not an expert, just having done that. And now you can do it like options on IBIT and ETF. This is no longer an exciting asset that I was all bold and loved about, loved and excited that Trump, one, didn't get and Biden didn't get. Now they all get it. And I'll switch over to the key theme in the space.

And that's the proliferation of stable coins, increasing assets under management, and then the flipping of tether, flipping and everything. Right now, there's only two in front of it, Ethereum and Bitcoin. If we get the little bit of a drawdown in the stock market, I expect this year, I fully expect tether to be the number two and eventually number one. That's the key thing about them, understand the technology. It's the ability to transmit, transmort, and transact dollars via stable coins overall. and why take the extra risk in Bitcoin when you, you know, don't have to anymore. I mean, stable coins will eventually have a larger market cap than Bitcoin and Ethereum, but I don't think that that's a slight against Bitcoin and Ethereum.

Oh, it's not. It's not, but I think it points out there's millions of things you can speculate in. Bitcoin was one, and the rest of them has a good utilitarian value. Now, let's look at the process. That's tokenization. Once you on the same chain can have tokenized assets that you can buy yourself long or short with the same clearing broker altogether, what's that going to do for assets like Dogecoin

that attract nothing, have no one for underlined value, underlying value, and are putting on the same issue where you can buy Bank of a New York Mellon or something, it'll be in Y Mellon. You're going to buy one and short the other until one of them goes to where it belongs,

which is basically zero, and you'll be able to R bout versus what's on the screen. So to me, this technology is awesome, but it's going to just get rid of some of this. We're still, I think, we still haven't finished the purge of all those millions of cryptos that are just great for space.

but really mostly need to go to zero and then we'll find a nice bottom for things that are really of value, which probably includes Bitcoin. I will once again just clarify in that argument that I don't think you're wrong. I just think you're underestimating. I don't think you're wrong about those things having no value. I think you're underestimating that there's nobody left to sell those things even if they have a market cap. I think that they have effectively gone to zero because anyone who's holding them is down 99.9%

and is never selling and there's nobody buying them. So they're just dead assets, dead zombie market, they never get a really be tradable and are effectively at zero because they have no value to anyone. As long as the stock market is going up, go ahead. As long as stock goes going up, I think. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead, Mike.

Mike's right. 99% are not ever going to be coming back. But I'm going to push back on the fact that these things don't have utility. There's always utility for speculative assets. People like speculative assets. And I disagree that the technology is going to, matter that much going forward. When we do indeed have a much wider selection of assets on blockchain, we're going to stop talking about blockchain. It's just going to be markets, technology.

So we're going to stop using, hopefully, the term crypto. I mean, what even is a crypto asset these days? Bitcoin has nothing to do with tether, which has nothing to do with Ava, which has nothing to do with Dogecoin. And yet there are so many people, investors that still lump them all into the same category when they are vastly different assets. In the end, the technology is just going to move into the background, it's not going to matter, and there will always be room for speculation. That's a great point. You know, we talk about everything as if the situation will remain as it is now. But if the DTCCC is settling tokenized assets, 4.5 quadrillion in volume a year,

nobody can be talking about their settlement technology, just like they don't now. Great point. Great point. We hit 10 o'clock. I think we unpacked it all. Peter, any final thoughts? You were out there. Where are we at?

You know, I think you want to look to Europe and kind of the rebuilding of their infrastructure and kind of their fun. You know, I think you still have that trade in the U.S. I want to own uranium. I want to own anything that goes towards electricity production in the U.S. The data center, the chips, AI, you know, Intel's been one of our favorite calls. It's hard to still like it up here, you know, at 80 or something. It's been such a huge run, but I still like it a little bit. And then I think look for Europe to finally get the joke that they have to harness their own resources if they are going to remain viable.

and look for them to really spend on the defense part. And I think, you know, you might see a bit of a pickup, even in German manufacturing, as people figure out how to make drones. If Europe's going to get an army anytime soon, it's probably going to be a drone army. They aren't going to be efficient at making warships or tanks or jets. Drones, I think there's something you can do. Ukraine's been doing a good job getting a plant made now in England. So I think there's a real evolution.

I think Europe has a chance to kind of finally grab the bull by the horns and be its own person rather than just kind of slinking along. Thank you, everybody. That was an awesome show. It's nice to, you know, have a fresh conversation. As much as I know everybody loves me, Dave, James and Mike arguing about the same things all the time. It's nice to take a breath and change it up every once a while.

So Peter, Noel, I really appreciate you being available to have this conversation with us. It was really great. Very eye-opening. And as usual, great research for me for my other shows. So I get to steal all the brilliant things that you all say. So I appreciate that. Thank you very much. Thanks for having me.

Yep. We'll be out. Thanks so much, Scott. Everyone else, I got spaces at 10, 15, somehow, and then the Daily Wolf on Yahoo at noon. So I'll see you all later today. Thank you. Bye. Bye.