Coin Stories with Natalie Brunell

News Block: Bitcoin Falls Behind as Gold and Silver Rally, Journalist Uncovers Massive Minnesota Fraud
Date: December 29, 2025
Host: Natalie Brunell

Episode Overview

In the final News Block of 2025, Natalie Brunell breaks down a challenging year for Bitcoin amid growing excitement for gold, silver, and AI-linked stocks. She explores the underlying causes of Bitcoin’s lag, contrasts its fundamentals with precious metals, and delves into a headline-grabbing Minnesota fraud scandal to illustrate systemic issues with the fiat monetary system. The episode is packed with sharp insights, memorable quotes, and analysis connecting economic events to the Bitcoin proposition.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Bitcoin’s Lackluster 2025 Performance

• Bitcoin expectations vs. reality:
  • Forecasts suggested Bitcoin could reach $150k to over $400k in 2025. Instead, it finished the year down about 7%.
  • Quote:

    "Here we are near the close of 2025, and bitcoin is down roughly 7% on the year. So what's the cause of this?" — Natalie Brunell [00:33]

• Relative underperformance:
  • Bitcoin’s pain for holders is less about losses and more about feeling left behind as other assets, particularly gold, silver, and AI-driven tech stocks, experience explosive rallies.
  • Sentiment has "turned sour" as nearly every other asset class enjoyed a “Santa rally,” while Bitcoin stagnated. [01:18]

2. Gold & Silver’s Historic Rallies

• Gold:
  • Up roughly 70%, its best year in decades.
  • Rally driven by safe haven flows, expectations of rate cuts, and fears of currency debasement.
• Silver:
  • Up around 170%, its gains driven by investment demand, industrial need, constrained supply, and geopolitical risks (e.g., China’s export controls).
  • Notable context: Silver is needed for electronics, EVs, solar panels, and military applications.
  • Supply cannot rapidly increase because most silver is a byproduct of other metals, making price surges slow to incentivize new supply.
  • Quote:

    "Silver isn't just a store of value metal. It is a critical industrial input for electronics, EVs, solar and defense applications." [02:24]

3. Bitcoin vs. Precious Metals — Fundamentals Compared

• Short-term perceptions:
  • Bitcoin may look less like a safe haven and more like a speculative "levered tech play" when sentiment shifts and investors want safety.
• Long-term value proposition:
  • Unlike gold and silver, whose supply can respond (albeit slowly) to price increases, Bitcoin's 21 million supply cap is fixed and unresponsive to price or demand.
  • Key quote:

    "Bitcoin is the only asset in the world where supply will not change in response to demand, ever." [03:57]

• Bitcoin’s edge:
  • Absolute scarcity, digital portability, global divisibility, and transparency.
  • Portable and instantly transferible without intermediaries or the need for secure storage (unlike physical gold or silver).
  • Referencing Tyler Winklevoss:

    “Most people don't realize that bitcoin is gold 2.0. Smarter, better, faster. I'm confident the market will eventually figure this out.” — Natalie quoting Winklevoss [05:04]

4. Massive Minnesota Fraud Scandal

• The story:
  • Independent journalist Nick Shirley exposed daycare centers in Minnesota allegedly collecting millions in taxpayer money with little to no evidence of actual services provided.
  • Federal prosecutors warn this could be part of a much larger “industrial scale fraud” involving high-risk Medicaid services in Minnesota.
  • Staggering figures:
    • $18 billion in costs flagged since 2018, with $9 billion or more potentially fraudulent.
    • For perspective, this outpaces the infamous FTX collapse ($8 billion).
  • Quote:

    “If these figures end up being anywhere near where prosecutors are suggesting, we're talking about something that could rank among the largest fraud schemes ever.” [06:52]

5. Systemic Issues: Fiat Money and Fraud

• Fraud enabled by fiat system:
  • When money creation is disconnected from scarcity, the constraints aren’t “do we have the money?” but “who gets it?”
  • This environment fosters waste and fraud as political incentives prioritize expansion, and accountability lags.
  • Public loses track of what billions and trillions even mean, generating the “perfect environment for waste, misallocation, and fraud.”
• Consequences:
  • Taxpayers ultimately bear the burden—debt for future generations, more fragile fiscal outlook, increased inflation and currency debasement.
  • Erosion of trust in institutions and government.
  • Quote:

    “When money is treated like it's effectively unlimited, the fraud opportunity can start to feel unlimited, too.” [07:40]

6. Bitcoin as a Solution: Rules, Transparency, Trust

• Loss of trust in systems prompts search for alternatives
  • As confidence erodes, people look for transparent, consistent, and verifiable systems—values central to Bitcoin.
• Bitcoin’s protocol as an antidote:
  • Scarcity and transparency are non-negotiable; rules enforced by protocol, not people.
  • No ability to “print” more or fudge the ledger; public, auditable, and resistant to manipulation.
  • Referencing Matt Odell:

    "Bitcoin has been running for nearly 17 years. At the protocol level. No transaction has ever been blocked. No coin has ever been seized. Not enough people appreciate the magnitude of these simple facts." — Matt Odell (quoted by Natalie) [08:51]

  • Anyone can participate by following the same transparent rules; fairness and trustlessness are fundamental.

Notable Quotes & Timestamps

• On market disappointment:

  "It's not the negative 7% number itself. It's the relative performance when it feels like everything else is making new highs and bitcoin is just treading water." – Natalie Brunell [00:58]

• On Bitcoin supply vs. gold and silver:

  "Gold and silver are scarce, but their supply can and will still respond to demand. Over time, higher prices can pull forward production, incentivize exploration... Bitcoin is very different." [03:34]

• On fraud and fiat incentives:

  "Fraud at this scale becomes so much easier in a fiat system because money stops feeling scarce when funding is ultimately backed by debt and central bank balance sheets." [07:07]

• On Bitcoin’s core principles:

  "You can't just print bitcoin out of thin air to fund your programs and earn votes." [08:24]

• On transparency and rules:

  "The protocol itself is designed to minimize the surface area for fraud and corruption. The rules are enforced by the network, and the ledger is public, so it can be audited by anyone." [09:08]

Timestamps for Key Segments

• [00:17] — Recap of Bitcoin’s 2025 underperformance
• [01:18] — Surge in gold, silver, and other “scarce asset” classes
• [03:12] — Silver’s industrial demand and supply constraints
• [03:57] — Comparing Bitcoin’s supply dynamics to precious metals
• [05:04] — “Gold 2.0” analogy and long-term Bitcoin thesis
• [05:52] — Introduction of Minnesota daycare fraud case
• [06:52] — Scale of Medicaid fraud and FTX comparison
• [07:40] — Fiat money system and fraud incentives
• [08:24] — Bitcoin’s unprintable, rules-based structure
• [08:51] — Matt Odell quote on Bitcoin integrity
• [09:08] — The power of transparent, protocol-enforced money

Summary & Takeaways

This episode of Coin Stories News Block offers a sobering reflection on why Bitcoin struggled in 2025—outshone by commodities and speculative tech, but fundamentally unchanged. Natalie Brunell’s analysis highlights the cyclical nature of markets and underscores why Bitcoin’s inelastic, transparent, and frictionless design stands out against not just precious metals, but also the fiat system plagued by fraud and waste. The episode closes by reaffirming the case for Bitcoin as a fairer monetary system, emphasizing that as institutional trust crumbles, the appeal of opt-in, transparent alternatives will only continue to grow.

End of 2025. See you next year for more Coin Stories.