The Wolf Of All Streets - Get Ready For The Massive Bitcoin Rally | Global Easing Cycle | Macro Monday

Episode Date: March 25, 2024

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According to Bloomberg, central banks are facing the most synchronized easing cycle since 2008. Does this mean that we will see a massive Bitcoin rally or will it actually be bad for risk on assets, even if Bitcoin is or is not correlated to those? We had Mexico cutting last week, Paraguay cutting last week, Switzerland cutting last week, Brazil cutting last week. Now, I don't know that these are harbingers for what the Fed will do, but it's very clear that a lot of the world is already going into easy. I can't wait to talk about this macro Monday with James Lavish, Mike McGlone, and Dave Weisberger, everybody's favorite hour of the week.

I'm projecting it's my favorite hour of the week, so I assume that it is yours as well. All right, guys, let's go. What is up, everybody? I'm Scott Melker, also known as the Wolf of Wall Street. Before we get started get started please subscribe to the channel hit the like button and hit that little bell so that you will be alerted every time we go live you may not have noticed but i've got a lot more shows on my channel of course the 9 a.m show every single day but now 3 3 30 p.m in the afternoon we're gonna have shows starting monday through thursday and of course joeizzani's Alpha Show at 9 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. I'm not the only host on this channel anymore. As I mentioned, guys, get ready for the massive Bitcoin rally. We'll see. Global Easing Cycle, Macro Monday. There's your title. I'm bringing on James and Mike right now. Of course,

Dave is entering the elevator or the carport or the garage or wherever he is. So he'll be on in a second. Mike, morning meeting. Are they talking about easing? Because this was a bit of a surprise. I think that this all happened so quickly, kind of coordinated and in a single week. You can see right here was the article I pulled that central banks facing those synchronized easing cycle since 2008. Yeah, it's getting started with the exception of Japan. But the unique thing from Bank of Japan is they did not signal more hikes. So just getting off zero. Swiss National Bank signaled disinflationary trends and currency strength

and things like that. I like to pull up my world bond monitor and the terminal and I look at something that I, from a commodity standpoint, I don't see why there's any signs of any kind of bullishness in the rest of the world when you see the U.S. 10-year notes in a four-handle and virtually every other relevant currency in the planet's in a three or a two-handle in terms of their 10-year note yields. Just look at China, 2.3. Canada, 3.4. Germany, 2.3. These are bond yields. So these are reflective of more freer markets indicating that we've seen demand pull, loan demand, inflation picking up, or disinflation, deflationary trends. So to me, that's the big picture from the macro. If you look at

U.S. 10-year note yields versus the top other four, including Japan, China, Germany, and India, we're still about 100 basis points higher. So from a rate standpoint, the world's tilting towards recession. The U.S. is the lone star. And then I have to point out as a commodity, I see all these major macroeconomic commodities, most notably crude oil and copper, have just bounced this year and into really good resistance zones in the midst of downward trajectories. So I like to say I think crude oil may be a peak this year around 83. Remember last year's low was 63. The high got up to 95 and punched lower. Copper may have just peaked around $4.15. Right now it's around four.

And there's only one major commodity I see with the sustainable uptrend, and that's gold. The rest of them got pumped in that big historical aberration of 2022 and now are stuck in ranges and they're bumping up near up in the ranges and most likely to tick lower. And only gold, I think, going higher. But the thing about gold is you just can't hold gold anymore without some Bitcoin in that space. So, James, why the hell are we seeing all these central banks easing if Mike's point about commodities is not, shouldn't that be obvious to all of them? We're seeing deflationary trends, obviously, in commodities. Last time I checked, inflation, not that great in most of these places, certainly not down to their targets. And now they're going to cut rates. I mean, this was

the one, right? Bank of Mexico cut key rates to 11% says future moves to be data dependent. We kind of joked about shouldn't everyone be data dependent tells that news, but what's going on here? It seems like we're living in the upside down. Well, I mean, central banks have gotten themselves in a position where, you know, they cannot handle high rates for long, right? So if you look around the world, ever, you know, these are developed countries are up above 100% debt to GDP, and even the UK joined that club last year. So, you know, that's, that is one that that's one aspect of it. I think you're looking around the world and you're, you're, you're hearing central bankers talk about unemployment and employment numbers. And we've heard that from the fed here and there.

So now we're, we're talking about even here, whether or not we're it's, it's not, it's not whether or not we're raising or lowering rates anymore. It's just when we're going to lower them. And that's become quite obvious. And so now the markets are just deciding and debating over when and how many cuts are coming. And so but you heard the Fed and kind of nod toward looking at the employment rates, unemployment rates instead of instead of inflation, you know, saying that they can be patient, that they don't have to hit the 2% target to be ready to lower rates just as long as it's going in the right direction. It's become so obvious this manipulated system, it's an absolute mess, and they're going to continue to do this and kick the can down the road and allow for inflation with every single central bank is is gaslighting the public across the world and

they're printing money they're expanding the money supply they're they're um you know issuing massive amounts of debt and they're just um trying to nominally pay for it with negative rates. And that's basically what we're looking at. You know, if you guys remember, Mike remembers this pretty well, is that during that time of 2010 to 2020, the zero interest rate policy had us at negative rates for a long time. I mean, we were, it was basically free money, you know? So this is just, it's an incredible, you know, situation that we're finding ourselves in. And it's, I feel like it's accelerating. How quickly it's accelerating, I don't know. This obviously has gone on for a long time. The public is not widely aware of it yet. You're hearing some dissatisfaction. You're seeing, I guess, TikToks of younger people who are frustrated that they can't keep up with rent and their wages. But

by and large, people are still kind of asleep on it. So they're going to continue to get away with it. Yeah. I mean, Mike, you're trying to thread a perfect needle here, right? And as we've said many times, we're still pricing in these three cuts from the Fed. But they don't want to cut too late. And they don't want to cut too early because they obviously raised for far too long. And they kept rates far too low in the previous cycle. So can that be done? I mean, is this even possible? It seems like they've kicked the can pretty far down the road and that

Powell's done a good job so far. Well, I appreciate how James went to Chairman Powell's mention of uptick in unemployment would be the key reason to switch over and note that we are in deflationary, disinflationary trends. I'll pick in unemployment continues, and that is a spiral. And it's going to happen. It's just a question, how much can the Fed alleviate? It's guaranteed to happen. It just always has. What's different this time is we are in the back of, as you mentioned, the zero rate policy. That's never happened in history. And there's two key books I read on it. One was the Boom and Bust by Quinn was one of the authors, The Price of Time. And both of them, one of them, The Price of Time pointed out the most significant place this really happened and is having now the

reciprocity to the negative side is in China, when they can have no place else to invest but property. They bought way too much and now it's reverting lower and heading to severe deflationary force. So to me, this is the beginning of the great reset. And hopefully we'll be able to survive through it. It's tremendous trading opportunities. But the bottom line is when you have zero rates for that long, you really elevate assets. It's just normal to risk assets. And then you go back.

The thing is we haven't yet in this country. Thank God we have in China, a lot of other countries. But that's where I see the tilt is the risk is so great that we've had a 10% total return on the S&P 500 this year. And we haven't had any more than a weekly correction of 1.5% since the loan. Me as an ex-trader and the gentleman on Dave and James as still trading and you, to me, that's a classic signal that you're going to get it and it's going to be worse. And to me, that's the key thing I'm worried about is when we have that beta backup, how everything reacts. Now, that's why I'm pointing out is gold's picking up on that. Gold's at all-time record highs and seems to be holding

support around 2000. And bond yields, I think, are starting to figure it out that, yeah, the rest of the world's much lower than us and the Fed's kind of going to be easing. The key, I think, are starting to figure out that, yeah, the rest of the world is much lower than us. And the Fed's kind of going to be easing. The key thing I think to point out is what's going to be the trigger? And I still say there's going to be no real reason for the Fed to trigger that first 25 basis point cut until the stock market tells them to, which means we already see what's happening. Disinflation, increased unemployment, it's all starting to tilt that way. And only a few key central banks have started easing. And I'll point out the major one in the world, which is China, because they're heading towards a Great Depression. So on a macro stage, global, in commodities, you really see this.

Gold's the only one that's really going up. Does this imply that Powell is expecting the stock market to crash by saying that there's going to be three cuts? There's a difference, I think, between crash and normal. I don't want to be hyperbolic. I like to say normal, back and fill. Stuff that used to happen. That has not happened since the lows. You always get 10% corrections.

That low to October was a 10% correction. It reset a few things, gave you great signals in Bitcoin and great buy signals in gold. But now it's about, okay, well, when you can keep inching higher like this, the market's kind of front running the Fed. It's easing. It's pushing back the Fed. You see that in rate height expectations.

But at some point, we'll admit this, the last two times we had the beginning of significant rate cuts, that's when bear markets got started. Yeah, I agree with you, Mike, but I do think just to kind of be clear on this, I don't think the Fed really cares where the stock market goes, except if it gets inflationary because of just marching higher and asset inflation causing broader inflation. But as far as the market correcting, I don't think that's going to tip them off to lower rates. What's going to happen is you're going to find some sort of disruption in the Treasury market.

And Mike, you know, this being a bond trader for so many years. I mean, it's all they really care about is making sure that the Treasuries, they have enough liquidity. And that's not the Fed's job in theory, right? That's the Treasury's job. Here you go. Listen, you just teed this up, James. So I got to ask you this from Lawrence Lepard, obviously your friend. Gross insurance of US Treasuries quarterly. Wow. Back to COVID level. So you can see bonds, notes, bills now

back to where we were with COVID. So the Fed can say they're doing whatever they want, but we know what the Treasury is doing. But remember, the Fed and the Treasury work together to ensure that the Treasury market is liquid. And you saw that happen back in the Silicon Valley bank situation. And you saw it back in, in COVID in March, 2019 or 2020, you saw it back in September of 2019. Like they, they do work in tandem to be sure that that's all that matters. I mean, so, so they, they say that they have their mandate. The Treasury says they work for Congress. But in reality, their job is, in first principles, their job is to make sure that the Treasury market stays liquid and orderly, period. Like that's all they care about. I mean, that's why the Fed

instills confidence in the dollar so that investors will buy the Treasuries. I mean, that's why they can't let inflation get out of control. So investors don't demand too much rate premium on the treasuries. I mean, that's just, we still have to come back to first principles. I know that they have their mandates, they have their stated goals, but that's what their whole purpose is. Then that's what they're managing, all this manipulation around. That's it. Dave, I can see your diet to jump in.

Well, I think that what's going on is very simple. I think Ludwig von Mises kind of nailed it when he coined the phrase crack up boon. But like everything else, I mean, someone in the 30s isn't going to have anticipated everything we're doing today. And so if you remember, one of the themes that I've constantly stressed is that there's two forms of inflation, that there's asset inflation and consumer inflation. And the powers that be think asset inflation is a good thing and consumer inflation is a bad thing. And so we had 30 years of asset inflation with muted consumer inflation. One of the reasons for that is because as assets go up, it's easier to invest in technology, in productivity, in outsourcing, and a lot of things that are fixed costs that capital could go to when money is

artificially cheap. The crack-up boom idea is that the economy will expand so fast the fed will will trigger hyperinflation but what if what we're actually seeing is a cycle where that hyperinflation starts with assets before it spreads to consumers and there has to be a great monetary reset mike thinks that the great reset will be the fed will be successful they'll slap on their super big s's on their chest and they'll stop the economy, and we'll be able to get back to normal. I think Mike is completely fucking wrong. I don't think there's a chance that the Fed could do that, because we're well on our way, as Lynn Alden tweeted this morning, to $2 trillion a year in interest payments as part of our budget deficit.

We are literally not getting past the event horizon of a debt-fueled collapse. It's not going to happen. Now, can we postpone it for a decade or two? I hope so, because to be blunt, I don't want to see America having to do what Brazil has done. There's a reason Brazil's currency is called the real, which is the real. It's because they had the crucero, then the real crucero, then the real, because every once in a while they have to reset their freaking currency and forgive all their debts and start. Yes, they reset. It's going to be necessary, but it's going to be a long time before our Fed decides to abandon the dollar as a reserve

currency. So what's the most likely scenario? Most likely scenario is the Fed is going to accommodate fiscal stimulus because neither party has the guts to cut spending. I mean, nobody is going to want to touch Social Security, which is an absolute train wreck coming. I mean, there's no doubt, right? We all see it. Everyone knows that. So they're going to continue to fund. That's what I think. So I think that liquidity is going to continue to enter this market. And so this notion that we're going to have a recession, yeah, maybe we have a small recession, maybe unemployment goes up, and they're

going to try to cut. And the only question will be, do these cuts, do the interest rate cuts matter enough to offset the imbalances that are created in the economy? That's the real question. I don't know the answer to that. Mike, I know you're dying to respond because he told you you were fucking wrong, I believe. I've never been right on a call unless someone tells me that. So, Dave, thank you. I mean, that's just the way it works. It's just the way life works. It's when you have your job.

Before I became, you know, running my own money and come to New York and trading. My job was to cover customers from the trading pits. When you had an idea and everybody agreed with you and did the trade, you're almost always wrong. When they all said, you're effing wrong, you're an idiot, you're almost always right. So thank you. I appreciate that. It's just the way it works, the way markets work. So we have to have that.

But the key thing to think about here is I do agree the Fed's going to be adding massive liquidity, but it's going to be into a significant deflationary recession that's going to be way normal. History's going to look back as a normal reciprocity to the biggest liquidity pump in history, the Russians' invasion of Ukraine, and all the other things that are happening. It's going to tilt back the other way. To me, it's just a matter of time we go there, but it's the delayed reaction that I'm worried about. I was just working, as we were speaking, I was working on this one chart I want to show you if I can. And that is if you take we just share this. If you take CPI and unemployment, the last time we had a big jump in CPI above unemployment.

I'm going to share this in a second and drop low to where we are now. I'm just going to share. It's going to take a second, was in 1977. I mean, it's just kind of scary. Right here, we had this big pump in CPI, and now they're both, CPI is heading lower, unemployment is ticking up. That's why the Fed should start talking about cutting rates, but it's almost inevitable. The last time we had that was the severe recession in the 80s. I remember that. My father was the CFO of a steel last time we had that was a severe recession in the 80s. I remember that. My father was the CFO of a steel company. He said it was a pretty severe depression.

But that's almost unstoppable. And we've seen it built in the rest of the world. And then we look at the key thing that I'm worried about is this kind of rate hikes, cuts could have started ready if the stock market had let them. So to push back a little bit on Dave is having read the book, the Courage to Act, Ben Bernanke, I was shocked how much he mentioned the stock market in that. So when the stock market moves with volatility, the Fed will always sit back and say, uh-oh. And in the past, I remember when I came to Wall Street in the 90s, we said, oh,

you guys are big boys. We don't care. Well, that's changed. But what's changed now is the propensity ease because of high inflation. So that's why the world's so different. But what I see is a tilt here. And I see it in certainly commodities is this little situation of what stops inflation from declining, like I said, in commodities. I see another 30% drop in the S&P and Bloomberg Commodity Index, which is a normal drop. And unemployment, as we all know, can go up to 6% and just means nothing historically. Scott, I just shared something that'll give context to this. So, right. So this is the Fed funds rate, the upper bound.

And you can see the recessions in here as well. Right. So and the unemployment index. So you can see unemployment spike and we hit recession every single time the Fed pivots. Pivot, recession, pivot, recession, spike in unemployment, pivot, recession, pivot, recession, pivot, recession, pivot, recession, pivot, recession.

The only time it didn't really happen is back here in the early 90s, right? Where we had a little bit of a pivot, but then we had held rates kind of still high, right? So could we get to that? Could we have that kind of scenario here? Maybe if inflation continues to, you know, to stick here above three and a half, four percent, that's possible. But again, you're going to get to the point where eventually the chickens are going to come home to roost. You're going to have a recession. You're going to. Why? Because this

is what we've built. This is the system of manipulation. This is how the central banks work. This is where we're headed. There's just no way around it. The only question is how much fiscal stimulus are they going to issue and spend? And the deficits that we're running are just, they're mind boggling, $2 trillion deficits at a time we're not even in a recession. $2 trillion deficits while unemployment is near its lows of all time. This is just insanity. So I don't know when it happens, but when it does, it feels like it's going to be big. That's my take on it. Dave, before you jump in, James, you showed me yours, so I'll show you mine.

We've done this countless times. I've showed this, but I just want to reiterate, guys. Blue is the yield curve inverted, right? Red is Fed funds, right? So you get the pause and then the pivots, just you see see. And the black is the S&P. So every single time, kind of to James's point, just a different way to visualize it, you have inverted yield curve. It corrects or normalizes. Then the Fed pivots. Then you get a stock market crash. That's what all these downs are. Every single time. We still haven't even had a normalized yield curve

in almost two years. It's crazy. I think it's been since June of 22. But the Fed is already pausing. That's what it looks like here. been since June of 22. But the Fed is already pausing. That's what it looks like here. So when they pivot, you generally see stocks crash every single time. So if we don't have that. My title, get ready for the massive Bitcoin rally. The entire world seems to think that this easing

is a good thing. If this, and goes back to what Dave and Mike were talking about before, which is if this time is different than we really are in the crack up boom. So hold on tight. Well, I mean, different is interesting. So we've had a bunch of differences. My thesis is based upon the measurements.

And, you know, look, I'll make the point. I think we are in a recession, but I think it's different. So when you look at the numbers and you look at what's going on in people, you know, I went to the Bill Maher show and Bill Maher is kind of funny, but, you know, like he's, you know, his comment, well, I vote for Biden's head floating in a jar of blue liquid. It's actually a direct quote from him, you know, over Trump because he hates him because Biden's been so successful. And the only thing he could point to was withdrawal from Afghanistan and unemployment numbers. That's literally what he pointed to. Now,

the withdrawal from Afghanistan, I'm not going to go into, but anyone who thinks that that was an accomplishment, I mean, look, I don't know what I need to sell them, but I mean, give me a break. But the thing about the unemployment numbers are interesting. When you decompose the data or deconstruct the data, not decompose it, you see two things that are really important. First of all, the amount of part-time jobs is at an all-time high. And so basically you got people who can't afford to, excuse me, I was about to drop another F-bomb. They can't afford to live. So if they don't also do Uber 10, 15 hours a week or DoorDash or whatever. So you have normal people working two jobs. So that, of course, gets counted as jobs in the job numbers. The second thing that we know,

and this is what I pointed out a couple of weeks ago, was a mass difference between the total number of jobs between native-born Americans and foreign-born Americans or actual immigrants that are here. Now, I'm not anti-immigration. In fact, I think that we should let in, we should make it easier for skilled people to come into the United States, you know, as we've all seen my, you know, Scott's producer having to go through that crap. But not letting in unskilled people who are going to be a drain on the treasuries of all the large cities in America, you know, might make some sense. But the reality is, forget the jingoism. The average American who was born here is doing worse, and we haven't recovered those jobs. And so it is possible that measurement is a very big part of that. Forget CPI adjustments. Anyone who tells me that the cost of living isn't higher isn't paying

attention, whether it's, you know, and so we all understand that. So there's a lot of crap going on. And so go back, but to back up just two things, right, to add some context to Dave's comments there. Number one, how do we see that people are having multiple jobs? Well, one easy way to see that is the difference between the household survey and this establishment survey. So the household survey is asking the individuals, do you have a job? Yes. And then the establishment survey is asking how many jobs have been created. So if the establishment survey shows a lot more jobs created, it's obvious that people are having more than one job because they can double count. That's basically what's going on. That's number one. The second thing is the government hiring has been outpacing the private hiring, which is, to Dave's point, is that we are seeing

pockets of recession. And I've talked about this, we talked about it, I think, last week, is that you're seeing pockets of recession in the economy. It's just that they're being more than offset by spending in infrastructure, green projects, and all the Biden Inflation Reduction Act, which is causing inflation in areas of the economy. It's absolutely comical. But just to give context to Dave's comments there. But the point that I'm trying to get at here is typical things.

I mean, the funny thing is, is Mike and I like to, I like to jive Mike because I can't help it. It's easy to tweak. But the fact is we both agree a reset is coming. The difference is we disagree on the type of reset. I just think the type of reset will be more of the crack up boom style inflationary, asset inflationary first, then things get out of control style. And he thinks it will be a major recession, depression style. And, you know, look, who knows?

You know, I just think the politicians have every incentive in the world to do my thing, because generally these things take long enough that they could get themselves reelected. In a job law losing recession, they don't get reelected. And so I like to follow the money. And frankly, that's why I think the way I do. I also think that we saw something, and Mike and I totally agree on this one, totally unprecedented stimulus when we had the recession. When he talks about flooding the world with liquidity, remember, we did two things simultaneously. Not only did we cut interest rates to way, way accommodative, I mean, to zero or whatever, way too much. But at the same time, they dropped helicopter money

and gave it to people. And that led to the inflation, the consumer inflation genie out of the bottle, which is they're desperately trying to put back in the bottle now. And so what does all this mean? This may mean something interesting. When you go back to in financial history, people keep talking about all this stuff as if it's like godlike. But they look at data since 1971 and they say, well, this is the world and this is where we are. But the reality is we had hundreds of years from the Industrial Revolution through to 1971 of basically a gold standard. And the gold standard finally flew apart because of the great society compared with the, you know, at the same time as the Vietnam War. And the U.S. government got to unsustainable budget deficits and that's why Nixon closed the gold window.

At the time, I think the peak in the 70s of debt to GDP hit 34% before Volcker. We're now at, what, 120? Yeah, I think it's 120. Compared to about 300 or so percent in Japan and China. Right, exactly. But they're not the world's reserve currency. And the question is, can the world's reserve currency handle that? I mean, we literally are 4x the debt to GDP that we had when Mike mentioned 1977. And honestly, I think what we're seeing, and this is going to get all the Bitcoiners on the show really excited,

but I think what we're seeing is the beginnings of the collapse of the fiat era. I think that the Great Reset is going to be, okay, we can't give politicians the ability to constantly spiral themselves by paying themselves and by creating money to do this. Now, these things do not happen overnight. This is a 10 to 20-year cycle. But I do think that when we look back historically, and I probably won't be alive to see it, but maybe my children will, people are going to look back and say, what the hell were they thinking? You can't get politicians a blank checkbook. But does that imply torches and pitchforks? Because I can't

imagine a candidate winning by coming in talking about austerity. Although, listen, I mean, if you look at, it got bad enough in Argentina, if hyperinflation actually happened, that you elect a candidate who does talk about those things. But we don't have any candidates seriously talking about this. It started last week.

It started last week. Republican headline. A headline. Actually, Walter Mondale proved that. We will raise your taxes. Just the other side, the Republicans won't tell you. Remember, he didn't win that election. But the headline last week, I was shocked by it, that Republicans are starting to hit debt. Republican plan to raise retirement age draws election to hear heat.

Now, we all know at some point this has to happen. I mean, the average age, average death is not 65 anymore. It's closer to 80. That's changed since Social Security. It just has to happen. Just a matter of time. We can put it in increment. But that actually came out last week. I thought that would tip off you, James, and maybe you, Dave, too. But I just saw the headline. I'm like, OK, Trump is actually exploring that. But let's look at two key things about a crack up. we've had it the s p 500 is the most expensive versus gdp since 1937 or 33 i think it's the most expensive ever versus the rest of the world msc x us uh x us index it's versus gold it's got you have to go back down to 2007 for the last time they're at the similar level um i can mention numerous things how expensive the u.s. stock versus housing. It's the most expensive ever. Versus sales, it's the most expensive ever.

So we've had the significant crack-up boom that you'd expect in a zero interest rate environment. And then let's tip over some other things in my space that are clearly recessionary. Diesel demand, diesel fuel. No one's going to mess with diesel fuel. Diesel's not being replaced by EVs yet. It's the same level right now. It's declined well off the highs. It's about 10 years ago.

Never happened in the history of this country except for recession. Yes, our data only goes back about 30 years on this. Paperboard, container boards, paperboard boxes, everything you get on Amazon now. That velocity is declining at the same pace as it did during the Great Recession. And it's actually well below before it was before COVID. So that stuff's kicking in. Unleaded gas demand is declining. So from my

standpoint, from a commodity standpoint, when I look at the price of crude oil, it was first traded in about 2006. Natural gas was first traded in about 1990. I see severe deflationary forces. And the only thing that's held things up is the debasement of the currency because of the massive pump of liquidity. If you compare anything versus gold, they're going down. And with the notable section of Bitcoin in the stock market. Those things. And now that's the key question we have to tilt over to is we get this recession slash depression, which I expect. And it's just a matter of time. And we do get it. There will be a drawdown in its stock market. We just see that first test. We haven't had it. And that's why I just to see bitcoin be have a higher beta to gold than a

higher beta in the stock market and we'll just see if right now it's showing significant and pretty good strength but we have to admit gold the stock market s&p 500 and bitcoin are all hovering in record highs at the moment let's see how q4 works out i mean there's a couple things in there they're actually there are more than one but i'm just going to respond to two of them. The first is, generally speaking, I think that the big D-link that will happen is the S&P and the equal weighted S&P is doing pretty well, too. So it's not just the, you know, the fangs or whatever, the Magnificent Seven or Magnificent whatever. In fact, it's been the other way. I agree that at some point, stock prices have to become tethered to potential future cash flows of the companies that make up the S&P. And the reality is that it looks to me, I tend to agree with Mike, I think that there are

significant reasons to believe that they are way overvalued and a significant correction can happen. I think that the government, on the other hand, with debt to GDP doing what it's doing, is kind of trapped. And the thing about the Social Security and raising it, I mean, come on. I mean, we all know. I mean, how about a simple rule that we should have an age maximum for being in the Senate or the House of Representatives or the presidency that is tied to the age at which you can get social security, that you can, we let people get it earlier, but the age at which you have to take social security is the age at which you can no longer be in politics. I would love to see that. I think a

lot of people would too. And maybe if they tie it that way, people are so sick and tired of old people running the country that maybe they can make it politically palatable. And so raise the retirement age to 70 or 72 and say, okay, and after that age, you can no longer run for president or Senate or the House and make that as the trade. I mean, I'd love to make that as a grand bargain, but that's neither here nor there. But the key point here is you keep talking about beta. I mean, I want to put Bitcoin off to the side for a second. I do want to get back to that. But beta. Gold is essentially a measuring stick, and it's telling you that people see the currency being debased. The S&P is a liquidity vehicle. The rich have money there, and where are you going to

put it? And so that's why it's been going there. And it's been effectively managed. I mean, the S&P has been managed in much the same way. You know, people think that there's the plunge protection team. Everyone believes that if the S&P has a major correction, and this is unprecedented. Mike, when's the last time in history, or has there ever been one, where there hasn't been a 10 percent correction for the period of time we're in now? It's very rare. I'm not sure it's ever happened. And so, you know, when you look at that, it's it's very clear that the that we have a two tiered market for all the histrionics from Elizabeth Warren and her millionaires tax and other unconstitutional nonsense that she wants to do. There is a true thing here, which is that a policy of unpedded monetary expansion or unpedded fiscal expansion accommodated by it is guaranteed to raise the Gini coefficient. It's guaranteed to create wealth inequality because it literally means the rich get richer. And it literally

means there's less capital available for the poor. And so that's what we're in. And people need to understand that that becomes a very interesting thing. Stopping that could make knives and pitchforks. You know, that's pitchforks and torches time. Do I think they're going to do that? No, I don't. I think that they're going to continue to do exactly what they're doing until forced otherwise.

And I'm not sure what forcing. Long before they get forced to do otherwise, we're going to see gold and Bitcoin dramatically outperform the rest of the world, the rest of the other assets. I think that it will be long before the torches and pitchforks come out. But do I expect that to happen? Sadly, I do. I just hope that it's a long time in the future. Yeah, we have the sort of easing cycle that we were talking about at the beginning. I just want to circle back to it because of Bitcoin, Dave, because if you ask Bitcoiners, we kind of have this sentiment that

if we get an easing cycle, great for Bitcoin, tons of liquidity. If we get a tightening cycle, great for Bitcoin. If we pause, great for Bitcoin, tons of liquidity. If we get a tightening cycle, great for Bitcoin. If we pause, great for Bitcoin. So I'd say if you ask the Bitcoiners, there's no situation that would be bad for Bitcoin or ever bearish. We've seen the data, James showed it, I showed it, where we get the pivot and obviously that market's correct. Do we believe that? That will be a chance to buy Bitcoin. I mean, there's a reason for that, though. And yes, you're right. I mean, the Bitcoin community is overwhelmingly bullish.

But think about what, in fact, the Bitcoin community has been hoping, praying, you know, collectively convincing themselves of for the last, you know, 10 years. And that is that a Bitcoin standard will evolve where Bitcoin will be the base layer for valuing all monetary aggregates. Right. That's that's basically the religion. I'm a little bit less religious than that. I tend to look at it as Bitcoin is dramatically better than gold as a base layer. It's spendable globally, much cheaper to store, much cheaper to verify, doesn't require middlemen, you know, et cetera, et cetera. There's lots of other reasons. Now, look at what's going on. We've talked about this, about, you know, Bitcoin hash rate and the network power, all this other stuff.

But it really boils down to something very simple. When people start to believe that something is true, it becomes true. And there's so many examples of this, it doesn't matter. Literally everything. Everything we hold as true is a shared religious belief. That's right. So the fact is, why is gold more valuable than platinum? Well, because gold has historically been a monetary metal, despite the fact platinum is rare and for generations considered to be superior to gold in terms of value. Gold is significantly higher than platinum. So when you look at that, you ask yourself why? Well, it's because on Diwali and inwali, people exchange gifts as invariably gold. And that's how they save their money. Right. You know, that's a very large piece of the population. Well, you know, I was having a conversation on X or a response on X to, you know, Bitcoin and markets technician who's actually very good.

But he was like going on about, well, you know, the ETFs don't really matter. I don't care about inflows. It's not about the inflows, although it certainly will matter. It's about acceptance. Right. And so, you know, acceptance. And that's the tweet that I made this morning. The fact is, is the market is pricing the probability of Bitcoin achieving gold status at less than 10 percent. That's what it is.

That's what they're saying. And Bitcoiners think it's 100%. And so Bitcoiners hold and won't sell, except for the fund living expenses, which is perfectly reasonable. That's my approach. Someone tells me something is 10x, and I think it's going to 10x, and I think the probability is really high. They're going to vote it. But the market is not pricing it that way, which tells you that the probability can't be 100. It can't probably be 70. The market is pricing it at 10%. So as you get more and more people being sold that that probability should be high by Fidelity, BlackRock, and others, that chance increases. I think that we are way underpricing the probability of Bitcoin being accepted as a global store of value. I really do.

And that's why this whole, you know, we talk about looking at technical, I think it's recency bias. You know, we don't have enough data. We don't know what happens. I wasn't around when gold replaced seashells, but I guarantee you there were some people who said, look, I got a thousand years of history on my abacus of seashells. So what is this shiny rock stuff? I like my seashells. Don't we have a chart for that acceptance rate? Don't we have a chart to show that volatility somewhere? Yeah, I mean, seriously, but literally, if you think about it, the whole world valued wampum seashells as money. And then the whole world

said, well, that's terrible. You know, seashells are easier to find. We got all this whole new world with all these beaches the seashells watch up on. Okay, crap. Maybe that's not so good. And then they said, well, gold is hard to get. And that's fine. Or look at what happened to silver when we found, you know, the various big loads of silver relative to gold. I mean, and God knows what happens to gold if we actually do find a way to mine an asteroid. That's mostly gold. I mean, who knows?

But the fact is that we don't know what happens when we get a new store of money. It's been thousands of years. It really has. There's a similar adoption going on with Bitcoin and reluctance to believe in it, just like people didn't believe that consumers who put their credit cards online to buy things on Amazon, you know,

there's a similar like skepticism about it, that it's not worth anything. I don't understand it. It could just be copied. It could be replicated. You know, what if Satoshi shows up and decides that he wants to double the, you know,

the distribution of coins? What if he wants to dump his million, million coins on the market? Like there's so much. And then you've got the disinformation coming out of Greenpeace, which is, are you kidding me? So there's a lot of confusion. Mainstream media is still confused about it.

People are not educated about it. That's why, yes, use case is so important. But if people aren't educated about it and they're not educated about it. That's why, you know, yes, use case is so important. But if people aren't educated about it and they're not learning about it, it's just going to be it's going to continue to take a long time, which is why I'm encouraged because I talk to people from my old world and they're still confused. They don't really understand the difference between Bitcoin and Ethereum. They don't understand how Bitcoin can be so is really immutable. They don't understand how Bitcoin can be so, is really immutable. They don't

understand the network effects, how, you know, it's absolutely incredible. And it's not that they're dumb. It's that they haven't done the work. They don't care to do the work and they're not incentivized to do the work. Then the fiat system is working great for them. But let's just see what happens in this. I think there's going to be a surge in understanding from both the ability to actually buy it without, you know, risking coins and people thinking that it's a drug deal. Like you're just buying an ETF. That's number one. And then the second thing is we're talking about either a crack up boom or quasi crack up boom where people are going to be forced to learn about it. So when you, you know, when you have S S V B times 10,

people are going to step back and say, hold on, hold on a second, wait a minute. Like explain this Bitcoin thing to me, because maybe I do want my money in something else other than the U S dollar or a treasury, a T bill.

Well, look, let's, and I want Mike to respond, but I want to make one other point. It's like, okay, so all this great macro stuff, all this great meta stuff that we're talking about, I mean, look, you and I are both believers, James, there's no question about it. And frankly, I know Mike is too. But Mike is trying to keep us, our feet on the ground and not

whizzing off into the air and floating. And that's good. The fact is, if you look at the way Bitcoin is trading and you look at the way crypto writ large is trading, you're seeing some interesting things. The fact is we're in a trading range now. Now, it's a little bit wider of a trading range than some of our previous ones. You know, we had the all time high at 73 and then, you know, it zoomed down and people thought, oh, my God, I'm going to go buy in the 50s. And 62 turned out to be a pretty strong support. We're bouncing along in this range. And what we're seeing is essentially lots of people who are technically have traded Bitcoin before are saying, well, the technicals say I should sell and new people coming in with money.

And it's only a trickle because it really hasn't started yet. And you can talk and we talk about this in Crypto Town Hall all the time with guys like Matt Hogan and others that you know the the RIAs and the FAs and you know the outside allocators are only just starting they don't even have their pamphlets yet to to you know give their spiel right you know that's it and I'm not sure we're more than two or three batters in. So, look, the truth of the matter is that we have technical trading, and technical trading gets ahead of itself. And, you know, look, there's still a persistent premium on, you know, there's a persistent premium, but the funding rates are back down almost all the way to normal. And that matters, right? So there's a slight persistent premium in the risk assets. You see persistent premium in the futures markets,

and that matters. But the reason we see that persistent premium in the futures market, which more or less is kind of not really there right now, certainly in the front month, you know, in the CME, is because U.S. banks who want to participate in the ETF, that's the only place they can hedge. And so, you know, we're seeing all these micro factors that matter. But Bitcoin is clearly marching to its own drum, much more like gold than it is like the other markets. And you can see it over the last couple of weeks. But we're also seeing major changes

in the, you know, that actually makes sense. We're seeing Ethereum underperform. And Ethereum, you know, is underperforming. Sorry, Scott, but it's underperforming for a pretty good reason. The most important reason being there's two. One, the idea that Ethereum ETF is going to get approved. No, this SEC is going to dig their heels and they're not going to approve it. Or if they do, they're going to get approved. No, this SEC is going to dig their heels in.

They're not going to approve it. Or if they do, they're going to only approve the ones that don't allow staking, in which case it's basically going to attract no assets or very, very little assets. Won't make a damn bit of difference. And we know this because of, look, I said this before. I don't know if I had a chance, if you were able to hear it last week, but I had a long talk with Adam Kaplan and his number two at Promethean, and they are convinced that they have their, you know. Wait, you talked to him like he's a human person that's real? He's not an actor?

Yeah, yeah. We were at a, you know, at Hedge Week. I sat in two roundtables, one with Adam and one with John, who's his number two guy at Promethean. And we had great conversations. I mean, you know, look, you know, they believe they've built a way to kind of work within the system so that, yeah, OK, it's not fully fungible and OK, it's not 24-7, but they do have the ability to do instantaneous settlement. And they are basically telling people that, listen, securities laws allow you to protect your assets.

That's what they're saying. And so if we can make Ethereum a security, if there's a bankruptcy of Promethean, it doesn't frigging matter. You're going to keep your Ethereum. That's basically the structure that they've created, which we all know is a problem in crypto because they don't have good laws. And my thought is, you know, maybe we should fix the damn laws. But, you know, forget that. But they are convinced that the SEC believes that Ethereum is a security. And whether they're right, wrong, or indifferent, first of all, it'll be in court in a blink.

And I don't think the SEC wins if it goes to court. But look, that's why Ethereum is lagging a bit. And the second factor is the rise of Solana. And, you know, Ethereum's major use case for a while has been, you know, ERC-20 tokens, many of which are memes and other things. Solana is kicking their ass because it's a lot cheaper to trade it. I mean, it doesn't mean that it's going to take it away. It doesn't mean it's going to win. It doesn't mean that they're not both going to have value because they will, in my opinion. But the reality is that's why it's lagging.

And so we're down, but still, we're in the chat. You know, the Bitcoin-Ether ratio is 0.05 to 0.06. And we've got a little blip below 0.049 when the Bitcoin ETFs got approved. We're down at 0.051. So yeah, you know, Ether has been lagging. Those are the dynamics that we're facing in the market. All of this in a context of stock markets at all-time highs, liquidity being pumped into the system to try to save it.

And Mike's right. What's going on in China is very, very relevant. What's going on in Japan is very, very relevant. Eventually, these things have to come along. If we want people to pay attention, James, you know, that sales pitch you're talking about, and then starting to understand, maybe it's going to be if stock's correct and Bitcoin does not. Maybe that would be the thing. We know that higher prices, yield higher prices are the best marketing that there is. We still really don't have this retail boom. But imagine if

stocks actually went down and things went risk off and Bitcoin either just stayed sideways or went up, then they would all pay attention. That's the big test. You're running money, you got your value at risk model, it's leveraged. We're all waiting for that big test. So it's agreeable. It's indisputable. The four of us all agree on the macro big picture of Bitcoin as laid out by Seifede Namin's Bitcoin standard. I mean, I read it six years ago and I became the classic, ain't nosed out like a convert. I certainly was like, really? It's going to be, now I think, accepted by, you know, held by central banks. And it's just all going that way. So let's tilt over to, that's what I like to do is, to me, that's such the macro. It's so understood

by most of our listeners and viewers. I like to dip in what's trading and what's mattering, but not the day trade. And that's where, first of all, let's point out the fact that it's the most widely traded risk ask on a 24-7 basis on a plan. It shows you the value of price discovery and liquidity. And that's the number one lesson you learn in trading. Because without those locals making markets,

you ain't got nothing. You're not going to be able to buy or sell without massive gaps in the market. But I want to narrow down to what you both mentioned, what Dave mentioned about futures. The key thing that I pointed out since futures were launched in 2017, this is just Bitcoin adulting. And one thing is futures, listed futures are significant indications of this. It's squashed the ARB. It's pressured volatility.

It's brought in the mainstream. It was the first ETFs. It's all been part of the beta steps. And I want to mention one key thing is Dave, you mentioned about the curve. So standard, all the basics for all commodities right now, the whole curve is based on gold. It's contangles about 5%. Why? Because of interest rates. That's the basic for all curves, for any type of futures that does not have a coupon, um all commodities don't have coupons so all commodities should be about five percent light gold and then the difference is supply and demand expectations right now the bitcoin contango is about eight percent i mean that price a year i'm talking

about the one year curve the what the price a year from now is eight percent higher that's just how much bullishness is in that space i don't disagree with this, but that's the key thing. Remember, this is the truth coming from futures. These are people running ARB. It's all leveraged futures. It's all almost 20 to one leverage. It's just what my life used to be. And they're the ones making the markets move. The key thing I want to point out is that's why I have been early and little good circumspect. And I think what's going to happen is when we do get this back and field, depends how it happens, I fully expect Bitcoin is going to outperform on a risk adjusted base.

It's already showing it now. It's the fastest horse in the race. But we still have to, when you're running that money and sitting in front of that value risk model, you have to say, what's my major risk for every position I have? Well, beta just backs up 10%. When's the last time it hasn't backed up 10%? Well, it always does.

Okay, let's wait for that. In the meantime, let's have our powder dry and be ready to react and make some big money when that happens. So I want to point out some plumbing issues. That is why I disagree with Mike. I kind of agree with you in general, but I want to put out some plumbing problems. The fact that Gensler has effectively told FINRA that broker-dealers are not allowed to trade Bitcoin as a non-security. And by the way, broker-dealers are allowed to trade commodities as non-securities.

But he has not allowed broker-dealers to trade Bitcoin. Has created an enormous plumbing blockage. It's like the, you know, the plumbing and the financial system. So if you are Morgan Stanley and a client comes to you and wants to buy one year's total return swap on Bitcoin or a two year total return swap on Bitcoin, the only place they can actually hedge, they can do one of two things. They can back to back with a counterparty that the risk committee is going to throw up all over themselves saying, oh, I can take counterparty risk from, you know, name that OTC broker in the crypto space. I mean, look what happened, right? You know,

look what happened in 22. So the only place they can go is the futures markets. So that your one year futures curve is reflective of the fact that there's a fair amount of demand from customers and derivatives, non-deliverable forwards and swaps, et cetera, all the things that most people don't talk about, but people need to understand is real. And you swaps, et cetera, all the things that most people don't talk about, but people need to understand is real. And you know, they're real that the U.S. broker community cannot hedge any other way. So of course, you know, who's going to be the natural seller of those things to them? Well, you know, people in the crypto community that are going to demand a premium because they're going to demand risk and they're going to have their money tied up. So yeah,

you know, there'll be an R between the futures out a year and people will manage that perpetual swaps. They need to be paid enough to do that. So I think, frankly, if the plumbing were all reasonable and everybody could trade and there weren't all these artificially stupid restrictions because of U.S. and European regulatory policy, because Mike is still not fully implemented and there are a lot of European institutions with similar issues that you may very well see these, you know, see it trade more normally. So I don't look at the 8% premium as rampant bullishness. There is some bullishness, sure. But I think it's the risk premium that native crypto firms who could also trade on the CME want to get paid in order to allow

U.S. broker-dealers to participate in the market. It's basically just paying market maker premium. It's nothing more than that. And everyone needs to understand, like, there have been examples of this that have been crazy. How long did Korean regulation create a kimchi premium? I mean, it was years. Years. And these things go on for a long time. So you can't ignore the plumbing when you look at one asset or another. I mean, that does matter. That's why I'm always hyping about the short-term versus the long-term. In the long run, in the long one year and six months or even beyond two months, yeah, that premium is a result of cost to hedge being imposed upon U.S. broker-dealers that are restricted by our idiotic policies.

In the short run, it reflects supply-demand dynamics. And I think that you're right. And so, yeah, we've seen it. I mean, look, the last time we were approaching 68 like we are right now the last time uh the the spreads to the perpetuals the funding rates and all that the leverage in the system was 3x where it is now and that's kind of why i make the comment and people should understand this i make the comment that the longer you stay in a trading range the more the spring time the spring gets coiled when you start ramping and the leverage is going crazy and the animal spirits are going nuts and you got more of these people who are doing 50 and 100 times leverage on

perpetual swap exchanges, guess what? When the music stops, they get liquidated and we see these huge liquidity flushes. When that isn't happening, that's when a rally becomes more sustainable. And that's why I kind of hope it stays here. So two things on that. Yeah. And so what we've seen is an exuberance. You know, there was some there's definitely some, you know, quick trigger pulling when the ETFs were were finally approved and started trading. But there's there's plenty of volume to back that up, number one. And to Dave's point, it wasn't just perpetual leverage. But I think when you're looking at all those things, to me, that's kind of short-term trading patterns, entry and exit points, trying to maximize your profitability in this space. But if you're looking at Bitcoin

from a long-term perspective, really just back way, way, way, way up and get to like 50,000 or 100,000 feet. And you need to know one thing is that the institutions are actually two things is that it will be affected in these booms and busts. You know, at this point, like Mike has pointed out very astutely, it has been the tip of the risk spear for a long time. It trades 24-7. It is the ultimate casino for some people. It's just what it is. Hedge funds love to trade around it.

They love to trade around it. They love to trade on leverage on it. But backing way up from 50,000 feet to 100,000 feet, you know one thing. We now have vehicles that allow for institutions, RIAs, family offices that were otherwise shut out from owning Bitcoin to now come into it. And they are not quite as price sensitive as traders are because they're looking at this as something as an allocation to a portfolio that will be there for a very long time. Three years, five years, 10 years. You know, they're not looking at three months. They're looking at trying.

They're looking at establishing positions that are anywhere from 1% to 5% in their portfolios. And as they add to, as they grow, as they establish those positions, that's just demand, period. That's all you ought to be focused on. If you're a long-term holder of Bitcoin, we will have cycles. You will have the ability to add more in drawdowns. I do believe that. I do believe it continues to stay volatile, but it's volatility to the upside because it's going to continue to appreciate in the long term. And that's the 100,000 view that you ought to have. Yeah. By the way, we just hit 68 just as I, you know, that $500 was, I mean, the market was listening to me, I guess. Yeah.

I'm making it up, by the way. Looks like we're up a percent and a half in the last hour and 4.23% in the last 24 hours. Not bad. Call me when we're above 69. This has been healthy, though. To Dave's point and to your point that I've seen you say online, Scott, is that this consolidation has been healthy. It's good to have these pullbacks, have this spring coil, and give some support to this area. This is strong support in the 60,000 area. I think it's been super healthy from a short-term perspective.

I think this is what Mike would like to see on the S&P. Yeah, well, exactly. 10%, 15%. We've had a decent correction in gold. Back down to the key support 2000 and straight back up, we've had a decent correction of Bitcoin, classic 150, back down to 40, and then back up again. It's clearly a bullish sign. And beta hasn't done it, and it's just going to keep going up. That's why you just step back. And I remember seeing this stuff in the past. We have all seen it. You just have to say, thank you. Let the idiots get in and it's okay. But that's one thing that I completely agree with what James and Dave said is that the people coming in from ETFs now

are not the traders. They're in for the big long haul and they're just looking for, okay, typically it's like two to five years minimum allocations. We'll see what it does and you can't at the bigger risk we all know is not being having some allocation that's stuff i said years ago yeah there it is that's that's the big changeover when the risk goes from oh it's career risk to have portfolio and to have bitcoin in your portfolio the career risk of not having it that is a massive massive switch and i believe that that's we're experiencing we're in the middle of experiencing that we're not there yet but we're in the middle of experiencing that now that's right mark yusko i love his quote uh he has a bunch of ones that i plagiarize routinely and he's told me i can so that's cool but my favorite one recently is when the world realized that they're effectively short Bitcoin,

that's going to be when the fireworks happen. And effectively, you know, I don't know exactly how he phrased it, but basically he said that most institutional money, most managed money in the United States, which is half the world's investable assets, is effectively short Bitcoin. And that's what BlackRock and Fidelity are telling them now. And Bitwise is telling them, and VanEck is telling them, and Invesco is telling them. And it's like when you get armies of people out talking to all the asset allocators, that is a force of nature. There's no one doing that in gold. People have known gold. The people who understand as if they are already. And so, yeah, I do expect Bitcoin to outperform gold

for that exact reason. I mean, that said, you look at today, gold's up, you know, what, 0.8, you know, almost a percent as well. I mean, it looks, I don't understand crude oil, honestly, because I tend to see what's going on. But, you know, crude oil stubbornly over 80. That, you know, I know Mike that looks at that and says you know what the hell I see copper over four and I look at those things and I'm like okay well maybe the world isn't falling to hell I don't care if the world is going to hell is my point I mean the stuff I'm investing in is uh the oil it's some geopolitical issues too of course well we got all we have a lot of those, right? And at the end of the day, that's what we care about is like, okay, what are we looking at?

And so we're looking at macro forces where central banks around the world are afraid of their populations. Central banking is getting more and more politicized everywhere. And that's not a small deal. Agreed. Well, guys, we went three minutes over time. Thank you for your contributions, extra time, everybody. Amazing conversation. Really is my favorite hour of the week. I tell you guys, every time I meet someone who's like, I love your channel. I'm like, yeah, what do you like? They're like Macro Monday. Every single time, nobody ever mentions anything else I have on my channel. I'm just being honest. They all watch Macro Monday. You can see it in my channel. I'm just being honest. I watch Macro by day.

You can see it in the numbers. It's absolutely a fact. So I love what we've built here. Looking forward to expanding on it. Guys, I've actually, as I told you, I'm adding shows at 3 and 3.30 p.m. depending on the day, every Monday through Thursday. Mike and I do Market Mavericks on Thursdays already with Gareth. And then Wednesday, I have WIC.

And Tuesdays, I'm adding a show with Tillman and, uh, AP who are here and Mondays I'm just going to do starting today, the good old fashioned chart of Palooza, where we just have a good time, like the good old days where you guys throw out a bunch of quests, talk some crap, look at some charts. So that will be at 3 30 PM Eastern standard today.

It'll be fun. And then nine at 9 PM guys. Thank you so much. Thanks for the overtime. I will see you gentlemen next week, 9 AM Eastern standard time. Bye everyone.m. Guys, thank you so much. Thanks for the overtime. I will see you gentlemen next week, 9 a.m. Eastern Standard Time. Bye everyone.