Why Gold is Breaking Out

Summary

Podcast Summary: Onramp Bitcoin Media – "Why Gold is Breaking Out"

Date: August 6, 2026
Podcast: Onramp Bitcoin Media – The Last Trade
Host(s): Onramp Bitcoin team (A, B, C, names not specified in transcript)
Episode Theme: Examining the breakout in gold prices amid changing US Federal Reserve (Fed) policy, broader macro uncertainties, and implications for Bitcoin, equities, and investors.

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Episode Overview

This episode dives into the recent surge in gold prices and the underlying macro dynamics fueling the move. The hosts assess the US Federal Reserve’s increasingly opaque posture under Chair Kevin Warsh, skepticism around inflation metrics, concerns about ballooning US debt, and a fragile AI-driven equity market. The discussion then zooms out to explain why hard assets like gold (and Bitcoin) are likely beneficiaries. The episode closes with a look at the circular nature of AI investments, increasing physical and digital security threats for crypto holders, and a lightning round of thought-provoking stories about AI’s impact and worsening student loan defaults.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Federal Reserve’s “Dovishness” and Market Theater

Timestamps: 00:00–06:17

• Fed Chair Kevin Warsh’s Approach:

  • Warsh is seen as dovish despite persistent above-target inflation. Investor skepticism is rising due to less transparency and talk of new inflation metrics.
  • The Fed’s communication is increasingly opaque, with potential for "less guidance" and shifting how inflation is measured.
    Quote (B, 01:03):
    “People think Warsh is going to be this super hard-nosed guy, get inflation down. It’s all an act, it’s all posturing.”

• Rate Hike and "Air Cover":

  • There is speculation Warsh may hike rates once before year-end to create room for cuts later, thus justifying future easing as market conditions worsen.
  • Major equity indices (particularly AI-linked stocks) look vulnerable to higher rates, yet the Fed is “trapped” by long-term debt dynamics and market fragility.

• Fed Forward Guidance and Reading Between the Lines:

  • Opaqueness in the Fed’s communication makes it hard for markets to grasp true policy intentions. The "Fed whisperer" routine is called out as near-mystical (and noisy). Quote (C, 05:09):
    “Isn’t that the Fed whisper parlance… you’ve got to read through the lines, Michael. You have to try to prognosticate what’s actually happening. They’re not telling you the truth. They’re obviously just…spewing noise. You gotta find the signal in the noise.”

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2. US National Debt and Gold’s Breakout

Timestamps: 06:21–12:14

• Ballooning US Debt:

  • US national debt increased by over $450 billion since July 1st. Government fiscal discipline is called into question (“spend money like drunken sailors”).
  • Skepticism about whether government-reported numbers are meaningful anymore.

• Gold as the “Signal”:

  • Gold recently broke out of its trading range ($200+ higher), signaling distrust in soft monetary policy and the perceived move to a new Fed inflation target (3% vs. 2%). Quote (A, 07:27):
    “Gold is sniffing out after having a major run…the instability, it’s sniffing out the theater that we were just discussing…”

• Why Gold is Running Hard:

  • Gold is seen as a safe haven as the Fed gets further trapped by debt and higher rates.
  • The panel expects the generational gold run to continue, potentially hitting $10,000-$20,000/oz over the decade.
  • Importing hard assets (gold, bitcoin) is positioned as the prudent move: Quote (C, 08:31):
    “You should be importing hard assets whether it’s gold or bitcoin…just fold gold, outpace inflation, escape the permanent underclass. It’s really that simple.”

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3. Structural Market Risks: AI and Circular Revenue

Timestamps: 12:14–18:04

• AI’s Equity Market Dominance and Vulnerabilities:

  • Much of AI company revenue for hyperscalers (Amazon, Google, Microsoft) is circular: they invest in labs like OpenAI and Anthropic, which then buy cloud services from them. Quote (A, 15:08):
    “It’s estimated over 70% of Amazon, Microsoft, and Google’s AI revenue comes from OpenAI and Anthropic…once you move these two core labs out of the equation there’s very little spend happening.”

  • This creates a debt-fueled, potentially unsustainable boom—likened to past sectors that fell apart once easy funding dried up (e.g., WeWork, Uber, DoorDash).

  • Speculation that the AI investment narrative filled the post-2021 venture capital bust, absorbing surplus capital and propping up GDP.

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4. Crypto Security: Physical and Digital Risks

Timestamps: 18:04–24:18

• Violent Attacks and Crypto Theft Rising:

  • Chainalysis reports $30M+ in violent crypto thefts in 2026; clear link between Bitcoin’s price appreciation and the frequency/scale of attacks.

  • France identified as a hotspot; amount at risk is up 100x over the decade. Quote (A, 18:04):
    “As bitcoin becomes more valuable over time, you’re going to see more of this…we really need to get serious about how do you protect people against these types of threats.”

  • Increasing attacks cause psychological stress for holders, especially those with families. Discussion of self-custody, physical threats, and the need for stronger community awareness.

• Security Sophistication:

  • Attacks now target higher-value individuals, are more sophisticated, and are likely to intensify. Quote (B, 21:17):
    “We’re moving to a world where it’s very easy for someone, a bad actor, to basically sleuth who holds Bitcoin, how much you have, where you’re going to be…”

  • The uniqueness (and risks) of digital bearer assets compared to equities, bonds, or real estate are highlighted.

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5. Lightning Round: Power Constraints & Student Debt

Timestamps: 24:18–27:41

• AI’s Power Bottleneck:

  • Ex-Citadel quant breaks down energy as the central bottleneck for scaling AI—physical infrastructure (not just chips or capital) is the next big constraint.

• Worsening Student Loan Default Crisis:

  • 20% of Illinois federal student loan holders are now in default; the risks of pursuing traditional degrees are ballooning as AI disrupts the job market.
  • Alternative paths (entrepreneurship, startups) are framed as essential amid massive structural change in education and employment. Quote (A, 25:30):
    “This is a testament to just how risky it is to play it safe these days. You follow a conventional path without really thinking critically about it, I think you’re going to end up in a more precarious situation…”

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Fed Theater and Policy:
  (B, 01:03): “People think Warsh is going to be this super hard-nosed guy, get inflation down. It’s all an act, it’s all posturing.”

• On Reading Fed Signals:
  (C, 05:09): “Isn’t that the Fed whisper parlance…you’ve got to read through the lines, Michael. You have to try to prognosticate what’s actually happening. They’re not telling you the truth. They’re obviously just…spewing noise. You gotta find the signal in the noise.”

• On Gold’s Superiority:
  (C, 08:31): “Importing hard assets whether it’s gold or bitcoin…outpace inflation, escape the permanent underclass. It’s really that simple.”

• On AI Revenue Realities:
  (A, 15:08): “Once you move these two core labs out of the equation there’s very little spend happening.”

• On the New Risks of Digital Wealth:
  (B, 21:17): “We’re moving to a world where it’s very easy for someone, a bad actor, to basically sleuth who holds Bitcoin, how much you have, where you’re going to be…”

• On Student Debt and AI:
  (A, 25:30): “It’s just a testament to how risky it is to play it safe these days. You follow a conventional path…without really thinking critically about it, I think you’re going to end up in a more precarious situation…”

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Conclusion: Episode Takeaways

This episode cuts through macro “noise” to highlight the growing cracks in the US economic and financial system, as seen through the Fed’s signaling, soaring debt, fragile AI-driven markets, gold’s breakout, and the unique threats facing digital asset holders. For professionals and individuals navigating these turbulent markets, the hosts make the case for hard assets, structural vigilance, and critical thinking—themes with special resonance for anyone watching the intersection of Bitcoin, gold, and the unfolding future of finance.

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Listen for:

• Deep skepticism of official inflation stats and the efficacy of Fed communication
• Why gold’s move is telling a story few in traditional finance will
• How circular AI revenue may distort equity markets
• The rising risks of self-custody for crypto holders
• Why today’s economic shifts demand unconventional thinking for prosperity and security

Transcript

[A]

Act two of the Worsh Fed huddling referees on the sideline. Nick, if you could click show more just under the summary. I'll read the AI slop summary and then we can get into signal versus noise here. Kick things off today. So Fed Chair Kevin Warsh dovishness despite five years of above target inflation has sparked investor skepticism leading to declining $30 year treasury yield highs and concerns for long term US debt. Potential monetary policy task force recommendations may involve less transparent communication, a smaller balance sheet with stability and inflation metrics that produce a lower reading. The inflation Framework task force, who's on this task force by the way, may shift more focus toward monetary aggregates, enabling the Fed to overlook supply induced inflation. Such a dovish approach risks market instability and rising long term rates. Brian, this feels like right down the fairway for you. What's going on? I could give it to Michael but I know he's, he's going to be, he's going to take us off the reservation a little bit. So let's start with you.

[B]

This is, this is noise Central. This is noise.com this is a ton of noise. We've talked about the Fed a lot on other shows on this show and this is just the latest in sort of the theater, the propagandizing. You know, people think Warsh is going to be this super hard nosed guy, get inflation down. It's all an act, it's all posturing. The other headline that came out either this morning or last night was that Warsh and Trump are basically in constant communication, like Trump's calling him all the time, most likely telling him to cut rates. Now I think what he has done so far is basically take himself out of the process a little bit and say I'm going to be very data dependent. Where this title of this article comes from in terms of being the referee is like, you know, he wants to play the ball on the field and not be the referee, but he's sort of like changing the rules on the side. Like he's putting together these task force like new ways to measure inflation. So if that's not being a referee, I don't really know what is. So I think he's, he's talking out of both sides of his mouth a bit. The reality of the situation is I'm, I'm sort of coming to the view that he's going to hike rates. That seems to be the probability at least once before the end of the year. And I think that that potentially creates a tipping point where then he'll have Basically the air cover to then cut rates next year. I think if he were to raise rates even a little bit, I think that will spook AI markets generally, the stock market, which is so predicated on these AI companies and hyperscalers that are basically priced to perfection in various ways where nothing can go wrong, while at the same time there is the potential of something going wrong with the sort of onset of cheaper Chinese models. The cost of intelligence going down rapidly as we'll talk about later. So all of that is a potential dent to this thesis of these hyperscalers and these AI companies being super profitable and basically getting a return on all this debt they've taken on in the capex. And so I think that'll be his excuse. I think he needs air cover. And so I think he'll raise rates, sort of create a tipping point and then be able to cut into a more messy market.

[C]

Jesus Christ, fucking Fed whisperer. Can you go up to the, to the top? I mean, it's true, I mean like, I don't know, that sounds pretty good. But, but can you. I just want to like. So this is the summary of whatever's going on because I just frankly my author reservation angle of this is everyone thinks they know specifically around the Fed and they've done exactly the opposite of everyone, what they've expected from keeping rates this high to the market not completely blowing up. So I don't pay attention to it because I have no idea. But I just want to read the summary says Fed Chair Kevin W's dovishness despite five years of above target inflation has sparked investor skepticism leading to dollar decline. 30 year treasury potential monetary policy task force recommendations may involve less transparent communication, a smaller balance sheet with stability risk and inflation metrics that produce a lower reading. What did that mean?

[B]

Jackson?

[A]

Dude, I already read all that.

[C]

But like what does that mean?

[A]

Well, yeah, I think that's like what makes us incredibly noisy is because this summary is distilling the fact that we're going to change the measurement of inflation. So Warsh before he assumed the position was talking about trimmed mean inflation or something. So pretty much again, changing cpi. Crazy stuff.

[C]

But he's saying less transparent communication. Like how?

[A]

Well that, that just means that that's like the guidance stuff.

[B]

Yeah, he, you know, he abstained from guidance in the, in the, his first meeting.

[C]

But what partner guys like not wearing the green suit and he wears the blue suit. Or is it like the words? Like what, like the fort. Guidance is ambiguous in itself. Right?

[B]

Like in how it's like what, what rates are going to do, what he's going to do with interest rates.

[C]

I understand, but the point is like people take forward guidance on like what they say, what they wear.

[A]

Right?

[C]

Isn't that the, the Fed whisper parlance. You, you kind of.

[B]

Yeah, you got to, you have to read through the lines, Michael. You have to try to prognosticate what's actually happening. They're not telling you the truth. They're obviously just, you know, Jesus, man, spewing noise. You got to find the signal in the noise, Michael.

[A]

Yeah, I mean this is super noisy. I don't, I don't know what else. We got a little derailed on that first topic there.

[C]

So the one, the one relevant thing which ties into what Brian said is. It does, I mean that makes sense that they raised to go into cutting, which is already double speak. But it, it isn't in a precarious situation with GDP and a lot of the growth tied to the hyperscalers. And they're obviously interest rate sensitive. So that's just gonna be a fascinating thing to watch play out, I guess is the net of all this.

[B]

Yeah, you can't cut with these things ripping like stocks at all time high. It's like he needs to basically dent the confidence in the equity story before you can actually cut rates. Because I don't think it's palatable to just cut rates into all time highs.

[C]

Well, that's terrifying because if he dents the equity markets, everything's going to go with it, including.

[A]

What the hell, man. All right, let's get on, get on to the next topic here.

[C]

Can we not talk about the Fed for a while after this one?

[A]

Well, now we're talking about the debt. We're going to talk about gold as well, though I think maybe that could be a little bit more interesting. Charlie Bello, here we go. This is from creative planning. The US national debt has increased by over 450 billion since July 1st. The federal government continues to borrow from our future and spend money like drunken sailors today. Everything they said about balancing the budget was a lie. Well, yeah, definitely was a lie. I mean if you look at these numbers here, just, it is crazy. Do the numbers even mean anymore? I, I truthfully don't know. So just, I think this is noise. But if we can look over to the next tab as well, Nick, we can round out the story here from Willam Middle Coupe, how I do Fed feeds gold. After last week's Fed decision, gold broke out of its trading range and is now trading almost $200 higher. Investors understand the new Fed is steering towards 3% inflation instead of a 2%. So yeah, I mean the gold is probably the signal in this story.

[B]

Right.

[A]

So gold is sniffing out after having a major run, you know, the past 24 months or so really since COVID But the past 24 months were insane before the blow off top back toward the end of last year. But yeah, I think gold is really just sniffing out the instability, it's sniffing out the theater that we were just discussing because on one hand you can make the case for higher rates in the United States but then you're also introducing volatility into the equity markets. But you're also already seeing the 30 year treasury trading at all time highs, the yield trading at all time highs of close to 20 years ago. So things are getting pretty precarious. Gold I feel like is in a really ripe position to continue the generational run it's had the past five or so years just because look, we know that as the debt compounds, rates are higher, that means more interest expense but if you cut the rates it means melt up. So just the Fed is really trapped like a rat. I don't know where else this goes besides eventually going into gold and going into bitcoin and scarce assets.

[C]

Yeah, I, I'll be tight because I'm curious Brian's thoughts on like based on all of this, why gold right now is making its move. I think this just ties down to the oversimplifying imports, exports the government, the sovereigns export dollars. You should be importing hard assets whether it's gold or bitcoin. We talked about it a few weeks ago. Gold performance relative to equities, it's outperformed. So just fold gold, outpace inflation, escape the permanent underclass. It's really that simple. And so it makes sense it's going to run. I think people got a little hesitant or trigger shy because they saw it ripped to five and naturally it kind of like outpaced whatever and it was going to consolidate. But this is only going to go one way and I fully believe it'll be 10,000, 15, $20,000 over the next decade. It's just a matter of, you know, there's certain levers I think that get to that are pulled because you can't have that dollar to gold price, you know, move it too high a pace or things start to break.

[B]

Yeah, I think there's, I'm not going to try to pinpoint like the exact sort of move over this past week because I think it's A number of different variables. I think the signal of this topic, basically this topic is a signal because the first topic is noise, if that makes sense. Because the reason the Fed theater happens and the reason they have to prognosticate and basically lie to the American public is because these are the real signals. Whether it's the unsustainability of the debt, the interest, expense compounding, or a free market asset like gold signaling, like what's actually what, you know, actual market participants like sovereigns and, and others are actually worried about. And I think. So this reflects a few things. One, it's kind of Jackson, what you referenced around like there's been some comments from Warsh and other people at the Fed that basically it's like there's a mass coming off moment of like, yeah, I know we said we were going to be really tough on inflation, but we're actually just going to like revise inflation upward in terms of our target. I think there's a grander realization of that might be the play. And then secondly, it kind of relates to what I was saying before around like, I think there's also a greater recognition by the broader market that that AI equity trade is getting precarious. Like we've talked about this really for the past 12 months of like the circular nature of a lot of the revenues tied between the hyperscalers and the frontier labs. I think people are sort of waking up to that and realizing like, you know, this might end in travesty for at least a little bit because it's getting a little untenable. And basically if there's any hiccup, you know, you know, if you were to raise rates, then there could be a real hiccup. But I think people are realizing the precarious nature of that. And I think gold just sniffing out that like the confluence of all those things. Now this specific move this week, I mean, I'm not exactly sure, I'm not going to pinpoint it all on that, but I also think it's a technical thing of like gold went on a massive run, it kind of cooled off for like six months. But the structural trend which we've talked about for the past two years is completely unchanged. And so I think it's just sort of a resumption of a structural trend that we've talked a lot about.

[A]

Yeah, and it reminds me of a conversation we had a few weeks ago just about the fact that over several different time periods gold has outperformed the S P 500, which is just a story that no one on Wall street and traditional finance would be ever incentivized to tell you so. Yeah, I think Michael, you also made a good point just in terms of where does this go longer term? It goes to 10,000 an ounce, it goes to 15, 20. I don't know how high it goes.

[B]

Right.

[A]

But that's the direction it goes and you can pretty much just save in a better form of money and outperform the US equity market. Pretty incredible stuff. So if we move on to the next topic here, Brian, was this one from you, Michael, or both?

[B]

Yeah, no, this was a great write up from Ed Citron who has a newsletter and it's basically describing what I just alluded to in the last topic around. A lot of the hyperscalers came out over the past several weeks basically like, you know, reporting great revenues. But when like you dig into like what these revenues are, it's really just money that's coming back to them from OpenAI and anthropic, like a wild percentage of those that revenue growth is just coming from. If you scroll down, there's some good charts yet, that's one of them. Percent of anthropic compute spend for AWS as an example, it's more than half. And so basically what this is saying is it's again putting some more light or color around what people have been trying to articulate around the circular nature of a lot of this spend and this capex where basically the Googles, Amazons of the world are making these tens of billions of dollars of investment into OpenAI and Anthropic and then basically they're sending the money right back as reven new to these hyperscalers. And so this is part of that broader story of like. I think people are starting to actually get concerned about this.

[C]

Yeah, I mean I think this all comes down to flows and right now the flows are going in the right way and then they can naturally stop and then they'll go recurs, recursively backwards. But I don't think that this is like I haven't dug into this exact document, but I think this mirrors a lot of things we've seen in the these markets that are kind of distorted. I Remember specifically at WeWork where we work would get funded and then or Uber would get funded and they need more office space. So they went into WeWork and then we were grew and you could see like. And then you need more doordash. Right. And the liquidity was there and then it all recursively like went backwards when interest rates rose. And so I think like that's where this all ties into is that it works today there's demand but the second like and they're, they're providing the debt and for the capex and the growth but whenever that slows down.

[B]

Right.

[C]

Because they're not just directly tied to interest rates, it's tied to capital markets and debt servicing if that is ever to seize up. But that's where it goes back to. These are like distorted manipulated markets because that's individuals controlling it, that's not necessarily market forces. Especially when we talk about the subsidies as it relates to tokens and what it really does cost for this compute. So it's a, it's, there's validity to it but it's also similar like a lot of this stuff just feels outside of individuals or market forces control if that makes any sense.

[A]

Yeah, I think anytime you have this amount of concentration there's just a lot of risk to be wary of. The one headline that I don't think we read out yet was that the, it's estimated over 70% of Amazon, Microsoft and Google's AI revenue comes from OpenAI and Anthropic. I know you mentioned Brian that It was like 60% one of those stats but just to reinforce the idea here that once you move these two core labs out of the equation there's very little spend happening. It's just kind of not an organic situation to Michael's point about how these cycles and businesses have come and gone in the past.

[C]

Well real quick, and these are AI, I mean this is AWS revenue. Right. This isn't like because Google has you know, 50 different revenue scenes, Amazon has whatever.

[A]

Like this is the AI revenue specifically. Yeah, yeah, yeah, no I know it's, but it's just, it's, it is an interesting dynamic and it is like to my main point, concentration, when you see concentration like this, it is something just to be wary of and it is more of a debt funded circular boom as you guys described where it's just kind of like money sloshing around the same kind of jubilee.

[B]

A jubilee if you will.

[A]

It's a jubilee. Yeah. I mean I still like, maybe I need to like actually spend some time to flesh out my thinking a little bit more on this topic. But I do think that when you just look at the frontier models of China and us, there's just so much riding on these two companies in the us Whether it's like the debt financing at this point or the equity market valuations going public and their spend on compute. But it is a little bit alarming to see like even in the case of what's been going on with Bitcoin. Right. And how the models that have been used to discover vulnerabilities are all being done by Chinese models. So anytime you try to get this information out of the US models from like a, you know, positive perspective, not to attack, you're not even able to do so. So like there is a nature of like close versus open. And I think that these valuations are going to be under significant pressure if these U.S. companies don't kind of get their together.

[C]

Well, one just quick thing and I know we got to go is I do think it's very interesting how the AI narrative filled the void post 2021 collapse in private markets. And you think about it was like the, the perfect way to thread the needle of increasing the cost of capital via interest rates while still having a product and service grow. And it obviously would sound like a perfect coincidence, et cetera, et cetera. But it's just fascinating because when, if everyone remembers in 2122 the vintage of 21 from Venture Just Trash, nobody will get that money back. 22 markets collapse, nobody was throwing out capital. AI takes off, absorbs a lot of this capital, absorbs a lot of growth, facilitates GDP that would historically and it's kind of the other side of the coin about interest rates growing and nobody understanding how we were able to like persist at this levels. I, I think there's some design into that.

[A]

Yeah. All right, let's round out the last topic. I know we got a hard stop. Gotta wrap up here. So this is from Chainalysis. Estimated 30 million stolen and violent crypto attacks in 2026 as France records emerge as hotspot. Yeah Nick, if you could just scroll down to a few of these charts here. I think what came light for me. So this first chart here where the annual crypto value and violent attacks by outcome. So it's also both successful and attempted. And you can see that there's there definitely a correlation unsurprisingly with the price of bitcoin and the amount of attempts that there are with 2024 being the, you know, the largest volume by a wide measure. But even if you compare 25 and 26 to where we were five or 10 years ago, it's just totally different. It's like 100x essentially in a matter of a decade. And then I think what's particularly alarming about this is the attempts as well. Right. So like we hear about when attacks are successful and how Much money people lost. But you can also get a sense of the scale of the dollar. Volume in 2024 was 300 million. In 2026 right now it's about 110 million. And so this is just a one way street where as bitcoin becomes more valuable over time, you're going to see more of this. And I think the attempts are just as bad. You know the, I know the attempts are just as bad as the successful robberies as well. Because who wants to be in a situation where your family is put at risk just because you want to have this, you know, these funds immediately accessible? So I think there's just going to be a reckoning in this industry where we really need to get serious about how do you protect people against these types of threats?

[C]

Yeah, I'll go real quick because I'll jump in and brank and finish, finish off. I think there's a lot of signal here and it just reminds me of just this notion of anybody following what's happening in the bitcoin space. You know, we airport. If you see something, say something. I just have that thing like blasting my ear from being in the airport.

[A]

But.

[C]

And it wasn't even the airport recently. It just comes to mind is this notion above. If you see something, say something like we have to be insane and loud about this because if you scroll up it is the logical output that when we get in that another bull market, you're going to see 2024. 2024 had the reflexive volatility. So more awareness, more, more demand for bitcoin. Also more demand for people to steal your bitcoin. More awareness that people are holding these things, that this is going to come again. And it's just wild that it doesn't get talked about specifically on the self custody side. And more and more people were having these consults and people are talking about like my wife's looking and she, the guy yesterday was like preposterous, preposterous. That's what he just kept saying. It's like, this is insane. And it goes to that. It's like, okay, so you do all of it, right? Let's just pretend you do all the self custody stuff, right? And then your wife's like, wait, people are getting killed for this asset. Like what did you put us into? Like we've heard that from, from individuals when Coinbase got their hack and the PI was out there and people were getting called, et cetera. So this is just something that we're gonna have to be loud about because it's not that we want to have it happen. It's not that like we're talking our book. It's just the reality that this is the only way it's gonna go. The price is going to double and triple and there's going to be the same amount, if not greater attacks on people's homes, individuals or kids. And it's just not like, it's just crazy.

[B]

Yeah, massive signal. I think it's, it's interesting in light of what happened last week with the cold card exploit, that there's just so many different risk risk factors when you are custodying your own wealth in a digital bearer asset. Whether that's social engineering attempts, whether that's single vendor exposure and an exploit like the cold card bug happening, and whether it's like wrench attacks, physical attack service, like this chainalysis report is referring to. There was another report maybe like a week or two ago that was, that had some data related to this around basically the dollar value per wrench attack had gone up significantly from a couple of years ago to now. Where what that signals to me is this is another sort of part of this that we've talked about is like we're moving to a world where it's like very easy for someone, you know, a bad actor to basically sleuth who holds Bitcoin, how much you have, where you're going to be. And there to me, that data, that previous data point I referenced is like a signal of that in the sense that like you want to target the higher value targets. Like if you're, if you're a bad actor, if you're a criminal, why wouldn't you go over, go after the largest holder? So I think this stuff is getting more sophisticated, more rampant, and like we've been saying it's only going to increase. So it's a pretty insane proposition to say, you know, particularly if you have meaningful exposure to digital assets, that you should just shoulder that burden yourself and basically deal with all of these different attack surfaces.

[A]

Yeah, definitely. I feel like a lot of people right now are kind of at the point of thinking through what am I even doing here, just because it is a precarious situation and a lot of people feel like they're not being compensated for the risk that they take with Bitcoin anymore. I think it might be a natural response to a bear market where just sentiment is bad. You're right, you're far off from the highs that were just less than a year ago and just kind of feeling like looking around everything Else is ripping to all time highs. Your bags are heavy. But then there's also the aspect of just in light with the cold card vulnerability. It's like, well, I never even considered something like this happening before now. It's another thing that I need to think about, another issue that I need to resolve for me, my family or my business, however it's being managed. And then you know, that other piece of news as well, just with the, with the. Yeah, the physical attacks, just another. It's another component that just makes Bitcoin unique. There's a lot of unique properties that are beneficial of owning bitcoin, but there's also a lot of things that you typically don't have to deal with, whether it's owning just equities or a home or you know, bonds if you're. If you're silly enough to do that. But yeah, let's. Let's hit the lightning round and we'll wrap up here pretty quick. Brian, you want to go first?

[B]

Yeah, sure. Nick, if you could pull up the link I sent you. I found this pretty interesting. I came across this guy on X, he says I'm a former Citadel quant who covered power and gas. There's constant talk about chips and memory, but power is the central bottleneck for AI. Very few people understand it. So I'm posting a canonical primer on power pricing and data centers and if you just click into that. I thought this was a really great resource because he's hitting on a few things here. I think for one, he's right that most people are not talking about this constraint specifically as it relates the scaling of AI infrastructure. All the capex spends, which we talked about earlier. The other potential sort of pin in the bubble per se, outside of hiking interest rates or outside of token costs coming down is the actual just physical constraints of energy and the ability to build it out fast enough to basically have an ROI on all the CapEx and all the debt. And so me personally, I don't know enough about this side of things. So I thought this was a super helpful sort of primer on what it is. So check that out if you're interested.

[A]

Cool. Yeah, mine real quick would just be the article I just sent you, Nick. Yeah, here's the one. Nearly 20% of Illinois federal student loan holders now default. So it just. I mean this is a crazy one just for a number of reasons. Just with how outrageous the university system has become. And then the moratorium ended from the COVID era protection and then now the double whammy is that AI is going to be incredibly disruptive to the workforce. And so look, I think this is a testament to just how risky it is to play it safe these days. You follow a conventional path without really thinking critically about it, I think you're going to end up in a more precarious situation or at least a more financially challenging position because everyone who was told just get the degree, get the undergrad degree, get the master's degree, finance it, you'll get a white collar job, you'll pay it all. Like, yeah, there are of course plenty of successful examples of people doing that, but then there's also just a lot of people who got themselves way over their skis and now this job market is just going to be structurally different going forward. We talk about just how incredibly advanced AI already is and you compare that to where it was when GPT launched just like four years ago and even where it was 12 months ago, just in terms of the frontier model. So, yeah, I mean, I think it's just an incredibly opportunistic time for people who are willing to think outside of the box, who are entrepreneurial, who, you know, are interested in working hard, wanting to join a startup, wanting to just not follow the conventional path. But I think it's going to be a massive reckoning here. We also covered briefly earlier this week a story about how some private universities in the US now are just accepting people who are not even applying to their school and offering them like very large scholarships. So pretty interesting to watch what the future of education will hold.

[B]

Yeah, it's wild. You can't, can't rely on these traditional paths. Like the student debt stuff was an issue like far before we had this like AI threat basically. And so now it's just exacerbated and so, yeah, expect to see more stuff like this, unfortunately.

[A]

Cool. Well, appreciate the people who tuned in live. And for those of you who will catch it tomorrow, thank you for listening. If you could leave a like comment, subscribe wherever you're hearing it. Greatly appreciate it. We'll be back every Tuesday and Thursday live at 12:30 Eastern. Adios, see you later.

[B]

Later, bro.

[A]

Sam,