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A
Bitcoin crashed to prices not seen since April, right down to the 74,000 lows that we saw almost a year ago. In the meantime we have the Epstein documents. War pointed as the likely next Fed chair and gold and silver trading like the worst altcoins at the dead bottom of the market. What is going on? Are we once again seeing signs of, of the end times? We're going to dig into all of that right now with James, Dave and Mike on Macro Monday. Let's go, let's do.
B
Let's do.
A
Good morning everybody and welcome to scenic Epstein Island. You can see that I've decided to buy the island now with all of my bitcoin gains. No, I do have though four gentlemen here who are all marked safe from the 3 million emails and files for the Epstein documents. We made it, guys. You know what the best part about the Epstein documents though is that people said Michael Saylor was in there and Epstein and his publicist hated Michael Saylor. It seemed like the greatest compliment you could ever achieve. So, all right, we're not going to spend the whole day on the Epstein documents. Mike, let's start man. Because wow, what a few days since we spoke last.
C
Yeah, well, may you live in interesting times and it sounds like some of us, I think we're going to have a year like 2008. But let's go to what the meeting, the people in the meeting said Stuart Paul is our economist who works with Anna Wong. His key quote was he spoke a little bit about. We all know he's a hawk but his quote was he thinks war should be potentially spooked if inflation stays sticky. Non farm payrolls. He's way below consensus, expecting about 15,000. The birth death model harrowing dole. Some things to do with consensus and expecting 4.4 rate. IRA Jersey spoke. He mentioned war. He says WARSH tends to be pragmatic. He agreed with what Stewart said that he probably could get easily spooked by inflation. And his key bottom line is productivity to drive inflation over time. I think that really fits into that Jeff Booth scenario. But his quote was I was a bit surprised. He expects next 18 months or so that 10 year note yield could pop up to around 4.5% with T note dropping to 3%. Wednesday's a refunding announcement. He's not expecting a big change. But the key thing, that's not really price and he said there's a decent chance we'll see a reduction in 10s 20s and 30s. He says that's not priced in the market yet. He says that makes sense over time, longer term, but maybe not tomorrow. He says it's a chance. Michael Casper, our equity strategist, pointed out Warsh balance sheet hawking this is probably bad for the small camps. And he did point out earnings have been great, beats have been in focus, but the problem is poor performance. Beats aren't driving excitement. And he pointed out Microsoft is a key one. Sergey Volkalov pointed out a little bit, a few things about what's happening with the dollar and war. And he thinks there's, it's a likely scenario that Iran will be us will strike Iran. And then I jumped in and I focused on them. I think metals have peaked. I think crude oil has peaked, I think copper has peaked. And bottom line thing I want to mention for everything, even gold and silver, I think it peaked is one fact. 180 day volatility in that NASDAQ is 15%. That's the lowest in eight years. If you're buying risk assets, you got to expect that level to stay the lowest in eight years and just probably not a good idea.
A
So I want to I guess start with Warsh here because I've seen quite a few articles that say it was Warsh's pick. This is CNBC Daily Market. See, Warsh is a safe pick for Fed chair causing gold and silver to plunge. That seems like an aggressive narrative. I've also seen articles saying it's the reason for the bitcoin crash. I mean is the rationale here that Warsh is too pragmatic and rational so he's not going to be a Trump stooge in some way and therefore we don't need to hedge? I don't really understand the rationale.
D
Now if that was the case, Bitcoin would have gone down on Friday. So but you saw the, I mean the markets were kind of haywire, right? You had fed funds, the, the probability of rate cuts. They just, they stayed where they were. Okay? So they, you know, they, they basically priced in exactly what was already priced in. Yields went all over the map. You know the, the, the two year, the 10 year, the 30 year they were up and down, you know, 20, 30 basis points. And so that was kind of strange. But then you had gold and silver just collapse and other metals just collapse on Friday, which was interesting. Now that could have been also, you know, margin requirements stepped up and, and forced selling, it could have been margin calls and forced selling which wouldn't that just fit, you know, the way that banks work. They, you know, they, they if they're caught off sides, maybe they'll get help, a little help from the exchanges. And then something was interesting. Is that the, I was reading that the, the breakers didn't work properly. Is that, is that right, Dave? Did you see that, did you see how the breakers were not working properly on, on Friday?
B
The problem is like.
D
And that then that could. I, I don't. I've never traded physical silver in large contracts. So it, that's. That, that would be interesting to me as well. It, it's a little bit conspiracy theory. I'm not typically conspirist on that, on that kind of stuff, but it was, it was definitely an odd set of events on Friday.
A
Well, I mean the big conspiracies theory, before Dave jumps in, just to mention it, is JP Morgan manipulating silver again, just like it did in the past. We obviously know that.
D
Well, that's happened. That is, that, that's. No, that's not, that's no secret. It's like this stuff has happened. I don't know about J.P. morgan, other bank. Like this stuff has happened before with, with banks. You know, I'm not going to call out JP Morgan today because I don't know what's going on, but.
A
Right. But people are saying that there is evidence that they had a massive short. I am not going to speak to that, obviously, but just kind of echoes what you're saying here that maybe there's a little something going on and somebody saw an opportunity, whether legal or otherwise, to make a hell of a lot of money. But I mean, Mike and I were on Protect them.
D
Yeah, that's the point. Yeah, yeah.
A
I mean, Mike and I were on market Mavericks on Thursday. I think you may have even said it here last Monday, Mike. You said, listen, silver is going to 50, right. We went from 126 to 70. We did, we did. You know, more than half the way by far. You know, 60, 70% of that in two days.
C
And I did enjoy. I had a call this morning with an old guard, classic. Very wealthy New York investor has been in precious metals forever. And I got my lecture and she, you know, just, and it sounded just like the conversations had about this time last year from crypto people and how all the demand is here and there. And then I pointed out one simple fact is there's about 800 a year's worth of supply of silver sitting in ETFs. And that's already, that's come to the market. 5% has come to the market. Market that this year so far they've Been selling. So it doesn't matter. The fundamentals now, the fundamentals that we talked about in all metals 5, 10, 2 years ago have all shifted now. The prices have adjusted and you have to look forward. And silver just, it's a lessons I've learned the hard way. Losing money and making money in that market is when it goes up a lot. That's the last thing you want to do is jump on board. So look for a decent dip. Is this the price? I doubt it. You have to cause more pain. And the bottom line for all industrial metals now, which is how the answers have changed. Silver is now 60% industrial in the past was 50 or below is the prices have shifted everything and it's probably going to go back to 50 notably. And the bottom line for all these metals, copper, platinum, palladium, even crude oil to go up, the stock market volatility has to stay low. And that's going to happen. It's going to go up. Just a question of when. And that's where I look at it is as a risk manager, I switch over the risk manager take off the fundamental hat and say don't buy at these levels. And so far that's working out. And I stick my stick with my bias. I would, you know, if I was a trader. I'm not. I think it's worthy of a short copper, a short silver, short crude oil. 65 was a good level. And your main risk, when you sit at your desk, you look over to your shoulder, what's the main thing that's going to hurt me if stock market keeps going up? What's the main thing going to help me? Stock market goes down. China, all this stuff is all minor now and cryptos are guiding the way for where things are going. Risk cats are going down, volatility is going to go up eventually. Just riding the game, ride the wave.
D
That's the question. The question is, you know, Bitcoin down over 30 of its of from its highs already before Friday and then over the weekend the deleveraging and you know, I'm not talking about perpetuals, I'm talking about just deleveraging from across the board from either hedge funds or European or Australian or, or Asian investors. You know, the one thing you could do on the weekend is obviously bitcoin and you can, you can set yourself up. If people are worried about a market drawdown on Monday, of course they're going to sell bitcoin. That's just another leg down. So the question is, is that what we're, what we're being shown here is, is bitcoin again, once again at the tip of the wrist spear telling us, hey, be aware there are market dynamics that are, that are headed our way that we've got to be careful of.
A
Okay, tip of the risk. Here's the silver chart which looks like the worst of the pump fun meme coins at the peak, right, you've got a 41 drawdown since last Tuesday. The bulk of that kind of happened in a 36 hour period, you know, going into the weekend. You can't call bitcoin the tip of the risk spear when bitcoin. Bitcoin's entire drawdown from the all time high months ago is 126. This took a few days, so.
D
That's right, that's right. That's why, that's why I said on Friday it already had a drawdown. It was different dynamics in my opinion.
A
But yeah, I'm just saying, like I find it hard to make the bitcoin tip of the wrist spear argument when the safe assets are far more volatile and dumping much harder and much faster. Now there was, I want Dave to jump in, but there was some evidence last week I had a tweet, maybe we discussed it on Market Mavericks, but it was largely the price of paper silver in the United States on futures contracts that were all over the place. And actually at one point the price of silver in India and in China I believe had gone up and was trading at a spot premium. It was like $90 on futures in the United States, but 128 or 130 on spot. So that, I mean I think there are clearly market mechanics here at play that have played into this. And Dave, I know you're like one.
D
Physical one's, one's paper, right?
A
So I'm saying a 3040 gap while they're paying a premium and it's dumping here is a really interesting dynamic.
B
So. God, there's so much to unpack. Let's start with something. Mike said that there are two things that when people say it, my hackles go up and I know that they're full of the, the one that everyone focuses on is this time is different. But there's another one. When you say fundamentals don't matter, anytime someone says fundamentals don't matter in the rearview mirror of history they look like a. And you know, it's, it's. I sorry. But it, they do matter. They don't matter in the short run, but they absolutely matter in the long run. And there is some, there are some Very massive changes that have gone on that the world figured out. Now, if you want to understand the poster child for fundamentals mattering, it's Nvidia. And when Nvidia started first rallying, there were many people saying, short this thing, it can't be that big of a deal, et cetera. Why do people need graphics chips? Oh, well, whatever, you know, oh, this crypto thing, it went on and on and on. And yes, it had enormous volatility as it, as it went up. It was not a straight line. So we understand that people learn and they internalize. So what happened with Silver was insane. But let's get some history here, recent history, so we understand it. We were on the show over a month ago and the CME raised margin requirements. I remember Silver had had this massive rally up from 50 all the way to into the 70s and it was pushing 80 and the CME raised margin requirements. And what happened? Well, yours truly made a statement and turned out to be one of the most prophetic statements I've ever made. The statement was, well, this market is disjointed. This market is no longer only speculating, only speculators are not on the CMA anymore. In fact, a large part of the CME volume is hedging from market makers that are responding and providing liquidity to the contract for differences. Markets and the other markets around the world. Now crypto, hell, you could trade silver on hyper liquid, in fact, coin routes trades, you know, is trading a fair amount of precious metal stuff with this volatility. It's one of our biggest products. So, you know, there's a lot going on, but the market makers need to hedge. So what I said was CME raising margin requirements means less liquidity and more volatility. So what did we see? We saw an absolute rocket ship parabola, you know, asymptotic rise. And whenever you see an asymptotic rise, it always ends badly. Right. You know, there's a certain thing about markets. Markets need time. So if you, you might. The silver market may very well. Even Peter Brandt thinks the silver market is going to go way the hell higher. But he thinks it's going to take years to do it. And he's probably right. It is going to take years to do it. But the fact is when you see a move from, you know, it breaks 80 and goes all the way to 120 in a matter of days. I mean, that is a 50% increase in a $5 trillion market cap at one point. You know, that is not something that happens very Easily. So of course it's going to come down to earth. It's, there's a lot of air. It's sort of like, it's sort of like in market terms it's sort of like an old warfare. Remember Game of Thrones when Jon Snow was a moron and whatever the hell that episode was and he and his people ran way ahead of their infantry support and their everybody else and then they got hemmed in by the other people because they were, they were out there and they didn't have the support of the bowmen and all the other stuff that you need in, in warfare. And then you get crushed. And so then of course you have this air pocket from 120 all the way back down to 80 and guess what happened? The air pocket from 120 down to 80 happened. And where are we right now? We are are battling it out between the high 70s and the mid-80s. That is not surprising. And that is not the same thing. And, and Scott, you're right. It's like an altcoin because a lot of these altcoins are the same thing. What happens at the top and why do the altcoins look like they do? They look, they do because the founders rug pull people. So the people you expected were going to be in with liquidity didn't show up. And all of a sudden people like start looking around saying wait a minute, who could I sell this to? And there isn't anybody and back down you go. But the fundamentals on silver are very different now. And there's another major difference between silver and bitcoin that needs to be stated. Bitcoin has a 247 highly liquid, highly transparent electronic market for the actual commodity. I don't want to say physical because that's stupid, it's virtual. But we understand that silver, the actual physical commodity, the, the dealers price it off of futures and they try and they don't know and it's wide spreads. We're talking 10 plus double digit percentage spreads for those who are playing along at home compared to bitcoin that is a hundred to a thousand times two to three orders of magnitude wider spreads on the physical. And we have the same thing that was happening that used to happen in bitcoin as you pointed out in your show last week. Remember the kimchi premium in 2017 the silver market looks like like the bitcoin market did in 2017, only worse. Yep, Think about that. Anyone who remembers those days when you had multi thousand dollar differences between bitcoin on Kraken and coinbase. And bigger than that, differences between coinbase and upbit or, or bit, thumb or however you pronounce the. The Korean exchanges. You have to understand these markets, the silver market between what's going on in Shanghai. Try getting a price from Shanghai if you're sitting in America. Unless you're actually in the know. I mean there are sites that purport to be do it, but you don't really know. So what? Let me, let me land the plane on silver before I talk about some of the other ridiculous crap that I just sat there, sat here listening to. The first one is the silver point.
D
Is we are shots fired early Monday.
C
What are you drinking? I gotta have something.
A
This might not end for 9:40.
B
If you notice, you might notice that.
D
This is important here.
B
Everybody who is listening, I need you all to do me a favor. If you want to keep hearing me is please direct message at premium on X because those morons told me someone stole my account. I like an idiot, responded to a copyright infringement email. It had an X.com extension. I don't know how the hell they.
D
Did the same thing this last week.
B
Right. And so, and so someone came in and took my account but the idiots at Twitter said they can't verify that I am me. Meanwhile, obviously I'm going to stop paying for that account and whatever. But it's. If you want to keep hearing me, tell them that they may want to reconsider that someone who is visible, you should be able to know who it is. It's just, it's beyond belief. But anyway, that's why I'm so fired up. So sorry about the, the extra. It has nothing to do with the matcha tea or the fact that it's 39 degrees in Miami. All those things would actually, I would find them funny. But no, the, the silver point is we are back to an equilibrium price around here and we'll see which way it goes. Speculators are having a field, you know, things that you never even consider. Just think about the notion of it looks, oh, the market's calming down and the range is only between 84 and 78. Just think about that. You know, a 7, 8% range is calming down in this market. Price discovery is a. And whenever you get into price discovery you get this volatility and that's where silver is. And we don't know where it's going to go in the short run. In the long run it goes higher. But that long run could be a decade. And all you have to do is look at the tech involving technology and understand just how important batteries are, how you know there are so many different things that you can go on and we could do a whole space about it. I don't want to do that. But I do think you have to look at the fundamentals. If a back of the envelope says that if the Samsung battery technology using silver and there isn't replacement for it could easily quadruple industrial demand where we're always already in deficit. I said quadruple 60,000 tons a year of demand. That is an enormous amount. Grandma's tea sets won't do that.
A
But before you move on to the next points, I want to make sure.
D
Whatever you're drinking, we do need some.
A
To keep what I just want to make sure like we wrap the conversation on silver before you jump into the other stupidity that you heard. If anybody else has comments on gold or silver here before we move on, Mike does.
C
Yeah, well, let's just clarify how dumb I am. And Dave, I love you as a big brother because you want to make me better brother. And the key thing is the fundamentals used to matter. The answers just changed. When silver gets most expensive ever versus crude oil and copper, everything shifts. And that's my point. I have shifted. You can look at your old statement watch you lose money. I'm going to look at the statement of watch it gain money by not being long silver. Although I've been bullish metals forever, no longer. This is the first time in almost two decades. I'm just sorry because they've already done it. They've shifted all the supply, demand balances. It's just economics 101. You have supply, demand and price. Price is the most volatile. When it shifts exponentially, everything does. So to me, I think again I will restate. I think silver's put in a long term peak at least for a year. I think it's going back to 50 in a heartbeat. I started sending to my editors on Friday. I started writing when silver was just below the buck. It's going to 50. I had to rewrite the whole thing because it dropped 85. Like well this is fun but this is the way the devil's metals work. But the way markets work, it's never forget bottom line in all markets. It's a key thing that you're still fighting in cryptos. Simple fact, markets, they went up too much. Now remember silver's and now it's one thing's really changed about silver. In the past it was more somewhat metallic was more like, you know, a store of value. Now it's 60% industrial, as you know. And the demands coming from China and China's facing the big screw from the US Their bond yields are collapsing. Yeah, I've been early on that one. But this is just the market. Also the bottom line for anybody, anybody who's taking any risk position, please look at volatility. You're buying volatility at the lowest in eight years in the nasdaq. Precognizant of that. And that's what, to me, the metals are figured out.
A
I want to ask Mike a quick question. Just because is there a world, Mike, where you see silver dumping but gold maintaining or rising? It reminds me, and I said this over and over again, of alt season in the past, like silver was moving like altcoins in alt season. Right. And maybe the money just goes back to gold because it's the better store of value. Central banks are buying it. Kind of like money would flow back to bitcoin.
C
So the bottom line for the silver gold ratio, which right now is at 58, the low, I think was 47 last year. I was way too early, stopped out, got to buy it again. The bottom line for that ratio to go down is stock market volatility has to stay down. It's almost a one to one correlation historically. And stock market volatility goes up. Gold always outperforms silver. Now that's in the past. When silver is less industrial, now it's more industrial. Same with copper. The problem I have with gold now is even versus copper. It's almost the most expensive ever. That's why the whole space. I'm even starting to get bearish gold. And you're not supposed to do that because I had a few people told me, people I've known who's held it for decades. No, Mike, I can't sell my gold. I'm like, that's exactly why. It's what people say about bitcoin. No, Mike, I can't sell my bitcoin. That's why you're supposed to. Because when it gets ingrained that much and it goes up that much, you got a pair of.
A
All right, we can move on to the. The next topic of rant if you had something queued up, Dave.
B
Yeah, so. So silver and price discovery, we understand where, where we're at. You know, volatility is way higher. That still means that the momentum traders who are playing in that game are still there, are going to stay in that game until proven otherwise. They lose all their money. We do not know. And this is A really important point, the last point that I didn't hear anyone mention is we have no idea of the magnitud losses and, and, and understand something like 10, 10 proves something. Yes, it's a zero sum game. Some people make money, some people lose money. But the problem is, is the overall pool of traders when they get wiped out decreases when you have these massive volatility events and it tends to create a period of lower volatility afterwards. One would think with the magnitude of the silver and gold move too. Because gold, I mean look at 30 trillion dollar asset moving as much as it did is, is just an insane amount. I mean if you look at past market events in markets of similar sizes, when there have been that sort of a rise and fall, you get a lot of people wiped out that are now no longer in the investing pool. The net result is lower volatility. That's generally what happens. We're not seeing it yet and I don't know why, honestly I am highly confused by that. But unfortunately, unlike crypto where we actually have data that tells us how many people got wiped out, we know over 19 billion got wiped out on 10, 10 we've seen estimates of over 100,000 individual accounts gone.
A
And we're seeing 2 or 3 billion a day right now by the way, still.
B
Yeah, that's right.
A
Doubles and triples FTXs on random.
B
The thing that people have to understand about crypto is yes, there's two different types of people, people who push all their chips in the table and get wiped out. And there are some of those and that, that's horrible. And people, and you know, we, all of us, all four of us consistently warn people never do that. And then there are intelligent professional investors who use crypto perps on high leverage the same way you and I or any of us would use options. So we might take a thousandth of our portfolio and buy an option, you know, that will expire worthless if in fact we're wrong. And the same type of way you take a thousandth of your portfolio and you do a hyper leverage crypto trade. And if you're wrong, you lose everything. But if not, you make a lot of money. And some, so some of those accounts that get wiped out are not really accounts, they're just, you know, effectively the piece of your portfolio. But my point is we have no idea the damage that was done in the gold and silver markets. And in fact the market does not look the same. It is, it is different. So when you start to say words like bitcoin is the tip of the risk spear. And you have that amount of risk on an asset and on a complex that's combined 15 times larger than all of crypto. Then I start thinking the only tip of the spear thing is the fact that you can't really trade gold and silver for a period of time on the weekend.
D
I mean you have to understand, Dave, that when I say that it's just the way that it's been treated.
B
No, no, no, I, I understand why, because we've all we've been talking about. But bitcoin's volatility, even with everything that happened this weekend is still way lower than a lot of these other markets and weekend trading. I mean look, there was a time and there will be a time when you'll be able to trade stocks on weekends. So it used to be when you could trade stocks after hours. And the volatility on stocks after hours was enormous, I mean literally enormous, to the point where regulators started getting pissed off because people would do this particularly around earnings. Right? You know, when there was after earnings and you had to wait for the next day and you see all sorts of stuff. I mean liquidity is one of those things. There are a lot of people out there who will play in the weekend areas and ultimately end up getting hurt. But more often than not the volatility decreases as you as once futures open on Sunday night, New York time and Asia's open Monday morning. And that that's generally what happens. But the point that bitcoin is the tip of the risk sphere at this point, I mean when its volatility is lower than Most of the Mag 7. I'm sorry, it just, it's, it's, it, it is true on the weekend, but it is not true from the time that people are listening to us. That's all I was trying to say. It's just different. Now. Look, what's going on in bitcoin is the same. I mean, I don't want to say it every week, but fuck it, I'll say it again, which is you have time based capitulation. We are in the middle of something that takes time. And everyone who believes that you're going to see a V shaped recovery because all of a sudden some catalyst is going to save us, they're the ones who get wiped out. And so that creates a slow grind lower until you end up with a slow grind higher. And then that changes, I mean directional changes don't happen overnight. And yeah, we might want them to. And, and there's some Good reasons why it should happen. But I mean, we'll see. I mean we didn't hold the range. Right. You know, let's, let's call it what it is. We had this low 80s to low 90s.
A
We were at 98 two weeks ago. So.
B
Right.
A
It's not.
D
We knew that if we knew if we broke 85, we're going to get in that 777 to 82 pocket.
B
Right. We dropped down below it, it's invalidated and now we're back into, I'm not going to say negative price discovery, but we're in this place where people are talking about whether it's 68 or 58 or blah, blah, blah. You know, the technical traders are all bearish. I mean look, look at the greed and fear index this morning. We're down to 14. Right. You know, we had like three days where we got to neutral. We've been fear or extreme looks pretty bad. What?
D
Yeah, I mean like if you look at, it's pretty severely oversold in the short term. But look, if you, if you look at as a chartist and where the support levels are, we're, we're testing the last support we have here until the 60s. That's just reality.
B
100%.
A
I mean we, we, we, we, we ticked it 80 bucks above the low from April. So right now if you look, I can bring it up. I mean if you look at the chart. So for those who view markets as, you know, higher lows and higher highs, we still have that by 80 bucks right here. So technical bull market in that perspective. And as James said, the 74,000 level has been key, you know, going all the way back to the beginning of 2024. Lose that and actually, you know, you technically have a lot of other reasons. But listen, there's key mas above price. It's a pretty ugly chart beyond that.
B
100%, a chart that technicals are terrible. Sentiment is terrible. We broke through a range. The question is who has much left to sell of the people who were selling and who and where are the buyers? I mean we know Saylor is going to sit there buying. We saw Justin sun buying, etc. Look, there are some things that are going on in the market which are problematic. There's no doubt that the Epstein files and people hysterical about Trump and all the various people arguments. I mean, I hate to even say it, that Jeffrey Epstein was involved in bitcoin in the beginning. All of this stuff. There's no doubt that this stuff affects people. And you know, this too shall pass Right. Because it's just, it's. That's an absurdity.
A
But did you see that he almost got dinged from his blockstream investment because he was looking at Ripple and stellar more interesting emails. But, yeah, go ahead.
B
Yeah, well, XRP is at 1.6 right now. Right. You know, just, just keep that in mind. I mean, that's from. So, you know, I, I don't know. I lost access to X, so I can't interact with the XRP army today. But I can only imagine that. That there are some people who are like, what the hell happened? You know, it's like, it's. There's, there's got to be a lot of moroseness going on. But look, the, the truth is that the entire we. We are in. I said it a week and a half or two weeks ago, that this is what crypto winter feels like, and we're in crypto winter. And it's kind of. It's poetic that it's 39 degrees in Miami and 10 degrees in New York City as we're in crypto winter. We're real winter in crypto winter. There's no doubt. I mean, there are people out there who believe that it's all over and it's exactly what happened.
C
It is.
B
It is literally textbook.
A
Yeah. I mean, here it is. There's one common denominator with every crypto crash in history. They always seem like the end of crypto and they always become rounding errors in the long run.
B
Right. And so it's a question of. That's where fundamentals matter. And frankly, some things in crypto fundamentally have value and some do not. And we'll see how all that goes.
C
I want to address what you just said, Scott. To me, that's so prolific. It is. What I loved about Trump won and Biden was I could write stuff that was so logical stuff, great stuff to look forward to. Bitcoin was cheap. We all knew the bottom base layer was a dollar, and crypto dollars are all investing in treasuries and they didn't get it. That was wonderful. We knew that was going to be a matter of time. They figure out ETFs were going to be launched. We knew it was a matter of time how they did. As a matter, all that stuff is over now. It's in the mainstream. It's getting armed out. It's done. The whole space is done. So my point is we're in. The purge stage was get through that purge stage you mentioned. XRP. Go back to 50 cents. I mean, it's where it was right before Trump was elected. That's nothing. Doesn't mean a big deal. Look at Dogecoin. Finally, it's almost two thirds of the way there. If we can just take the rest of that $17 billion and get it to zero, then we'll find the bottom. The bottom line for anybody and anybody who's not stuck in this space and still trying to fight a bear market is you don't buy risk assets when you have volatility. Unless you expect stock market volatility stay inordinately low, you wait for rallies to sell or you stay away. To me, that's still the case. Now what we've had happening in the precious metals is truly historic. Now, I've only been in the market for almost 40 years. I never thought I'd see, be able to see a chance to say, hey, I sold silver at the highest price ever versus copper and crude oil. Just to be able to say that it's like, oh, wonderful. What are you supposed to do? You're not supposed to buy it. That's my point is we're in that stage now. This, to me, this is setting up to me like a 2008 year and you have to sit there and hope and pray. I, someone in the Bloomberg chat this morning said hopefully, you know, when I pointed out my outlook of bitcoin going to 50 and, and Nasdaq, I'm sorry, silver going to 50 is hopefully you're wrong. And this add zeros. I'm like, hope is the worst trade. That's what's still happening. We're seeing people fading. They're trying to. It's classic thing that happens in bear markets. Too much false hope. And then you look over what's. The fundamentals have changed, have shifted, wait for it to all pan out. I just. People looking for bottoms in cryptos, I'm like, yeah, good luck. I just love to see it, but I don't see any signs of it yet. And now we just, we had this narrow range since November. We just broke down. You're supposed to go with that trade.
B
Now, that's a fair point. But there are two points on, on, on one of each that I want to make one. In terms of silver, my thesis is simple. It's not an absolute price level in silver, although I think it will get there. It's silver to gold, the gold silver ratio. And silver has actually fallen more than gold. It's actually gotten worse since Friday. But I, my prediction is the silver gold ratio will get back to where we were in the 70s, which is the mid-30s by the way in the Earth's crust it's 20s. Just to understand when gold was the massive beneficiary of financialization and silver was effectively demonetized by gold and you said it was 60% in industrial metal. I don't know what the percentage was but I think for the most part outside of China, silver wasn't a monetary metal. It was an industrial metal that had monetary ability to buy it. So you could buy Peace dollars or pre 64 silver or Eagles before the, the, the mint basically said no, you know, because they ran out of silver to, to produce it. You know, it, it, that ratio is one of those statistical things. It's a long term statistical thing. But maybe the ultimate, the ultimate stat arb which is silver should be somewhere around 1 20th gold based upon the way you recover it, etc. And that I still believe in. I don't think we, I don't think 20 like a lot of people do. But look, the entire decade of the 70s it ratcheted in the mid-30s, mid to high 30s. And that was the last time we were in a kind of monetary situation where we are seeing a reset. Now the one thing about Kevin Warsh that everybody needs to understand is Kevin Warsh and Scott Besant are on the same page. They're playing from the same playbook and that matters a lot. Both have bought into the notion of that we need to reset our policies from where we were since the 70s in terms of US dollar primacy, US as a reserve currency and allowing us to let our industrial capacity get hollowed out. They both understand that we need to rebuild American productive capacity. And to do that many things have to happen. So when you look at that, that has a bunch of implications that go just that go beyond interest rates they can't afford. And neither of them are dumb. They're both incredibly smart people. They cannot afford to lose the long end in a way that looks like some of the charts you see at a Weimar Germany. Right. They can't afford that. So they can do everything they can to stop that behind the scenes. They want a weaker dollar in the sense of one that doesn't disadvantage American manufacturing and disincentivize investment. They want more investment here. They want to run our GDP as hot as possible. I mean 5% GDP and, and at.
D
The same time just instill confidence that Warsh is a hawk. He's not going to let things get out of control. In the meantime, you're going to find Operation Twist before you know it because you just don't have a choice. It's not about them learning their, like Mike, I, I, I, this is the spot where you and I differ. It's not about them learning their mistakes. They don't, they, they don't have any other play in the book. That's it. It's, you know, I mean, there was part of what I wrote about Warsh being the, the pick this weekend. I wrote about it in, in my newsletter. There's four doors and the only door that's, that's been open since we got deficits out of control and our debt spun out of control, that you've got one door and that door is to print more money and keep the interest rates lower. It's, everybody is turning Japanese.
C
Period.
D
It's just watch Japan. That's where we're headed.
C
Okay.
B
By the way, I want to talk about one other, one other point. The policy tools of this administration are about to slam shut on them. It's essentially whatever the agencies can do. So whatever the Fed and Treasury can do, whatever the SEC and CFTC can do in our world, etc. I mean, we just, we got a preview of the midterms that just recently there was a seat up in Texas that Trump won by 17 points and it flipped Democrats. Trump is going to spend two years fighting off impeachment. We're going to get no policy done whatsoever because everybody is going to be. The only thing the Republicans are going to care about, the only thing the Democrats are going to care about is 20, 28. It's going to start. It's going to be 247 once the Democrats win in November because the Republicans refuse to coalesce. Maybe, maybe they, they grow a pair and pass the SAVE act and maybe we get elections that aren't quite so bad. But the truth is they're going to lose no matter what. I mean, you can't just fix it when people are pissed. The one thing that we now know based on the budget, but on this, this partial shutdown, everything else we know, 0.00% chance they're going to be able to cut all the crap that they thought they were going to cut. I mean, if you listen, I was at an event yesterday and was listening to Van Jones, who is different.
D
God's sake.
B
No, no, no, no, no, no. Look, look, he, he is much more commonsensical than you, than you give him credit for. There are some real issues here. He pointed out some things which I didn't know that the data Backs him up, which is that the, the cuts that did happen in the federal government and through the NGO complex did disproportionately hurt minorities. Absolutely did. And you go back and you could look at the data, unemployment rates among, you know, in his particular case, he talked about college educated black women. Went way up. Now, what does this tell you? This is a massive political thing. And so they are not. Watch the Republicans and they're already doing it. We didn't know why. I didn't know why. Anyway, maybe I'm not as smart as a lot of people, but they're already backpedaling from budget cuts. There is zero chance that they're going to be cutting this stuff because it is absolutely impossible. And so, yes, they want to run the economy hot, but they can't cut the spending side of it. So you're going to see, the only way you're going to ever see deficits go down is if we tremendously increase revenue. And yeah, Trump will talk about tariff revenue. Other people talk about economy hot.
A
All right, if we got to move to James, because I know he had some. Jay, I can literally see you dying. Once you get your chance, go for it.
B
Sorry.
D
No, I mean, it's, it, what you're saying is, is, is mildly. It is true. What you're saying is that there's no way around, you know, the fact that we're going to be spending money. The question is like we keep talking about, yeah, we're going to raise productivity, we're going to raise productivity. But at the same time, you're seeing the raise in productivity because of this, this rise in AI and taking out a number, a, just a, a swath of that lower economic base of, of white collar jobs. You know, you're talking about all these administrative entry level jobs that are, that are, you know, have to do with data accumulation and analysis. That's just, it's getting, they're getting wiped out. And you're seeing tens of thousands of jobs, you know, just lost. And in the layoffs last week, I don't know, Mike, maybe you have a number that came out in the morning meeting, but tens of thousands of jobs last week of, you know, these tech companies just announced it. The problem is the, the productivity miracle is it's bringing deflation at the same time. You know, so because it's off of AI, it just, it's, it's, this is, we, this is a spot that I don't think we've ever been in, in modern finance. And so with debt and deficits, so High the need to have a, a larger revenue base, you know, larger gdp. At the same time that you, the, the productivity miracles is coming at the cost of pricing. You know, everything's going down. This is, it's, it's absolutely deflationary AI. So what's your choice? You're, this is the whole, this is Jeff Booth's thesis of the Price of Tomorrow is you've got a productivity miracle coming, but at the cost of gdp. And so this is literally what the Price of Tomorrow is about. The fight between the natural deflation effects of the advancement in technology versus the absolute need for expansion of GDP nominally by debt laden economies. So how does that gonna, what, how's that gonna play out? And you've got Warsh. Who's the pick here? Who's supposedly a hawk that, you know, like you said, Mike, they're going to move away from tens and, and, and 20s and 30s on issuing debt because they can't issue debt at this rate. They need those rates lower. They can't lock them in for 30 years.
A
Here are those job numbers, by the way, that you were somewhat referring to.
D
Yeah, exactly. I mean like we, I'm trying to warn people who are not on X. The only people who, who are, you know, aware of this stuff are the people who are on X and talking about this and listening to people. Like, you know, not just me. There's a lot of way smarter people than me online and in the news talking about productivity and you know the, the all in podcast, like these guys and, and Scott, the guys you've been having on like this is real. And if you talk to normal people, they will be completely blindsided by this. They have no idea what's going on. None. I talked to, I, I could talk to 20 people, 20 of my friends who are not in finance and not plugged into this.
C
Exactly.
D
They have absolutely no idea what's going on. They're completely lost. They've, they're clueless that this is happening. Forget about Clawbot. Oh my God, like forget about having an AI agent running on your own machine. Like they're just, it's already happening.
A
People are already using that by the way, to hack people's crypto.
D
Of course they are. You know, I, I would caution people, you know, but the it, this is, this is something that's real. And yeah, I mean date like or, or Mike, what is, what is the response of your economists? And I'd love to know what Anna Won thinks about this stuff because you know, this is the kind of thing that's keeping me up at night trying to figure out how to, how to approach this from an investment perspective.
C
So I have a trade for you. You mentioned turning Japanese. I agree. You know, I traded those JGBs 30 years ago. I remember this well. 10 year note right now in Japan is 2.22. Now finally coming up, it just took 30 years to come out of that. Let's look at China. 10 year note yield is 1.81. Both of those countries have massive deficits, are expending massively. Maybe Japan a little bit just to keep their economies afloat. Yet their 10 year note yields are around 1.81%. I look over at this US treasury bond I started in this trading pit in 1988. I've been dead wrong for three years. The hundred week Bollinger band is the narrowest since 2008. I just look at this as you can buy calls for a year or a little less. You're supposed to be buying calls in UST bonds. Yeah. Maybe you lose some of your premium. Sometimes you lose all the premium, then you reset and when you're right you get 10. Sometimes you get many X's.
D
These are so cheap. It's kind of laughable, you know.
C
Yeah. At some point that trade's going to kick in and all it takes is one little thing. One little thing is guiding everything. It's just a little pickup in stock market volatility. It'll happen. All the markets are telling us, cryptos are telling us, precious metals are telling us, and yet we are back up again in the stock market. It's never going to go down, but when it does, there's going to be some great.
D
To be clear to be clear for people who are listening, what Mike is saying is that if you look at long bonds and tlt, that is a, I would say it's a trade, Mike. I don't think it's a long term thesis to stay in long term bonds. I would say it's a trade that the rates will come down because of a flight to safety. You know, you can't have a flight to safety in something like silver or gold. When these things are moving 10, 20 of the clip, that's now something suddenly that comes off the table as a flight to safety.
B
Right.
D
So maybe gold becomes, you know, the ultimate flight to safety again. But the, that's, that's what you're saying. I think if I, if I can translate for your, for the listeners and, and help them understand.
C
Well, typically treasuries are less of a trade but here's the bottom line so far this year is we try to get above 5%. Couldn't do it. I think it goes back to 3%. Try to get to 10. You know, crude oil above $65 so far, can't do it. Try to get Bitcoin above 100 grand. Couldn't do it. Try to get silver above $100, couldn't do it. Tried to get copper above 6, couldn't do it. You see the trend there. And since only February, there's stuff going on. The thing that's still staying strong is the stock market. But all these other things are tilting towards what you expect is normal post inflation deflation. I'm sticking with that bias until proven wrong. You got at least stay above these levels. That's where maybe it all starts with that S&P 500 it's got to stay above 7,000 and maybe it goes back to 5,000. You know, stuff like it used to do.
D
Yeah, you just, but you just. Here's the point is that your, your economists at Bloomberg agree with me because they know that the, the treasury is going to, they, they are, they are migrating away from issuing debt that's longer dated than just a couple of years. And because they know that they can't afford this. You, they, the, the government simply cannot afford to lock in a 30 year rate at 5%. That's, they just can't. They, we just can't afford it. $10 trillion is going to come due this year. They're going to roll that right into T bills. They're not gonna, that's, they're not going to do, you know what's, what's called term out the, the debt meaning moving it out on the curve. They're not going to do it. They want to, but they can't. So that's a key point where percent is stuck.
C
Let's say we're walking into midterms. What's the key things, themes and things that helps the incumbents? Natural gas has to go down, crude oil has to go down and bond yields have to go down.
B
Okay, you got exactly, you got to.
C
Get on that train. You jump on the train.
D
You got to get mortgages cheaper, you've got to get groceries cheaper. Energy is the single largest input and if anything we do and, and, and of inflation. I agree. You know, but here, here, I've shown this before. Just want to show this again for people to understand what we're talking about. Mike, you know this chart. Well, you love it. You see this, Scott? This is how much debt is this, is, this is maturing this year? It's over. It's going to be between here and the beginning of 27. We're talking about 14/trillion of debt not including the 2/trillion dollars that they're going to pile on this year for additional deficit. It's mental. I, I just can't see rates long term going back to 2% on the 10 year. Why? Because people are going to demand a return that gets them closer to a real yield. They won't get a real yield I don't think for a while but they're going to demand it. And unless you are, you know you are absolutely, you have no other choice but to put your Money into, into 10 to 30 years you're going to demand a better rate.
C
So when's the last time we had at least an amount of. We finally have only what almost not even six months yet of negative sentiment. And cryptos just started. We haven't had six months or a year of a couple years of negative sentiment. Stock market a long time. We're just overdue for that. What precious metals are telling me this year is it's going to happen this year. I look at those long bonds is the, you know I was, I love cryptos forever got out, jumped off that horse in 24 love gold and metals forever jumped up off that horse this year and now I just see bonds. Let's get through that trade and we can move on the next trade. But right now I exactly think, I.
D
Don'T, I don't disagree with you. They may be the ultimate flight to safety here if, if we have a correlation of one event. I don't disagree with you but I, the, where I, where I think we disagree is that they're a long term holding. I just don't see you getting a real rate of return on holding bonds. It just doesn't make sense to me.
C
Well, you did very well in Japan for a while and then they went negative, got too long and China did very well. One of the best performing bond markets the last couple of years. Now they're too cheap. I think the US is just going that way. It's global.
B
I mean the problem with deflation is, is not to go all Milton Friedman on you guys but inflation is a monetary phenomena and we are making more money every single day, single year. And, and not by small amount. And it's not just us. It when, now that Germany is paying for defense, it's literally every single member of the G7 plus, you know, plus China plus, you know, etc, you know, throughout the emerging markets the entire world is, is awash and printing new money. So when you talk about the, the you know, deflation, you're, you're fighting a 8 to 10% increase in global monetary supply every single year. It's pretty hard to get negative numbers there. That's, that's thing number one. Thing number two is when you talk about price levels and we need to see this, we need to set it from the technical basis. I mean that's gibberish. I mean that's backwards. You know, Rob Arnott, who's one of the better smartest quantitative minds out there. I mean I'm sure Cliff Asness, if he listens to this would say no, no, no, but whatever. But there's no question that Professor Arnott is a smart guy. He once had said something that I've always taken to heart, which is quantitative trading. And the same is true with technical trading is like driving a car looking out of the rear view mirror. Sure you kind of see, you know, trends in the road, but that doesn't mean that, that you see what's actually happening. What's actually happening is the entire fiat system that's in the world, the entire can down the road continue to take out debt. Debt fueled economies are coming to an end. The fourth turning is upon us. It is, it's been this in the, in the global scale of economic history from 1971 to today is just not that long a period of time.
D
The dollar's good. The dollar being a global reserve currency has the benefit of, of you know, lasting the longest in, in this whole charade.
B
But the benefit is at a cost. We literally have.
D
Exactly.
B
That's the point. That's exactly the point. The cost is our bond Yields are, are 200 basis points at least above everyone else with the exception of the UK which is a total dumpster fire.
D
You know, in terms of, in more ways than one. Oh yeah.
B
I mean look, I was very close to UK citizenship, I lived there for a bunch of years of the country. But, but the economics in the, they have, they're a dumpster fire. They're, they're, you know, the poster child for the collapse of a mercantilist economy. And we all kind of know that's true, but. So the US pays higher rates. We just do as part of this thing. It's part of the grand bargain. The grand bargain. We get to keep the dollar. We get to import stuff and send out IOUs. And that's what this administration is trying to end. How does ending look? Well, ending looks like significant dislocation. Now that dislocation could be. Is going to be some things that are going to be good, some things that are not going to be good. But the truth is that there's no way out, at least for a short time. Lyn Alden gets quoted. Nothing stops his train. But what she means by it is we are going to continue to print until we get to a time where we can get 7, 8% GDP growth and massive increases in taxes, you know, increases in tax revenue and frankly, without any legislative changes. And I don't think we have a chance at legislative changes. I don't see how that's going to happen. So what you're going to see is the one thing they can do is they can deregulate. They can because they control the agencies for three years and they're going to get very aggressive with, with that. What they can do is on the monetary policy and treasury is coordinate a policy of relatively easy money to the and telling. They're going to do the, they're going to do what the high school magicians do. Remember I always used to do this. You know, you do all that people about this and everything's happening back here. This is I'm a hawk. I'm going to control inflation. This is we're going to be printing. Right.
D
And I don't have a choice, but we have to print. Exactly.
B
That's right. So you see that and we always called it jawboning back in the day. That's what the Fed is going to do. They get a lot of jawboning. But the truth is liquidity spigots need to be on because they need to grease the economy. They need massive investments in things like rare earth refining and things like productive capacity. They want to reshore steel. I mean no rational human being thinks it makes sense to have the coal and the iron ore mined in one place, shipped halfway around the world to be processed and then imported back to the United States. We want to fix that. And the only way to fix that is massive investments. How do you do it right? You know, it's, it there's a lot.
D
Wouldn't hurt to have the proper refineries either, but that won't happen.
B
Well, but that's the point. They, they need to get through the environmental stuff. I mean Trump in the last, the last time he spoke actually mentioned Lee Zeldin for the first time that I had heard him speak about. Lee Zelda may be the most important person in re industrializing America. Liselden for those who don't know is the head of the episode.
A
I thought he's Led Zeppelin at the time.
B
But it's, it's. But, yeah, but it, but, but you know he. Getting environmental rules to be able to allow for building in this country is what they're trying to do. These are the things they want to do. You know, they don't care about, you know and at the other time, the other thing is, is people talking about bitcoin. The last point about wars that I constantly make is. And you have had Caitlin Lawn on your show many times. Scott, don't underestimate the, the change in direction of the Fed's regulatory power. Do not underestimate, don't fall asleep on it. That is a major long term thing. Mike is right though. That long term thing, that fundamental that's not going to show up in the price anytime soon. It is from some people but it's not enough. But it is a big deal. And what I mean by that just, just to land the plane is once bitcoin can be adjudicated to be pristine collateral and usable in the financial system, it, it opens up bitcoin banking and many other things. I was talking, I had dinner at, you know, you know Matt Rosak is another friend of your show. Yeah, Matt was talking about this, how important bitcoin banks will be, you know, as things move forward. And that's going to become legal in the United States and that's a big deal. But it's not going to happen tomorrow. It's not going to save, it's not going to be the next tick in the price. And so for that we are still stuck in where we are. Okay, there's, I, I gave, I gave you guys a lot of stuff there.
A
Yeah, I mean we're kind of at 9:57 if either you guys want to respond. If not, there's one more thing I wanted to point out.
D
Yeah.
A
Let's hear if this is indicative of the state of things it mines. BMNR unrealized ETH losses rise to 6.6 billion now on track to become the fifth largest documented principal trading loss in history. If sold unrealized losses are now at 66% the size of Arch Ghost in 2021, the largest loss ever recorded. It's not going great. Maybe they should have used the 200 million from the Mr. Beast deal to put to buy the lows here with eth. But I'm not sure if they've been buying but it was at the moment that there was a strategy pivot, I think it's pretty ugly for treasury companies is what I was getting here. I mean, this is disgusting.
C
I have to mention One thing about ETH. I enjoyed posting last night. ETH has been stuck between 2000 and 4000 forever and it's never been a good one to buy when stock market volatility is very low. I just point out, yeah, 2,000 support. But you realistically look at it, it's probably not going to bounce there could easily go to 1000 just because stock market volatility is too low. It's the bottom line. I think people have to remember that when you're buying these risk assets with a high correlation. And then I keep thinking the big picture macro and everything is we're in the US stock market 2.2 times G. If it drops 10%, that's almost 25% in GDP. We're overdue for that. That's going to be your deflation. That's going to be what's going to get those bond calls to kick in. That's what cryptos are predicting. Precious metals are predicting. If we can get through the year and avoid that, that would be wonderful, but easily. Have you mentioned after the midterms Mr. Trump's going to be more of a lame duck and if he keeps inflation high, he's going to be a super lame duck.
A
Yeah, I think he's good. I think Dave is right though in that he may be a lame duck legislatively and have problems, but the regulators are going to be effectively able to do whatever they want for the next three years. Matt Hogan made that point pretty eloquently last year. So I don't think it's quote unquote over for this industry, regardless of what happens with Trump or with the Clarity act, which I think is dead in the water, personally. But some people seem more optimistic than I do. There's a meeting today, I think with the leaders of the crypto industry once again at the White House to try to shore things up. But I don't think it's looking particularly good. Anyone here right before we end, I mean, sitting here with depression and Bitcoin hit 74,000 and we're back to the April lows. I do feel like this move has reached a fever pitch of bearishness that we look for, for capitulation. I can tell you anecdotally sitting here with my producer Ryan, and he said he had to explain to his whole family all weekend why they shouldn't sell everything right now. At the Lowe's, I had, I had my friend who was a Citadel guy, is now somewhere else of a similar elk saying, hey, bitcoin trades like, shit. I just got into this thing starting at the highs. Like, I think I'm done. What are we doing here? There's a lot of it going on. This is starting to feel like a 41% retrace in a. After a bull market that didn't even pull a 2x from the highs last time. This may be your bear market. Listen, if my. Listen, Mike, if. If stock market volatility goes crazy and stocks dump like look out below, I agree. But if they find a way to, you know, patch a few holes in this ship for a little while, this could be the lows.
C
You hope so, but that's the key thing. If stock the thing, it doesn't have to go crazy. Just a modest rebound. Historia I remember being in the trading pits in Chicago and with a New Yorker and one quote from this New York trading person. You know, Mike, stockbark or volatiles always mean reverting. And I'll never forgot that because I made a lot of money on it. NASDAQ 180 day volatility averages around 20, 23, 24%. Right now it's 15. That's the problem, what you mentioned, all these people who are way overweight cryptos, they're gonna lose a lot of wealth. It's gonna shut off spending and we haven't even touched. That's just the tip of the iceberg. So overdue for. That's why I point out this is so overdue for that 50, you know, that 5% long bond, they go to 3% and maybe it's a trade according to you, James, but I'll take. That's a pretty good trade. Once that trade, then you have a lot of other stuff you can buy.
A
On Thursday, you made the best point, the one that I love because all week I was pounding the pavement on why would we get a natural rotation from metals into bitcoin. That seems to be the coping narrative in the bitcoin community, is that once silver and gold top, everything's going to flow into bitcoin. And you made the very simple statement, you kind of said, what profits, right? Because if this thing falls off a cliff, which it hadn't yet, that money is just destroyed. There's nothing to rotate. And it happens an hour later. Right. Last I checked, when silver went down 41%, we didn't see a rotation into bitcoin.
B
No, of course not. The Rotation, as it were, is when Silver gets boring again. This isn't a rock in a pond. This is an asteroid in the ocean. Anyone seen any of those movies? I mean, it doesn't go from the biggest single move in. In a high large cap asset like in. In recorded history to calm boring, you know? You know, we talk about bitcoin being boring, and so the people look for other stuff and they look for other narratives and they left. Yeah, okay, that. That happens.
C
That, that.
B
That's a real thing. But you don't leave when you have this massive waves and incredible volatility out there. So, yeah, you know, that rotation could occur, but it doesn't occur for when it falls. It occurs for when it gets boring. And I think we got a long way to go for boring.
A
Agreed.
D
Well said.
A
I'm not bored.
B
Yep. Are we not amused? That's the Russell Crowe thing, you know.
A
Are you not entertained? Are we not entertained? Yes. Or you can say that this vexes me. I'm terribly vexed. From the same movie. Equally powerful quote. Well, we. We nailed it. 1010-03-703 for James. Thank you for, as always, waking up early.
B
My. My temporary Twitter handle is David Weiss 34397. So we'll see if that could work.
A
Are you gonna come on Spaces with Dave Weisberg?
B
Well, no, it says Dave W. But my at is at. David Weissman.
A
We need you on. We need you on Twitter space. So I'll try to join and hacking. Keep you on. Off.
B
Yeah, I mean, you know, the whole thing is just. I'm just. I'm just pissed off, but whatever.
A
Well, okay.
B
Sorry for taking it out on you guys.
A
I'm going to be honest. Just as we wrap. I bought $100 Salana. I bought the bottom here on Ethereum, and I definitely bought Bitcoin from 74 to. To 77, largely algorithmically. But I also spazzed and did some myself. Because, listen, if it goes 50 or 60, great. I'm still making money. I'll still buy more if it doesn't. Great. I bought the lows. And either way, I think I'm going to be fine in a few years. That's all I really care about at this point, so we'll see how it turns out. Mike, I know you want to yell at me.
C
No, no. But you're trading. You're trading. Scott, I'm sure you have some tight stops.
A
Yeah, not so much on some of these. I'm not leveraged, but I'm ready to ride the roller coaster. All right. Guys. That's all we got. That was a great macro Monday. The crowd was back. We had 3,000 people. Sometimes, unfortunately, it just market to dump for people to pay attention. It's sad, but that's what we got. Thank you, Dave. Mike James. Dave. I will see you on crypto. Town Hall, Dave Weisberg. Thanks, guys. Bye.
Host: Scott Melker
Date: February 2, 2026
Guests: James, Dave, Mike
In this special "Macro Monday" episode, Scott Melker and his panelists (James, Dave, and Mike) dissect the tumultuous week in global markets as Bitcoin plunges back to $74,000 amid widespread chaos—ranging from fresh revelations in the Epstein documents, commodity routs, and rumors surrounding the Fed chair to looming questions about monetary policy, inflation, and global economic stability. The conversation moves deftly from high-level macroeconomic themes through the mechanics of metals and crypto markets, highlighting historic volatility, psychological market factors, and the shifting role of risk assets.
| Timestamp | Speaker | Quote | |-----------|---------|-------| | 00:02 | Scott | "Bitcoin crashed to prices not seen since April ... Are we once again seeing signs of, of the end times?" | | 06:20 | Scott | "JP Morgan manipulating silver again ... We obviously know that." | | 15:49 | Dave | "[The] silver market looks like the bitcoin market did in 2017, only worse. Yep, think about that." | | 28:10 | Dave | "Look, the greed and fear index this morning. We're down to 14... It looks pretty bad." | | 36:31 | Dave | "The only door ... is to print more money and keep the interest rates lower. It's, everybody is turning Japanese." | | 41:12 | James | "The productivity miracle is ... bringing deflation at the same time. This is ... a spot that I don't think we've ever been in, in modern finance." | | 59:57 | Scott | "The coping narrative in the bitcoin community is that once silver and gold top, everything's going to flow into bitcoin. And you made the very simple statement, you kind of said, what profits, right? Because if this thing falls off a cliff, ... that money is just destroyed. There's nothing to rotate." | | 60:29 | Dave | "No, of course not. The rotation, as it were, is when silver gets boring again. This isn't a rock in a pond. This is an asteroid in the ocean." |
Overall Tone:
Candid, charged, and even sardonic—panelists mix hard-boiled market analysis with industry banter, occasional gallows humor, and a heavy dose of skepticism toward prevailing financial narratives.