The Wolf Of All Streets - Trump’s Tariffs Just Supercharged Bitcoin - Here’s What’s Coming | Macro Monday

Episode Date: April 14, 2025

Trump’s new tariff plan just sent shockwaves through the markets—and Bitcoin responded fast. On this week’s Macro Monday, Scott Melker is joined by Mike McGlone and Dave Weisberger, to break do...wn what’s really going on beneath the surface. We’ll be digging into: • Why tariffs could reshape the macro landscape • How Bitcoin is reacting in real time • What this means for inflation, rate cuts, and market structure • And what traders and investors need to watch this week The market just shifted—and we’re here to help you make sense of it. Catch the live conversation with some of the sharpest minds in macro and crypto. Don’t miss it. Dave Weisberger: https://twitter.com/daveweisberger1 Mike McGlone: https://twitter.com/mikemcglone11 ►► JOIN THE FREE WOLF DEN NEWSLETTER, DELIVERED EVERY WEEKDAY! 👉https://thewolfden.substack.com/ ►► Arch Public Unleash algorithmic trading. Discover how algorithms used by hedge-funds are now accessible to traders looking for unparalleled insights and opportunities! 👉https://archpublic.com/ ►►TRADING ALPHA READY TO TRADE LIKE THE PROS? THE BEST TRADERS IN CRYPTO ARE RELYING ON THESE INDICATORS TO MAKE TRADES. Use code '10OFF' for a 10% discount. 👉https://tradingalpha.io/?via=scottmelker Follow Scott Melker: Twitter: https://x.com/scottmelker Web: https://www.thewolfofallstreets.com/ Spotify: https://spoti.fi/30N5FDe Apple podcast: https://apple.co/3FASB2c #Bitcoin #Crypto #MacroMonday The views and opinions expressed here are solely my own and should in no way be interpreted as financial advice. This video was created for entertainment. Every investment and trading move involves risk. You should conduct your own research when making a decision. I am not a financial advisor. Nothing contained in this video constitutes or shall be construed as an offering of financial instruments or as investment advice or recommendations of an investment strategy or whether or not to "Buy," "Sell," or "Hold" an investment. 🎙️ New to streaming or looking to level up? Check out StreamYard and get $10 discount! 😍 https://streamyard.com/pal/d/6319316098351104

Transcript
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Starting point is 00:00:00 Bitcoin is trading back above $85,000 even among all of the market uncertainty. Are Trump's tariffs actually supercharging Bitcoin? We're going to talk about that and everything in the macro because it's macro Monday. Today we've got Mike McGlone, Dave Weisberger and replacing James Lavish, Noel Atchison. This is going to be an amazing show. Can't wait to get started. Let's go. What is up, everybody?
Starting point is 00:00:27 I'm Scott Melker, also known as the Wolf of all streets. Before we get started, please subscribe to the channel and hit that like button. Going to bring on the amazing Macro Monday panel. We've got Mike, Dave and Noel. Good morning everybody. Mike, let's start at the morning meeting and we'll go from there. Yeah, not much different from what we spoke about in the past. Estelle Wu is our economist who works with Anna Wong, pointed out the tariff decline, pull back a little bit from Trump, make the average tariff on China maybe from 130 down to 100%. The total effective average tariffs are still about 21%, about the highest in 100 years.
Starting point is 00:01:23 Expects retail sales to jump a little bit on front running and sees a tilt towards recession. Gillian Wolf stood in for Gino Martin Adams and pointed out the key thing from our whole equity team is something I've never seen from them and I've known that team for eight years. They keep pointing out the risk of recession and the US equity markets are still really expensive. The statistics she used as far as earnings, it was about a 1.6 multiple in the beginning of the US. It was the highest ever now, about 1.5 against the rest of the world. Still very expensive and sees a risk for a recession,
Starting point is 00:01:58 another 20% down. And looking at a level around 4,000, the S&P 500 is kind of the key things. And then from our chief equity strategy, I'm sorry, FX strategist, Audrey Chilfrain, just pointing out the acceleration of de-dollarization, which to me tilts over to part of reason gold is on a record run and part of what's supporting the Bitcoin. Mike, with gold on that record run, obviously, seeming like it could be a little toppy, but has been on a record run and seeing the yields do what they've done in all this uncertainty, we have this rumor that Japan and China are likely selling US
Starting point is 00:02:39 Treasuries and buying gold. Do you view it that way? Do you think that there's an active attempt to unload US debt? and buying gold, do you view it that way? Do you think that there's an active attempt to unload US debt? So Ira pointed out what happens is it's typically, yes, if central banks typically hold the shorter duration securities,
Starting point is 00:02:55 typically five years on in, and you said, yeah, there's some of that happening. As far as buying gold, didn't really talk too much about that, but we've seen central banks accumulating gold for years now, certainly 2022, 2023, since the Russian's invasion to Ukraine. The key thing he pointed out is really mostly individual investors, private investors hold long end in the curve.
Starting point is 00:03:15 And long end was really the key story last week. But the key thing that was noted from all our strategies is when you have riskless rates going up, that's a bad sign for equities, typically, because there's risk, and which is the bigger problem. But there's some of that. I think that's what we're seeing. Even Ira pointed out, just basis unwind a little bit in treasuries, but not a lot. I mean, it's massive positions going on.
Starting point is 00:03:40 It's one of the key things that surprised me this year with crude oil collapsing that bond yields have gone up, but I look at it on a, you know, I'm just tilting over to the one-year basis that US Treasury long bond. It's unchanged with coupons down a little bit this year. Actually, it's unchanged this year too. That's the 20 plus index TLT with the coupon. And the key thing I like to tilt over is gold's up 20% and Bitcoin's down 10% about the same as S&P 500. So the key things that's happening in that treasury market is key thing remember, as we most of us who've traded treasuries for a
Starting point is 00:04:13 long time, when you'll start picking up with distress, that's a bad sign for all risk assets, most notably US equities. Noel, what do you make of the action with interest rates and particularly the 10 and 30 year that have continued to go up even with all this macro uncertainty? Obviously many saying that the reason that we were doing all of this was so that we could get interest rates down and refinance the debt at lower rates. Worked for worked for about three or four days and then skyrocketed back up to much
Starting point is 00:04:43 higher levels than even before all this tariff nonsense began For a few days we were in beautiful alignment everything seemed to be going the direction the administration wanted it to but then things started to get confusing as Trump started to go off script and divisions emerged even within his team as to what the purpose of the tariffs was let alone the strategy and That's when the risk premium crept back in. That's when the de-dollarization that Mike mentioned started showing it's rearing its ugly head. And I think what we're seeing now is, yes, risk, basically an exit from US assets more broadly, not just from overseas holders, although that is considerable, especially
Starting point is 00:05:20 given interesting things happening elsewhere, but also from domestic holders rotating out of what they see as a likely less liquid market, therefore higher risk, into some of the other alternatives that they have that are as high risk now. This is the underlying thing that we have not seen since the pandemic, the world's safe asset act like a risk asset. And I think that is the biggest confidence shake here. It's not so much the flip-flopping of communication that we're getting on whether there'll be tariffs or not. It's the world's safe asset is not behaving like one.
Starting point is 00:05:54 And so as Mike said, where do you go? You go to gold and as things start to become a little bit more settled, probably also Bitcoin. But I mean, to that end, you mentioned obviously the tariff flip flopping. It's pretty wild Trump warns tariffs coming for electronics after reprieve. It's hard to even summarize how back and forth we've got right. Obviously, we had the fully reciprocal tariffs, then we had basically tariffs eliminated on
Starting point is 00:06:19 the electronics and, and all these things and people going, well, yeah, we need those things But now China's in the lead because they've reciprocated and they haven't given any exemptions Then we basically have what makes saying these are coming back on Trump saying they're coming back on Questions about whether semiconductors actually are being tariffed or not It's all over the place every single day at some point. I could see the like 40 chess argument now It just feels like they're panicking in every decision. You know the 40 chess would have been a lovely argument and we
Starting point is 00:06:50 I personally clung to that in the beginning because you know if anyone's read the Moran paper it kind of does make sense. There's flaws but it makes sense and that's what we were hoping we would get a gradual adjustment that would help the global economy reset, onshore production into the United States, bring the long-term yield down. That was the goal, and it was doable in as much as you can thread a needle while riding on a motorcycle in a snowstorm, but at least it was potential. What Trump has done since he actually launched the reciprocal tariffs is throw Moran's paper in the bin. Everything that Moran recommended, Trump is pretty much doing the opposite. And this has confused not only investors, not only watchers like us, but also Trump's team himself.
Starting point is 00:07:37 I don't know if any of you saw the or listened to the All In debate. Oh, I think the episode dropped on Friday between Larry Summers and David Sachs. It got really heated at some stages and of course Larry is attacking the strategy, David Sachs is defending it and while David Sachs did land some good blows, in the end Larry Sachs, sorry Larry Summers highlighted how there just isn't a strategy. Dave, your turn. I do want to talk. I'll let you address it.
Starting point is 00:08:07 And then I do want to pivot to Bitcoin because we are trading around 85,000 higher than when any of this tariff nonsense obviously began. We know that Bitcoin has remained relatively strong, even with that temporary dip and stocks certainly still not back to the levels before all of us. When you get turbulence, one of the first things that you learn when you're trading is betas and correlations change. And we have a market that is extremely dominated
Starting point is 00:08:42 on the in the short end by momentum traders. Listen or read Cliff Asness's report, quarterlies or whatever, and AQR is a value investor and over the long run does very well. But the one thing that is there are two constant laments that he makes. One of them is people chasing momentum and how that impacts the strategy. And the other, of course, is private versus public, where private doesn't have to get mark to market when we go through all this volatility. That's off topic. Why am I saying this? Well, take a deep breath and take a step back. First of all, the gold, Mike's thing on gold versus Bitcoin, it's like saying that whatever,
Starting point is 00:09:27 apples and oranges doesn't go far enough. I can think of analogies that the two, it's not related right now. What's going on with gold is exceedingly obvious. There clearly are or have been some central banks that have been buying more gold. And as a result, what happens? It gets a bit of momentum.
Starting point is 00:09:44 What happens when anything gets momentum in this particular market? Repeat after me, momentum chasers trade it. And so, yes, you're right. I don't know where the peak is, but gold is really has still doing its job of matching purchasing power parity. And we've seen as inflation decelerates, gold, people will look around, central banks will stop, and the momentum will leave, and gold will revert a little bit. But it's still fairly valued right here. It's not overpriced. So could we see a run to 4,000 and then a pullback? Yes, absolutely, we could, because momentum is momentum. It's going to overshoot. So that's gold. Understand, there is zero probability, and I mean zero probability that gold is gonna reclaim its place as a denominator for financial assets not going to happen okay. No it's not gonna happen for a lot of reasons not the least of which is we don't know what we're gold really is we haven't seen audits there is definitely rampant. definitely rampant fraud underneath in the gold market in terms of lead painted bars. We know it's true. We just don't know how much. And it's one of those things that no one wants to open up that kimono and look, which is why we haven't seen a Fort Knox audit,
Starting point is 00:10:55 which is why we've seen the gold reshoring that we did. There's all sorts of macrocurrency, but gold just is no longer suitable, nor does anybody want to. By the way, I was a gold bug for 20 years. So this is coming from somebody who understands that sound money would be a good thing. So gold is going to trade as gold is going to trade. Bitcoin right now is still trading like a sort of risk asset. And I say sort of because it's in the process of breaking through that. And you can see it that way. The notion that Bitcoin's beta will persist to the downside, if it hasn't been lost on people now, then there's just no hope for you. Bitcoin's correlation to stocks at best has been tenuous.
Starting point is 00:11:39 It's been up and down. Its move, its first move is always in the direction of NASDAQ, not really the S&P, that is true. And then it ceases when supply and demand factors overwhelm it. So we've seen consistent buying from smart money. I mean the smartest money. We're talking about the most informed, whether it's the White House, whether it's what Larry Fink has been saying, whether it's whoever.
Starting point is 00:12:06 We've seen smart money buying and we've seen crypto people who, I hate to say it, but that's the dumb money. The people who consistently sell Bitcoin to rotate into altcoins every time there's a bull market, they think, and they get carried away and they end up losing their Satoshis to the smart money. That's what we've been seeing for months now. That's going to go on for a little while. I mean, look, people want to chase beta. And the real beta is alt to Bitcoin. That beta is very, very real. Now, do they have different mechanisms? Are they different value propositions? Yes, absolutely. But that beta is very, very real.
Starting point is 00:12:42 And so when I look up and down what I see like this morning, I see Solana is up on the back of it. I see XRP, which has been correlated to Bitcoin ridiculously highly. When you consider that, it's kind of funny because they obviously, their use cases, there's no correlation. But the correlation to Bitcoin and ALTS is very, very high. So I look at it that way. Now, as far as the macro goes, what you're seeing is an internecine fight within the administration, playing out in the public,
Starting point is 00:13:14 and you see a president saying, this might work out to my advantage, so I'm going to let the boys fight. In fact, Catherine Leavitt even used the expression, boys will be boys, to describe Elon Musk calling Peter Navarro dumb as a box of bricks. And, you know, so this isn't 4D chess. This is, listen, we want to reform our manufacturing. We need to figure out what's going on. We want to make informed decisions to make this happen. I want it to happen yesterday, but the world doesn't work like that. And anyone who's ever been a CEO or run a corporation or run a large team knows that you don't always have unanimity among your own reports, and you have a goal in mind, and you kind of want to see it play out. And what you're seeing is in real time, you know, decision
Starting point is 00:14:01 making by confrontation and argumentation and unfortunately to the world that looks like total instability sure but this too shall pass you might want to remember mike you could pull up the chart what happened in february of 2018 prompt one tariff trade war with china fears market takes a dump what did he do, blah, blah, but some of it stayed and Biden even kept those tariffs. And the market recovered. Right, so we've seen this before. What is going to happen here, in my opinion,
Starting point is 00:14:35 is we're gonna unfortunately have to back down faster than we'd want to, why? Because we don't have rare earth refining capabilities. I think you're going to see, and you should see, a moon launch kind of deal, you know, into AI and rare earth refining, because we can't get our own supply chain under control without the ability to process and refine rare earths.
Starting point is 00:14:59 It's not just getting the minerals, it's the refining capabilities. The same thing you're gonna see in chips, like Taiwan Semi announced that huge plant, I would imagine you're going to see them reach out to every other chip manufacturer to do the same. That's what has to happen, and that's what will happen. And the market's starting to sniff that out.
Starting point is 00:15:16 So why is the market not taking a dump this morning after Howard Lutnick came on and effectively, you know, my favorite meme of the weekend, I don't know if everyone see it, with the Seinfeld, you know, instead of Newman, it was Lutnick came on and effectively, my favorite meme of the weekend, I don't did everyone see it with the Seinfeld, you know, instead of Newman, it was Lutnick, you know, in big wet letters across it. It, you know, Howard comes out and basically says, listen, we're not changing our strategy. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:15:37 I mean, we're not, but we may have to delay things a bit because there are things that need to happen and you don't build factories overnight, particularly in America, where you have 18-month environmental impact statements before you even have a chance to build anything. So this administration is figuring out what it can do and what it can't do in the short run. And as this plays out, markets are going to lurch up and down. Last point, everyone's freaking out about bond yields. We had 5% bond yields a year and a half ago. We're under 4.5% now. It's not where they want it to be. It's not below 4%, but why should it be? I mean, below 4% is we're going to create a deep recession, but you're going to go to bonds as a safety valve. But it doesn't always work that way. And so if you create a deep recession and
Starting point is 00:16:24 people stop saying, well, I don't want to buy US financial assets in this recession, but it doesn't always work that way. And so if you create a deep recession and people stop saying, well, I don't wanna buy US financial assets in this recession, that I don't need to hold US dollars, maybe I'm just gonna sell all US financial assets. And I think they're starting to realize that that is a realistic thing. So I think you're gonna see that talk get damped down a little bit.
Starting point is 00:16:40 But Dave, and I know Mike's gonna wanna respond to that, but it's not really about the absolute number. It's the directionality of it, considering the situation. Oh, there's no doubt that the up and down volatility making the US bond trade like a cryptocurrency is ludicrous. And it has happened, but look, it's a direct result of our two top, actually,
Starting point is 00:17:05 basically the four top guys in the administration on economic policy, effectively having a food fight, playing out in national TV and national media, right? You got Musk and Besant who, obviously, that's the team I'm on, we all understand that. I think they are the ones you want to be in charge of the economy. And you have Lutnick and Navarro.
Starting point is 00:17:28 And they're fighting. And there's no question that they're fighting. And Trump is basically saying, okay, let the best arguments win. Let's see how this goes. And that's what's going on. Eventually, you know, we're going to end up with a coherent policy. It's like, as I give you another take, Tim Cook called the White House and said, leave my iPhones alone, dude.
Starting point is 00:17:45 And we got policy. Yeah, it's not that simple. Because you got Elon already in the White House. And while he has a huge competitive advantage over all the other car companies in America, insofar as Tesla, is 70% US components. General Motors is somewhere in the neighborhood of 55 to 60%, et cetera, et cetera,
Starting point is 00:18:07 and all the others are lower than that. But Trump, I meant Trump, but Musk has 30% of his components that come from overseas. And I'm sure he said, listen, gonna drive the cost of all of our costs up. It'll help my company relatively, but still really bad idea. And so he said it too.
Starting point is 00:18:24 So you don't even have to wait for Tim Cook, but I'm sure everyone, it wasn't just Tim Cook. I'm sure a lot of the exactly. I was using Tim Cook as my proxy for big tech and anyone who's they explained to them. Triple in price. Well, but they explained to them that we literally there are probably, I don't know, there's sensors, there's this, there
Starting point is 00:18:45 are probably factories in China and in overseas that we just don't have here, right? You know, we need to repurpose or we need to, more to the point, we need to encourage companies to invest in building those factories here when we don't necessarily have the skilled labor. People always talk about the because the labor there is also skilled. And they've been producing three to four times the STEM graduates as us for years now. Don't expect that it's all about that cost of labor. That's what everyone always thinks. But that's the last war. That used to be true, it's not true anymore.
Starting point is 00:19:37 And so this is complicated stuff, Scott. And it's gonna play out over a long period of time. That's kind of the point though. And then we gotta go to Mike and Noel. But I mean, if it's gonna play out over a long period of time. That's kind of the point though. And then we gotta go to Mike and Noel. But I mean, if it's complicated stuff, maybe don't just say everybody. You get to go full Oprah. So you get a tear if you get a tear,
Starting point is 00:19:53 if you get a tear, if you get a tear, if it makes a lot of sense to tear things that you don't need. And maybe to consider the things that you do and not end up backtracking and rewinding all of your decisions when you realize that you're not gonna have the things you need to run your country Mike what's your take? So let's look at talk about the elephants in the room first of all the lesson
Starting point is 00:20:14 I learned in the trading pits is yes Everybody in the world wants free trade as long as they can run surpluses and with the US the lesson I learned in my and then my doing my MBA at night is yeah, free trade is great for everyone. Trump is just, the fact is he's trying to rebalance a global dependent on dependence on exporting to the US. It's been in place for 80 years and it's just kind of entertaining to watch those of us who've had many independents when you shut them off and that's what he's doing. Now right or wrong, it all that matters is this is almost a guaranteed global recession.
Starting point is 00:20:43 The reason I say that, well, nothing's guaranteed is because these are the signs that we were pointing out two years ago. Remember that US unemployment rate never bottomed that low without going to 6%. It's just on its way there now. The whole goal beating everything, particularly crude oil and industrial metals and all commodities was a sign that we've had in the past that we're going to that global recession. But the elephant in the room is what's happening now. It's a backup in US stock market.
Starting point is 00:21:06 So I like to say for all crypto people, if you're bullish anything other than just certainly Bitcoin or just a crypto space, you need the US stock market to go up. So let's look at facts on the year. On the year, just one year, and I know Dave's gonna point out time, but this year is a paradigm shift.
Starting point is 00:21:20 We have a very unique president. He's changed the world order and gold's up 20%. Bitcoin's down 10%. S&P 500 is down about 10%. Do you expect that to reverse? I don't. I expect S&P 500 to drop a minimum, a third from the peak. That's just normal in a recession.
Starting point is 00:21:37 The key thing that happened was when the Fed cut rates and added fuel to the added alcohol to that punch bowl, it punched up the S&P 500 500 extra thousand points it shouldn't have. Now it's going to just take it back. We're doing that now. We're heading towards that recession. And the key thing, the most significant chart I like is one thing that Gina turned me on two years ago is you take that S&P 500 divided by the MSCI X US index, you go back to 1970.
Starting point is 00:22:01 It's the highest ever, but it's not been a straight lineup. It's the lessons of technical analysis is these things always revert, it's just a question of when. Now we have a trigger to do that. If you overlay that same chart with Bitcoin gold, it's the same thing, but they're all starting to roll over. All we've done is gone back to the trend line. We haven't broken down.
Starting point is 00:22:18 We're going to do that. It's a question of when. It always does. I think it's happening this year. That's my point is what you've seen on the screen so far is just a little bit of reversion of, people are just learning, okay, the passive complacency of low volatility in the US stock
Starting point is 00:22:33 market going up on the back of massive fiscal deficit spending and all the stimulus is over. And we haven't even seen the breakdown yet. We've just seen a recovery to the trend. That's my point. This is the next big trade. That's why I still stick with at some point, it's just a matter of time, crude oil gets the $40 a barrel.
Starting point is 00:22:50 Gold, probably $4,000 an ounce. Go ahead. Below 60. That's, you know, that's when... Finally. So, as a headline I enjoyed seeing today, which is a simplistic thing you learn in the trading pits. And I love how Dave says the smartest people in the room.
Starting point is 00:23:02 I remember learning that trading pits. They're on the phones with me, the smartest people in the room, they say they can be dead wrong sometimes in certain things, partly because they get stuck in their ways. And here's a key thing I enjoyed seeing the headline this morning, Goldman Sachs warns of oil prices, large surpluses through 2026. Now I pointed that in 2022, it's going to come. I was early, stopped out of I was wrong with just the power of. If she go up too much, she goes down to offset that. That's what's happening in the US stock market right now.
Starting point is 00:23:28 And it's got a very good reason to do that. The rest of the world is trying to sell rallies and they should. The dollar, the stock market, all linked. And when you get to the highest ever versus the rest of the world, the highest in 100 years versus GDP, the stock market is the economy. There's only two examples in history, 1929 in this country, 1989 in Japan. And I'm open to anybody giving me better suggestions. So this is what we're doing right now.
Starting point is 00:23:49 The key thing to remember is bear markets have the most severe short covering rallies. We're doing that now and they make you believe it's over. They may give you hopium. And that's my point is the whole crypto space is completely dependent on that stock market going up and it's going down. And so I point out on a one year basis the Bloomberg Galaxy crypto index is down
Starting point is 00:24:08 about 30%. The Bloomberg precious metals index is up about 30%. If you expect that to narrow, sure in the short term, but I expect that that trend to just continue to widen. The only thing I would say Mike is since the tariff announcement as we mentioned, Bitcoin is higher than when it happened and stocks are still lower. So there has been some divergent strength.
Starting point is 00:24:29 I'd completely admit it. There's been significant divergence strength. And the key thing I fully expect is Bitcoin dominance will continue to increase. It's a bull market. That's been a good sign. Now, if it can tilt me over to getting bullish Bitcoin, I don't know what's going to be. So I'll point out one little thing that I have the benefit of working with some really smart people, as Dave always points out, the one thing is we have this thing called Biko economic models, my colleague works
Starting point is 00:24:53 in the same office, Josh Daniel, a bunch of people, a lot smartening with me, numerous PhDs created a fair value model that's almost exactly the Bitcoin gold ratio. It's broken down below that low from last year around 17. Bitcoin gold right now is around 27. You know, that's been a key thing I pointed out. When it peaked at 40, I'll stick with that trend continuing to go lower. The ounces of gold to Bitcoin is probably going to at 27 now just based on the model. They don't use any other things that I don't even understand most of it, but it's been spot on for
Starting point is 00:25:28 Four or five years. It's showing the models when we go into 17 So I see the fundamental the technical and the model pointing lower Maybe we have something different But then the bottom line for me is when my I see my colleagues gene martin adams pointing out 20% corrections in the stock market Should be where? All right, I'd love to respond but I want noel to have a chance I'd love to respond, but I want Noel to have a chance. You are, sweetheart Dave. Thank you. Yeah, there's so much to pull on when it comes to Bitcoin versus gold. The narratives are, I think, shifting. You saw the headline just from last week about custody and transport of gold is a problem and central banks around the world who have been custodying their gold in the United States
Starting point is 00:26:09 or in Europe are rethinking that whole thing. So when there is for the very first time, an alternative, a simpler, more reliable, more transparent, more verifiable alternative on the scene. That said, I do totally agree that Bitcoin for now is gonna continue to trade like a risk asset and it is sometimes going to trade like a safe haven. I'm of the view that that will always be the case. However, Bitcoin's dual narrative gives it a higher floor because there is always a narrative to bring in buyers for whatever dip reason you happen to
Starting point is 00:26:40 have on the table that particular week. But speaking of elephants in the room, the one that I'm focusing on stepping back a bit here is the political risk. There are legal challenges to what Trump is doing. The IEPA has never before been used for broad tariff policy. It has never before been used to execute a grand economic plan. Its intention was to respond to actual emergencies and whether a trade imbalance can be considered a national emergency. That is obviously, there's some debate to be had there. Now, there is not yet much opposition in Congress. There are some lawsuits that will probably find their way all the way to the Supreme Court. And I don't know how, who knows what's going to happen there. It's gonna take some time.
Starting point is 00:27:26 In Congress, we're starting to see signs of resistance. Seven Republicans have co-signed a bill to push back on Trump's tariff plan because of its illegality, really. He doesn't really have the authority to do this. And I think we will see that accelerate as the midterms approach, as the economic pain starts to hit, especially in areas
Starting point is 00:27:46 where Trump has a strong voter base, where the incumbents are afraid of losing their seats, and it's going to be especially contentious in the independent states, the swing states. And China's strategy here is intelligent. They're just going to be biding their time, they're going to be cutting off imports of produce and especially where it's going to hurt US farmers, US producers, Trump's base the most. They did that last time. Yeah, they did that from 2018 to 2020 and it ended up 30 billion in subsidies almost for our farmers. And the stakes are higher this time, partly because of the boldness of Trump's plan, but also because if the Democrats get back, the House and the Senate at the midterms, which if indeed there is economic pain, looks more likely. If that happens, then Trump is looking at impeachment proceedings yet again.
Starting point is 00:28:37 So obviously all involved would like to head this off if possible. So I think the political pushback will be louder and sooner and that adds to the uncertainty in the market. We can adapt to tariffs and people can get their heads around it. Nations can rewire their supply chains. What people can't adapt to is the uncertainty. Why build a factory in the US if in two years it turns out you didn't need to? Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Go ahead, Dave. Yeah, well, a couple things. First, the one thing that always drives me nuts about political watchers in the US is they get their
Starting point is 00:29:11 cycles wrong. You know, I'll always default to remembering this Saturday Night Live skit back when, and the year and a half before Clinton won, basically showing all the Democrats basically saying they don't wanna run because there was no chance they could run. Politics is next year, this year's not politics. This year is about what will actually happen. Now the point about the lawsuits and the bills in Congress, that's gonna be a convenient excuse in my opinion
Starting point is 00:29:44 to pull back and normalize the policies. There's gonna be a convenient excuse in my opinion to pull back and normalize the policies. There's gonna be all sorts of, the thing you have to understand about Washington is all sorts of stuff. Now look, I was in DC last week. I was at a fairly high level conference. People, not the CEOs, but it's called NOIP and it's all the people who are running divisions
Starting point is 00:30:02 mostly out through Wall Street. It was astounding how calm the audience was, the room was. Everyone is like, yeah, there's a lot of noise, it'll work out. And all I can say on the policy side, I suspect we will end up with some version of normalcy and we will see more announcements like we saw this morning from Nvidia.
Starting point is 00:30:25 So Nvidia announces this morning that they're going to be making their chips in the United States. They have their first 100% supercomputer being made here. You're going to see more and more of those. They'll get touted. You will look at that and you're going to look back at this and you'll be like, OK, well, it was handled clumsily, but we end up in the right place. I mean, it's sort of, I would view this as Trump's version of Afghanistan, only nobody's died, right? You know, in terms of the stupidity of leaving $85 billion of equipment in Afghanistan, 13
Starting point is 00:31:00 people dying because they didn't respond to threats, We didn't use the ground air force brace. No one when it came to the election even thought about that. Guess what? It was the same timing in the term. And by the way, in terms of a reason to not have a commander in chief, that is a far bigger reason, right? If you think about it in terms of economic policy, I mean, all people care about is the price of groceries, what's going on and all of that I think will play itself out. That's kind of the way I look at this. And honestly, that's how the
Starting point is 00:31:28 market is looking at it. Now, as far as Mike is concerned about the stock market, I will say this, and I want this to be clear to people who think 2000, where we had a March sell off. It was a brutal one and a full recovery by June. It kind of coasted in the summer and the fall was ugly. We could have a very ugly fall. There is no doubt about that in the stock market. There's no doubt, right? You know, it is extended. There's lots of reasons to think that
Starting point is 00:32:07 the only big difference between now and 2000 and by the way There's similarities there too is pre 2000 because of fears over y2k and I know that seems so quaint to people all I remember is is my uh, you know, what one of my my daughter was being born And my mother had to fly out. Uh, so of my daughter was being born and my mother had to fly out. So she, my wife labor on December 31st, my mother was one of four people on a jumbo jet, you know, four passengers, there were eight flight attendants
Starting point is 00:32:41 and four passengers early in the day on December 31st when she came out. So, you know, people were genuinely afraid the Fed pumped a lot of money in the economy. It's almost quaint how little it was compared to the money that's got pumped in during the pandemic. But we did have a monetary bump and that did fuel a stock market rally and all of that happened. But take that aside for a second. If you look at the denominator, i.e. M2 in circulation, and do a chart of the S&P correlated to M2, one of my favorite charts, and you take that denominator out
Starting point is 00:33:13 or do the same thing with oil. Oil, it looks weird, but I would make the argument that 60 today is 40 on your chart, Mike, because 60 is a point, it's below the cost of production. We've had inflation. 60 is the cost of production. Well, 60 is the cost of production. That's right.
Starting point is 00:33:30 Bloomberg New Energy Finance said the cost of production is around 50. They're smarter than I am. Okay, so 50. So what all I will say is that's actually interesting. That's because of technology. It's fascinating. Exactly. Drilling technology.
Starting point is 00:33:42 Drilling technology is better. So drilling technology is offsetting partially the M2 when it comes to oil. Look, there's no doubt that we're gonna fall in a recession, cost of oil will fall below the cost of production. There's no doubt. We're already heading that way. That's my point. We're heading that way. You and I don't disagree. And the stock market... That's no fun, Dave. I think our viewers and listeners want us to disagree. Come on. No, no, no, that's okay. The point is though, oil dropping is a huge help in terms of inflation. Right? Exactly. There's no doubt about that. So if they take the tariffs off the table, you have oil dropping in every session. Do you not? What do you think in
Starting point is 00:34:22 terms of liquidity? I mean, you know, it's it is clearly likely to be brought back in because the last thing the US government can you can afford is budget deficits increasing, which will absolutely happen if taxation decreases. And so, you know, all these things are interrelated and everyone has to understand it. And so when we look at the headline, yeah, all coins are going to move with NASDAQ. Absolutely. They have, they will, they will, they will almost certainly have higher beta. Uh, I think the downside beta is kind of played out already. It's already had a lot of downside beta, but yeah, you know, look, there's the coins out there, you and I both agree should be zero Bitcoin. The real question is, is the narrative changing? As Noel was kind of hinting. So there, I think the answer is yes.
Starting point is 00:35:08 And so that's changing. If you are selling three months in a row now, five billion dollars. And guess what? In the last three months, we've had 20 billion of inflows in gold. You expect that to shift? I think it's just getting started. US stock market is only down 10%. It's going to drop another 20%.
Starting point is 00:35:22 I feel like Tom Lee. I'm glad that more people agree with you than agree with me because that's how bull markets go. But I do believe that Bitcoin is going to be in a different scenario because I do think liquidity is there and it's still not even close. It's taking the 95% discount to where its adherents believe its value is going to be. Some. Some people say it. That's what they're saying here, Mike.
Starting point is 00:35:51 Golden bonds, safe haven, allure, maybe fading with Bitcoin emergence. There's a few things here that I want to ask you about because these are headlines across the board, Mike, to that end. From what source? Euros emerging as alternative safe haven along with bonds. So we're seeing obviously yields rising in other places and maybe the appeal of treasury is diminishing. And of course, this sounds like you, Ray Dalio sounds the alarm on global systemic risk, but Bitcoin remains resilient. Are we seeing an
Starting point is 00:36:14 actual move on what's considered a safe haven asset at this point, or is it just going to be gold? It's an oxymoron to say it's a safe haven when it trades three times the volatility of beta and gold. I can agree with Dave, I wrote about it years ago. Years ago, it was going that way, but what flipped me? It reached a major milestone. It reached $100,000 and the things I wrote about for years is once we had widely decimated ETFs and the mainstreams in the space, it's over. That means now it's no longer the people or
Starting point is 00:36:45 the insiders who got it from the very beginning. So we can, what's not ad nauseam talk about Bitcoin, the Bloomberg Galaxy Crypto Index of which one third is Bitcoin is down one third. It's 200 day moving average is rolling over. It usually just be 500. That 200 day moving average has just gotten started. People can play with this as much as the want. I'm just pointing out this highly volatile risk asset and the key difference with Bitcoin and everything else in the world, it does have millions of dependents and they do have a much,
Starting point is 00:37:11 it does have a much higher correlation to virtually all those dependents, either way you look at it, then gold has its three. So I'm just pointing out that's rolling over. The US stock market is just starting to roll over. You're gonna get sharp shortcoming relishing and get hopium in bear markets. That's the stage we're in right now. How much higher
Starting point is 00:37:29 it goes? I don't know because it can go very high. But the point is my whole equity team thinks the stock market's got another 20%. Okay, I'm going with that. The model I see six Bitcoin gold should drop another third from where it is now. I'm going with that until proven wrong. Just show me good reasons to be wrong. And I'm pointing out three months now, all those ETF buyers have started flipping to sell, not all of them, flipping to sellers. Why? This has been a minor correction in what's been one of the biggest rallies in
Starting point is 00:37:54 history. Certainly U.S. stock sources, the rest of the world. So I have to point out the alpha in the world remains U.S. stock market. When we start taking more money from the system, which is the lesson I learned in trading bits, when you hear a bad number, you just see all sellers drop and markets drop a handle. You just take out what you destroy wealth. We're just starting to do that. The key thing I want to point out is just a tilt over to the macros. We have the macro to do that with the new Trump administration. But then I do want to point out, let's just point out things that some of us who've seen in the past that That one of the biggest bond bull markets in the last 20 years has been
Starting point is 00:38:35 CGBs Chinese government bonds 1.66 right now in 1995. I was trading JGBs I've seen this before Deflationary forces from the second largest economy at the time tilt over took a little while now It's tilting over from China and a key thing. I'll push back on, Noel, China is not China. It's one human being. It's the most autocratic leadership since Mao. There is no natural check in balances. The key thing about this country is if this whole experiment from Trump doesn't work out, midterms will push back on it, probably being a negative, but energy prices will be a lot
Starting point is 00:38:59 lower. By the time we get the next election, it flips off and we go back to the way we were. If he succeeds, which I kind of think you will, this will change the world forever. I mean, it's 80 years of shifting. That's my point is, that's the thing to remember about our current administration. They are all very wealthy business sharks and they are thinking about legacy now. Just see it from, they're thinking about how is the future going to judge us? We have one chance to do it.
Starting point is 00:39:22 They're doing it hard and fast. They're pulling back a little bit, but from the future, we're going to look back in this and things like I said, 30 years are going to trading pitch. Everybody wants free trade as long as they can run surpluses for the US. We're shutting off the world's dependence to be able to export to the US. This is a global recession kicking in. The point I like to make is commodities were showing that well before Trump was elected. Yeah, I totally agree with the assessment that a global reshift was needed. I was so excited when it looked like they were actually
Starting point is 00:39:49 going to be tackling that. My concern is that the plan went off the rails. And without a plan, there isn't trust. And without trust, there's simply not going to get the yields down. And this is for the existentials. They don't get the yields down. What does that do to the budget deficit?
Starting point is 00:40:03 What does that do to the world's safe asset? What is interesting is even Stephen Moran in the paper that I referred to earlier he said that he recognizes that market volatility is going to be a consequence and he expects gold and cryptocurrencies to do well in that kind of environment. When it comes to she being one man, that is his strength. He doesn't have politics to worry about. He doesn't have midterms. He doesn't even really care about public opinion. And the Chinese have a lot more experience in weathering hard times than do Americans who go to the polls every two years practically. So that does mean that Trump is expecting China to blink
Starting point is 00:40:44 and Besant is expecting China to blink. Besson is expecting China to blink. Everyone is saying China will blink and what if China doesn't blink? They don't seem to have a plan for that other than walk back. The thing is we know that Trump cares a lot about saving face and so does President Xi. So it's going to come down to a battle of wills and what's at stake is arguably huge. I mean, I just want to push back on one point that just drives me absolutely, well, there's two points that drive me absolutely crazy. One, this dependence notion of millions dependence.
Starting point is 00:41:12 I mean, yeah, I mean, to the extent that there are lots of assets in the crypto world which will follow the price of Bitcoin. That is true. They are not, they are insubstantial and getting more insubstantial in terms of the money flows into Bitcoin, because the percentage of price setting coming from the crypto universe has been steadily decreasing over the last year in favor of people investing from outside the crypto universe. And so understand that, that if anything, that relationship has notably decreased, will continue to notably decrease
Starting point is 00:41:47 and probably will eventually tail out. It is not the other way around. And let's first week of introductory logic. They teach you about correlation versus causation and where it comes from and those two things are there. So I'm just tired of that argument, it's silly. It's no different than saying, and maybe you probably think this is true, that Nvidia's price is going to move based upon all these AI companies that are
Starting point is 00:42:11 now having to do down rounds and secondary rounds because they were overvalued. I mean, just last week, we saw yet another multibillion dollar valuation for a dude with an idea didn't even have a PowerPoint yet. Look, we've seen this story before. And when you get a dude with an idea in AI, being able to raise it a multi-billion dollar valuation is no different than what we saw with pets.com, although that was actually a public company in the internet bubble. Yes, that is true.
Starting point is 00:42:41 But to say that that's why Nvidia is gonna drop, I don't think that's a really good argument. And I think that Nvidia made very well drop if you think it's overvalued But it won't because of what's going on unquote dependence But the real issue is something I've said on this program for two and a half years I will continue to say it until such a time as Bitcoin is at least 50% of the price of gold Bitcoin trades like an option. It is not stable where it is today. Just think about what that means. It is not at a stable price. Assets relative to everything else reach some form of equilibrium where you have a balance of buyers and sellers and it's where it's
Starting point is 00:43:18 supposed to be. It takes a long time for that to happen. Bitcoin isn't even remotely close. Gold, It takes a long time for that to happen. Bitcoin isn't even remotely close. Gold is a very, very stable relationship to purchasing power parity. Yes, it can move 20% the here or there, but it's been pretty damn close. And sure, purchasing power parity changes over time because of the technology. Shirts are a hell of a lot cheaper than they used to be in, you know, 100 years ago, in terms of part of a budget. But you can look at the overall and see the same thing. Bitcoin is trading at 95% discount to its notion of purchasing power parity. Now, will it get there? No, it may fail. It may reach stasis at a different level.
Starting point is 00:43:59 But, you know, effectively what you're calling for when you make your 10,000 calls is Bitcoin failing because it doesn't, it would not be stasis at 10,000. No, it's calling for failure. Goal has had plenty of backups. It didn't fail. The S&P 500 said two, and I've lived through with real money, 50% backups in the last few years. It didn't fail.
Starting point is 00:44:18 It's not failing. You made that statement, not me. Let's make, point out the facts. I pointed out when Bitcoin reached 100,000 on a risk-adjusted basis from an ETF standpoint versus gold, it had more than surpassed the valuation of gold. Just the lessons I've learned in commodities, why do people and a lot of investors not hold gold? Central banks are, because it does have earnings.
Starting point is 00:44:36 We're starting to learn that about Bitcoin. Let's look at the facts. Three months now of outflows in Bitcoin ETFs, they're learning the lessons they bought leveraged beta, not digital gold, because they're finally getting the lesson of US stock market going down, and this highly speculative crypto space so it can lop off a lot of zeros
Starting point is 00:44:52 is way overdue to a lot of zeros. And they're learning that gold is the one to go, and they're learning that UST bonds are less secure than they thought, which means gold's more valuable. But here's a key fact that I think I'll push back and know a little bit. If and when we get the normal correction, the US S&P 500 dropping a third, that's severe deflation from the inflation, which is a normal lesson of history in the US, just following the deflation in China.
Starting point is 00:45:15 And to suggest that an autocratic leader in a communist country, his system is going to beat the rest of the capitalism world. Good luck with that, Noel. We've learned that doesn't work so well. It's not a question of beating. It's a question of who can last the longest before flip-flopping. And my money is definitely on China. So what does it mean for markets? So that's what it means for markets. A flip-flop means what pushes Trump out? Stock market going down. My point is macro markets. You can use that. I want, we can't trade that. I'm trading markets. I'm thinking markets. That means US equities go down. That's the pressure for Trump. Mike, I think there's more nuance there. Sorry, before you respond, Noelle,
Starting point is 00:45:47 I don't think it's the stock market going down. I think it's the bond market being unstable. It's unstable now, but that's my point. If the bond market remains continues to do what it did last week, yield spike, that's bad for everything, particularly US stocks. That's my point. It just makes it what's a shorter term thing because US government buys bonds. It always have, if they have to. Now, China's buying their own stocks. That's a decent sign. Japan's been buying their own stocks for 20 years. That's what helped them bottom. It's just the way governments work. I'm just pointing out, this is the next big trade. The US stock market's so expensive, that's starting to give up the ghost. And unless you expect that to stop, then you're okay being long cryptos.
Starting point is 00:46:25 If you expect that to continue, it's very simple, which I do expect the deflation in the US to kick in. And then on a 10, a one to 10 scale, the thing that measures T-bond, that really just T-bond rates in this country is inflation. Supply and all those other things are maybe a one or a two. Right now we're still in that de-stagnation stage in your stock market's fine,
Starting point is 00:46:44 particularly the rest of the world, it's just starting to roll over. That to me is why, like I said, when I was trading JGBs, and everybody told me the same thing back then, that they turned out to be wrong, U.S. bond yields just followed that, it just took a little while.
Starting point is 00:46:58 This is more global now. And it's again, a thing that we've never seen in our lifetime. The U.S. is shutting off the rest of the bill to run trade surpluses with them. Just getting started. And there is one concession that we've never seen in our lifetime, the US is shutting off the rest of the bill to run trade surpluses with them. Just getting started. And there is one concession I will make. I mean, arguably nobody in the world wants the US Treasury market to fail. China is the second largest foreign holder of US Treasuries.
Starting point is 00:47:15 Japan is the largest. They arguably do not want that market to fail. And so maybe there is some sort of compromise avenue along that. I'm skeptical. I still think this is going to be a stamina game and I still don't think that the US political system is going to give Trump the win there. But obviously US markets are much deeper, are much freer and will have the capacity to bounce much harder. China does have other issues. But another pushback is on the ETF outflows. They are very correlated to the basis trade, not necessarily investor sentiment, but the basis trade
Starting point is 00:47:46 and that right now is unattractive. So a lot of the exits we've been seeing are the hedge funds that are selling that leg of the of the deal. Noel, if the Japanese are selling US debt, obviously, you said that the largest holder China second is that to defend their own currency currency? I mean, the question is when people sell, what are they gonna buy, right? So I'm assuming that's going straight into yen
Starting point is 00:48:09 as a defense of their own currency in this sort of uncertain environment. Yeah, there is some of that or even just into domestic economy in any way. There's two things going on here. One, they could be divesting of some of their US holdings to defend their currency. Another is it could be a leverage chip, a bargaining play.
Starting point is 00:48:27 Japan has said, and this was very smart, that they do not plan to use their treasury holdings as part of the tariff negotiations. That was a smart thing to do because they're hoping to restore some calm to the market. There have been fears that they would do that. And should they start to sell? Well, you know, look out below. It's going to get really messy. I haven't heard any statements from China regarding their holdings. We don't
Starting point is 00:48:48 actually even really know how many they are because much of them are held through proxies. But I presume that this is a chip that they're going to be holding close to the chest. So I just want to follow up on that a little bit. I just updated my chart on aggregate open interest on the CME Bitcoin futures and the Bitcoin price, that's the same chart syndrome. That's the key thing I need to point out. A bull markets always have massive disparity, particularly new assets like that.
Starting point is 00:49:14 You get everybody in doing the ARB. I was quite involved with some of those listening and people who are doing it and made some decent money on it. It's been the focus since future started and ETF started. That's my point. Now it's in the mainstream and that ARB is mostly over but why because it's all dependent on one thing price must go up that's why I like to say holdo doesn't mean hold on for dear life it means everybody's in it's long
Starting point is 00:49:35 long haul as long as the price goes up I remember using that in 1999 in 2007 same thing we're just rolling over and these are just highly speculative digital risk assets and bit's the leader. The problem is it does have millions of dependents. Gold only has three. You don't have to respond to that one again, Dave. I'm not going to say it again. I will just say-
Starting point is 00:49:57 I think we know where we feel on the crypto market versus Bitcoin. No. I mean, look, meanwhile, globally, when you look at the strength of the Bitcoin network, I mean, yeah, it's backed off from it's over 100, you know, 1000 X of hashes or whatever the hell that number, that number is so big, it's hard for my brain to complete, whatever. What matters is we're five times where it was when Bitcoin hit its previous all time high.
Starting point is 00:50:21 And what matters is Bitcoin mining is seen as strategic and Bitcoin has been declared a strategic reserve asset in the United States. And there's all sorts of reasons and air cover for many, many things to happen. But when you look at that hashrate chart, it's actually gone parabolic to the point where it can't can correct. It is the most obvious fundamental arbitrage in history, literally. And it's one of those things that it's well, because you know, yeah, you see the great trade. I just say the great trades over for now. I'm not saying it's going to fail.
Starting point is 00:50:53 No, no, it actually looks the yeah, the hash rate will correct. It's still correct. No, it's not. I mean, well, okay. What's that? A hundred thousand. Pull up, pull up, pull up the hash. No, no, pull up the price.
Starting point is 00:51:07 Okay. Tell me someone, you know, who can buy and sell the hash rate and make money on it. So I talk about GDP. Sorry, you don't buy and trade it. Bitcoin is where the money is. You buy or sell it. That's my point. It's great.
Starting point is 00:51:18 I love the hash rate. We all get it. It's been going up. I used that years ago. The point is the price is going down. I think it's going to continue to go down. Hash rate might be an indication to go up, but go ahead, trade that hash rate and see how that works out for you.
Starting point is 00:51:28 I'm messing with you, Dave, because you can't trade it. It's just an indication. The bottom line is the price has been, is peaked at a hundred thousand. It's maybe false a little bit. You talk about oil constantly about, you know, why does, why is oil going down? It's because people invested in productive capacity, but here's the difference. Mining hashrate does not create elasticity of Bitcoin. Why does oil going down? It's because people invested in productive capacity. But here's the difference. Mining hashrate does not create elasticity of Bitcoin.
Starting point is 00:51:48 It literally doesn't. It's because it's a zero sum game. It's very, very different. So what you're seeing is either the people who are investing in the Bitcoin network are morons or they're making rational economic decisions based upon what they understand and what they understand is that you're wrong. But most people trading Bitcoin do it to trade to make money, not rational economic decisions. The point is, there's a lot of silliness going in the space.
Starting point is 00:52:17 For instance, Bitcoin miners buying Bitcoin, an oil producer would never buy oil because they know that's doubling down at risk. The thing is, I'm worried about when people tell me that … Oil producer would never buy oil but oil is very elastic to oil miners, oil drillers and Bitcoin is not elastic to the miners. Bitcoin miners are buying Bitcoin. Why they're doing it is because the capital markets are giving them free money and they're saying I can mine and pay at a bare profit for electricity or I could buy Bitcoin.
Starting point is 00:52:49 They're doubling down and price must go up. That's called leverage. It's doubling down and price must go up. There's no doubt there's some leverage in the system. Okay, that's my point. Here we go. I understand that. We're deleveraging.
Starting point is 00:53:00 That's my point. Well, it's interesting. If one believes that Bitcoin is becoming a reserve asset, it is dramatically undervalued. Based on one human being that we point out, I know I'll point out earlier, is facing a lot of litigation. That's my point. Everybody put their hopes in Mr. Trump. What's happening right now is that we're deleveraging most markets. Bitcoin, cryptos are part of it, and you're just telling us, you're viewers, it's going to stop on a dime.
Starting point is 00:53:26 I'm like, good luck. I'm not saying anything's going to stop on a dime. If anything, I'm thinking it's the opposite. I mean, one could rationally believe that Bitcoin should be substantially higher than it is today based on having people from both parties, Larry Fink, no one's going to confuse him with a MAGA Republican. It really matters
Starting point is 00:53:46 I mean Bitcoin is a very interesting asset. We could talk about this forever. I mean, obviously, you know It were this is a macro show So I don't want to spend my time talking about only why Bitcoin is where it is in its adoption cycle But Bitcoin its adoption cycle is actually ahead of many other Bitcoin its adoption cycle is actually ahead of many other technology adoption cycles. And in those adoption cycles, you don't see corrections back to 90% very often. It happens and we've had that happen in Bitcoin. It has already happened at times. The question is now it's at a very different place in its origin and we can talk through it. Look, we'll have a whole conference to talk about this in a few weeks. There's a few weeks, you know, there's all sorts of hyper hyperbolic.
Starting point is 00:54:28 I mean, I stood up, I orange-pilled like five people at, at, at a TradFi event last week. And I don't want to go through exactly what I said. But the short answer was, someone said, What's backing Bitcoin? And I said, Well, the world's strongest computer network isn't backing Bitcoin, but what it enables it to do is be a perfect conduit to convert energy into value. And that has value. And so whenever people say Bitcoin is a utility, they're just missing the fact that there are African villages that have clean water now because they can effectively create power in remote places where that power can be channeled into Bitcoin to supplement the use of the
Starting point is 00:55:04 power for things like, you know Purifying water the same thing is true with renewables or whatever Every time you treat Bitcoin like it doesn't have that capability you miss something now with the rest of crypto There isn't any of that. I mean there there's lots of stuff in the crypto The water in African Village, come on, man, no, but I mean, Jeff Dorman from Arco would tell you that there are many crypto assets that have positive cash flows and that makes sense. And I have quite, you know, been promoted.
Starting point is 00:55:36 I think that utility will make a comeback in the back half of this year because there's some value there, but there's also a lot of crap. I mean, I, you know, I think there's a lot of crap in the crypto verse. I mean, I think we're gonna go just for the record, Arka has to be literally the worst performing fund in the history of crypto.
Starting point is 00:55:53 I was in it, they doubled down on Luna sent a passionate letter about on the way down how they were buying more and going to FTX to get 100% on their treasuries. And they've underperformed because I have left my money in there just so that I can mock them as a principal. But they've literally underperformed even the galaxy index that Mike's talks about every month in existence since then. So yeah, well, I'm not going to speak to that as an individual is a reasonably smart guy. No, I mean, he's however, and I'm just as I'm sure we're heading. I'll get the final word to wrap this up because you're somewhere between the two.
Starting point is 00:56:26 Thank you. As I'm sure we're wrapping up soon and to bring this back into the macro realm, we've been talking about the short-term decoupling or not decoupling and the narratives and everything. But what happens when markets have to stimulate? Again, we've already seen announcements from jurisdictions
Starting point is 00:56:45 around the world saying that they will be stepping in to help stimulate their economies in response to the hit from tariffs. We're going to see the same from China, probably big scale fairly soon. And it's pretty likely that should treasury liquidity continue to build, then we will see similar in the United States. So here, which assets will fare well in that scenario, which is eventually going to be inevitable? Obviously, risk assets, the Nasdaq drop will probably reverse, but there's only one asset that is both a risk asset and a longer term store of value.
Starting point is 00:57:19 And I'm wondering if when that change comes, that kind of dual nature will end up becoming better understood. What's this trigger for stimulus? In the US or elsewhere? Lower assets, the stock market going down and then you get the stimulus. We haven't done that yet. Yeah, no, I don't think the US will not be the first. We're going to see this start to happen elsewhere and Bitcoin is a global asset. It doesn't really depend on US liquidity quite that much. Sure, US liquidity is the bazooka of all liquidities and that will only
Starting point is 00:57:49 happen when the Treasury market wobbles. Yeah, I 100% agree with that and I think that a Fed cut at this point is not particularly impactful if it doesn't come with significant QE. Yeah, I also don't see a Fed cut this year still, no matter, unless it's because something really bad has happened. Yeah, I mean, you have Larry Fink out on the road show saying maybe they'll hike. A little bit scary, a little bit scary right now.
Starting point is 00:58:18 So anyone waiting for that Fed cut to save us, it might not do it even if it happens. It is worth pointing out the one thing that came out this weekend, which is fascinating and not surprising is there's a massive pivot away on the doge front and the budget stuff that where debt deficits are already increasing like our budget deficit this year is bigger than it was the first six months of last year and that is stimulative no matter how you want to look at it it is stimul. That fiscal stimulus, that money has to go somewhere. That money is being spent.
Starting point is 00:58:50 And we'll see how that plays out. That's something we should pull on next week. James will love that topic. That's interesting. That's his favorite. I didn't know that. But crazy and surprising. It's 10.03.
Starting point is 00:59:01 We did it. That was a really fast hour. I wish this show was three hours long. I could go full Lex Fridman on this one. But I don't know why. It was 10.03. We did it. That was a really fast hour. I wish the show was three hours long. I could go full X-Frippin on this one. It was fast. Yeah, it went really fast. Well, thank you all. Noel, it's always a pleasure to have you keep us civilized, as they said. James is pretty civilized too, though. I don't know. I think you're all very civilized. Thank you, thank you. And Dave, nice shirt. Another McLaren victory this weekend.
Starting point is 00:59:29 And F1. Otherwise, we'll of course be back next Monday with Macro Monday, and tomorrow I'll be back with the guys from ArchPublic at 9 a.m. Eastern Standard Time. Until then, give Mike, Noel, and Dave a follow. Thank you all, and we'll see you next week. Thanks everyone.
Starting point is 00:59:45 Let's go. Let's go. Let's go.

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