← The Wolf Of All Streets
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- [00:03]
A
Bitcoin is sitting at a breaking point as Trump's tariffs and of course the escalating conflict in Iran are shaking global markets. There are so many things happening in macro right now that it's impossible to keep them aligned and figure out what they mean. The good news is that we have Mike, James and Dave to help make sense of it all. You do not want to miss this Macro Monday.
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B
Let's go. Let's dope.
- [00:41]
A
Good morning, everybody. Welcome to the show. I hope you had a wonderful weekend. It is always a pleasure to be back for the best hour of the week. Macro Monday with Dave, James and Mike. Good morning, gentlemen. James, you missed nothing last week. Nothing.
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C
Just, just. Just want to remind people who the best hockey team in the world is.
- [01:03]
A
Yes, the United States of America. That shocking that they won that game actually, if you actually watched it. But we'll take it where we can get it. Yeah. James, I was saying you missed nothing last week. It was explosive. We do not expect you to drop any F bombs or quit today.
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C
Yeah, I heard there's a small debate. I heard there was a small debate on a couple of key issues.
- [01:25]
A
A light debate. A light debate. So, Mike, let's start with the morning meeting. What are you guys looking at? Obviously I hit on a few of the key issues I think at the top, but I've got to imagine that Iran and tariffs are the big two.
- [01:39]
D
Yes. Stuart, Paul came on. He pointed out the IPA tariffs. 10% will bring the effective rate to around 10%. It was closer to 14 before he said the average rate will obviously be lower than below IPA. He's going to use Section 122 tariffs as Trump's next strategy. You he pointed out that China is the big winner. Their tariffs will fall from around 20% to about 13. Brazil probably flying to 11% from 30%. India also potentially a benefit. Canada, Mexico effectively unchanged. But he says it's not going to mean much for the Fed. Fourth quarter GDP was mostly weak because of federal spending. He said consumer spending of 2.4% was okay. Private domestics, final demand down a bit, but still strong. Expecting 2.7% GDP in 2026 on the back of investment demand. And PPI Fridays we think is going to be the number one measure this week. And they're calling for a little bit under the coin for 210 and 310 core. 2.5% and 3% core. Eric Heidelberg is typically our mortgage strategist, but she came with some comments I thought were interesting. Fully expects bear steeping to continue in the overall Treasury curve 6% is basically the 30 year yield right now. But she thinks it's not going to make a much difference if it drops to 5% because the latest pending home sales are the lowest in history for a series going back to 2000 and thinks mortgage rates will have to drop well below 5% and for price to actually drop home prices to affect affordability. Christopher Kaim our equity strategy is usually more focused on the sectors. He pointed out that the broadening of the US equity rally is expanding strong environment for value for his sector value but it still remains cheap value set up as well for momentum continue. But he does say there's some poor stocks there. Audrey Child Freeman, our FX strategist pointed out the dollar's softer obviously after the Supreme Court decision. She thinks a structural dollar bear is in place, most notably runaway deficits. And partly also what's happening more diversification. Diversification policies partly from the G10 economies and expects the euro economy to be picking up towards the end of the year. And that's that from the team. Back to you.
- [04:05]
A
Perfect. So I want to stick on tariffs here. Just obviously everybody I think knows the broad strokes that the Supreme Court effectively ruled that the tariffs were unconstitutional. We can parse that in any way we want. And Trump of course coming back and saying yeah, really, I'm going from 10% to 15% then said that basically I believe he implied that foreign actors had taken control of the Supreme Court. And we've seen some of that chatter which I think is obviously a bit dangerous. And then he said Supreme Court accidentally and unwittingly gave him more power after tariffs ruling. There's question as to whether he can even go from 10 to 15% even beset making comments that would effectively be an emergency measure and that it would be, you know, buying them time for more thorough decisions and thinking on tariffs. But I mean Dave, Dave or James, you know, this has been sort of his key policy. I think a lot of people believed that the Supreme Court had been captured. Clearly that's not the case if the Supreme Court has ruled against him on his, you know, key piece of his agenda. And then I guess what does this mean when we had increasing tariff revenue and debate as to what the tariffs actually were going to mean. Where does this leave us?
- [05:17]
B
Well, I think the best analysis of this whole thing, weirdly I don't like the word analysis. The best encapsulation of what's going on was from Andy Constan on X and damp spring and is his handle. And he basically went through the scenarios, effectively, it's business as usual for the next 15 months or so with a little bit more uncertainty, probably a little bit less risk of ridiculousness. The real question is, what about, and we saw this over the weekend, what about the already agreed deals that were made with various places? Will the foreign actors say, hmm, well, they're not going to be able to, you know, ratify agreements, and so therefore we back out. And that causes uncertainty in business community. We saw that with threats from the European Union's parliament. So to me, that's the issue is will this create an added level of uncertainty? It seems pretty clear that the overall level of revenues won't be. They're not going to be giving money back necessarily. Maybe they'll give some of it back. But here's the problem. There's two ways of giving it back. One is a political win, and that's Trump rebate, you know, refund checks to individuals. One is a political absolute debt disaster, and the Democrats aren't going to want that hung on them, which is give the money back to the companies who, as opposed to the people who spent it. So just a big boost in corporate profits. And that's a political loser, no matter how you want to slice it. So we'll see what actually happens. But there's obviously uncertainty of where the money is going to go. The question is there will be some money coming back to the economy and there will be some uncertainty in trade deals. And that's never a great thing.
- [07:03]
A
Yeah, I mean, James, how are you viewing this? I can't hear James. Can you guys hear him? I think you're muted. There you go. Still can't hear him. Yeah, now you're good. I'm at it.
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C
I. I unmuted. You muted me. It's.
- [07:20]
A
Yeah, I didn't mute you. I muted you while you.
- [07:23]
B
He was worried about an F bomb chain.
- [07:26]
C
This, this corner seat has F bombs. Look, you know, Trump is unpredictable. He likes being unpredictable. That's, that's the core. You know, that's his M.O. for, for, for negotiation. That's what he does. He. He likes being unpredictable. And so what actually happens here, nobody knows. But we do know that risk assets respond to it. And one of the, the key points here is, and, you know, we keep coming back to this over and over and over again, even though we believe, Dave and I believe that it's not a risk asset. Bitcoin is acting like a risk asset. You could see it over the weekend. You know, that's just reality. And so it's hard for the listeners to, to accept that. I hate accepting it too, but it's just the truth. It is a risk asset until people learn about it and understand it better. And so, and I think that that's, that's kind of one of the, the, the core talking points of, you know, the, any skeptic and that and it just feeds into it, it feeds into the price action every single weekend. So, but the point here with the tariffs is that we don't know how this is going to end up. And uncertainty is, is something the markets don't like. They clearly do not like uncertainty. That we've seen that since the dawn of, of the markets. You know, that's one of the reasons that you've got percent and, and whoever's going to be the new Treasury Secretary, you know, I'm sorry, the Fed chair, if, if warsh is going to be confirmed, we, we assume that they're going to want to work together. And one of the, the, the points of them working together is that they want to give markets a heads up of what's happening. They want them to not be surprised by, by moves or information. They want them to be in the know so they don't have these like violent moves in markets reacting to uncertainty. So markets hate it. We're gonna, you know, see how that plays out this morning, but I expect that it's not going to be pretty and, and so you will see a flight to whatever the safety is. And right now that's, that looks like it's going to be gold and, and probably Treasuries. So that's just, that's just the truth. And that's, that's the, the essence of what you need to know about the tariffs is that nobody knows what's going to happen. We can hear all the, we can hear the banter and we can hear the, you know, the frustration out of the White House and we can, you know, we can speculate on what ultimately occurs, but we don't know. And he likes that the markets don't. And that's where his, his M.O. and the way he negotiates does not mesh well with what he wants in the, in the end for the markets, which is he wants markets up and, but his personality and the way he fights and the way he, you know, strategizes and negotiates. It doesn't mesh well with markets. Markets hate uncertainty and that's just a reality.
- [10:41]
A
But Mike, usually, you know, in this world when we see the Supreme Court rule on something, it's pretty much considered End of story.
- [10:50]
D
Yeah, I'm glad we went there right away because it's really symbolic, I think, more. And remember, two of the three judges he appointed voted against him. Six of the nine of the nine voted against him. It's a definitive statement. It's part of, I think, that trend we're seeing in the Republican Party and overall is the beginning, the lame duck transition for Mr. Trump. And we're seeing that. I don't mean that as any personal thing or anything, but what does it mean for markets? And you saw his very angry response. I mean, just using the word treasonous for some of the most respected human beings on this country is kind of. He's pissing off a lot of people, unfortunately. And that's partly just as James said. Just imagine when we get that next 10% drawdown in the S&P 500. I'm not saying if just when and maybe it'll be this year, but how's he going to respond to that? So we're seeing the beginning of that. We're seeing what's happening in midterms. And running it hot means you're going to get smoked in midterms. I'm sorry, you have to have some kind of magic come out of maybe some kind of definitive.
- [11:47]
C
Well, hold on. I would, I would push back on that a little bit because of the timing of it. Running it hot may end up hurting the Republicans in the next presidential election because it takes time for it to, for it to filter through the economy, as we all know. So running it hot may not hit him, hit him in the midterms here, because the midterms are coming up this year. I mean, it's not like he's. There's a lot of time to run it hot yet.
- [12:10]
D
Right.
- [12:11]
C
The only thing that, that could really hurt him, Mike, is if it's perceived that the Fed chair and, and the presidency and the White House are working in, you know, they're working together in concert and there's zero separation of the Fed anymore. And that, that may hurt them. But you know that, you know that it takes time for it to filter the economy. Look at how long it took for the, for inflation to spike up after they lowered rates and started buying assets in the, in the Fed back in, in the COVID days. It took, it took a couple of years. Right.
- [12:43]
D
James, those are good points, and I so think it's important we have a healthy discussion and banter. So thanks for jumping in on that. I appreciate that. You made it look better for our audience. So just A little way we're supposed to be acting and try to you know help give them a macro view here. But to me I'll get my macro then that makes a lot of sense but the point is for me I stick with the main strategy I had coming the year this is going to be a year of stock market volatility is going to go up now at 15% Nasdaq 80 day volatility is the lowest since 2018. And then we course we have the stock market cap to GDP at 2.3 times. I look for signals and things to do in that environment. The first one sell, sell a bear market in a rally now we had a chance to sell Bitcoin 100,000. We've had a chance to cover that short around 64,000. I reset that. Maybe Bitcoin can stay above 74,000 if we're luck, good luck, prove it I say any moves there? There should be short and now it's tilt over some bear markets. A difficult one is crude oil. It's obviously being pumped for geopolitical reasons but if we have some kind of semi, not too supply disrupting resolution in the Middle east it'll draw five bucks in a heartbeat. That's just the standard consensus. So I think crude oil's getting to my prudent short list. I'm just not willing to put a number on a list. Can we see some of that dust settle now let's look over at the bull markets extreme bull markets in copper I'm willing to stay stick with that short around six. The high for the year has been above that six and a quarter or so. We're below six now. For copper to go up you need the stock market to go up. Stock market volatility stay low and this things you pointed out James not to trickle down which I'm afraid so I stick to that as a prudent short. Even silver. Any moves above 100 I still that is prudent shorts silver to go up. It's an industrial metal. The stock market's got to go up. Stock market volatility has to stay low. And then also I still lean over with my final one for the year. Long bonds, long bonds around 5% we've had one chance to buy them at 496. I think that's still going to be the trade and I think it's going to drop close to 4 by then if not lower. But that's the bottom line and I'll end with this. All these things I've been suggesting I stick with these patterns on the end, into the year end and I think we might end the year with them still heading lower. The bottom line is stock market belt. It has to stay low S and P 500 has to stay above the 7,000. Step me out. Otherwise these might be just the prudent things to do this year.
- [14:53]
C
But here's where the administration threads the needle. Okay. They do run it hot. It takes a while for it to filter through. The, the long bond comes down because the market crashes, which also they institute QE which is, you know, they're running it hot. They're, they're doing traditional QE where they're buying long dated treasuries.
- [15:15]
D
Right.
- [15:15]
C
So what happens then? Well, you have a recovery and you have in the last two years of the administration, you end up having a recovery. And I don't, again the apolitical. I don't, you know, it doesn't matter. There's obviously we have a, we have massive problems that are running through all of our politicians and, and leadership. It, it, obviously it's not, neither party is, is worthy of, of a mantle here. But the, the issue is that if, if he does run it hot, Mike, and you, you get the long bond down. Well, mortgage rates come down, car rates, auto loans come down. So suddenly, you know, you've got your credit card rates coming down a little bit, you know, and then suddenly you've got this economy that's, that's roaring back to life in the last two years of the administration and it, it again taking so long for it to filter through. That's threading the needle where you have this drawdown and the administration says look at what we did to, you know, to fix the economy. And we're, and everybody's doing great. The mortgage rates are down to back down to 4% and, or even down to 3% and you know, everything's, everything's groovy. That's what they're, I would think that that's the, that's the end game for this administration to, you know, if they could, if they could avoid a market drawdown altogether, of course they would love that. But I don't think they're going to be able to either. I agree with that. It's just a matter of time. It's just a question of how do they respond, how quickly do they respond, how quickly does the economy respond and can they thread that needle and maybe you might call it a camel, but who knows? I mean it could be, it could be possible here.
- [17:02]
A
Yeah. So obviously I think we've moved on from tariffs and talking generally about the economy. I want to get to Iran, but I want to stay here and kind of pull this thread a bit. Dave, I want your opinion. There's a bunch of stories here that sort of indicate how weak things really are. Regardless of what the price of the stock market is or the other metrics you get. Obviously dollar rolls and global reserves is withering away. You can see that people have sold off Treasuries, central banks and that gold is going up massively. That's one. But a few things. I mean every S and P software stock is now trading below its 200 day moving average, which Mike points out. Warren Buffett sitting on a all time supply of cash. I just want to cook through a few of these because they don't show a very strong economy. Top 1% of US earners now have more wealth than the entire middle class. Astounding 12%, 12.7% of credit card loans are now in serious delinquency, which is the second highest in history. And of course in the midst of all of this we're seeing dollar weakness. So this kind of pulls a thread on what Mike and James are talking about here. If they start to run it hot with these kind of things happening, don't we really risk kind of pushing things over the edge?
- [18:11]
B
What define edge, Scott? I mean we are seeing the largest force. People call it deflationary force but boy does that miss the point in history with AI. And effectively what I will call it is the largest prioritization of capital over labor. The end game of a multi decade strategy on the part of both political parties to run the economy, to prioritize this capital over labor. And when you do that, what happens? Well, the rich get, quite literally the rich get richer and everybody else gets left behind. And that's what you're seeing. That's what every single one of those data points is saying. And if you don't understand that, then your models are just broken. You can't look at stock market cap to GDP without also looking at corporate profits. GDP and you can't look at corporate profits without understanding that if you take unit labor costs, weigh the hell down. Corporations are going to make money. Therefore the owners of those corporations are going to make money and the people employed in those corporations are going to get screwed. You know, and that is literally what's happening. And you know, you're seeing it. Software is obviously the first industry. But if you want to talk about absolute disaster in terms of software, look at India and try to understand what percentage of the Indian GDP is based upon outsourced, cheaper coding. That is all going to go to zero. It's not going to decrease, it's going to zero. No company is going to outsource programming to human beings sitting in a center in Bangalore when they can outsource it to, you know, they can have the same software engineers that are building specifications, outsource it to AI. It's just not going to happen. Right, because it's expensive and it's politically difficult, et cetera. They've been doing it anyway. When that ripple effect is going to, is just one of many, many symptoms. And so when I hear people talking about these things, I just want people to understand capital is getting more valuable relative to labor. Therefore assets which represent that capital are likely to do exactly the same thing. Now, that's not uniform by any means. By God, no. What does that mean for consumption and of luxury goods in the United States, for example? Well, it's fascinating. People who own capital will be able to buy it. People who have tidy multi hundred thousand dollar a year jobs in middle management, on the other hand, you're shaking your head because those jobs are going to be under significant pressure. And so what does that mean for restaurants? What does that mean for restaurant stocks? You have to start tracing through all the impacts over the next couple of years. That's going to be happening in the same timeframe that James is talking about in terms of running it hot. Now, this administration actually does understand that. I mean, whether Mr. Trump does or not, I have no idea. But I guarantee you Secretary Besant understands it and Kevin Hazad who runs the economic council understands it. They get these things and so that's where their policies are going to be headed. So just you have to be careful. Prioritizing capital over labeler is not bad for capital assets writ large. It's bad for companies that can't adapt.
- [21:29]
A
Great point. And just to wrap a bow on this, there were two other stories that we never talked about here that happened last week that I think are huge along these lines. One obviously was the payroll job number revised down by over a million for 2025. So, you know, we saw mid-800,000 for 2024 quietly. People actually blame that on the Biden administration. And fake numbers kind of saw the same thing. I think now we're just realizing they're really bad at data, the United States government and maybe there's nothing nefarious behind it but a million jobs that we thought we had and that markets reacted to on job numbers completely revised down and away. And then of course, we got the news last week that GDP in the fourth quarter was at 1.4% with an expected, I think of 3.5% or something. So this is a major downward revision. Trump blames government shutdown. I think there's probably some truth to that. But still, I mean, Mike James, this is, you know, these are all negative economic data points in a time when once again, they're going to try to run it hot. So we can wrap this YouTube before we go on T. Ron So, yeah,
- [22:33]
C
I mean, it's not surprising that the jobs number was so far off. We've talked about this ad nauseam for years now, is that the assumptions that the BLS uses to estimate what these jobs numbers are just faulty. You know, the birth death model is a joke. And for those people who don't know what that is, it's an assumption that the BLS makes in their, their analysts make on how many companies were created and how many companies were dissolved over that period. And then they filter through the number of jobs that they assume would come from that and they're wildly wrong almost every single quarter. And so it's, it's a terrible model. And then on the back side of that, the hard data that they get is also faulty, you know, because they're, they're getting, the, the respondents from the, from the surveys are, are, you know, they're decreasing, the number of respondents are decreasing over time. People just don't have time to pick up the phone, talk to somebody from the government to tell them how their business is doing, especially if their business is not doing well. So what do you have, you've got some biases to the, to the companies who are doing well versus the companies who are not doing well. If your company is struggling, you're not going to pick up the phone and spend an hour talking to, or even 15 minutes talking to a government employee to tell them how everything's going for a survey. You're not going to answer surveys. So, and we've seen that we've actually heard from respondents say, I'm not picking up the phone to talk on a certain, like, we're struggling. I don't have time for that. You know, and so that's part of the issue here is that we just have terrible lagging, faulty data. And so it doesn't surprise me one bit. Are the books cooked? No, it's just, you know, from either administration, it's just terrible data. Now that's a different conversation than the CPI data, which I think they purposely try to prop up a little bit better. That's a different conversation. But this is just estimating jobs. It's just not done well, in my opinion.
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A
Mike, any final thoughts there before we move on to Iran?
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D
Yeah, I think you nailed it. And I have to bring out Jeff's Booth's book, the Price of Tomorrow. This is a severe paradigm shift with significant technologically related deflationary forces. We've seen this before, remember, the Internet revolution. Revolution is one example. Rapidly advanced, very expensive risk assets. Equities didn't have cryptos back then, and now we're all seeing that. Who is not worried about A's not potentially replacing some of their work jobs or getting concerned about it, but who knows? They have to keep up just to stay. Stay parallel with anything. So I, I. Look, this is part of my base case last year was gold. My base case this year sticks with good old treasury bonds.
- [25:36]
A
Perfect. Moving on to the escalating situation in Iran. We have Trump considers targeted strike against Iran followed by larger attack. CIA officials saying that they've already made the decision. This could come as soon as Monday or Tuesday just to show how serious they are. This is 40 to 50% of the deployable US air power in the world that has been moved into the region. Now, what I find interesting is that we have somewhat two narratives for why we're even there. One is obviously the protests that were put down and that this could affect regime change, which would be in the interest of the people of Iran. And obviously many people believe the rest of the world. But the other one's got me really shaking my head right now, and that's that Witkoff was on TV saying that Iran is one week away from having enough enriched Iranian for a weapon. I feel like I've been hearing that they're one week away for decades. I definitely remember Netanyahu saying it in 2012 or 14 very clearly with his little bomb chart, you know, that had like. Yeah, the little bomb chart.
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C
But, yeah, this is the weapons of mass destruction.
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A
Yeah, exactly. I was just gonna say this reeks of Colin Powell and Bush and weapons of mass destruction, because literally just last year from the White House, Iran's nuclear facilities have been obliterated, and suggestions otherwise are fake news. I mean, listen, this is once again, I don't think this is unique to any particular party, but we are wagging the dog here. What is really going on and what will this, I guess, mean for markets? Because we struck Iran last year for this exact reason, and now we're a week away.
- [27:12]
B
I mean, if you're waiting for me to try to justify what the administration is doing, it's going to be a long fucking wait. I do think that putting pressure on the mullahs to do, you know, effectively we did in Venezuela, it would be an incredibly beneficial thing for humanity. But I don't think that going to war and putting most of America's military capabilities behind it is logical. You know, I think that a public show of force, which this obviously is, as you say, 40% of American, American air power is a great, Is an incredible thing. If the goal is to give them, get them to take the deal that the Shah took in 79, then that's a worthwhile goal. But that would be what's going on in the insurance at the, at the actual analyst level, what they actually think. Keep in mind, what our government says in times like this and what they do are not necessarily the same thing, because it would be foolhardy to tell the world what's going on. I mean, if you tell, if they even tell all of Congress, they may as well. You know, there are people in our Congress who have more allegiance to the mullahs than they do to the White House. And I'm not saying that lightly, but there are at least two or three members who clearly care much more about that, and that's just the reality. And everyone talks about loyalty to Israel. Israel effectively sees Iran as an existential threat, mostly for a simple reason, that Iran says Israel shouldn't exist and they should be bombed off the face of the earth. And that's their official policy. So, I mean, you'd be kind of stupid if you're on the playground and, you know, kids say, hey, you know, if we ever get you alone, we're going to kill you. You probably are never going to go on to be alone with those people. So, you know, it's a very complicated situation. But I'm hoping that all the blustering and all the news and Wyckoff is just a smokescreen for what they're really trying to do. Hope, however, is not a great strategy if in fact the goal here is to do another ridiculous, you know, lie based. I mean, Colin Powell is a great man whose career was destroyed by being forced to lie for his bosses. I mean, I saw him speak before he died at the Credit Suisse conference and you can tell, you know, he was. Regret wasn't even, you know, it was regret, but on steroids. I mean, he basically said it. He said, you know, listen, we do things for our country that we think at the time make sense and that we regret later. Those are his words, not mine. And it's, you know, what we did back then was horrible. We destabilized the Middle east, etc. So who knows what's actually happening. All I would say is to all the armchair military theorists out there, understand you do not have a clue what they're actually doing and why they're doing it. What you are seeing is a show of force that's undeniable. Why it's there, you don't know. Now I could be wrong. I just told you, I don't know anything. I will say markets, however, and this is the important thing, let's bring it back to macro. Markets hate the run up to war. Markets, I hate to say it, love the, love hostilities, they love war. So every single time you get one
- [30:28]
C
of these situations because it requires massive spending.
- [30:33]
B
Markets do well once the bombs start
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A
flying because there's certainty the war started, we know what's happening.
- [30:38]
B
That's right, the reasons don't matter. But if you're, if you're buying, if you're selling assets because you think there's going to be a war the next day, I mean it happens every time, but it's wrong every time and people get hurt and it's just, I don't understand that,
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A
Mike. James, and that is, by the way, that's fact. What Dave is unpacking is that you can look back at the history of conflict and markets hate the uncertainty leading to war. And, and the second the war starts, markets tend to shrug it off and say, okay, we have certainty, we have the war, let's move on.
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C
Yeah, remember the word. I want to hear Mike's comment, I want to hear Mike's thoughts on oil concerning this because this is really the key to all of it.
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D
Remember when James Baker was negotiating with Iraqis and he used the word regrettably, that was our joke in the trading pits forever because markets went wild, everything collapsed. And then the minute, as Dave pointed, the minute the hostility started, that was, it was over. So I think what's going to happen in crude oil is depending on the resolution going to drop $5 in a heartbeat once if it's somewhat resolved. The bottom line is you have to have a sustained curtailment of supply to keep it above here. And every day stays here at certain levels, like here. This is well above the US average cost of production amount, $55 a barrel. This is well above last year's average price around $65 a barrel. Those supply factors are getting worse. They're bringing in more. So I'll give you one example. If you just look at U.S. net imports, we didn't have an exports now it's negative 3.5 million barrels of that just the US for crude oil and liquid fuels. Last time we bought them around $40 a barrel is around 1 million net. Still, we were still running net exports and now and before that was only all net imports include Canada, South America. That's just massively increasing supply. So let's remember what Mr. Trump wants this number one, he needs some kind of decisive victory to help him into the midterms because nothing's going well. He needs lower crude oil prices. I think he's going to get that and how he does it, I don't know. But I think you nailed it. Certainly Dave is, you know, the son who's a military officer, can't tell me anything he's doing and another nephew is just don't underestimate their capabilities and ignore what they say because they're trying to. This is the ruse.
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A
Quickly, Mike, does that make oil a gratuitous short? I've never looked, but does oil behave the same way? We were just discussing with markets where obviously it rises when there's uncertainty and then dump immediately when it actually happened.
- [32:59]
D
So it's part of the reason I haven't put it as official level as a prudent short yet because of the tsunami, what's going on with the war, I mean. But I look at as an option. I'm sure I can structure something negative Delta and options. And that's going to ham. Not going to hammer if it pops up to 75. Not going to happen. Some kind of. That's a pretty significant armada. But this is part of the peaking process and this is what every producer, most of them on the planet have been waiting for. Give us higher prices so we can sell forward, bring in more supply. And you can see that in the forward curve it's in backwardation for a reason because they're locking in profits and they're going to be bringing more supply. And you can see that like exports out of this country, that's a completely, I would say, elongated bull market.
- [33:39]
A
James,
- [33:42]
B
you muted again.
- [33:43]
C
Yeah, I muted myself again. I Look, you know, I, I agree. And that's the, and that's the whole point is that again we're talking about. It comes back to certainty and uncertainty, you know, and that's if you're, if you're an investor and you're trying to figure out what's going on in the market. You're seeing these gyrations. This is the key of what to come away with, like what moves pre, you know, event and what, and where does it go post event? Because it's, it's that classic buy the news, sell the room or sell the news, buy the rumor, you know, mantra. And you've got to be aware of what, what will be affected from, from each of these points of uncertainty. Whether it's Treasuries because of, you know, or, or risk assets because of possible tariffs or non tariffs or it's war and, and it's energy and you know, and overall market. I mean this is just, this is exactly what Dave said. It's classic, it's classic movements pre and post event. And so that, that's what, that's what if you're an investor you have to be aware of.
- [34:48]
A
Mike, we saw a big bump in TLT last week, big relative for something like that. I mean you've been talking about is this now finally time to buy bonds and what does that mean for gold? Because obviously you've been sort of bearish on gold coming down here having topped, but you believe that bonds are going to go up.
- [35:04]
D
Yeah, I'm still reluctant to put prudent short and gold in the headline because it's such a store value. But I hear so many people talk about as a store value like great before it went to three times its 60 month moving average in the highest ever versus all commodities. And right now mentioned that gold S&P 500 ratio is the lowest since 2008. So to me gold is just looking like bitcoin did last year. And versus a basket of Treasuries, gold price is the highest since 1982. So to me that's the next big trade. I'm willing to take the, you know, take the risk of sticking out my head on it completely. And then you just look at the leading indicators. Bitcoins are collapsing, that's in cryptos are collapsing. That's the bear market I think is leading the way. So yeah, I stick with that. But the hairs, I look at it, I look at the core, the position right now, the space right now SMB 500 is up 1% on your total return. That's meh. If it's down 10% which I think is potentially going to happen, it's not priced in at all. I think TLT rallies 30%. That's particularly because it goes down and potentially going to stay down this Time. Now if it, if S P 500 does the consensus rallies another 10%, you get your coupon and maybe you get another 5% in TLT because that's what you got last year, basically your couple fund.
- [36:14]
C
Yeah, but I think you have to look at gold in terms of inflation adjusted price because again the amount of money we printed in the COVID era on top of the amount of money that we printed in the great financial crisis, that changes the denominator significantly, Mike. And so we can't just look at it on those terms. And I think that it really, it isn't a solid measure against a TLT unless you do that. You have to do that in order to get an actual good reading on it. So that's why when you hear store of value, I mean like we've watched risk assets soared to all time levels here, but when you inflation adjust them, they're not as high as you, as you would imagine. Now if you go, if you go on the PE measure. Sure. You know, you've, but again the problem with the S and P in my opinion is that you've got just a handful of stocks that, that are somewhere between 40 and 50% of the entire S and P. And so you know, that's, that's the problem for, for the S and P and for them for the, the price earnings ratio is, is what you're looking at. But you've got to inflation adjust these numbers in my opinion,
- [37:37]
A
Dave, you can run wild with that. I mean I know we all fundamentally,
- [37:42]
B
I think that the long bond, the administration wants it lower, needs it lower and is going to manipulate it lower. But so I'm not going to, I wouldn't short it. I said that when it was at 4:2. I was saying, okay, maybe a little bit higher to be clear.
- [37:59]
A
You think they want the rates lower which means that the price of TLT goes up.
- [38:03]
B
Correct.
- [38:03]
D
Okay.
- [38:04]
B
They want the bonds up, the rates down.
- [38:07]
D
Yeah.
- [38:07]
B
But the, they're on their own. The rest of the world isn't buying it. We all know that. I said 5,000 at, you know, with the fiscal situation that existed a few months ago was equilibrium, frankly, I think equilibrium is going to reset to, you know, is very rapidly resetting towards 5,500 as it's very clear we're not going to do a damn thing to contain budget deficits. And running a $2 trillion deficit in the US is roughly between 8 and 10% monetary inflation every year. So you got to put that in. So do I think gold has 8 to 10% in it for the rest of the year? Yes, I do. Do I see a lot of downside risk? No. Will it be volatile? Yes, but et cetera. The more interesting commodity of course is silver. And I'm not going to. I hate looking at short term prices as quote proof points of narratives, as we all know. But I will say this. Silver was quote, dead, buried and going down to 50 or below when it was at 74, 75 last week. It's now at 87. And all I can say is that's for a reason. Structural deficits and changing of the economy is driving it and we're seeing that. And so understanding these cross currents I think is quite important. I just keep coming back to, we're printing more and more. It has to go somewhere. You know, when you go into crypto and we haven't gotten there yet, but when you go into crypto you need to understand that there are multiple factors at play. And every time Mike says the word rolled over, it did two weeks ago, three weeks ago, four weeks ago, five weeks ago, six weeks. The last two weeks it hasn't done dick. We're in the same 2000 $3000 range that it's been like between the. I guess it's gone. It got as low as 64. So I guess it's a $4,000 rate. 64 to 60.
- [39:54]
C
I mean the significant move was back in October. That's, that was a significant.
- [39:59]
B
Well, no, there was a pretty significant roof on February 5th and.
- [40:01]
C
Right, I agree, I agree. But the, the start of it all was, was back in October.
- [40:06]
B
Right, but that's right. And we could talk about that. I will continue to make the statement. I'm not going to repeat it there. You can post in the nest if you want. I did a video this weekend on the bitcoin option thesis and why people need to understand what that means and that that's, that's important, I think. And so we could talk about that. There's a lot of other stuff going on there. But as far as the macro goes, we are in a situation where we have raging monetary inflation. Doge has been crippled. Tariffs are at least weakened. There's no chance of cutting spending. If anyone looked at the most recent spending bill, it had 5 plus billion in earmarks. More. If you're not getting rid of earmarks and you're not able to go after fraud, our government is going to continue to spend recklessly. As long as that's happening, you have to look at the denominator. That's me running Wild.
- [40:59]
C
Pull up the, the chart I just, I just shared and this is my point is that the blue line is, is M2 which is, you know, just part of global liquidity. Gold just doesn't just key off of M2 obviously, but this is, you know, the, the largest component of global liquidity here. But then you've got gold is the white line. I mean it's not, it's not quite as extreme as people are making it out to be. It's that it was lagging for a long period of time while people were piling into risk assets over the last couple of years. And now we're getting more and more uncertainty and they're going into assets that, that are, you know, stores of value and, and kind of defensive in, on the other side now. And so that, that's what you're seeing in my, you know, in my mind
- [41:49]
B
that shows the equilibrium level that I was talking about. Thank you, Jake.
- [41:52]
C
Exactly. It's, you're just getting back toward equilibrium here. It's not, it's not as extreme as people are thinking.
- [41:58]
B
So now ask the question. When's the last time that markets that corrected an imbalance got to equilibrium and stayed there and didn't go, didn't overcorrect? When's the last time? Has that ever happened before? Because I can't think of a time in financial markets where that has that has ever happened.
- [42:15]
D
No. So just follow up on that chart that showed China USM2 running at $22 trillion and China is 49 trillion. Their 10 year note yield is 1.74%. Their debt to GDP is 300%. Here where it's at, we're going. If you want to talk about unlimited spending, that's what's happening.
- [42:35]
B
That makes it bigger. Exactly. That's the point. That's why it's not just the US it's the whole world is fiat world and the denominators are changing and that is a very big deal. By the way, there's one chart in bitcoin that people don't like to talk about that actually shows that it literally looks like what we saw in gold a year ago. What we saw in gold in a year ago is we saw a massive move of central bank buying behind the scenes before the price really started. We saw it.
- [43:04]
D
It's not true.
- [43:04]
B
Right? We didn't.
- [43:06]
D
Dave, that was in a bull market. Bitcoin's a bear market.
- [43:09]
B
No, no. Okay, Mike, whatever. There was a massive move towards central banks buying what's happening in bitcoin. If you're watching the hash rate, it is totally unexplainable without sovereigns. Totally unexplainable. The bitcoin hash rate literally just V bottomed back up to all time highs and they had a difficulty adjustment to make it harder to mine. Now when you look at those things, that's because the only rational explanation that I could come up with, and I've asked several miners about this as well, the rational explanation isn't miners are stupid, they're holding and they're going to go down with like sailor with the ship. It's because just look at that, look at that V. I mean it's freaking amazing. At the same time price was dropping. Why is that? It's because you have, geopolitically, you have central banks around and sovereigns around the world committing a hash rate to the blockchain. That's what you have. That is not an, that is an environment that when it, the markets turn is incredibly constructive but people don't want to look at it. And yes, price has clearly been in a bare market. Price is clearly bottoming. And I wrote an article on the airplane on the way here, I'm in Sun Valley for those who care way skiing called when the FUD dissipates what will happen. And I think that's what that is your indicator that V is exactly the leading indicator. And, and it's telling you that there's strategic importance on people's minds. Now note this is not crypto, this is bitcoin. There's a lot of other cross currents
- [44:40]
C
in crypto, but yeah, and also to
- [44:41]
B
be clear, Dave, clearly it's a very important piece of data but also to
- [44:46]
C
be, to be clear if and when we do have a sharp drawdown in the S P you know, because we do have military conflict because we do have something we haven't even talked about. Mexico, you know, that's another one.
- [44:57]
B
So yeah, you're right.
- [44:58]
C
If you do have military conflict and you've got uncertainty, global uncertainty, you know, in the, in the global theater of war, that which is, you know, that you're going to have a drawdown in all the assets and all assets and bitcoin will, will get swept up in that. If not lead it lower. So that, so we, we recognize that in my fund and so we're still, we have hedges on against that. Just to be, you know, to be clear. There's. I don't think that you could say bitcoin is absolutely bottomed here. This is it, it's gone that if all things staying equal and we don't go to war or we don't have a drawdown in the S P and we don't have any uncertainty, you know, that, that causes that, then yeah, I would say that bitcoin's probably bottomed out here. But my, my point is that I don't think that we are out of the woods on the S P and I do think that we do have a, you know, the possibility of a sharp drawdown. It's true. If that happens, then bitcoin's going to get swept up with it. But that's, that's short term, that's not a long term play. And that's where, you know, that's where probably the, the two or three of us differ with Mike the most here is that that doesn't mean bitcoin structurally broken. It means that it's going to, you know, it's going to react to all of this violently, likely. And then it will recover. Especially if and when we do get the, you know, the, the fire hose of liquidity on the backside of, of any kind of. Of drawdown or market uncertainty and especially in the credit markets.
- [46:38]
A
Yeah, I don't think there's much question that bitcoin has not been trading well. You can see we talk about all this uncertainty, but it almost feels like because it happens on weekends maybe that we feel it in bitcoin and nowhere else. I mean, the S and P is basically flat today, slightly down, as Dave pointed out. Silver's up. Nothing else actually seems to be getting rocked. But bitcoin keeps getting rocked even though it bounced slightly. And we do, I mean, if we want to have the bear bull market argument, yeah, 5%. I would argue it's not really about the tariffs, but we're about to print potentially our fifth red month in a row, which is something that basically never happens in bitcoin. Crypto hedge funds are positioning in cash the most risk off in the last year. Obviously. We have Nakamoto. This is down 99.32%. I think it's a bit disingenuous to judge it by when it hit 30 bucks and not when they raised it a dollar. But it's still, still down bad, obviously. And Dave, you were talking about miners. Bit deer has liquidated their entire bitcoin treasury. This has obviously been going around not only what they were actually mining, but of course the treasury that they were holding. They say it's for investment purposes, but even our most, I think staunch holders are considering or willing to unleash their stacks.
- [47:54]
B
I mean these are pretty lagging indicators.
- [47:57]
A
Yeah, okay.
- [47:58]
B
They're not leading, they're lagging at worst. Coincidence. That's important.
- [48:06]
D
I want to propose what to look for if you want to discuss this. A bottom in bitcoin. First of all. Right, Scott, I put that in my outlook for tape pointed out Bitcoin's down five months in a row. It's an orderly liquidation right now it's too easy for bears. I've been a bear. I don't trade. But to be able to short it and may take 30 bucks out of it and like to the T and it only bounces like 20% from that level, that's shocking. But it's an orderly bear market. So my puppy proposition for bitcoin bottom is once we flush all the excesses out of most of the other altcoins that are tracking billions worth nothing we saw with the meme coins, Melanie coin and Trump coin. How seriously silly those are. Once we flush those out, we'll have a bottom. But the bottom line is you shouldn't consider buying any risk assets. Typically history is a guide. With the NASDAQ volatility at the lowest in eight years. Let's let that recover. Give us a signal for that would sit back and wait. And with the stock market cap, the GDP 100 highest in 100 years. Now I can use another measure versus the Bloomberg commodity and that's it. Highest in 25 years. So that's my point is we've reached that plateau. Everything you said about running and hot, everything it's already priced in, you can see that in gold. And that's why I point out gold like gold versus crude oil is the highest almost ever. You don't buy gold like there at that level. It's just silly. So I look at it as just wait for the flush, sit back, be responsive, buy bonds on dips, sell bitcoin and rallies, make it prove you're wrong, stay above 74,000. Until then sit back and enjoy this trade set. Wonderful trading environment.
- [49:28]
A
Feels like Bitcoin has been largely uncorrelated for better or for worse to most things except for software ETFs. If you take a look at those charts that are going around. So I ask, I guess Mike, but anyone is there a world where you get exactly what you're talking about with that volatility rising? But bitcoin kind of still just chops around in the 60s and bottoms, that'd be wonderful.
- [49:49]
D
That's the kind of signals you're looking for. Divergent Strength. And I know Dave doesn't like when I use that word, but my signals are.
- [49:56]
B
You're right on that. From a trading point of view, I think that's absolutely accurate.
- [49:59]
D
Looking for it, I mean, looking for those signals. That's why I keep putting levels on it. When you're short, you got to put levels. You got to stop yourself out and be nimble. I'm not. I mean, just point out that's the way I think. This is the kind of year we should trade as nimble traders and we've gotten a few opportunities. I just need them. Prove me wrong. See, like Dave, let's. Let's make Silver stay above 100, let's make Copper stay above 6, let's make Bitcoin stay by 74,000. Until then, stick with the main mantra that, yes, once we get that pickup in stock market volatility, it's going to be some tremendous environments to buy risk assets at great discounts. And the leading. The tip of the iceberg used to be strategy. It's already collapsed. Tip of the iceberg for risk assets remains cryptos and they're still trending lower. That's why I think that's the prudent place to be looking for shorts.
- [50:41]
B
So when you talk about risk assets, look, I think there's two themes. I like thematic trading, especially this point in the year. I think that bitcoin is separate. I think that. And you can look at the theme in the rest of crypto is show me where's the value. I don't know where Ethereum would be if Tom Lee hadn't managed to put that together. But my best guess is 800, which is Mike's level. And I don't think that that's far off. I'd be surprised if it was above 800.
- [51:14]
D
Now.
- [51:14]
B
I think that there are a few. There are a few stories that make sense and assets that feel like they're at good prices but will probably, you'll get better prices. And then there's a whole lot of stuff out there that doesn't deserve to exist. And I've been saying that for a very long time. And that's a place where the only place on crypto that Mike and I agree. I do think, however, that there were fortunes to be made by people who picked the right ones inside of the crypto verse. But it's not, you know, you see every, every weekend, this weekend, for some reason, I decided to engage with more people from the XRP army. I mean, there are people with quotes again, talking about 10,000. I mean, you know, it's just whenever you have people who are willing to say that their asset that's a commodity within the financial system is going to be worth more than the entirety of the financial system, it's almost impossible to underestimate how dumb that is. I mean, it's literally the dumbest mantra and we see it from thousands of people and it's. It still permeates this asset class. As long as that sort of stuff permeates the asset class. Part of me wants to agree with Mike that says the asset class deserves to be punished. On the other hand, there are assets that actually have logical, where you can point to math that says, okay, this makes sense. It's something that's going to be worth X more in the future what the total market cap will be. When it comes to bitcoin, I think we are plumbing those debts. We are at absolutely historic sentiment lows. Have been for a while. The entire crypto industry, the crypto natives, the bitcoin people, are hardening into camps. Those who have already sold and those who say fu, I'm not selling. And you know, the question is, is there more of the fu not selling type? You know, what could trigger them to sell? I don't know. But when you see this for this period of time and do the overtime chart, do the one year chart, chart. Scott, just look down here.
- [53:07]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah. We, we had the one little egg.
- [53:11]
B
When you see stuff like that, that is not. That is, that is what Mike's talking about when he says tradable bottoms. Those are, those are the time. That's. If you're shorting at those levels, you better have a really tight stop because it could rip up in your face and destroy you.
- [53:25]
A
Yeah, I'm looking. I mean, it looks like the lowest it got was about nine in June of 22, we were hitting five right now.
- [53:32]
B
Keep in mind, this five months thing, we're talking about a person on the show can't remember who said after October 10th that it generally takes around six months for the, for something that large to clear. That was luna. And we saw that, that crescendoed. And it wouldn't surprise me if we had to go six months before it cleared. And we're at five right now. And I think that that's because the magnitude of the destruction on that from within the crypto community was so large. But what's happened is the actual fall has been less dramatically less than it was in 20. You know, from the, the high in, in 21 into 20 it. Why? Well, because there's been buyers, and the buyers are people that, you know, are from blackrock, you know, you know, and various others. And so that. That's a big difference.
- [54:25]
A
Yeah, I mean, in my mind. So I agree with Mike that there's still obviously too much fluff and froth in the crypto side, but I take the other side of bitcoin has to go down. Because of that, I think we can continue to see crypto get absolutely washed, annihilated, and bitcoin can trade sideways or trade independently of that.
- [54:49]
B
I mean, there's one other thing that's worth talking about before, which will feed to you, Mike, is there's been a lot of talk this weekend, people talking about. There was a study that came out that talked about $4.9 billion wiped out from the Trump.
- [55:01]
A
I have your tweet literally up right now. It's 4.3.
- [55:03]
B
Yeah, 4.3. There you go. So this is a big deal. This is exactly my point. You know, the damage that those meme coins did, both politically and within the. In the community as grifters and outside of the community as people shunning bitcoin because they're, you're, you know, mini in Minnesota doesn't necessarily know the difference between a meme coin and bitcoin is significant. And that needs to work its way through the system, too. Look, there's a bear case that says that until Trump is out of office and out of the public view, that this malaise continues. It's possible anyway, Mike, this is fuel to your fire. Go.
- [55:42]
D
Well, let's first make. The key point I want to make is I appreciate people say it, but the facts prove otherwise. If every time we see Shibu Inu or Dogecoin drop 10, 20%, Bitcoin falls. It's just a fact. If they go the other way around. Let me fit. Okay. We know bitcoin's beta. I get it. Kate disputed me. My point is I've been right. It's going down. There's so many cryptos, I can't keep track of them. The prices are going down. So let's stick with one thing we can all agree on. The most significant enduring trend in cryptos is the proliferation of stable coins. Tethered right now used to be 20ish or so. Now it's number three. My we can, if we disagree on that. Well, I, like Dave, always says, well, good luck. Here's the key, Mike. Interpolation. It's going to continue to do that. It's going to flip in Ethereum this year and potentially Bitcoin, partly because of Mr. Trump. Thank you for figuring out. The number one thing I came to this space in 2018, 1718 and thought was awesome was the proliferation of stablecoin building on the whole planet. I learned this in Hong Kong. To be able to transmit, transact and transport data on peer to peer cash on your phone globally. You can do that with dollar coins now. Thank you. Mr. Trump. Figured out. And they invest in treasuries. That's the point. You don't need these millions of other things to speculate. And you flush those out, you got a great bottom. In the meantime, you get that chart you showed earlier about not to sell Bitcoin that just looks the same as NASDAQ Vol Volatility.
- [57:07]
C
Okay, well let's, let's unpack that before the end of the show. Number one, I agree with you that that tether is going to be eventually it's just going to be the largest, it's going to be the largest cryptocurrency in the world. And the reason for that is that it's going to, or if it's not tether, it's going to be, it's going to be the mix of the stable coins, the US Dollar. Stable coins. Why is that? Because this administration does understand that they need avenues to find buyers for the U.S. treasury. And so if they can buy, if they can sell as many T bills as they want to, they've got $9 trillion of T bills they've got to roll over every year right now. And so if, if they can find more buyers, they will find ways to get that legislation through and jam it, jam it through whether the bankers want, however the bankers want it because they need buyers of Treasuries. Okay, so that's a different, that is a different type of cryptocurrency, though, Mike. There are two different, there are three different types of cryptocurrencies. There's one, there's a, there's the dollar based cryptocurrency, which is, which is pegged to the US Dollar. Okay. And it is not a store of value. That is a, that is a dollar based cryptocurrency. And we know that the dollar is not a store of value. It may be a store of value in a very short term, a very short amount of time. If you, if you need access to liquidity, you want dollars, obviously you don't want anything else because you know that it's going to be there and, and ready to trade. For whatever you need those, those dollars for in goods and services. Okay? So that's one. The second type is speculative, purely speculative, and hoping that you can make big returns because you're trying to keep up with the devaluing of that US Dollar, which is not a store of value. Okay. Over the course of time. And you're just playing the lottery because you're trying to catch up. And we've talked about that before. And then the third type of cryptocurrency is a true store value, which is bitcoin. So we can't lump them all together. It's disingenuous to do that, just like it would be disingenuous to lump a oil stock with a, with a tech stock, with a biotech stock and a cyclical, you know, type of stock like Walmart. So those are, those are all different types of companies. And it's the same sort of thing. You know, gold is a different type of rock than palladium and platinum and copper, you know, they're different type of, of, of commodities. And so you can't just lump them all together. So that's, that's the difference there. Yes. Will tether be the largest likely. Does that mean that it. All that money is coming out of Bitcoin? No, it's a completely different set of buyers, you know, and that's the, that's the point of, of the, the growth in all cryptocurrencies. Tether ends up being a, you know, a gateway for people to buy bitcoin. That's the point. And that's fine. The US treasury needs buyers. They're going to get this cryptocurrency. They're going to get this. The stablecoin bill passed and they're, and they're going to have that avenue, and bitcoin will ultimately benefit from that. It's not going to be hurt by it. That's the whole point.
- [60:30]
A
I would also say, I know, Mike, you want to respond before we get done, but I would also say that we did see bitcoin rise massively, massively up to 126,000. And those cryptos still got wrecked. That rising tide did not lift all boats in that case. So I don't necessarily think that they're going to correlate on the way down anymore.
- [60:50]
D
I want James to win that argument. Let the market price decide. I just was way too early. Bloomberg Galaxy Crypto Index, which I started initially created, was down 20% last year. Now it's down 27% this year. So I love what you say, but the power of the statement is working against question.
- [61:06]
C
All right, well, we're going to see the end of this. Okay, yes, Bitcoin's been in a bear market. Nobody's, Nobody's trying to argue that, number one. But we need to be clear about what the actual assets are, and that's. It's a completely different asset than Tether.
- [61:22]
B
It's. It.
- [61:23]
C
They cannot be compared. The only. The only reason that they're being compared at all is because of the protocols that they run on. And you have crypto cryptography behind them. That's the only. That's the only, you know, thing they have in common other than that they're just. They. They're completely different.
- [61:42]
D
So one key thing as a futures trader for 40 years, Tether has a basis, Bitcoin doesn't.
- [61:49]
A
Dave, any final thoughts?
- [61:52]
B
Yeah, I just saw that X sent me my form letter again, telling me I should create a new account. They can't. They can't back to it. I mean, anyone who's watching this show, if you understand or feel like, you know, that X has any chance of ever being anything more than a media platform, you may want to tell Elon and, and his. His team, they have zero chance. Literally zero chance. Because you cannot have a monetary platform where someone could be hacked for three weeks and, and you still send form letters. You know, the other day I got a. A DM from a guy named. It said my name is Veto. Now, it was obviously AI because when I asked him questions, he couldn't answer. You know, it's like, it's, it's, It's. They're using AI, they're using Grok. Generation. What are we at, 4, 2 now? I think it was generation 0.5, you know, for their customer support. And so, yeah, it's hard for me to look on beyond it. But look, the market in the short run does irrational shit. In the long run run, it's a weighing mechanism, and we'll get there. I think that value is going to matter. And the real question, and it's the big one, we haven't mentioned it once, so I'll mention it now, is the Clarity act. And whether or not we end up getting a regulatory framework which will let Atkins and Selig do what needs to be done, which is to create rules on issuance, to create of the ability to find and stop or punish manipulation. You know, in the crypto markets that. Those are big deals. People do not understand why clarity matters for Bitcoin, why clarity matters for coins. Well, all I'll say is this. The current regulatory structure says meme coins. The only thing that you know is fully legal. That's it. And so I made the point this weekend, and people kind of looked at it and said, oh, my God. And then they realized I'm right, which is that arguably Gensler was really strong, smart, and he set a trap, baited the trap, and the crypto community fell into the trap, which is make meme coins legal and watch for the fun. And that's essentially what happened. But there is still value to be created. That can't happen if there's no path toward rewarding the token holders, if you want to have any value in tokens. And so, look, we'll see what comes out this week. I personally don't. I'm not holding my breath that the administration will accept some ethics clauses, and I'm not holding my breath that the bankers don't basically hold the purse strings of enough of Congress to keep it to keep it down. But we'll see what happens.
- [64:23]
A
All right, gentlemen, we ran. Ran pretty long there. We can go ahead and wrap. Thank you as always, for the conversation. I mean, it's like impossible to even decide what to talk about at this point. There's so much nonsense in markets. I guess it makes our job a lot of fun. But, you know, it's easy to have opinions and very hard to base anything on facts at this point. And, Dave, to your point about X NA social media, we're all cooked anyways because of the AI slop. I mean, now that everybody's agents are just going to be in there, I don't think we're going to have any real content from humans anymore anyways. So he needs proof of human.
- [64:55]
B
The feature that he has to have is put in proof of human and allow you to turn off the AI.
- [65:01]
C
The number of AI threads now is getting overwhelming.
- [65:04]
A
It's out of control. We're all gonna. This show in six months is going to be four AIs that look vaguely like us just running. I'm gonna be here. All right, guys, that's all we got. Thank you so much. I'll see you back tomorrow and we'll see you guys back next Monday. Later.
- [65:20]
B
Let's do.
- [65:34]
D
That's dope.