Unchained - Bits + Bips: Why a Trump vs. Fed Showdown Would Crush the U.S. Dollar - Ep. 822

Episode Date: April 23, 2025

An independent Federal Reserve has long been the cornerstone of U.S. economic stability, but what happens when that foundation is shaken? In this week’s episode of Bits + Bips, the panel digs into one of the most dramatic threats yet to financial markets: Donald Trump’s suggestion that he could fire Fed Chair Jerome Powell. It’s not just political theater, it’s a potential major blow to the credibility of the U.S. dollar and the independence of the world’s most important central bank. Joining the panel is Zach Pandl, Head of Research at Grayscale, who explores why a rotation away from U.S. dollar assets might already be happening and what that means for bitcoin. Plus: Why the Fed’s independence is so crucial The telltale signs of a structural capital rotation out of the U.S. Whether bitcoin has officially decoupled from equities How young crypto HODLers will react to their first bear market And why this moment may look more like Argentina than America Show highlights: Sponsors: Bitwise Hosts: Alex Kruger, Founder of Asgard Ram Ahluwalia, CFA, CEO and Founder of Lumida Steven Ehrlich, Executive Editor at Unchained Guest: Zach Pandl, Head of Research at Grayscale Links Trump Threatening Powell New York Times: Risk of Financial Panic Tempers Trump on Firing Powell Barrons: Trump Calls Powell a ‘Major Loser.’ 3 Ways He Could Sideline the Fed Chair Inconsistencies in Hard v. Soft Data Wall Street Journal: Trump Is Everywhere Except in the Economic Data Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia: Carefully Balancing Both Hard and Soft Data in Policy Discussions Dropping Dollar CNBC: U.S. Dollar Falls to Three-Year Low as Trump’s Powell Threats Further Dent Investor Confidence New York Times: The Dollar Keeps Falling as Its ‘Safe Haven’ Status Is Questioned Bitcoin Decoupling CNBC: Bitcoin Retakes $90,000 as Investors See It as Alternative to Diving Dollar and Turbulent Stocks Decrypt: Bitcoin Decoupling? BTC Rises as Equity Markets Swoon Timestamps: 👋 0:00 Intro 👀 3:44 Could Trump really fire Powell? And what would that mean for the Fed’s credibility 👷13:01 Why the Fed is seeing conflicting signals from the economy 📈📉 20:07 If Trump keeps Powell for now, how will the market react? 🚪 24:49 Why capital is rotating out of the U.S. and how it is such a big moment for bitcoin.  🤕 31:37 How much further the dollar could fall in this cycle? 🔗 42:43 Has bitcoin finally decoupled, and could it become a global reserve currency? 🧑‍💻 50:11 How the young age of crypto holders could reshape market dynamics 🧠 1:04:26 What specific things Ram, Alex, and Zach are watching now across macro and crypto Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey all, just a heads up that this episode was live-streamed Monday at 4.30 p.m. Eastern. Bits and Bips will be live-streamed every week going forward now on Mondays at that time, after the markets close. Be sure to join us on X or YouTube. We're probably not going to see a big pivot from the White House on tariffs in the next week. So for me, the song remains the same. You're supposed to be avoiding assets that are at the center of the storm, which are really large-cap U.S. equities and favoring assets. that benefit from this sort of stagnationary environment. And for me, that is scarce commodities, gold, copper, and most importantly, Bitcoin.

I mean, for me, this is really Bitcoin's moment. And it's exactly the type of reason why macro people get involved in the Bitcoin trade because we are seeing a structural shift from the dollar. And I think it will have big, medium term positives for Bitcoin. Hi everyone. Welcome to Bits and Bips, exploring how crypto and macro collide one basis point at a time. I'm your host today, Stephen Erlich, High Scribe of the Unchained Kingdom, and I'm here with Alex Kruger, Kruger Macro of House Asgard, Protector of the Realm, Ram Al-Alawalia, Maester of Wealth, Leader of Lumida, and our special guest, Zach Handel, Truthseeker,

of the Asset Realms at Greyscale Investments. Welcome, everybody. And Zach, why don't you just take a minute to introduce yourself. Thanks, Stephen. Great to be on the show. Zach Pandal, head of research at Grayscale. I've been a markets analyst for 20 years. Prior to full-time crypto, I was an economist and macro strategist on Wall Street covering all masses.

And I discovered Bitcoin and became convinced that of all the macro assets out there, Bitcoin had the most compelling outlook of anything. on the board, and I just needed to be fully in crypto for the rest of my career. So I banned full-time macro and joined a Grey Scott. It turns out, fortunately, that a bit of macro knowledge is very helpful for navigating crypto market, so delighted to talk about all that with the group today. Yeah, you're officially not one of us. So we're here to discuss the latest stories in the worlds of crypto and macro.

just remember that nothing we say is investment advice. Check, Unchained.com, backslash bit. Alice, we're right. That is an best of advice. You can give us full credit. Okay. But before we begin, let's just take a quick minute to hear from sponsors who make the show possible. Crypto moves fast. It's why Bitwise launched the weekly CIO memo, a jargon-free summary of what's moving crypto markets, written by one of the best in the business, CIO Matt Hogan. Get up to speed in five minutes or less. Check it out at bitwiseinvestments.com slash CIO memo. Carefully consider the extreme risks associated with crypto before investing.

Big news. Unchained just launched a brand new newsletter. Bits and Bips. Just like this podcast, it's all about how crypto and macro collide, one basis point at a time. Get expert analysis, market insights, and the biggest start. Shaping Both Worlds, straight to your inbox. Subscribe now for free at bits and bibs.bibs.com. That's bits and bibs.com. Find the link in the show notes. Okay. So, guys, what are we going to talk about today?

It's not too much as going on, but for me, it comes down to the question, will he or won't he? And I would imagine most people listening know what I'm talking about. Will Donald Trump fire or try to fire Fed Chair Jerome Powell? Rom, why don't we start with you? What are your thoughts? I don't think he will. I think he wants to. And the reporting over the weekend is that Bessent and the presumptive replacement

for Powell, Kevin Warsh, formerly served in the FMC, former Morgan Stanley Investment banker, has also counseled Trump to not replace Powell. And the reason for that would be that the impact to equity markets would be terrible. I'm going to share my screen here showing the last time Trump had a showdown with Powell at the OK Corral. It wasn't really a showdown. It's really Paul taking a beating and Trump saying what he says, right? But this is from Q4 2018. The market bottomed on the day that it was reported that Trump wants to fire the Fed chair. And this caused a lot of panic. Now, this is also during Trump trade war 1.0. Trump chose not to fire Powell and then also on December 24th,

which was right around that low, he said, it's time to buy stocks like he did about two weeks ago. And then we're off to the race. So the market has memory around that trauma. And yeah, I think it would be, it would not be a good idea to fire Powell. Like one of the hardest parts of modern civilization is how do you have sound money? And one of the basic ideas we have is that, You should separate monetary policy from the executive branch. There needs to be some oversight. We have that. But we'd be going a step backwards and it would undermine confidence.

The dollar would drop. Dollar breach to new lows today on a multi-year basis. The 10-year went up on a day the markets went down. Gold is going up. The risk assets are going down. And the sell-off today in part, in a significant part, was because of the threat to Powell. Okay.

Zach, what do you think about this? I mean, it's really interesting in a way. I mean, Trump nominated Powell during his first term. Biden redominated him again. And obviously, Donald Trump is having, to some degree, fire his remorse. But he's also been very unconstrained in the second term compared to the first. Do you think he's going to stop short in trying to remove the first? Is that sure? Look, I think you probably will not try to follow Fire Powell, but the fact that we are

even talking about it is what's important for markets. You know, the White House is testing institutional constraints on the executive in Lusie on immigration, on tariffs. And this is going to have medium-term implications for the U.S. economy, in terms of growth and inflation, in terms of the dollar and in terms of asset markets. And so, you know, I'm not sure what, what is going to happen. I think we are going to find some of these constraints on aspects of policy. And probably they won't go all the way towards threatening the role of the Fed chair. But I think markets can see the writing on the wall that U.S. institutions are changing, that this is going to have implications for the asset preferences for some of the world's largest investors, and you're going

to start seeing portfolios shift away from dollar-based assets into other things. And one of those other things is the largest asset in our market at Bitcoin. A scarce thing that investors are going to be interested in when you have challenges like this, trade wars, threats to central bank independence. And this is why Bitcoin is basically outshining every other asset except gold. It is trading only behind gold in this recent period. And I think that's remarkably positive for the outlook. So, Alex, I want to get your thoughts on this too, but maybe just expand out the conversation a little more. I mean, Trump and Powell are not necessarily on opposite sides. I mean, the Fed's dual mandate is support high employment and low inflation. But from my

readings of Powell's statements, he's of the belief that even if there's a one-time massive increase in prices as a result of the tariffs, that doesn't necessarily lead to ongoing inflation, which is why the Fed is being somewhat hesitant in lowering rates right now. So I guess what I would like to ask you and then anyone else wants to jump in. Do you think that's accurate? I mean, Powell and probably every other head of a central bank was wrong during COVID about the transit short inflation or their expectations of inflation. So what do you think about that? I don't think so. A few thoughts. The first one is before going on to that, Trump can't fire Powell by law. Unless.

he has cause. The problem there is that cause is subjective. Who the term is cause. Well, Trump determines cause. But then that has to go through the courts. And the judges are mostly Republican. So there is a very small probability scenario where actually he could actually make it happen.

And making that happen would be it's the end game. It's the end game for financial markets, as we know them. This is something that many people don't understand is how important an independent central bank is for well-functioning markets. Central Bank that does counter-cyclical policy to balance what the government, the executive power is doing. If you lose that independence, you end up being eventually, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, increase the probability very significantly of eventually the precedent controlling the central bank and becoming what Argentina is being, for example, for decades until Millay. Basically, you use the central bank to print the shit out of, well, the dollar in this case,

to finance whatever you want, and you end up in an economy with booms and busts. and and there is there is the trust in the system is lost so that that's one thing is like the thing is he can't really but there is a minimum there's a very tiny scenario where he could and that would be so bad that that's what we're saying the disaster we're seeing today as continuation of what of the disaster we have already been seeing i i guess i think of it a little bit more as a continuum you know that the central bank is you know it's not one day independent and one day dependent on the white house but it's kind of a continuum that if you look in the history, you know, in the in the in the 1970s, in the 1940s, you know, the sort of different degrees of Federal Reserve independence during its history. And I think even a little bit of threatening of the Fed's independence has implications for the shape of the yield curve for the value of the dollar. And I think that that's what we're seeing. I don't know that we're going to jump right from the U.S. to Argentina or Zimbabwe.

but we can move down the path of falling Fed independence and in an environment when you have stagflationary shocks that immediately becomes important for markets. And so if you didn't have the risk of inflation, you know, this question on Fed independence wouldn't be as important. But the combination of the stagflationary shock and moving down this continuum, pressuring Fed independence is driving asset markets today. And I think that will continue, even if we don't get all the way to, you know, fully putting the Treasury Secretary back on the FOMC as it was, you know, before the early 1950s.

Rom, you have something like to add? Yeah, let's, if you can share this screen here, this shows just how the Fed isn't a bind, right? The Fed is a dual mandate around maximized employment and deliver stable prices, control inflation. This is five-year and one-year ahead consumer-expected inflation rates. By the way, consumers are way off here. Like, we are experiencing disinflation yet right now. there's a tariff wall coming. Yes, it's inflationary, but it actually hasn't hit yet. So consumers' inflation expectations are high. And the Fed needs to keep those expectations anchored because there is a

reflexive effect. If consumers and small businesses expect higher inflation, then they'll demand higher wages. They'll pass on higher prices. And incidentally, you see the same kind of data in manufacturing services surveys or manufacturing surveys around prices paid and prices received. So this is what puts the Fed in a bind. Now, the Fed last year, you know, they largely kept rates higher for longer. They didn't cut, they didn't bow to political pressure. They did the 50 bibs cut in September.

Trump actually gave kudos to Powell for not, you know, interfering. I do think they have to keep rates. rates high through May and not cut in May, unless you see an NFP print of 50K or lower dislocation in the May jobs print. The other consideration is that the potential replacement nominee is Kevin Warsh. Kevin was on the wrong side of history. If you look at his calls in 2008 in September, he was saying, look, inflation's too high. We should not be cutting rates. Kevin could have taken what the great recession was into something far deeper and far worse. And look, I've been very critical about the Fed. The Fed is upside down on its balance sheet. QE was an unnecessary monetary

experiment buying MBS, bank supervision, choke point one point out. Those were all mistakes and overreaches, denying Kaelin Long a banking charter and making up a reason for it. There's a lot of criticism you can you can say about the Fed. But on Powell's specific, I'm actually giving Powell a better grade. I think he's held off a lot of the political pressure around him and is trying to make an accurate decision with a lot of noise and policy shocks in the system. Yeah, he's certainly acting like somebody that doesn't expect to be leaving before his term ends.

And, and Rahm, you actually, that chart you brought up reminded me of an interesting article that I read in the Wall Street Journal today. The title was something like Trump is everywhere but in the economic data. And it really kind of just pointed out that this big divergence between the hard and the soft data that we're seeing so far. And a big part of the article, big point of the article is really just that there's lags in certain things. Like people were up fronting inventory so they could get ahead of the tariffs and maybe some people were buying washing machines and other items for the tariffs and that might all get flushed out.

Plus, with all the Fed layoffs that are. still on payroll, that's going to roll out later in the year. But it really comes down to that dilemma that the Fed is really trying to understand, like, they're trying to thread the needle between the hard data and what consumers are expecting to happen. And just given Trump's proclivity to change his mind sometimes within a single day on tariffs, it's difficult to do that. And maybe Powell and the rest of the FMC, they don't want to unload the chamber until they really feel like they have to. And perhaps it is prudent to wait a little bit. Let's Let's move on.

Before, Stephen, sorry, before we go on and because that was your initial question. It's, I do want to comment on that is, it's, I agree exactly what you said.

And in fact, what you just said right now. And the point is that Powell cannot will be responsible for him to actually, for him on the board, to lower rates before seeing the pass-through and before seeing exactly what measures are going to be out there.

And the thing is, tariffs can turn into permanent inflationary pressure if there is retaliatory waves, which we don't yet know if they're going to happen. So he's forced to wait by definition, and him and the entire board have been saying this like broken clocks since day zero, they minus 30. They've been saying this over and over again. So Trump and his administration and Besson knew exactly what they were getting into that these guys would not yield because they can't or even if you disagree doesn't matter. The point is they firmly believe that they can't yield. Therefore, they can't. And there's been this whole massive narrative in financial markets about how they should yield.

But it's a made-up narrative that started in the last few months. They told us they can't. So we move. And by the way, if they could, I think, actually it wouldn't really fix much. Right. I mean, you have a, as you pointed out, you've got weak soft data, but you haven't seen yet weak, hard data. Any survey is at recessionary levels, by the way,

and CEOs are pulling back on CAPEX. You've seen the challenger announcement saying that there will be future layoffs. So if there's no pivot, you're going to see that. You know, you're seeing small businesses that import from China, get acquired from their China suppliers. Because it turns out that if Hermes has a 10x markup on a handbag made in China or Louis Vuitton, then if you sell DTC via America, even with a 245% tariff, you can make margin. But I think zooming out, what you have is a confidence shock.

That's shown up in the soft data. And now you have a confidence shock around confidence in U.S. dollar in U.S. rates. And that's why you've seen this rotation out of the U.S. dollar denominated assets. It's extraordinarily rare to see the S&P and NASDAQ down two and three points today plus and the 10-year widen. It's extraordinarily rare. What's happening is people in Europe and Asia are rotating out because they have a confident shock. There's a dent in the American brand. And part of that's driven by the tech.

And Paul, part of us for by tariffs. Ram, let me say there is it's not just Europeans and nations. It's Americans and Argentinians and absolutely everybody because at the end is we're not here to do charity to the U.S. government. We're here to make money. And it's an investment in treasuries. And if everybody, if we have expectations that others are going to be selling, well, we sell as soon as possible. Right, I mean, gold and big into the safety trade now, not the 10 year. That's a change in behavior.

Yeah. And by the way, the long end, the 30 year is getting absolutely demolished. I mean, what's happening on the 10 is nothing with the long end of the curb. I want to get into sort of the rolling away from traditional state havens because that's a really important part of this conversation. But first, just to maybe tie the knot on what we were discussing right now, I'd like each of you to maybe just share. share what do you expect to happen under i think we're on agreement that that trump is not going to try to fire pal or he's not going to be able to successfully do that um with that assumption what happens the rest of the week assuming that there's not another big variable like a trade

agreement being announced with japan or south korea or uh he decides to unwind the tariffs on china i mean uh the s mp down i mean all the things you mentioned rome they're all down two percent, everyone's seeing red. Are we going to see some sort of relief rally tomorrow when people come to the census and realize that Trump is not going to do this? Or even if he does, it won't have, he won't be able to do it for months because this is going to have to go through the courts or like in a very non-financial advice type of way, because that's not what we do here. What happens? Like how should traders, how should investors try to position themselves? If Trump tries to fire Powell, you're going to get incredible volatility. And it'll be

litigated in the court system. Yeah. That means multiple news events spanning multiple months. That means more volatility. Right. I think that's pretty self-explanatory. If that happens. Suppose that doesn't happen.

Suppose that can happen. Then there are two stories. There's a tariff story and then gross scare slash recession story. And what we saw over the weekend is Japan walked away. Eurozone doesn't seem inclined to get a deal done. And my hypothesis is that you've got the finance ministers on a metaphorical signal chat saying, gee, the U.S. just imposed the largest sales types in American history and Americans. And now they want to do a deal and they're asking for an ask.

I mean, the story was that the Japanese finance minister came to the table and Luttonet, representing the U.S., said, what is your offer? And they said, you guys put these tariffs, taxes on yourself, and what's your ask?

What's your ask? And so they went home. And, you know, China, you know, this is a government that takes a multi-decade view. They take the long view. Japan takes the long view. They're not in a rush to cut a deal.

And my read of this, might be wrong, is that they are forcing Trump to pay a high political price. Because none of them are getting a deal done. Even Mexico, who was in Trump's corner and Trump said he's got a great relation for the prime minister. They also walk back some comments. Eurozone leaders are making overtures to China. There's a conference in Slovakia. Even the UK, who the U.S. is a special relationship with, hasn't leaned in.

And, you know, Besson's idea, this was floated out there last week, Besson had an idea to isolate China, build a wall around China, which is a fantastic idea. That's a fantastic idea. Unite the world around China for the bad behavior. That's not getting traction because there are different factions in the Trump regime. So, you know, Trump is a price setter and a term setter. He can end this whenever he wants.

What is the face saving exit? What does that look like? it could be, hey guys, we're doing 10% across-the-board tariffs. That could do it. He's meeting with Walmart, Costco, and big retailers imminently in a few days. They obviously import a lot from China. And what they're all going to say is, hey, these tariffs have to go. Otherwise, they have to pass prices on to consumers.

Remember what Trump told the auto makers? He told GM and Chrysler and 4 don't raise prices, even though they have an 8% margin. and they have a 25% tariff hitting the bottom line. So he's getting an earful. He has to pivot. So we'll see, though. We have to make a decision on Trump's read of the situation, unfortunately. No one can.

You just have to see what he's saying on Twitter. And just quickly, Zach and out, what are your thoughts just near term the rest of this week with what happened today under the assumption that Trump is not going to try to remove Powell, at least in the very very, your future. Yeah, I'm happy to tackle that. Look, I personally don't think today's price action is primarily about Powell and the Fed. I see a kind of more continuous trade across assets since April 2nd, which

was the tariff shock day. And you've seen U.S. equities lower, non-U.S. equities outperform, dollar weaker, steeper curve, scarce commodities benefiting. I think what we are seeing is big, real money, pools of capital make big changes to portfolio allocations that they've had in place for many years. You know, U.S. equities and the dollar long were the big structural trades of the last 15 years, and those trades are coming undone. And so, you know, we're not going to see the Fed chair fired in the next week. We're probably not going to see a big pivot from the White House on tariffs in the next week. So for me, the song remains the same. You're supposed to be avoiding assets that are at the center of the storm, which are really large-cap U.S. equities and favoring assets that benefit

from this sort of stagflationary environment. And for me, that is scarce commodities, gold, copper, and most importantly, Bitcoin. I mean, for me, this is really Bitcoin's moment. And, you know, is exactly the type of reason why, you know, macro people get involved in the, in the Bitcoin trade. because we are seeing a structural shift from the dollar, and I think it will have big, medium-term positives for Bitcoin. But for the short term over the next week, for me, we continue to see the same trends that we have since April 2nd with more or less no change. And Alex, I mean, talking to the continuing the discussion about the structural shift,

I mean, rotation into European equities and German bonds, et cetera. How, I'm sure there's plenty of my managers that are listening. to this? And I mean, what are the questions that they should be asking themselves? Because Europe is not a perfect economy. If it was, then I think people were afraid it was going to be 20-something years ago when they launched the euro. But that hasn't happened. So, I mean, it's not a perfect economy. I mean, they've lowered rates to support their economy. They're worried about cheap Chinese dumping on them after they're being shut out of the U.S. market. I mean, how should investors think about Europe and some of the other, I guess, places around the world that there are suddenly other

emerging markets that are suddenly looking at. I mean, there's no one that can really replace the U.S. right now. I mean, it's the safest port in the storm, but the U.S. is such a gargantuan share of capital markets in the global economy that there's no perfect substitute. The thing is the question is pretty much where to hide. That's the question. Where do you hide? And the answer is, unfortunately, nowhere. Because if you're going to hide in gold right now, well, you already missed the largest move in decades on gold. It's like Trump could turn his view on China and yield very fast out of nowhere with a tweet.

And then gold is down. Yeah, it's quite likely we would say gold could be down 7% in a day. Well, a day is too much, no, but let's say in a week. Like a minus 4% in a day can definitely see that happen. And then you're stuck there and you're suffering. So the point is it's where to hide is very difficult. Take a look, Stephen, at this chart. So this chart shows, it's a ticket, FXY, it's currency shares, Japanese yen trust.

So this is where people are hiding. People are hiding in Swiss franc bonds and Japanese bonds. That's where people are hiding. in addition to gold, but gold is a commodity. Now, the answer used to be U.S. bonds. This goes back to the behavior shift that Zach was alluding to earlier. We want people to be buying bonds and they're not. That's the plan.

By the way, they're all overbought too. They're all overbought. My base case is this is classic bear markets. We're in a bear market. You can get a rally if there's a pivot in policy. It started as a correction. tariff, Fed, confident, shock, seamless off data. If you shift policy, you can get a recovery in asset prices.

If you don't shift policy, then you get declining earnings growth, declining margins. That translates into losses. And so this is, my base case is bare market, but if policy changes decisively, not in a mishmash kind of way, where it's, It's like Lutnik today and Besson Tomorrow and Peter Navarro another day. Then you can get a recovery. Technology firms will report earnings next week. That'll be important for large-cap tech.

Also, Friday this week is when the blackout period on share buybacks ends. So during earnings season, there's a period of a few weeks where companies cannot buy back their shares. Share buybacks are an important part of the bid. And market liquidity is extremely thin, extremely thin. So that can be a positive catalyst. You're looking for that. One other data point is today you're at the August 5th lows in the correction. And Bulls did defend the August 5th lows around 3.30 today, which is, that's good.

If you're going to rally, now is a place where you can rally. Ron, the question, I'm sorry, based on what you just said, the buybacks. I'm particularly interested in like which sectors, which kind of. companies may engage in these bybacks or ones that might sit it out because it really kind of signals to what executives think about the current. It's the MAC6. It's those names, right? Like there's a trillion dollars in buybacks, by the way, this year that'll happen over a trillion.

It's those MAG6 names that have tremendous amounts of free cash flow, right? So that means Google, meta, Microsoft, Apple. those are the names that will other names that do bybecks too by there are plenty of other names that do by VEX just to be clear but they do the bulk of the buybacks given just their massive free cash flow and I know that they're struggling I mean just because the hyperscalers with like deep see and just concerns about like AI I guess how intensive AI really is I think there's a real spotlight on those in particular and and there are bellwether for

such a big part of the market that I think that is an unappreciation appreciated data points. I'm glad you brought that up. Does anyone, exactly, this is a good one for you. What do you think is like the current lower bound for the dollar? It keeps dropping, especially compared to other major currencies. Good question. Look, I think Alex made a good point earlier about the tactical. You know, over the next week, you got to be a little bit careful about things like gold, which have had a big move. I agree. Short-term fall could be very high depending on what we hear from. the White House. But I have high conviction in the weaker dollar trend at this point. I mean, this is a trade that has been a long time coming. You know, this isn't the kind of beginning of this discussion. It's sort of the dollar has been overvalued for a while. The U.S. International Investment position and current account balance have been imbalanced for a while. The question is like, when do you have a big enough catalyst that begins a period of trend dollar weakness. I believe we have that catalyst now. So where are you going? There's lots of different

measures for the dollar, but to use the imperfect DXY measure just because it is the most widely followed, I think we are headed to 70 on the DXY over a few years. So a trend dollar depreciation and very comparable to what we have seen after other periods of big trade conflicts in U.S. history. So it sounds like a big move, but to me it is exactly what we've seen after big events like this in the past. You know, what we saw on April 2nd from Trump, in my view, is most comparable to the Nixon shock on August 15th, 1971, where we did a sort of remaking of global trade and currency policy in the United States all at once. I think we are living through a period comparable to that. And to me, that means a big trend in dollar weakness. So something like DXY to 70 would be my own price target.

And so what does that mean for your portfolios? Those are the conversations that we're having with investors. And I think Alex's point about the tactical is well taken. But I think that gold will perform well in that type of environment. And I think that Bitcoin will perform exceptionally well in that type of macro environment. Okay. So just one more. I don't interrupt this terrific discussion, but just a quick break for ads and then we're going to come right back. Hi, I'm Matt Hogan, CIO of Crypto Asset Manager Bitwise. Look, crypto can be confusing. There's so much noise and the space changes so quickly. That's why, every week, I write a five-minute memo on the biggest stories impacting crypto in plain English.

Why is Bitcoin up or down? What are people missing? Where should investors look next? Get the lowdown every week. Sign up to get the weekly CIO memo delivered straight to your inbox. Go to bitwiseinvestments.com slash CIO memo. That's bitwiseinvestments.com slash CIO memo. Carefully consider the extreme risks associated with crypto before investing. If you love the conversations we have here on Bits and Bips,

you're going to love our brand new Bits and Bips newsletter. Our team will break down the key macro trends impacting crypto, the biggest market moves, and expert insights you won't find anywhere else. Whether it's the Fed, inflation, or major Dow proposals, if it affects crypto, we've got you covered. Best part is completely free. Stay ahead of the market and subscribe now at bits and bibs.bibs.bhive.com. That's bits and bibs.bhive.com. Find the link in the show notes. Okay. Ram, I know you wanted to make a point on, or should the DRCRA.

wire charts. Yeah, briefly, just, you know, I think I agree with Zach's point here. Yeah, these policies are bearish for the dollar. This is exactly what Zach was saying. Yeah, the U.S. dollar broke through recent lows. That does not look good. That does not look good. So if you want to understand why gold is up and Bitcoin is up, this is why investors are

selling U.S. to all the denominator assets. That includes U.S. bonds. It includes U.S. stocks and foreign investors are doing it. Americans are doing it also. Yeah, it's, you know, with the current set of policies, it's hard to see that reverse. You know, a high inflation rate is 3%. We're talking about 10 to 25% inflation rates that are higher than smooth holly. And when people say, hey, this is a one-time inflation shock, that's a very abstract,

copacetic statement. It sounds like you're in hospice and listening to some light, soft music. So what time inflation shock? Have your pain. This is the pain. Then we'll get to Valhalla. it's a severe price shock and the impact is to lower earnings both for corporates and for consumers and increased costs.

It's not, you know, and I think the other point brought up earlier, like you, you know, you can get wage price spirals. That can't happen. You know, this is a theory that Steve Moran wrote in a paper and they said, hey, if we have tariffs, then the dollar will strengthen that hasn't happened. It's just wrong. It's flawed. And rates went up.

this isn't helping Main Street at all. Mortgage rates are higher. Lumber costs are higher. The only thing has gotten lower is energy costs. Why? Because it's concerned by global recession risk. So you save on your fuel, but now you have a 401K, that's a 201K,

and $10 to $15 trillion in a negative wealth effect with a 19 times PE multiple, the elevated valuation. I don't know where oil is today. I mean, I think it's in, what, the mid-60s or something, And I know President Trump is talking about that as a good thing. Inflation is going down. Look, gas is going down.

But as you said, Ron, that that pretend some some heavy pain for the economy. I'll pay $4 gas for all that rise. Yeah. Alex, why don't you jump in here? On this dollar move right now, as of right now, is the largest since August, 2009. Sorry, it's May 2009. And we're on

the 21st, I think, is by the, you have an extra percent and a half correction. And this is going to end up being the largest move since the 70s. Monthly down. Yeah, exactly. And on

like people ask, like, when do you fade, when you take, it's oversold or it's overbought. And with these kind of moves, I think is not very wise to be fading the trend at all. It doesn't matter how about or bought it is. It's very easy to actually go bust doing that pretty much. And on that, I wanted to comment on something that actually also ties up to the where do you hide.

And what Sack was saying is, ironically. Bitcoin may be one of the best places to get into because it's been a risk on asset since March 2020. And it took the most insane event in modern financial history, which was coronavirus, to change the correlation and turn Bitcoin into something that actually it was perfectly non-correlated to equities. This is something that people believe,

because of that famous liquidity chart, which is nonsense, that Bitcoin followed equity. No, that's awesome. That's different kind of nonsense. Actually, it's very similar kind of nonsense, but yeah, it's the kind of thing made by people

who don't understand econometrics. But anyway, the point is Bitcoin until March 2020 had a correlation that was that almost perfectly averaged zero, hovered around zero perfectly since inception. It took coronavirus, coronavirus, corona crash to turn Bitcoin into a high-levered S&P 500. And it may take this insanity we're going through to turn Bitcoin into digital gold.

So the way to think about this, I think, is if we get a bounce and Trump backtracks and we get a very strong bounce on risk, I think Bitcoin flies. And if the opposite happens and we keep on crashing, at least Bitcoin is holding up extremely well. In fact, it's up since April 2nd. And there is a narrative that is self-fulfilling that eventually stress attracting flows, which I think we're already seeing. And the last thing here is on a, it's a very long Bitcoin, by the way, but as a caveat, it's like the move since last night was highly, was driven by a lot of leverage. So it's Bitcoin. You know,

it's a very unpredictable asset, highly volatile, very concentrated pockets of, of liquidity. These thing, yeah, we could get unlucky on this thing, suddenly is down 6% on nowhere,

you know? And then the entire narrative goes out the window, but whatever. I'm sorry, Alex. So let's let's talk about a little bit here because I'm very interested.

I mean, I think, Ron, maybe you can quickly show the chart of the time of the day, Portnoy tweet. Oh, yeah, that's a good one. Let me show one chart real quick,

back to Alex DePoint on what works. I think everyone wants to know what works in a bear market. Absolutely. And then we got to show the Portnoy chart, which is just hilarious because this guy's timing is as good as Kathy Woods, as far as I can tell. He's not good. So this shows different bare markets.

It shows when they started, ended, the length, the recession, the inflation rate, and then the nominal return, the S&P and then different assets classes, 10-year, 30-year, 10-year tips, Germany, Japan, T-bills, gold, and then currencies, Japan, USD, Swiss Frank, USD. We saw these last two are doing very well right now, and then DXY. Okay, so, yeah, this is a good thing to screen capture or take a look at. I wrote this in the Lumina Ledger newsletter this weekend, if you want to see kind of our views on this.

But, you know, the headline is in a bare market, your mission is to preserve capital. there's very few assets that kind of fly okay yeah and it's very rare and usually for some unique circumstances and you're not seeing the tenure perform like it did in the dot com era okay so um i kind of i kind of agree with alex alix points earlier on like the hey don't be a hero part um shorting assets can work but most people will not do it successfully here's a question i actually wanted to ask all of you and I haven't, I didn't tell you about it in advance, so I'm interested in your thoughts. I think today, what, Bitcoin actually recovered everything that had lost from Liberation Day. And obviously, the rest of the class is it, with the exception, I guess gold have not.

But I would, I'd love to see if we could kind of break down the value proposition of Bitcoin into its core components, because this is a question that comes up to me a lot, and I'm sure many of you with your clients, so on and so forth. It's sort of decoupling or uncoupling with other asset classes, except perhaps with gold. The store value narrative has certainly taken hold. The digital, more divisible store value is something, too. But we're also living in a world where, I guess, I mean, for the first time at a very long time, Maybe since Brenton Woods, we have to really talk about the potential dissipation of the U.S. dollar as the world's reserve currency.

And in that case, I mean, Bitcoin is not well suited to take on that role. It's way to volatile, as you said, Alex, and frankly, too many people huddle and don't want to part with it for any reason because of the fear of losing out on future gains. I know that I'm getting pitched every day by someone with a new BTC DFI platform. I'm trying to make Bitcoin a yield-bearing asset and create an economy for Bitcoin. Frankly, I don't see most of it. I mean, maybe they mean well, but I just don't see any of them having a very strong business case. So how does all of that fit in in the way that you value Bitcoin and try to create a more nuanced discussion beyond just buy it and hold it?

And then the bigger question is at some point, if people really really, do move away from the U.S. dollar, what's going to take its place? I don't think that Bitcoin is an ideal or suitable candidate even to do that, but then maybe some of you disagree. Here's the Portnoy slide. So David Portnoy, he's with, which organization that again? I don't know that really matters. Anyway. Yeah, Barsoe, this is a chart of Bitcoin. And then at 1218 p.m., he says, has crypto actually decoupled, uncorrelated? And then, of course, that was the top and then Bitcoin dump. But although Bitcoin today, right now as we speak, is at 87,100.

So somewhat above from that level you saw on the chart. Well, I'd love to weigh in on that, Stephen, and I'm curious everyone else's take on this as well. So I just wanted to offer some high-level points because there's a lot of discussion about this question on dollar dominance, including on crypto-Twitter. and I don't know that people have necessarily kind of thought through exactly what that means. You know, what does that mean exactly? What it means is that the U.S. economy is around 20% of the world economy, plus or minus, say, 5%, depending on what you're measuring.

But the U.S. dollar is about 60% of global finance. Again, plus or minus, depending on what you're measuring. So the U.S. is 20%, but the dollar is 60%. And so the dollar is dominant, meaning the U.S. dollar punches way above the U.S. economy's weight in the global economy. When we say that the U.S. is losing its dominant status, all that we mean is that that number, 60 percent, is converging downward towards 20 percent. The dollar is not going away. The dollar will be the number one reserve currency asset for a long time. But over the last 10, 20 years, it has on the margin been losing. its most dominant position to other things, including the Chinese yuan, including physical gold.

And when we say that the tariffs, you know, could affect dollar dominant. So what I mean by that is that it can accelerate the diversification away from the dollar that is already in train. And so that 60% will fall over time. And I have high conviction about that. Now, how does Bitcoin fit into that story? Now, there's lots of different ways that we can tell that story. Bitcoin is its own special thing and it's not like any other asset in global markets. Digital gold is probably the most effective metaphor for what Bitcoin is in traditional markets, but it is its own special thing. And one of the implications that I think these events have for Bitcoin is a direct one, meaning that sovereign investors have been diversifying in part into physical gold,

especially since Western countries put sanctions on Russia after the invasion of Ukraine. I personally believe that sovereign investors will buy Bitcoin this year. That is one of the consequences, I think, of these events that we will see efforts to diversify sovereign assets, including sovereign reserves. And my own working assumption is that that will include Bitcoin. Now, there will be many other changes that are relevant for Bitcoin. But I think the digital gold aspect of Bitcoin will extend to many more buyers, more companies, more high net worth individuals, and in my own view, probably to sovereign buyers this year as well. So I think these events will have direct implications for Bitcoin demand and for price.

I'm curious everyone else's take on that. Just wanted to comment on what you were saying, Steve, on basically how to get yield on Bitcoin. Just a quick one here. it's you can get yield on on Bitcoin by time locking your Bitcoin in your own wallet without giving up custody and

delegating that to core chain to get right now yield around 7% non-custodial that's yeah I think it's it's yeah consider a shill A bull carries bear case before you here. You know, on the, on the, in the bold cases, you know, the relative performance of Bitcoin is notable.

You can't deny it. So outperformed other asset classes, including today. It's up a couple points, right? So that's one. And number two, it benefits from a devaluation of the US dollar, which is happening right now. You can see it in gold terms. You can see it in Bitcoin terms. If there are continued confidence shocks in the American system,

Bitcoin should benefit from that. The seasonality is also there in place, too. That's the bull case. The bear case is that Bitcoin's a risk asset. And if you look at what's happening in equity markets, the volatility we see today is similar to the volatility we see during COVID. This is a COVID-level volatility. Bitcoin didn't do well in COVID.

and the standard theory is that if you get a recession, people sell assets that are correlated to their consumption basket. So they sell risk assets. So if you get a recession, I do think Bitcoin would take a hit. We don't have that right now. I think that I think Trump can actually intervene. Every day that passes, though, the problem gets bigger. So anyway, I think those are both sides of it.

I'm interested, Ron, just to just to just build on what you said, a lot of new Bitcoin buyers have never faced a recession. I mean, I'm sorry, the ETF buyers, I mean, some corporates, I guess some sovereigns. Can you maybe, because I know you've done this in previous episodes of bits and bibs. I'm sure you do it in your regular life. I mean, maybe talk about just sort of the demographics of Bitcoin buyers and holders and in particular the ETF purchasers and how they might behave. if we really hit a prolonged recession? Have you seen big outlaws?

Maybe, Zach, you can even answer this too. Amographics are really simple. If you sold drugs on Silk Road in 2011, you're a billionaire, Bitcoin. That's your demo. That's your core. I'm teasing, half teasing, actually. It's a lot of wealth that was created from those early adopters of Bitcoin. But yeah, the demographic is pretty young, I would say.

I mean, it's up sub 40. Now, our clients, we have a number of wealthy crypto and native clients. clients that have generated extraordinary amount of wealth. I don't think people understand that. Like, this is a significant amount. It's a $3 trillion asset class. Maybe it's $2.5 million, whatever the number is, right? Across a concentrated base.

So there's extraordinary crypto wealth around there. And that demographic skews young. They're interested in aging and longevity and performance and their founders and very thoughtful people, very thoughtful people, original thinkers too. But that's the non-consensus thinkers, entrepreneurs. And there's a mix of people. Some people like to huddle. Some people play the cycle.

I think the better approach is to approach it as a play the cycle. You know, guys, somebody just said here in the comments, recessions never can when everyone expects it. I think that's true with some very rare exceptions, which is basically when really shit really hits the fun. 2020, we did get a recession. Everybody expected it in that March, and it did happen. I think this is a very similar case.

And if things don't change very fast, the U.S. is going into a very severe recession. And the thing is, Trump has to very well know this by now. I mean, parts of the economy, they're already going into standstill. He's willing to tolerate a recession, Alex. I don't know if you saw that reporting.

Yeah. I'm not so sure. They even have a joke at the White House. It's called a quote 1929 scenario. They have a joke like that in the White House. I'm not so sure. I think it's mostly a matter of, I think it's mostly matter of ego, because if we get a very large,

if we get the economy, say, down 2% this year, inflation up to 4%. He gets destroyed in the midterms. He becomes a lame duck president. This is the bull. It's not a case I believe in, but this is the bull case, the Trump bull case. around the reason for tariffs.

Okay, we have tariffs. We eliminate income taxes for everyone on our $150,000. Tosco, collect $200 and win a re-election and get midterms. That's the story. That's the story right now. I call that the unicorn case. That's the case people are making. I don't think I don't buy that case.

I think that if you get into recession, even if you're recovering by the time the midterms happen, people may not even know that. I think this is a great debate. I maybe just add. I mean, I don't know that a recession is baked in, but full disclosure, I have been one of those people that has made of a career trying to call recessions and frequently got it wrong. So I understand how difficult it is to call these things right. But when we look at the kind of Trump policy package, you know, tariffs are one element of that and there's a lot of moving parts and it's part in the negotiation, et cetera. But there is tax cuts and deregulation. and maybe other things and maybe deals that lead to domestic investment in production. So I'm not sure. I think I'm open-minded on whether we have two negative quarters of GDP growth and some labor market weakness this year.

It may happen. What I have more conviction in is I think it's much more likely that inflation is going to average above 2% and below 2% over the next couple of years and the dollars is probably going to fall. And so when I'm thinking about asset markets, if the, conviction were recession, I would just say you're supposed to buy bonds. But for me, the conviction is more about kind of disorderly price shocks and currency weakness. And I think the asset market implications and portfolio implications are different. And I think it's a tough call, really, you know, what the growth consequences are of all this. First off, recessions are sometimes predictable.

2008 crisis. You had money markets break the buck. You had Jim Kramer have a meltdown in August of that year. And you had a severe financial crisis. you had a dot-com bust, you had a COVID, and the onset of the pandemic, everyone saw that we had an instant recession. In 9-11, you had an instant recession due to the confidence shock. So sometimes you can. I think the more relevant marker in a recession is job losses. The technical definitions, I don't really matter.

The hallmark of a recession are job losses. So the question is, will you get job losses with the current policy package? And every element of the GDP equation is going negative. from fiscal dominance to fiscal restraint, from more trade to less trade. Consumers are gaining their turtle shell, cap-back spending going down. So state and local governments are also pulling back.

They're going to less federal backstop. Doge cutting a couple hundred billion, and all for eliminating fraud, and waste and abuse, but you have to approach things in a certain way and balance with deregulation and tax cuts were still off in the distance. People aren't even considering that.

So the policy package is like an austerity, recessionary policy package. You know, companies are pulling back on guidance. So how do you forecast with clarity of a negative wealth effect, right? Markets are reflexive. When people feel good about their asset base, they spend more. People don't. They spend less. There's less international travel.

That's taking place right now. So I think you are seeing those behaviors. It can be stopped. It can be stopped with a policy shift that's immediate and decisive with clarity. We're not seeing that. You know, over the weekend and another contributor, I believe, to the Monday sell-off, including with Powell, was, you know, Trump said CEOs that are supposedly smart don't understand the economy.

You can't do that. Can't do that. That's not going to inspire confidence. So a couple things. I want to start getting ready to wrap up here, but there's still one or two things I want to discuss. I mean, one thing wrong, based on your comments that you were just saying that I think kind of encapsulates everything. There was an article I read, I forget where it was called something like the Schrodinger's economy or something. And it talked about the United Airlines basically issuing two different sets of guidance based on essentially what type of economic world that we were in.

And that has to be kind of anathema. to any sort of equities analysts because their whole job is to essentially boil everything down to one stock price for a for a company. But it just talks to it like the type of uncertainty. And then the challenge for investors, everyone listening here to try to figure out this like multi-worlds theory. It made me smile a little bit because I'm a big fan of the big bank theory. And Schrodinger's cat was a big driver of season two when Penny, when Leonard was trying to date Penny.

But it really just kind of speaks to. to like this is such, I mean, everyone here is a veteran market watcher and, and it just speaks to just this unprecedented challenge because we're getting comments, what's going to happen the next six months, the next 12 months. I mean, you're talking about quarter to quarter of what's going to happen. We're getting close to earnings season. And I know people are looking out to banks and wondering if they're going to take big hits into their profitability, if they're going to have to write down credit losses, at what level

and higher, lower than expected, what's going to happen with consumers? And it's just, like you said, I'm like, this could theoretically change with one tweet, one, one truth. And then, but then I guess it also depends, will people believe him or not. Policy has to follow. Policy has to match. Well, quickly on that, I think it brings me a good point that Sack was saying before, but that we talk about reversals if something happens, some major trigger on policy. that said

a weaker a very long time from weaker daughter trend having just started does make sense

regardless because now the world is concerned this could happen again and again and again

yeah if I could just weigh in on that comment one one point just tiny fine

it's like when you have a portfolio of assets and one of those assets

becomes much more risky you rebalance to the other assets And that's what's going on here.

It's the dollar assets have become riskier. And so people are rebalancing to the other assets. And so that's going to benefit all things that compete with the long dollar trade. Zach, one follow up to that. I mean, as we all know, the U.S. dollar, I mean, it became interprimacy because after World War II, I mean, the U.S. was a place of unprecedented power. But there also was Brentwoods. There were the plaza accord.

There were many multilateral. I guess agreements where other countries agreed to give the U.S. dollar primacy and help maintain that primacy. I mean, Zach, if you're saying that if one piece of the basket gets risky, you move away. But if we're going to talk about a permanent move, you think there has to be some type of similar multilateral agreement and how might country, how might the world decide on what that may be? Yeah, good question. Not necessarily. We don't, you know, we don't necessarily have to have a unipolar world forever. You know, my own view is that the end game of all of this is regionalization, that the Chinese yuan is used more extensively in China's sphere of influence. The dollar

continues to be extensively used in the Americas and the U.S. a sphere of influence. You know, Europe remains a huge question. And I think that there is room for other things, including digital assets like Bitcoin. That is my own expectations. So, History does tend to have these one currency dominant system and this network effects for that. But I personally think the endgame for our current struggles is a kind of regionalization. In terms of negotiations, look, every trade conflict is a little bit different and these things don't happen that many times. There have been sort of three major episodes, you know, since the early 1970s, essentially, in the U.S. history. But what history tells us is that the outcome of these tensions is very often not so much tariffs remaining in place, but currency weakness, that other countries would prefer to deal with the imbalances through a kind of market-based mechanism that involves a currency adjustment as opposed to just very high tariffs.

So I personally think that that's going to be the outcome, that tariffs are not going to ultimately be this high on U.S. and China bilaterally, which is where the high tariffs really. will be, but currencies and other things will be part of the adjustment of process. But we'll see. I think, you know, history doesn't give us a perfect guide to these types of things. But to Alex's point, I think a weaker dollar makes sense in a lot of levels. And it accomplishes what the White House is trying to accomplish, which is to shrink the trade deficit. And so to me, that's the trending outcome, the trending trade that you're supposed to stick with, of, you know, following these events. And sorry, Ram, for. I agree on the weaker dollar, not even.

head there. I just don't see alternatives to the US dollar stepping up anytime soon. You know, the dollars linked to... Argentine peso, very good currency now. You need the security guarantee and umbrella. Yes, that's being pulled back. But like, you know, the United States has 11 aircraft carriers. That's what's backing up the US dollar. The United States is interceding on the Houthis to protect trade for Europeans because

the Europeans cannot do that. That part of the US dollar. Japan and China will not settle in Chinese currency. They're deep historical reasons for that. And China is not providing guarantees. China's providing security risks for that region. So, yeah, U.S. dollar doesn't really have an alternative. It's just getting unfortunately devalued versus other assets and commodities.

I think countries can re-rate each other's assets lower, and that's what's happening now, because kind of Alex's point, we have this uncertainty. premium. There's now a Trump risk premium that has to get discounted because there's a possibility that this comes back. Maybe you have clarity, but maybe you change your mind the next day. That's a risk premium we now have to account for. So, you know, you're going to have more volatility. I don't think markers have fully discounted all of this. So you can get some tactical bounces and maybe you get a recovery. But, you know, I think the confidence shocks haven't been fully priced And that's why market liquidity is thin.

So I think why don't we start to wrap this up, but to do that, I'd like to ask each of you to, I guess, answer a question or two. Ron, why don't we start with you? I'm interested in either, A, what is one question that you yourself are going to try to answer this week related to markets? Or do you have, like, one maybe contrarian view? point or notion that that is worth sharing? I think the most important question for markets is what will be the end state for tariff policy? It's the number one question and will be stable.

If you know that, then you have a lot of clarity and a lot of things. Analysts cannot make forecasts. Estimates are driven by forward-looking cash flow models. And if you don't have a Ford PE, then, then you have to guess and you have to pull back. So the number one thing driving markets right now is tariffs. There's a growth scare lurking in the background because if tariffs remain high and elevated,

then the growth scare and the soft data translates into hard data. So, I mean, I'd love to see Lutnik fired. I'd love to see Navarro fired. I'd love to see Bessent, the benevolent, elevated in terms of economic policy. If you do that, you get to run to all-time highs. I don't think that happens, I don't think that happens. The probability it could happen.

That'll be one hell of a tweet, though. If that happens. Okay, Alex, why don't you, same question? So on this week, Japan deal, if there is a very positive Japan deal, bringing rates 10% or lower, with clarity, ideally even lower. I'm ready to buy

equities very fast, very aggressively. Tactically, like one three-day hold, four-day hold. It's just good enough. And then on contrarian view, I think most of the things we discuss here are ironically contrarian because about 30% of the population in the US,

let's think US now, not the whole world. They are MAGA. They are very, very aligned with their leader. And they believe anything he says. Therefore, they don't believe that there is going to be recession. And the most of this, and they don't, they expect a very quick bounce and they expect things to be extremely good, no matter what in the US, in a year or in six months. So that makes things very complicated. it because it kind of like complicated at the same time it brings opportunity because there is a dislocation, there is

marketing efficiencies. It's not everybody jumping on the same boat at the same time. A lot of people say, fuck this, you're wrong. You're just wrong. Just watch. Just wait and see. Trump is going to solve everything and the economy is going to be roaring in Q1, 2026,

which could happen, but not in the current course. Or if it doesn't work out, it's because someone else is doing it to you. It reminds me a lot of like sanctions policy where like the US I mean deployed sanctions for decades after the Cold War as a non-kinetic way of trying to change. Yeah, yeah. Sorry, one quick comment here is it's most of the followers I may know

or half the followers. I've been a very strong Trump supporter in fact until he until February until what he his tariff policy ended up being not a replay of trade war. 1.0, but the insanity that we've been going through. And I think one of the most important things in markets is not to be right and not to be, it's not about being right or wrong. It's about

when we are wrong, how fast we pivot. Zach, well said. Yeah, same questions to you. What am I trying to figure out? Well, look, I don't know if it'll be this week, but maybe just to offer something slightly different. Like tariffs are one big part of what's going on. I personally believe that the tax cuts and the kind of fiscal package question is still a big uncertainty. The Trump administration has talked a lot about reducing deficits. I kind of think that that's actually not going to happen because that has to go through Congress. You know, what the president has asked for is extending his 2017 tax cuts, no tax on tips, no tax on Social Security. So we may get a pro-growth fiscal package, you know, a growth stimulating.

a tax cutting fiscal package that offsets some of the growth drag from tariffs. So that's what I'm trying to kind of answer for myself in terms of U.S. macro questions, is where are we going to end up here on the budget deficit? Are we going to get a shrinking of the deficit, in which case, like an austerity policy? I think that word was used earlier, in which case my probability a recession would go up. Maybe we don't, though. Maybe we just get no tax on tips, no tax on Social Security, an extension of the 2017 tax cuts, in which case it's stimulative.

And the outcomes are more inflationary rather than recessionary. For me, that's a big open question currently in U.S. macro. Great. And any last thoughts from any of our panels? Could I say one other small thing on this dollar dominance point, because I think it's important for crypto here is I think you can be bearish the dollar and think that the dollar is going to lose some degree of dominance in global finance and still be incredibly enthusiastic about stable coins and stable coin adoptions, which are mostly about dollars.

I really think that these are distinct trends, and I've seen some commingling of that on crypto Twitter lately. I think I am both incredibly bearish the dollar and incredibly enthusiastic about stable coin adoption, which is an important kind of more micro trend or technological trend playing out in crypto at the moment. I mean, having cash and extra and bonds. I mean, I've been buying bonds, you know, waiting for better opportunities and better clarity. I liked all the points made all around, including Alex's point, I don't know, being humble. And either you can be very nimble or you have to be patient and wait for clarity. Nimbleness is very hard for most people, fortunately.

Okay. All right. Well, thank you to Zach, Alex, Ram, for once again sharing your expertise. Thank you to the thousands and thousands who tuned in on the live stream to watch us. And be sure to tune in next week for another episode of bits and peps. I'd lead to every life.