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The Wolf Of All Streets
Bitcoin Is Crashing! $80K Next? What’s REALLY Behind the Drop? | Macro Monday
01:01:56
Bitcoin Is Crashing! $80K Next? What’s REALLY Behind the Drop? | Macro Monday
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- [00:01]
Scott Melker
The dollar is raging with the DXY hitting 110. 10 year yields are up to 4.8% even though the Fed has started its cutting cycle. Bitcoin down testing the $90,000 support and markets are seeing red everywhere. What is going on? We're just a few days away from the inauguration when things were supposed to be looking. Rosie, is this a harbinger of negative things to come or is this just markets hating uncertainty before we get a new president? I have the best team in the game here to unpack everything happening with bitcoin and the macro. Mike McGlone, Dave Weisberger and James Lavish. Happy macro Monday. Let's go, let's do.
- [00:58]
Mike McGlone
Foreign.
- [01:02]
Scott Melker
What is up everybody? I'm Scott Melker, also known as the Wolf of all streets. Before we get started, please subscribe to the channel. Hit that like button. Not gonna lie, that intro felt pretty good. Some days I feel like I butcher it and I stumble over my words but I feel like I said everything that I wanted to say and that's means it's going to be a great week both for myself and for markets. We're going to bring on the gentleman now. We've got Dave, James and Mike. I mean this tweet right here, this says it Woke up to 110 DXY and 4.8 10 years. Good morning. And it's a firestorm of brim hailstone and brimstone and firestone, whatever the hell this statement is. Remember when I was saying that I was doing good and I got cocky and. But here you go, right? Having your morning coffee, watching the apocalypse around you. Mike, morning call had to be entertaining today.
- [02:00]
James Lavish
Yes, it was. Anna didn't say anything about it but she lives a lot of deserves a lot of credit. Anna Wong, she nailed that unemployment number. She was the high end and we got it. She think it's going to continue for a while.
- [02:12]
Mike McGlone
She was alone up there too. Yeah, yeah, completely.
- [02:15]
James Lavish
The only one that was that high.268 was her initial call. But the key thing she pointed out with the data coming up this week is we're seeing pretty expect. She says expect to see continued financial sector inflation CPI stuck at 3.3%. That's core. The deflator 2.9% stuck. Consumers are front running the tariffs and price hikes. One thing that's really unique from Gina Martin Adams is it's not usual for her to be this bearish and she's very bear. She says yeah, we're overdue for a test of the 200 day moving average in the S P500. Stuff that we've been saying for a while we just haven't seen for over a year, which is 5570. You know, it's okay. Well just stuff that used to, it's still heading higher. You used to matter just kind of giving back. In this massive bullishness, Ira Jersey is pointing out we probably can, we could get the 5% in the 10 year note. And of course the key thing that Gina also pointed out is this persistent dollar weakness. I'm sorry, strength. What stops it. But overall, my key takeaways when Gina Martin Adams is bearish equities heed that call. And that means all risk assets have a problem which maybe it's just a short term correction for bitcoin. And the thing is when you have rising bond yields which James have been all over, that's a pressure on all risk assets. And we still have rising bond yields.
- [03:38]
Dave Weisberger
Yeah, we got. When you look at the, the overview of market data this morning, I mean I'm just, it's amazing to watch because you see gold down a percent, you see silver down almost 3%. So silver's acting, you know, as it often does with Beta. Oops. What happened to Mike? He left. Yeah, he'll be back. And at the same time when you see oil futures up and you know, and then obviously what's going on in bitcoin, it's, it's fascinating. I mean the bonds, look, I said it last week, you know, after our show, but you know, the last time that we started pushing toward 5%, we know what happened. Right. We had a not so great equity market and when it got toward 5%, what did the central banks of the world do? What did the Fed do? They started pouring liquidity and they didn't do anything in terms of cutting rates, but they poured in liquidity and we don't know what they're going to do. I'm very curious. What James, what is the liquidity situation looking like? Because 5% long bond is a very big problem for Scott Bessens who wants to change Yellen's policy of funding the government on the short end.
- [04:45]
Mike McGlone
Yeah, I mean look, we, there's a lot to unpack there. But bond yields, global bond yields rising, it makes it more expensive for, for, you know, global investors and just operators to pay back debt. That's US dollar based. The dollar is rising. It's. And what do they do? They sell risk assets. They sell any asset. It doesn't matter. They're selling bond stocks. Gold, Bitcoin, whatever. They have to in order to, you know, meet any call that they have. So that's just reality. It doesn't. Everything, everything correlates to one. And that's kind of a little bit what, what we're seeing here, liquidity. You know, we're running into a period here I wrote about this weekend about, you know, the debt ceiling. We're running into a period here where the, where the treasury itself is having to, it's gonna have to start dipping into the TGA and, and then eventually we'll have to use extraordinary measures. So dipping in the tga, they've already, that's, that's capital they've taken out of the markets that has to go back in. So they're just gonna pour it back in fiscal, that's, that's the fiscal dominance we've been talking about for so long. It's just going to continue. And so the, that, that is, there's going to be liquidity coming into markets there. Over the last three months on average, liquidity has been contracting. And so expect that. Like we've seen every single time this happens since I guess, 1998. You're going to see more liquidity come into the markets because you can't have a collapse of, of risk assets. It just can't happen. And this is where Mike and Mike and I have been, you know, kind of dancing around this situation. Are we going to have a 20 or 30 correction in risk assets? We need to, in order to get them to mean revert back to a level that makes sense. And so, or, or you need liquidity to rise in order to make the valuations make sense. Either way it's gonna, and I believe that we're gonna have something that's, that's kind of in between. We're going to start to see this, this sell off and, and central bankers are going to panic and they're, they're going to somehow, you know, dump liquidity into the markets that's in some way shape or form. That's just my, that's my base thesis and I think it's going to, we, you may get a buying opportunity here, but I don't think that it's going to be a sustained, you know, three, six, nine month sell off where it's just painful and all the, the global economy grinds to a halt. I just didn't see that.
- [07:17]
Dave Weisberger
Well, I mean we're seven days from the inauguration and you know, we're about to get a really interesting test of one of economics. I Think worst theories or, or whatever the so called broken glass theory. Because the amount of money it's going to take to rebuild Southern California over and the amount of money that has been destroyed is going to be absolutely insane. You know the estimates range from 50 billion on the low end to hundreds on the high end.
- [07:50]
Mike McGlone
I've seen anywhere from 20 to 200. So.
- [07:52]
Dave Weisberger
Yeah, exactly. Well, 20, I don't think I, I haven't seen that. The lowest I saw was like 50 something. But yeah, there is, there's enormous amounts of, of, of destruction and it's destruction in the heart of political donors. Now the political donors are on the party that lost. But we'll see, we'll see what happens. It's, it's a very interesting situation because you know that, that money's going to come in to do something. Plus the question is is you know what, what's going to actually happen there. And you know there's, there's a lot of things that are going on. I mean the cross currents are crazy and you know, we don't know there's a week to go. We'll see what happens. But you know this, this, this is a period which is, is fascinating and you know the Republicans are doing everything they can to worry about getting the nominees through and that's what we thought we were going to care about. But who knows, right? You know there's all sorts of wild ass theories out there and people are kind of panicking on shit. But you know, I'm just curious, you know, in this backdrop, gold I would have expected to have been. I was surprised to see gold down today. You know, is this correlation one? I mean, you know where, where's the current futures indication on the stock market? It's not that bad, is it?
- [09:05]
Mike McGlone
No, it's down, it's down. I think the Future down like three quarters of a percent.
- [09:09]
James Lavish
Yeah.
- [09:10]
Dave Weisberger
Nothing.
- [09:11]
Mike McGlone
So.
- [09:11]
Scott Melker
Yeah, but I wore my Dow 40,000 hat just in case we get like another five.
- [09:15]
James Lavish
I gotta, I gotta piggyback on that. Thank you. For two. First two things that you all mentioned and certainly you mentioned Dave is first my sense is let's do a little bit of rhyme here. Remember 2000, 2000 we all knew the equity market was stretch and then 911 hit. We got that recession. To me this was happening every day. You look at what's happening in California, somewhat similar. I mean with wealth destruction psychologically depressing. Hasn't stopped. It's so much similar. But I want to mention to Gold on the year, Gold's up about 2% S&P 500 is tracking lower. You look at on a one year basis, gold's up 30%. S&P 500 is 23%. That's widening the gold. And the fact that gold is beating the S&P 500 on a one almost two year basis with all this massive competition from bitcoin is really becoming disconcerting, I think. And this is where I want to just show a few charts if I can and to point out what I think is happening to me. This is the macro big picture. And if you overlay bitcoin with that S&P 500 to gold ratio, okay, it was the same exact chart for about two years starting in 2020. And then of course that's the bitcoin broke out. We had the ETF's launch. The risk is bitcoin goes back down towards this S&P 500 gold version. I hope it doesn't happen, but it might. And I just want to show you another key thing that I'm pointing out is if you look at the inverse of that gold divided by S and P, that range, it's stuck in the narrowest range. If you go back, you have to go, I just do a 200 week Bollinger band. It's the narrowest in 30 years. There's a market ready to move and it sure better go down or the risks are it just mean reverse up. That's how far we are. And I just want to show you one other chart and that same thing. Look at the other way. Look at, you know, S&P 500 terms of gold. This is the trend line here starting to trick down no. 1, we can't break that trend line because if we do, that's that massive discombobulation. But it's simple, normal reversion. And this is the key thing I want to tilt over and point out with. We talk about bond yields in the rest of the world. This is the top five countries in the world. Their bond yields minus the 10 year note, their yields are 134 basis points below the US. Sure we've seen pickup recently in UK, but plunging yields in China and the US 10 year note running 476. I've been wrong. I still think if I'm right about this little reversion, S&P 500 versus gold and a little reversion and things like Shibu Inu and Doge and all these silly speculative excesses and cryptocurrencies, we're going to get that rally where we're Going to say oh, the only thing left is US treasury bonds. The key thing is US stock market and that's the bottom line right here. This line right here. We have to stay above this trend line that's S&P 500 divided by gold. And to me that's the one we risk breaking down. The point is we're so high, just a little reversion just getting to that 200 day moving average in the S&P 500. That's the key thing that people forget about and some prudent investors get. And that's part of the reason why bitcoin absolutely has to go up and the risks are goes down.
- [12:12]
Scott Melker
I just want to say this one more time because we've had this conversation but even at this high high price Shiba INU is still 77.31% off the highs. So I mean if you're looking at the altcoin market, I agree, like we need them to go down but they're down, dude. It is Slaughterhouse 5 in the altcoin market still even with bitcoin trading at 90,000 and pushing above 100. So I would just make the argument that to some degree we've seen that.
- [12:40]
James Lavish
I agree completely. What's $12 billion of value in Shiba Inu? Anybody explain that to me please, please let me know.
- [12:47]
Scott Melker
Or a billion or 2 billion in fartcoin. Right. But you know, well we've talked about it before.
- [12:52]
Mike McGlone
It's, it's the casino. You know people are there, there. Some people are just playing at casino because they, you know they're forget about trying to own a house. They're just gonna, you know, they're gonna gamble and you get some, you, you got 247 casino that is available to you. That's one thing. And the other thing is just people are just desperate. They're trying to catch up. You know we're talking about inflation, inflation. The expectations for tomorrow is that the CPI is going to rise from, let's see, from 2.7 to 2.9% year over year. That's the mean survey of economists that they think that CPI is going to rise 0.2% from the last period.
- [13:41]
James Lavish
And what did we warn about if the Fed ease as the stock market was breaking out and added it and help it add $13 trillion to my personal wealth last year. It's silly to expect CPI normal inflation to go down in that environment. We create so much massive wealth creation. So to me we're at that inflection point. It's almost like 1929, maybe it's 1928, where the equity market's so high that's it's all that matters. It goes up, inflation goes up, it goes down, inflation goes down. And who really helped accelerate that was the Fed using. Okay, unemployment was going up. But I want to ask you, James, you point this out a lot. It's a, I'm really concerned of when we have a whole generation depending on gambling and speculative risk assets because they don't feel like they can lift up their lifestyles. What does that mean? What's that risk? And particularly when what happens in unemployment as we know it always goes back 6%. Yeah, it stalled at 4% a while. What happens when, when it does go back to 6%? Unless it's different this time.
- [14:39]
Mike McGlone
No, it's not different this time. It's just that we have two different economies running. You know, you've got this super wealthy economy that has, is asset based with, you know, the, we talk about the June, the boomer generation that they own homes, they own stocks, they have big 401 and IRA portfolios and they're just sitting on these, these portfolios just been rising and rising and rising and rising and rising. And they've got a bunch of cash they're sitting on in money markets that they're making money off of and they're turning around and buying more properties. They're buying starter homes and renting them out just for the fun of it, you know, like it's just nuts. So that's one economy and then the other economy is the one that we're seeing clearly that credit card balances are rising, credit card defaults are rising, auto defaults are rising. And that's the younger or lower demographic that just can't keep up. And so what happens when unemployment keeps, it starts to really rise? They're going to get crushed. And that's, and that's just reality. And so you're going to have this.
- [15:36]
Scott Melker
But we had job numbers last week and unemployment was down.
- [15:39]
James Lavish
Right, so.
- [15:39]
Mike McGlone
Right, right.
- [15:40]
James Lavish
That's another thing I want to.
- [15:41]
Mike McGlone
Okay, let's talk about that because we haven't talked about that yet. You know, Trump was elected and there's immediate optimism in the economy. And so I think private sector turned around and started hiring immediately. So you, it took over the job of the government to hiring like before this last period all like the vast majority of hiring had been government driven. It wasn't private driven, but this last period it was private driven. And that was the interesting divergence there. And so I think it's because of the optimism from the Trump election. Is that going to continue? Well, that, that's the question. I don't, I don't know how long that continues, so. But Mike, you were going to say something I'd like to hear.
- [16:22]
James Lavish
Well, it's Dave's turn. I know Dave's brewing, but I think it's really important to bring that out is we all know that why did gold make a high right before the election? Because the massive uncertainty. We didn't even know for sure we'd have a clear election, a definitive election. We got it. If you're any private sector is going to make decisions within six months of the election. Yeah, stop, wait, wait till after certainty election. We're getting that the key thing is what happens afterwards. So I think that's a key thing to bring into what happened to last payroll number. It's post election. Great, we got it. We all know what to do. We know it's Trump. Okay, let's move forward. The key thing I want to end with and point out is we're seeing bounces in commodity prices lately. It's the time of year you add to positions and there's massive increases in open interest, which means everybody's getting along crude and cop and not copper, actually selling copper and corn, which is the risk. And they're doing it at resistance, which means as a trader I think, okay, if they're all getting long at resistance, I'll look to sell test shorts. But I think I, I'm sense Dave is brewing.
- [17:15]
Scott Melker
But right, right before that, could I really. Dave, I'm sorry, I just want to ask Mike one question. So keep saying 1929. 1929. But right from 1929 to the early 30s, CPI, which is calculated differently, went from zero to minus 10%, something like that. Right. Obviously we saw massive deflation. How is this not more like the 1970s where we saw the massive drop in inflation and then a huge uptick and raged back up? Because if Trump's policies are going to be inflationary, if we're going to see this money printing to prop markets, doesn't this just mean we should get another spike in inflation and we shouldn't see a depression?
- [17:52]
James Lavish
It's the elephant in the room. And I can go back to 1999. That's the last time we had a more similar stock market cap to gdp. Now Dave will point out that doesn't matter matter anymore. That's okay. But it's mattered in virtually every single country that's peaked in the last 30 years with too much excessive, just excessive high, too high prices in stock market. That's why I have to go back to that, that time a century ago is because the number one thing that happens we, we went up too much in equity prices and then we just reverted. It's almost always what happens. In 70s we had inflation but stock market was relatively cheap versus bonds, everything. It just had a pretty much a bear market point. My point is all that matters is in this case, if the stock market keeps going down, it's just mean reverting. Remember we're so if we haven't touched a 200 day moving average in over a year, that's going to trickle on everything. Now Dave was pointing that out too. That's to me is the point we're at now is the thing you learn from in markets is, you know, when what we anticipate seldom occurs. That was too much anticipation of too much optimism, risk assets just two months ago. Now it's only swinging back. The question is how far does it go?
- [18:58]
Dave Weisberger
First of all, Dave's never said, I've never disagreed with the, the people, the, the notion that we won't test the 200 million moving average on the S P. Dave believes that. I'm not going to talk about myself, the third person because actually I'm really enjoying it.
- [19:15]
Scott Melker
I think we should make it.
- [19:17]
Dave Weisberger
That's just not me. But my personal belief has always been that the stock market is more or less insane in the, in nominal terms. But when you look at the denominator, it's based upon the amount of dollars in circulation. And if you're looking at inflated dollars, what you're getting when you crank the money is you're getting asset inflation instead of consumer inflation. That's always been my working theory. It will be my working theory until it changes. Which means if the amount of dollars in circulation, that is liquidity goes down, the stock market staying up feels like Wiley Coyote chasing the roadrunner and finding out that he went off a cliff. And that's why I believe that they will have to turn the liquidity hose back on because otherwise bad things will happen. So you know, when it comes to the stock market, that's genuinely what I think. I think that they're down the road of pushing all the monetary inflation they're creating from the fiscal idiocy that we have. And throughout the G7 at this point, so throughout the entire world, certainly in China, it's the same thing. It's all going in asset inflation and not consumer inflation. So because Inflation is a monetary phenomena. I know I'm the Milton Friedman acolyte here and that's just the way I look at the world. I think that that is true, but that's why it's so important to understand a couple of factors. I mean, your S and P divided by gold I think is an incredibly important indicator. Right? Why? Because gold more or less keeps up with purchasing power. It's been pretty damn good at keeping up with purchasing power over a very, very long period of time. And so what you're doing with that is you're saying, okay, the rise in kind of nominal inflation. You're basically creating an inflation adjusted for consumer inflation because gold really has represented it S and P. That's a great idea. And it shows that it's extended. And that's probably true. And the reason it's extended is because they've gone. If you remember two years ago we were talking about this and I made the point and James and I both made the point actually that when we did the. Actually it was more than two years ago, it was like three or four years ago. We were talking about the fact that during the pandemic we made this horrendous decision to hand money directly to the people and completely manufacture consumer inflation away from the standard policy of asset inflation. Inflation. Well, I said at the time, and I meant it, that they were going to try to reverse this and do the exact opposite. Well, they've been doing the exact opposite and it's been successful. Ish. Until the bond market started saying, well wait a minute guys, you're going a bit too far here. And you know, I went back and I looked at October of 2023, which was the last time, you know, we're not quite to the high levels of the, that we hit in the, in the 10 year yield from October 2023. And when it was approaching that, it looked pretty ugly. And we had some bad days in risk markets, no doubt. But what happened? Miraculously, we had a nice, pretty sustained rally in the bond market and all risk assets partied like it was no tomorrow for a while after that. Am I saying it's going to happen again? I don't know. But the Trump team that will be in by the time we get to that in a week, you know, we'll see. You know, I, I personally think that everybody, there were so many people who were setting up to buy the rumor and sell the inauguration. They've already, they're, they're the ones who are selling today. They're saying, oh wait we may not even get there. And, you know, that's what, you know, this is the, this is, this is the test. You know, will you know how much fundamental buying is there in Bitcoin? Because Bitcoin is down more than the stock market today. And it's like, okay, why? And, well, you know why? And the answer is because people are selling. I think there are people who are worried about how all this stuff is going to shake out. And we'll see. So I do think that, you know, this week is a dangerous week. I said it last week that the next two weeks will be a dangerous week. I think it's a dangerous week. I mean, there are people out there who are saying, well, what's the impact of. In world crises of the United States not having a functional president, because we don't have one right now? You know, it's like I made the joke to someone at this wedding I was at. They said, what do you think about what's going to the administration and what they're saying? I said, well, you ever hear if you were, if you ever had any friends who were landlords, who had tenants, if you have a tenant who knows they're not going to get their security deposit back already, what's the likely shape of the apartment? You know, when you finally get it, it feels like, you know, Biden says, I'm not getting my security deposit back. I don't really care what's going to happen, and who the hell knows what's going on? And so there's, There are genuinely people who are concerned this is going to be a rough week and bad things could happen. I mean, I hope I'm wrong, but you know, that, that is, we have a leadership vacuum right now. And we will see what, we will see what happens. That's all I can say. And with the backdrop of the engine of the US Economy in terms of Silicon Valley. Not Silicon Valley, but the state that it is burning, it's. It's kind of an interesting backdrop. I mean, you know, we all seen the meme, right? You know, the dog sitting with fire around it. I mean, you know, I can't believe we haven't seen that. I guess people think it's in bad taste. I guess it is. I mean, look, my daughter lives in la. Thankfully, she's in East Hollywood and still in one of the white areas from the Watch Duty app. And anyone who doesn't know what Watch Duty is, you don't have any relatives in California. That's the nonprofit that's actually tracking the Fires and my sister in law lives in Eagle Rock, which is just on the fringe of the white area. And you know, we've been monitoring the wind direction. You know, I know more about the Santa Ana winds than I ever thought I would. But this is a very big deal, people. No one understands the economic devastation this is causing. And if you think rebuilding from hurricanes is a big deal, this is a bigger deal. Because there's no the way California's regulations are. No insurance company is going to insure anybody rebuilding. And they're not able to get loans to rebuild until that changes. But there's wholesale changes that need to happen. And it's a big piece of our economy. So we're going to get a real test.
- [25:36]
Mike McGlone
Okay? One thing we have not, we have one thing that we have not touched on, that we absolutely must touch on when we talk about the 1970s is that debt to GDP in 1970s was 30%. It's approaching 130% right now. As you have the stock market's assets sell off. We are so financialized as, as a financial, as an economy that as that happens, tax receipts go down. When tax receipts go down, deficits go up. I don't care what the Doge, you know, the, what the, what is it? It's not, is it a, is it a commission? The Doge Commission says I it. They're not going to be able to cut deficits by much. It's just not, it's just, it's nonsense. Maybe a few hundred billion dollars, maybe if they go crazy. But, and Mike, I think you're just nodding your head because it's just reality. I mean, the reality is you're not gonna think so you're going to have deficits rise. When you have, when you have interest rates are going up and you have a stock market and assets that are going down, you have deficits that are rising. It's only going to make this whole situation worse. So if you go back to first principles, you've got two things. Trump talks about the stock market virtually every single day that he's on that podium. He loves the stock market. He wants it to go higher. And we know that that's, that's inflationary and that's good for the debt to gdp. It is going to help it. And so that, that is what they want. They want to devalue the dollar. The central bankers know this. It's in their mandate to devalue the dollar. It's the first mandate. The first mandate is stable pricing, which is 2% inflation, which is devaluing the dollar. That's a mandate for them. And so for them to be worried about 3 or 4% inflation, they're not worried about that. You know, the only reason they worry about it is because of their reputations. And so the first principle is they've got to make sure that it doesn't spiral out of control and that they continue to devalue the dollar to help the treasury take care of all this debt that we're issuing.
- [27:43]
Dave Weisberger
I have a question for Mike. Has anybody tracked, because I think, I think I know the answer to this. Has anybody tracked the mean return of global stock markets post disasters? When there's natural disasters or like Fukushima style disasters, markets always cr and as far as I can tell, three months after that, the markets are always higher. But that's anecdotal. I don't know if that's true. Has anyone studied that? Because I suspect that that has a lot to do with what James was saying. I mean, if you're Trump, what do you want to happen this week? You want them all the markets to drop. So he has a low baseline come a week from today. That's what he wants. If you're Biden, I think he wants to run out of his favorite ice cream flavor. I don't think he cares. So.
- [28:31]
Mike McGlone
This presidency is, is a presidency by committee, obviously right now.
- [28:35]
Dave Weisberger
That's right.
- [28:35]
Mike McGlone
That's just reality. So Trump is already talking. He's already shit talking the Fed. He's already telling me once rates lower. He's not even in office yet.
- [28:46]
Scott Melker
So I mean, I mean he's also trying to buy Greenland, take over Canada and grab the. By the way, he's not in office yet.
- [28:53]
Dave Weisberger
So by the way, I do want to say since you mentioned Greenland, that would be one of the smartest fucking deals he could do. Greenland is. No, seriously. If we could buy green Greenland from Denmark and get Greenland to accept territory because they're thinking about trying to detach themselves from Denmark. You know, it's not that many people, but it is enormous repository of rare earth minerals and uranium.
- [29:17]
James Lavish
So how did Stewart Sally work out?
- [29:19]
Dave Weisberger
What'd you say?
- [29:20]
James Lavish
How did Storts folly work out? I agree with you, Dave.
- [29:23]
Dave Weisberger
Worked out rather well.
- [29:24]
James Lavish
Yeah, exactly.
- [29:27]
Dave Weisberger
Boomers who remember our history class know that that was buying of Alaska. You know, Greenland would be one of the great US securing natural resources plays in history if he could pull it off. So hopefully he'll get that one done. You know, some of these others are obvious. Canada is insane. You know. You know, they're not going to become a state. I don't know whether that's just typical hyperbole, but you know, James always talks about how Trump plays game theory, you know, with all this nonsense that there's always something in the middle of it, but there's all sorts of stuff around the edges. But the point that James made is hugely important, which is the debt to GDP they can't afford, cannot afford for tax receipts to get crushed. They cannot afford that. They can afford inflation. They can talk about it, but you.
- [30:12]
Mike McGlone
Know, inflation helps the problem. It helps it.
- [30:15]
Dave Weisberger
That's right, but that's the problem. Yeah, that's right. Everyone wants financial asset inflation. And how do you do that? You do that by cranking the printing crescents. How do you do that? Right. You know, well, they're pretty good a.
- [30:29]
Mike McGlone
Lot of different ways, but yeah.
- [30:31]
Dave Weisberger
So when he's talking the Fed, what he, I don't think he gives a crap about rates. I mean rates have gone down and. Right. And long end is up. What he cares about is qe. He wants to see no more tapering and he wants to see QE fired back up again. That's what he wants. But does he want it now? No, he's going to want it in six months.
- [30:51]
Scott Melker
And where does the Fed get, where does the Fed get the money to start adding assets to their balance sheet?
- [30:56]
James Lavish
Well, the Fed, that's the thing. Fed can print all the money it wants. That's the thing about central bank. So why, why is gold going up? The deepest pockets on the planet are buying gold.
- [31:06]
Scott Melker
That to me answers the question I asked you before about, you know, 1929 versus the 1970s. Just like it just feels like they're going to print to infinity to keep the stock market up.
- [31:16]
James Lavish
So they will. We're missing one iteration. Why did the US go off the gold standard or at least debase the currency in 1933? Because the stock market went down almost 90%. That's the first iteration. We're just too expensive and all risk assets to have that action yet. And we've had the risks of inflation. Now the things that haven't mattered yet is remember the yield curve used to matter? We get a recession. Well, it hasn't mattered yet. We've had a historical disruption and I like to point out I'm looking at 100 year cycles and I've been making a call that's a lifetime call that we're going to just have some normal reversion of the most expensive risk assets in human history in this Country. And it's just potentially I was wrong last year. Got it. Maybe it's starting this year. And the key place to start for that to start is for altcoins. They're silly, stupid. They got to just collapse, get, get back some of those near zero. That's where it really gets started. The stock market's all part of it. It's just the whole thing is so elevated and there's, I can only. There's so many books I've read that.
- [32:12]
Mike McGlone
Just all this broke 90,000 as you're talking.
- [32:16]
Scott Melker
Oh, bad now it's, I mean it's dumping 89 right there.
- [32:21]
James Lavish
The chart I showed earlier can easily go back to 30. But I don't want to say that because, but. And that's just on a basic versus what it's been doing with the S&P 500 gold S&P 500 ratio. I, you know, I just, it's, it's a classic human nature we have to try to look back at from the future when everybody's so bullish and the people are selling you products, say it's going to, you're supposed to buy more. You're supposed to say, has it already gone up a lot? Yes. Okay, what should I do? Well, be careful. And that's why I'm pointing out what just the normal mean reversion. The question is right now. This is nothing. This is just air. This is the first part of the year. We're hitting a few stops, liquidating some of that excessive pump after Trump. So I'll ask this question. Is our job sometimes to predict the headlines and what's going to be the first market to say, oh, it reversed the Trump bump. Potentially bitcoin's the one that matters the most. And we're getting really close in S&P 500. I think another 50 points and it takes out the whole Trump bomb.
- [33:18]
Dave Weisberger
So I want to go back to something James said before about Doge, because I think it's very, very, very important to understand the total discretionary spending in the Federal government is.
- [33:33]
Mike McGlone
1 trillion.
- [33:34]
Dave Weisberger
I thought it was like close to 2. I guess you're talking, you're eliminating defense.
- [33:38]
Mike McGlone
Well, I'm eliminating. Well, I don't, I don't, I don't really consider military discretionary.
- [33:42]
Dave Weisberger
Right.
- [33:43]
Mike McGlone
So there's long term contracts. It's not like you want to save.
- [33:46]
Dave Weisberger
Money off the federal government. About the federal deficit at this point, considering interest payments and the Department of Defense and entitlements, you know, you're not. So there's only One reason for Doge, and it's a very important reason, it's because we've not been with the, with the current growth and the trajectory of the federal government. Our economic growth in a recovery has been a half to a third, you know, 60 some odd percent below markets before we had federal government that was strangling growth. And so the whole point of eliminating redundant regulations, overlapping regulations, creating cost benefit on regulations, making the agencies be getting the hell out of the way is to create growth because growth is the only way, along with inflation, to get out of this budgetary deficit. It is the only way. And so you could look at a lot nominal growth. Nominal growth, yeah, that's exactly right. But you know, even Gavin Newsom this weekend made a point of saying, you know, I think we're going to have to take a look at how to decrease some of the red tape to allow people rebuilding. I mean, does anyone understand just how fucking stupid he sounds? So basically in one sentence, he repudiated every single fiber of his term and everything that his party has been doing to this country and to California for the last two decades. He basically admitted, without admitting what I just said, that they have been screwing people, making it hard to build. We all know that's true, right? We all know that economic growth in the face of overwhelming bureaucratic red tape is really hard. That's the mission of doge. That's why I applied to help them. I have no idea. I haven't heard back from them. Maybe.
- [35:36]
Scott Melker
Well, Dave, I think quickly, I think everybody agrees with that with James saying it's not going to matter that much. But the flip side being everybody still should hold the government accountable for their spending, right? Those two things are not mutually exclusive.
- [35:48]
Mike McGlone
Absolutely, 100%.
- [35:50]
Scott Melker
One doesn't fix everything, but it still needs to be done. And it's very important.
- [35:53]
Dave Weisberger
But the point is that James made another very important point before we are so financialized. Now, is there any of us who thinks we're going backward or actually they're more likely to try to do it even more?
- [36:08]
Mike McGlone
More.
- [36:09]
Dave Weisberger
More is exactly why Bitcoin is an attractive asset for people. And remember, you're not buying Bitcoin based upon what it is today. You're buying Bitcoin based on what you think it will be. And I don't want to go through my whole option thesis, that's irrelevant now. But that matters. Bitcoin to demonetize gold, or at a bare minimum to get parry pursue with gold is still more than a 5x from here, right? Closer to a 10x. So it's really a question of if you believe that the government is going to do everything it can to allow more financial innovation, allow more financialization, then that's what you want to own. Do you want to own Nvidia? Maybe, if the world is going to go AI and they're going to take over and be the dominant, you know, horse in the economy. But there are a lot of places in the S and P which are just at nosebleed valuations with no growth in the future under any scenario. Right. So it's going to be a very interesting market. I mean, I personally agree with Mike. I know of personally, I know a dozen people who are look at their 401k and say, okay, I'm comfortable, I can spend, I can do this. And that's really interesting. But if you end up in a crash scenario, all those people are going to be panicking. And that's. That sort of spiral is exactly what the government wants to avoid. Right?
- [37:36]
Mike McGlone
Exactly. They have to avoid it. They have to avoid it. That's the problem is that you start feeling that pain, even just for a few weeks, and it's gonna, then the bond market's gonna start feeling it. 5% is gonna be nothing.
- [37:50]
Dave Weisberger
I mean, my scenario is simple. I, I think, I agree with Mike on the, on phase one, which is there's going to be pain. And I agree. But I think that what you're saying, James, is right. I think that the response will be to pump liquidity into the market.
- [38:07]
Mike McGlone
That's the point is that even if we do get that version, it's gonna, they're gonna pump it to, to match that, to match the reversion on the other side. Go ahead.
- [38:15]
Dave Weisberger
Right. So we just had a liquid liquidation flush in Bitcoin. I mean, I just love watching this. We were talking, it went from 90,500 to 89. 2 and it's back at 90,500 again.
- [38:27]
Scott Melker
And right when the market opened, I.
- [38:29]
Dave Weisberger
Mean, it's, you know, you see this thing, I had to mute Mike.
- [38:33]
Scott Melker
There was some background noise. Go ahead, Mike.
- [38:35]
James Lavish
That's probably better. I wasn't. But I have a question for all of you. So we agree on a lot of things. There's going to be. I agree with the liquidity pump, but I think it needs a trigger first and then it's a question of how much it's going to work. And that's why I keep going back to 100 years ago and what's happened when we Smoot Hawley tariffs and what we're doing right now and all these, it's just so similar and it's so different. And one thing that's similar is the massive speculation. These high speculative digital assets. So the question I can ask is we all agree on Bitcoin diminishing supply, increasing demand and adoption, but there is 2.4, 2.4 million Bitcoin wannabes now. There's massive competition, like, and I look at precious metals, there's gold, silver, platinum and palladium. That's it. It's just too excessive. And the question I really worried about is, okay, so what does it take? The thing we all agreed on was if the Fed started easing risk, Gas was a takeoff, and I did. Now the Fed's done, the Fed's out of the picture, which is going to take the Fed to start easing again, meaning adding equity. How much more does the stock market have to go down? Okay, that's the key question we're going to answer because right now they won't ease. They're out of the picture until something tells them these. And so it's what, what kind of wipeout do we need just to start to liquidity? Because we stopped it. We stopped the Fed easing. And we all knew that if they kept easing, it would pump liquid risk assets to, you know, too high levels. And now they're just starting reverting. I just afraid it's gonna, it's gonna be the swing down hard.
- [39:58]
Dave Weisberger
I just don't think so. I think that James's point is it's not the stock market. That's the, that's the issue. The issue is tax receipts. The issue is ballooning deficits. The issue is understanding where what matters. You know, Scott had a great tweet earlier, which I, which I thought was a great way of expressing it, your tweet. That said, I may not be an economist, but I thought that the point of Fed easing was to make that mortgage rates go down. Except for mortgage rates are probably higher. I remember you phrased it better than I just did, but that's kind of the point. Fed easing on the short end is only helpful for consumer debt, which of course, that is an issue, but it's totally unhelpful. There you go. And when you talk about that, the housing and mortgages and commercial mortgages as well as, as private mortgages, credit card.
- [40:53]
Mike McGlone
Rates aren't going down. Credit card rates are still going up. So, you know.
- [40:56]
Dave Weisberger
Yeah, so I mean, the only thing the Fed has done is put money in the banking system. You know, when the Fed cuts rates. You know, it, it, you know, it depends on who's borrowing at those rates. I mean, it helps the short term, you know, t bill borrowing. Right. You know, so the government can borrow a little bit cheaper. If they're funding on the short end, that's fine. But it's not as important as what the market is setting in interest rates. And the markets think that inflation is real because they all see what James and I and you are all saying, which is these guys are trapped. We've been saying they're trapped for a long time, but we'll see what happens. I think they have all sorts of ways of getting there.
- [41:34]
Scott Melker
The Fed getting increasingly more trapped by the day here, though it seems like every new number that we get, whether you believe them or not, are they're revised in a different direction in a few months. Muddles the picture further.
- [41:47]
James Lavish
They help balloon the wealth effect from the stock market to the greatest amount in 100 years. Financialization Again, maybe it won't matter. So we've seen what's key leading indicators for this. Bitcoin. Okay, we get it. But look at Ethereum. It's already dropped 25% from 4,000. What stops it from going to 2,000? A 50% correction. It's great trading environment. Just what you'd expect when people get too bullish and too long for the wrong reasons. Now we have one thing we're hoping for in cryp. Strategic Bitcoin reserve. Great. Let's hope it happens. He's promised it, but, you know, let's go with the promises of politicians. They always work out well.
- [42:22]
Dave Weisberger
Well, first of all, okay, now I'm going to push back because that's not the one thing. There are four things that are happening for bitcoin. So you've said two things that I disagree with violently.
- [42:32]
James Lavish
I had to tee you off, Dave.
- [42:33]
Mike McGlone
Come.
- [42:33]
Dave Weisberger
It's more Fun is your 2.4 Bitcoin wannabes. That's not true. It is equally as true as why gold is more valuable today than platinum when platinum is 30 times rarer in the earth's crust than gold and platinum has more cachet than gold. It's a little bit harder to work for jewelry, but platinum was always a lot more expensive than gold. And it isn't. Why? Because gold is considered a monetary asset, so all commodities are not created equal. You yourself have talked about the gold silver ratio and how that moves around so that people do trade these things. When you look at crypto, bitcoin is the lead horse. The reason bitcoin Going up is good for altcoins isn't because people say, oh, I would do the same thing. It's because people have made money in bitcoin and they take it and they say, oh, I could buy this cheap stuff and play in the casino and maybe accumulate more bitcoin on the other end. And as Max Kaiser would tell you, most of the time people do that, they actually lose and therefore they buy less bitcoin and it goes from weak hands to strong hands. But bitcoin is different than the rest of crypto. I've been saying that for a long time. It is not a value play. The issue with the rest of crypto is there are many. There are a lot of other use cases, but I look at them, I look at all those assets as the same way we'd value a tech stock. Not quite the same in terms of cash flows, but in terms of the value of community, whatever you could, there are ways of valuing it. If you look at the route today, and Mickle, if he's listening, and I hope he is, because he talked me into building a starter position in XRP a month ago, and XRP is still sitting at 240.
- [44:07]
Scott Melker
It's up today, right?
- [44:08]
Dave Weisberger
It's up today. That's right. And that's why. It's because there's a use case there and people understand what that's going to be. And we talk through the wise. This is, you know, a macro show, so I'm not going to go into that particular coin, but there's. These assets are different, and bitcoin, I think everything that's going on now is rampagingly bullish for bitcoin. And this, literally, all of this is bullish. It is. Bitcoin is an asset you buy because you believe that if in fact you lose trust in the system, this is the asset that will appreciate as the system is collapsing. Now, you say that, but we all know what James said is also true. When you are forced to have a capital call, you sell everything. And so if you have bitcoin, you sell it. It is not remotely surprising to me to see Bitcoin at 91,000, approaching 915 right now. I mean, the V is ridiculous. We're almost back where we were a couple minutes ago. None of this surprises me because that asset is different. Different. And that, that's. That's the one pushback that I have. And it's funny because we come back to this every time like we always do. It's just that our fundamental reasons are different. For what Bitcoin is or isn't when it comes to Shiba Inu. I mean, look, I don't want to get an army of people yelling at me. I have no idea what Shibarium is doing these days. I haven't researched it.
- [45:32]
Scott Melker
It's not doing anything. I've checked.
- [45:34]
Dave Weisberger
But yeah, but I, I tend to agree that we have billions. I mean, and this is global, remember? We have tens of billions of dollars that are being played in assets that have no fundamental reason to exist. And it's just a question of betting on it. And it's no different to me than Beanie Babies or no different to me than, you know, than anything else, than any other, you know, kind of bubbly kinds of things. And it just goes from asset to asset.
- [46:04]
Mike McGlone
Cabbage Patch Dolls, remember those?
- [46:05]
Dave Weisberger
Right. Yeah, exactly.
- [46:07]
Scott Melker
Crush.
- [46:08]
James Lavish
Can we. What you said, Dave, so I can understand it better. Maybe our audience can understand it better. I, I again, I click on I understand. I look and I look at crypto dollars just crushing the volume increasing every day. Tether and XRP about the same market cap. 100, almost $140 billion. I just don't get what's the value of something like XRP when you can transact instantly for nothing in, in a stable coin. That's pretty safe. Now why I don't get that XRP thing.
- [46:36]
Scott Melker
Explain that a stablecoin. And there's nothing against them, but obviously they agree with you.
- [46:42]
Dave Weisberger
They believe their ledger will be used by the banking system to launch their own stable coins or to use their stable point to do it. And if you, if you believe that the XRP ledger will be the technology that will underlie the replacement to Swift, you quickly come to evaluation somewhere between, you know, seven and $10, which is not the ridiculous things that people, the XRP army talk about, you know, thousand dollars. I, I don't care here. My bet is given a political. Why did I invest some money in xrp? Not a lot, but, you know, definitely a starter position. I, I don't talk about size ever, but I did because I looked at it and said, okay, they have the, the right connections. They have the, the, the regulatory, you know, headwinds will be gone. And I think they're going to make, I think people are going to discount the fact that they're going to have a real shot at being part of the backbone of the new financial system as it moves. In which case I look at it and say, okay, I could have a seven dol target on my position and that's a really nice return. I mean, I, I don't care. I'm not looking for, for 100 X's. I'm not like going in on Pump Dot Fun. I've never done it. I mean, you know, it's funny. You know, I may do something on Pump Fun only because it's amusing because, well, I, I, we'll talk about it next week if he does it. But you know, my son and you know, bought a robot dog that's blowing up on Instagram and they're going to do a meme token on, on his robot dog. I mean, all sorts of people have, you know, the dog's name is Sparky if people want to look it up, you know, but, you know, it's, it's amusing, right? You know, those are fun, those are fun things. James called it, it's a casino, but bitcoin's not a casino. Bitcoin has very serious people. And, and, and I, the pushback is the strategic reserve thing I think is a brilliant trade. If they talk nothing about it, it, I think the fact that the Biden administration has likely sold a lot of that Silk Road coins is absolutely a travesty. And one of those things that somebody should have serious, there should be serious accountability for that stupidity. And there's also, and that's worth a discussion in of itself. And we talked about that in crypto town hall last week. I mean, they didn't have to do anything. They expedited it. This is a basic, you know, stick in the eye.
- [49:01]
Scott Melker
We know. By the way, do we know if they sold it yet? Because last on Friday we just saw it was sitting in the wallet still.
- [49:06]
Dave Weisberger
We have no idea what they're doing. But clearly by doing that it was a try, is a poke in the eye. Unless Trump said, hey, make people do this so that when we go to buy it, we could buy it at a lower price. And you know, I don't put anything past any of these guys, so I have no idea what's going on. But the real catalyst for bitcoin isn't the bitcoin strategic reserve where we do it. It's all, it's central banks, it's corporations, it's armies of broker, dealer, financial advisors who can all tell people this is something to buy in bitcoin. I mean, he's just, just that you just set your watch by it, you.
- [49:43]
Mike McGlone
Know, in bitcoin now.
- [49:45]
James Lavish
Yeah. So I, I, what I really appreciate about Michael is he at me really get really bullish in 2020 and he got me really Bearish. Just a couple months ago when he taunted the best investor in history, Warren Buffett, for not being in Bitcoin, it's like the bravado of that statement is like he tempted the bot of the market gods. Like I've never like for now I'm viewing everything from him as somewhat bearish. It's just you can't put all your asset risk assets, your well net worth in one tell other people to do that. History is not going to judge that. Well, good luck. Bitcoin has to go up now. That's my point. For the risks of this year, it absolutely has to go up. Because if it doesn't, means everything goes down and potentially even Trump. But I mean as far as his standing, is he going to get more better than the optimism we have for what he's going to do for the US Economy?
- [50:27]
Scott Melker
Right.
- [50:28]
Dave Weisberger
Hated that taunting. I hated it, hated it, hated it. Still hated, hate it. The only thing that made me feel better at the same time was Jim Kramer saying that, that you know, that it's going to drop well below 90, 000 and yada yada.
- [50:39]
Scott Melker
Oh God. Kramer's right. Here we are.
- [50:42]
James Lavish
Okay, nailed it.
- [50:45]
Scott Melker
Tested 90, went just below and bounced.
- [50:47]
James Lavish
Yeah, that's just a normal trade, normal trading move for now. We know they get up to 100. You back up a little. Now what? Now it's the key thing. It's got to stay above 100. I mean, stay above it.
- [50:55]
Scott Melker
I would say that we just kind of hit the critical inflection point actually for this bitcoin going move at 90 with a bounce to see what the follow through is today. Go ahead, James.
- [51:03]
Mike McGlone
Well, it's going to take a few, we, we talked about this months ago that once it does get to 100, it's going to take a few tries to get through. This is a massive mental level. Massive. If you look at it on the daily, you know, it tried once, broke through twice, tried, broke through three times, tried again four times, tried again, broke, broke through five times. It's been, it's, this is like the, the, it's had five tries at it. So it's getting close to where it breaks through and holds it in my mind. You know, it's a mental, it's a huge mental level.
- [51:37]
Dave Weisberger
But look, I mean look at 10,000. It, it took, what was it, two years exactly by the time it first broke through 10. Exactly.
- [51:46]
Mike McGlone
Different cycle time. Yeah, different.
- [51:48]
Dave Weisberger
I understand that but I mean it was a very, very long time. Now I think things are compressed now But I think 100,000 is a lot like 10,000.
- [51:56]
James Lavish
Yeah.
- [51:56]
Dave Weisberger
And I think that only something that is a catalyst will get it past there. I just happen to think we're going to have, I think we have three or four catalysts that are coming in the next three to six months. That's the difference. And if it doesn't happen, then, yeah, you're right. Then we're going to languish here. But I think it's going to be right in the same place. That's not a catastrophe. Now, if bitcoin languishes below 100,000 for a year and the global economy does what Mike is saying and all global risk assets sell off, sure. It's going to go with everything else. There's no doubt.
- [52:29]
Scott Melker
Yeah. I will say, Mike, something you say all the time about assets, but right now at 100 or we're at 92. But certainly when it was above 100, Bitcoin was priced to perfection. Which you love to say about stocks, right? Bitcoin, I keep saying this, it is priced in that that these cabinet picks will get their jobs, that we will have a pro bitcoin administration that Trump will push. So when you're priced to perfection, there is, as Dave just said, this potential letdown. If just crypto's not on the docket for the first hundred days doesn't mean that long term we don't get what we want. But there is an expectation in the market with price pushing to where it was, that it's a major, major issue at the beginning of the press presidency. And if that doesn't happen, it could be a letdown.
- [53:15]
Mike McGlone
What is not, what is not priced in yet is the long term view that as people truly understand what bitcoin is, how it is different from the, the rest of the casino, how it is actually the, the preeminent store of value in the world. Once they do understand that, that's number one. Number two is you're starting to see people catch on to. And it's probably because of the, the, you know, the vast network of, of social media and the sharing of information now and the speed at which it's shared. People are distrusting the government and how it's handling the money. They're starting to see how it's manipulated and all this that we see it's going on today, all of this stuff that people are confused about. The interest rates, interest rates are dropping from the Fed, but they're going up on the long end. Why is that happening? Why is the dollar moving around so Much. Why is, you know, why are the cross currencies moving around so much? Why are stocks all time highs? Why is the housing market at all time high? Why can I not pay my bills and markets are going up and no eggs and what the hell is going on? People are starting to catch on to the fact that it's all about the money and the manipulation of money. And as people really truly start holding on to and understanding that and figuring out that all of this pain in the markets for the non asset holders is due to central bank manipulation, that's when Bitcoin is going to take its move and completely uncorrelate to the rest of any asset out there. And now when that happens, it's going to be, I think it's going to take a long time. I do think it's begun, it's slowly begun and it's going to take time. And catalysts like Dave is talking about, like you know, the Bitcoin reserve and things like that and other central banks, banks buying it, those will be huge catalysts and people figuring out oh my God, this is the only way that I'm going to be able to protect the, protect the value that I've created for my own life.
- [55:12]
Scott Melker
I thought you were supposed to do that with a basket of fun meme coins.
- [55:18]
James Lavish
So one thing about it too is we have to remember is that assumes there's going to be no glitches with the technology and it is still kind of new.
- [55:24]
Dave Weisberger
Okay, well let's talk about that. Has there been any networks, network in human history that has had 15 plus years of consistent uptime?
- [55:37]
James Lavish
I get it. It's why it's still accelerating and doing well. I get it. I mean it was kind of a tee off for you, Dave.
- [55:42]
Mike McGlone
Decentralization. That's, that's the reason for it.
- [55:45]
James Lavish
It's unique. I get that it is but, but.
- [55:48]
Dave Weisberger
But once again it's just the, the reason I always push back when you talk about the 2 million bitcoins and, and Scott, look, I'm gonna, I, I own Solana too too. I'm not gonna lie underpinning the, the casino. I think technically I saw your, your point this morning.
- [56:02]
Scott Melker
I'd rather own the casino than be the one gambling at the table.
- [56:04]
Dave Weisberger
Exactly.
- [56:05]
Scott Melker
Meme coins are sitting at the blackjack table. And if you own Solana and believe in the casino, you buy Solana.
- [56:10]
Dave Weisberger
That's right. But Solana goes down. I mean SUI has gone down. I mean, you know, Ethereum actually has been remarkable. It's just expensive Ethereum doesn't go down, but it gets unusable when gas fees get too high and people could still arbitrage gas fees and you know, when you're trading on it and it's, it's just, there's all sorts of, of nonsense that we can go on about. But there's a difference in Bitcoin. It is. And, and you look the single strongest chart I have ever seen in financial markets. I mean, people talk about the S and P from, you know, 2009 to today. And that's an incredible chart, no question. Look at the Bitcoin hash rate. Just look, look at the hash rate of Bitcoin and how the network has grown and continues to grow. It is up and to the right within a channel that has almost no, almost perfect variation now admittedly with difficulty adjustments or whatnot. There's a reason for it. You could almost not even see the dip that was the, that was such a big deal into in 2021 of the China ban. If you do an all chart, it's almost, you almost don't see a 50% retracement because of, of what happened. That chart tells you a lot about bitcoin and that's, that's a large part of the difference. But the, the macro picture, I mean, I mean, look, all eyes should be not on rates. Sorry, not on rates. But on this hand back here, which is liquidity. Right? Rates are here and the Fed may be done easing, but liquidity and QE or any other games they're going to play is what matters. And fiscal dominance is going to matter. And I don't see any version of the world where our budget deficit that, where Trump can actually cut budget deficits in 2020. There is a world where 2026, we might enter a period of time where the economy starts growing and we've gotten some discretionary changes in it. But barring something, I don't see any way in that world. It is not surprising when you see people, I mean, Elon said it, right? Vivek has said it. Expect one step backwards and make two or three steps forward, forward. And so in that world, you have to ask yourself what's going to go on with liquidity. And I think that they're going to prioritize putting more liquidity into the market to pump assets vis a vis consumer inflation. They don't want consumer inflation because that makes people angry. I don't know they're going to avoid it. I mean, James mentioned X. I don't know what the hell's Going on with X. But I go to the supermarket, I buy eggs and I can't, you know it's always half or a third empty.
- [58:42]
James Lavish
Well, one of them. One of the best ways to piss off Trump constituents is inflation. I mean rich people didn't really. I mean it's your average person voted from inflation.
- [58:52]
Scott Melker
Her send them supposed to go down. Every billboard said the price of groceries is going to go down. We'll see.
- [58:57]
Dave Weisberger
Yep.
- [58:58]
James Lavish
So key thing I want to. I want to tee Dave off and I know, oh, I guess we're at time but is this this bitcoin to go bitcoin gold? Rachel 34. It's the same as the peak five years ago. I'm still worried about it. Dave going down, down.
- [59:10]
Dave Weisberger
Yep, I understand. We'll see.
- [59:13]
Scott Melker
It's the same guys about even on that bet still, I think for March now with the dip.
- [59:17]
James Lavish
No, I owe Dave two meals. I can't Dave Scott, you got to come to Miami so I can pay off those bets.
- [59:23]
Scott Melker
Well, we'll do it all in one meal. We'll do it all in one.
- [59:26]
James Lavish
Well, we got a couple.
- [59:27]
Scott Melker
If you need two steaks.
- [59:28]
James Lavish
There'll be more.
- [59:29]
Scott Melker
I believe in him. I believe in his bill. I can't believe that we are at time. I want to be fully transparent. I saw people in the comments saying that looked distracted for a few minutes there that I was looking down. I bought Solana and bitcoin while we were on the show. I'm just going to be totally transparent. I saw bitcoin dip below 90,000. I bought a little bit at 89,500 and I bought Solana just around the 200 ma at 175 bucks. Not because I'm going to sell them tomorrow because hey man, they may go way lower. I have no idea. But I think long term I'm really happy buying a lot of these assets right here if it gives anybody into any insight into how my brain works. But yeah, I liked that dip. I really liked that dip. So I don't know, you know, I guess next week we'll be buying Sparky. You said it's going to happen on Monday. Can we like, can we bring you in on and launch a meme coin live on macro Monday? It would be the most unexpected, strange thing I think we could ever do on the show.
- [60:20]
Dave Weisberger
I'm sure if he gets it, if he does get it to launch, I'll talk to him about it. I'm sure he'd be happy to try.
- [60:25]
Scott Melker
It's so over my head, honestly. Man, all this stuff. There's so many things in this space even me who I think I'm in it pretty 24 7. Like I just either. What Mike, what's the list you call in your mind the things you just ignore like do not.
- [60:38]
James Lavish
Oh my di list Deliberately ignore.
- [60:40]
Scott Melker
Yeah, I might deliberately like I mean someone was telling me that all this stuff about Hyper Liquid today and I know there was a launch and an airdrop and hype. I don't even know what it is. I don't. I should.
- [60:49]
James Lavish
Well some of it's much in your face you can deliberately ignore it and get more information you really want any anyhow.
- [60:55]
Scott Melker
Yeah, Jeff saying I'm gonna really like the next dip then. Yeah, I'll buy that one too. Anyways guys, that's all we have for you today. Macro Monday, amazing show as usual. Love to see the audience growing but we know that people show up on bad days. You know good for a good good tv. James, Mike, Dave, as always a pleasure and we will see you guys next Monday. I assume everyone else heading over to spaces in 10 minutes and I'll be back tomorrow with Andrew from Arch public and Jeff park park from Bitwise.
- [61:23]
Dave Weisberger
It's gonna be awesome. I will be in Colorado so on James's time or there or closer anyway.
- [61:29]
Scott Melker
But I'll be launching meme coins from the slopes while Macro Mondaying. I'm ready for it. All right guys, thank you very much everybody. Thanks for tuning in. Have a great day. Bye.
- [61:39]
James Lavish
Let's do.